Innocent enough. Of all the things on the web, what is there the most of?

   My answer was immediate, easy and dead wrong.

   ***

   My guess for the most popular topic was sex, and being the wagering type, my buddy and I soon were clicking over to altavista.com, supposedly powered by the world's most honking supercomputer. The rules of the challenge were simple. Type in the word, count the number of web sites, loser buys the beer.

   "Sex" appears in 12.5 million web pages, and I felt very smug when my buddy's guess -- "money" -- tallied only 7.3 million.

   Turns out we weren't even close.

   ***

   Can the structure of the web imitate life itself? Can we learn anything about ourselves by checking web tallies? Is it significant that Heaven (656,000 web pages) edged Hell (456,000), or that God (4.3 million) trounced Satan (139,000)? Maybe the web does reflect our society's mix of saints (2.2 million) and sinners (1.8 million).

   Is it significant that life (16.2 million) is more popular than death (3.1 million), that happy (2.1 million) beat sad (478,000), or that right (9.9 million) topped wrong (1.1 million)?

   We wondered if the answer to all this was yes (3.1 million), maybe (2.5 million) or no. "No" is iffy because its a letter combination contained in thousands of words, and the search engine found 47.1 million sites. We chalked it up to a flaw in our query and not an overwhelming sense of Web pessimism, especially when strong (1.9 million) topped weak (291,000), Christians (4.6 million) trounced the lions (468,00) and the Indians (2.2 million) finally beat the cowboys (347,000).

   We decided the word "web" was redundant and out of bounds, as it's contained in the very term web pages, so we started working through life's big combinations -- work (17.8 million) versus play (5.9 million); sunset (641,000) or sunrise (409,000) -- and we came up with two brand new Real Good Guesses for the best word.

   "Computer." A great guess and 26.9 million web pages. "Me," an indictment of our culture of selfishness, returned 26.9 million pages, too.

   And we still hadn't found the number one word.

   ***

   Thanks to this silly wager I can tell you that love (6 million) tops hate (573,000), but that war (4.8 million) tops peace (1.8 million). I can tell you good (10.9 million) triumphs over bad (3.3 million), that white (9.8 million) narrowly tops black (8.8 million), and that there are more men than women, but more girls than boys. I discovered lost (2.3 million) is no match for found (6.5 million) and that for sale (2.1 million) is no match for free (31 million).

   Smart (1.6 million) tops stupid (444,000), hot (7.6 million) tops cold (1.7 million), and gay (2.7 million) tops straight (1.2 million). Wine (1.8 million) topped beer (1.2 million) and liquor (206,000), which I took as proof that life (16.2 million) imitates (19,677) art (16.8 million).

   When up (46.1 million) trounced down (7.4 million), we thought we had found our word. And once again, we were wrong.

   So here we are, gentle reader. We know you've been thinking about words right along with us, wondering if we have missed something obvious. Wedding (1.9 million)? Elvis (313,00)? Tech (6.9 million)? How about The Bible (2.4 million). Should we end this exercise before you start to wonder if it's us (41.8 million) versus them (12.8 million)?

   We did find one simple (3.8 million) truth (1.2 million) -- the word (6.2 million) wasn't Microsoft (6.1 million).

   When all the talk (5.7 million) was said (3.1 million) and done (3.2 million), the top word registered on 53.4 million pages.

   The top word is routinely trashed and hated, and where it used to be on every radio station in America, it's now on only a fraction.

   Give up?

   The...

   top...

   word...

   was...

   "news."

   ***

   G.L. Marshall (23) reminds viewers to stick around for the sports (19.3 million) and weather (5.3 million).

   Thanks D.C. Harrison for all his help (35 million) on this project, and thanks to E.V. Reiser for noting that a shorter version of the search string -- "new" -- will bring in 23 million more pages than "news."