Template talk:alternative term for

See also

• Template:alternative form of. -- Andrew Krizhanovsky 11:17, 2 August 2011 (UTC)

I'm confused about this template

This template is used in the Georgian entry არეულ-დარეული but to me it looks like bad English. Or perhaps it's just wrongly used in that case. Can anybody help to clarify which it is?

A rough translation of how it's used in the linked Georgian term would be "'Disorder' is an alternative name for 'chaos'". Nobody would ever say this in English. Words don't have names. Words are names of things, concepts, actions, etc.

Now you could in perfect English say "'Disorder' is another word for 'chaos'", but I'm not sure that's the right solution. My Georgian isn't very good and I've never really understood the "alternative form" and related templates on Wiktionary.

What's the best solution? — hippietrail (talk) 05:00, 23 September 2012 (UTC)

"This is used to indicate exact synonymy (1) between the headword and the linked-to targe, when there are not simply spelling or punctuation differences between two terms, but instead include different words(2), as in action film and action movie,". არეული is an exact synonym (1) but also include another word (2) <- this last difference is why I didn't use alternative form of. Of course I could use synonym of template, but this doesnt show that the 2nd info.

btw, "is another word for" is better perhaps--Dixtosa_HERE IT IS xD_ 07:17, 23 September 2012 (UTC)

RFM discussion: August–September 2016

The following discussion has been moved from Wiktionary:Requests for moves, mergers and splits (permalink).

This discussion is no longer live and is left here as an archive. Please do not modify this conversation, but feel free to discuss its conclusions.

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Merge Template:alternative term for and Template:synonym of

It's not clear what the difference is between these two templates. Both indicate essentially that one term is synonymous with another. —CodeCat 16:41, 23 August 2016 (UTC)

Yeah, "alternative term for" seems to sometimes be used for "alternative form of", and sometimes (most times) for "synonym of". Even if kept (is there a legitimate use case?), most uses would more appropriately use one of the aforementioned templates. - -sche (discuss) 17:06, 23 August 2016 (UTC)

We don't even clearly distinguish alternative forms and synonyms. I've seen uses of alternative form that were clear cases for synonym in my view. —CodeCat 17:10, 23 August 2016 (UTC)

• Deprecate alternative term of by replacing it with {{alternative form of}} or {{synonym of}}, depending on which is more appropriate (this will need to be a semi-manual job). —Μετάknowledge^{discuss/deeds} 03:45, 26 August 2016 (UTC)

I feel that these ought to be separate. It may not reflect how we use the alt-form template, but to me "encyclopedia" and "encyclopaedia" are alt forms, while (say) epiglottiditis and epiglottitis are only synonyms (there's an extra syllable, and we gain nothing by trying to write two definitions). I apparently see the alt-form thing as sort of orthographical. Equinox ◑ 13:04, 26 August 2016 (UTC)

I think you're confusing {{alternative form of}} with {{alternative term for}}. —CodeCat 13:08, 26 August 2016 (UTC)

Oh! Apparently yes. Ignore the above then. Equinox ◑ 13:10, 26 August 2016 (UTC)

Merged: I switched most of its ~1500 uses to "synonym of", but quite a few were properly "alternative form of", and a few hundred (including some I left as "synonym of") could actually just omit a template entirely, as here. I've left the template, and its various redirects that had more than a handful of uses, as a redirect to Template:synonym of. - -sche (discuss) 01:59, 19 September 2016 (UTC)