This tag is for questions about choosing different or alternative words or phrases.
Used to request words that can be used in place of another word because they have essentially the same meaning.
Should these tags be merged or distinguished (with cross-links in descriptions)?
I kind of feel that both of these should be merged with synonyms. I guess the word "synonym" may tend to connote a single word, but it can also refer to a phrase or expression. In any case, users can make it clear which kind of synonyms they're looking for by adding the tags single-word-requests or phrase-requests.
The only possible downside I see to this is that it would make it harder for people who want to "favorite" only questions requesting alternative words, and not other questions about synonyms such as "what are the differences between these synonyms." There are only 2 followers of the tag "alternative," however.
Stats:
Came to suggest the removal of these two tags and found this proposal to merge them together.
Five years after this original proposal was made, neither alternative or alternative-words have been used whatsoever. It seems everyone still uses synonym.
I suggest one of:
I would favour (1), as I'm not convinced there is a difference between the "Synonym" tag and the two "Alternative" tags, or indeed any difference between the two "Alternative" tags.
The Synonym tag description states:
A synonym is a word that means the same, or almost the same thing, as another word.
That is surely describing an "alternative" word?
