Effective Googling for short names

Question

Every now and then, I need to lookup some keyword or function in a language that is very small, and/or has special characters..
Examples include
the \'as\' keyword i

Answer 1

for symbols I often have to type out the symbol (although google is getting better with symbols.)

e.g.: http://www.google.com/search?q=unix+%22dot+dot%22 or http://www.google.com/search?q=ruby+%22dollar+sign%22