A company is using wordplay to promote its seach engine, says today's Wall Street Journal.

Search engine Ask.com will begin a television and Web advertising campaign* today about what the company considers its secret sauce: Its algorithm, or the formula a search engine uses to determine which Web pages are most relevant to a particular query. … ads, in which people slip the word into casual conversation with phrases such as "Do you have a lame algorithm?" or "I was all algorithm-ed out."

[Says Ask.com,] Algorithm "is a funny word that people don't hear every day." But some observers wonder … "Most people would not know what an algorithm is."

In one spot, a boy asks his father about a girl who was teased at school because her parents "searched with a lame algorithm. " In another, a bunch of guys brag they all tried the algorithm last night. The ads end with the tag, "The Algorithm: Experience Instant Getification."

*PS: Does anyone have the link?

I think this site has seen more than its fair share of the word algorithm.