karl@dartvax.UUCP (Karl Berry) (03/30/84)
On odd occasions, I have wondered if such a thing as a ``true''
synonym actually exists. That is, a word that can be replaced by
another words with no appreciable change in the reader. ( I'm not
sure if that's a reasonable definition, since it depends on some
rather vage terms, like ``appreciable'' and ``reader.'' But I hope
the idea is fairly clear. )
Recently I came to the conclusion that the answer was ``No.'' What
brought me to that was the project I'm working on now, TeX. ( A
typesetting program written by Don Knuth. I think TeX is a trademark
of the American Mathematical Society. ) The program naturally deals
with characters in quite a detailed way -- down to the printer's
point, which is small indeed. Thus, it seemed to me, that no word is
a synonym of another, because of typographical qualities; no two
words look the same.
Does this seem correct?
{cornell,decvax}!dartvax!karl -- karl@dartmouth