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I have seen a lot of questions recently with the tag . The tag wiki unhelpfully states that this tag is:

For questions related to words.

I think we have two options.

  1. Add this tag to every single one of the site's 17,000 questions (because they are all related to words) or

  2. Burninate!

Personally, I think 2 is a much better choice. This was brought up a little over a year ago and apparently the tag was burninated. I don't know how or why, but it is back.

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    I agree it should go. Strange that it came back, but obviously somebody wanted to have words with us.
    – Damien H
    Jul 3, 2015 at 2:36
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    I suggested an edit asking folks to choose a more specific tag until we can put a stake through its heart. There was a comment in the post you linked indicating that maybe the original burn it at the stake method didn't stick...
    – ColleenV
    Jul 3, 2015 at 3:21
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    It's weird that the tag wasn't successfully burninated last time...
    – user230
    Jul 4, 2015 at 22:24
  • Apparently, burnination does not imply blacklisting. Who knew? (Very few people, it seems.)
    – user230
    Nov 29, 2015 at 4:43

3 Answers 3

Reset to default
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Tag word is no more.

It looks like a moderator turned into a synonym of . So this time around it wasn't burninated, but it's gone forever nonetheless.

Thank you, J.R. or WendiKidd! :-)

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lol, as far as my remembrance goes, I'm the one who created it! And, it was accidentally done!

When I joined this wonderful forum, I did not know that tags here don't have 'spaces' in between. Said that, if you have a question asking for some term, and you need to tag it, you type 'word-request' and NOT 'word + space + request'.

I know typing and my fingers work very very swiftly on keyboards. I think many questions I asked initially had to have 'word request' or 'word usage' but then since I type fast and there was 'no' space required, unbeknownst to me, 'word' is what ELL accepted. I might have removed the separated words 'request' or 'usage' then.

By the time I realized, the tag had become quite popular (many started using it, I mean). I then let it be there.

There's nothing wrong having this on board. If you think it's to be added to all those thousands of questions, I guess it goes true with other tags like 'grammar' as well! On this site, almost every question can be linked with 'grammar' one or the other way.

'Word' can be used for other reasons as well and not necessarily for 'word-usage/request'. What if someone wants to know 'word origin' or the difference between 'two words'? Even more... 'word type' (whether abusive, formal, informal). I can come up with a dozen more! :)

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    word-difference word-origin grammaticality formality politeness vulgarity A word by itself can be completely devoid of any formality or abusiveness, and become formal or abusive when you put it into a context, so I think the tags that aren't specific to a word make more sense. I think grammar does have the same problem, but that it is a tag that askers can use when they don't know what other tag to choose. Once "catch-all" tag is enough in my opinion though.
    – ColleenV
    Jul 8, 2015 at 12:14
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    I imagine a lot of accidental tags have been made this way.
    – user230
    Jul 9, 2015 at 21:26
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    -1 because "I then let it be there."
    – M.A.R.
    Jul 29, 2015 at 8:19
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That tag doesn't seem at all unreasonable to me.

I would expect it to be applied to questions that ask about a single specific word, rather than a phrase or construction.

That being said, I'm guessing it's not being used that way, especially since a high-rep user seems to think that it would apply to every question on the site. Maybe replace it with 'single-word' or something like that?

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  • There are many more specific tags with word in them. I included most of them in my edit of the tag wiki for the word tag.
    – ColleenV
    Jul 7, 2015 at 21:06
  • @ColleenV I guess that works.
    – DCShannon
    Jul 7, 2015 at 21:13
  • What about [word-choice] and [word-usage]?
    – Blubberguy22
    Jul 13, 2015 at 20:27

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