No, not Google+ the failed social media service. I want to talk about the + operator that Google Search used to support.

I was surprised how murky comparatively recent tech oral(ish) history can be. My memory of what did or didn't work in the search box and + was different to what I read.

And, my memory not withstanding it appears that intent and meaning of + in search changed over time.

I think the murkiness of this recent history is more a matter of misunderstanding at the time than people misremembering after the fact.

I remember believing it prevented optionality for more than common words. I can't recall exactly when I believed this or if I ever knew it had changed to a verbatim meaning, but quotes always seemed the more natural symbol for the latter. I'm sure my belief in the obligatory-but-not-verbatim meaning of '+' was supported by its apparent contrast to '-', which excluded search results with that term, since it makes sense that the opposing symbols would have opposing meanings.