Has Google lost its mojo?_其他_趣味英语-查字典英语网

Has Google lost its mojo?

Reader question:

What does this headline – Has Google lost its mojo? – mean? What is mojo?

My comments:

That headline asks: Has Google lost its entrepreneurial magic? Or has Google's pioneering tricks stopped working?

In other words it questions whether Google is beginning to lose its luster, whether it has ceased to be effective, or using another parable, whether it has lost its magic wand.

A mojo is a charm, it's the thing hidden in the bag of a voodoo magician, which is either African-American or American-Indian in origin. Voodoo is originally a word for folk beliefs involving charms and spells. Nowadays it stands for anything superstitious and unscientific, such as voodoo economics. A mojo can be a spear, a spike, a nail, a stick, a stone, a pin, a needle (I find myself humming to the tune of the Waters of March) or any other object that, like the magic wand, somehow lends the voodoo master mystical powers.

This reminds me of another similar saying: don't lose your marble. Take marble as being the little round glass ball children play with in games. Imagine a boy engaging in heated and exciting battle and all of a sudden he can't find his little glass ball. Well, as a young boy playing marble, I've had it happen to me a number of times – I would get distracted for the slightest moment by something and lo, and behold, the little round ball had rolled out of my sight and nowhere to be found. And what happens when you lose your marble? You're agitated and begin to act crazy and strange.