h2g2 The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy: Earth Edition

What near universal thing do you imagine has the greatest number of synonyms?

No googling or wikipedia or thorough cross-refrencing of thesauri!

There are klaxons, naturally, so be bold - preferably interesting - but never obvious!

Good luck!

Right, let's see how much damage I can do to Clive's minefield.

Money

Jokes

Sex

Love

Death

Texas

Hunger

Home

Off to a fine start...

sex -5

home -5

Although it will be argued that 'synonyms' is not exactly the right
term to apply to all the variables, there are more English words for
WATER (in its many forms from tears to steam, from fjords to pee,
from tsunami to fog) than any other common noun. And that's not
even accounting 42 kinds of snow.


~jwf~

Only two? Bah.

Fear

Rain

Jeremy Clarkson

Jwf
Snow - 5

Not fear, but you can have rain.

HD -5

"Although it will be argued that 'synonyms' is not exactly the right
term to apply to all the variables"

Nope, it's exactly the right word. I checked.

The Lesser Spotted Do You Think He Saw Us?


There is a clue there somewhere!



GT

Like jwf I wondered about the 'synonym' bit.

So now I looked it up, too:

noun

*
a word or phrase that means exactly or nearly the same as another word or phrase in the same language, for example shut is a synonym of close.
*
a person or thing so closely associated with a particular quality or idea that the mention of their name calls it to mind:the Victorian age is a synonym for sexual puritanism
*
Biologya taxonomic name which has the same application as another, especially one which has been superseded and is no longer valid.

Hmm. My first thought was god.

Second thought was love.

Both have quite a number of synonyms, can't be spotted, and are probably near universal.

Is it a physical thing, or an abstract concept?

Bel has got the same dictionary program as me

Hopefully this isn't buzzer material, but I do know that the word with the largest number of discrete definitions in the OED is 'set', so that must be a candidate.

B

'there's a clue in there somewhere'

actually this time there isn't as the question is more-or-less straight forward no de-coding required.

Not god or love

but well done for looking up what synonym means have a DGI +1.

hmmm.. physical.

A candidate for a klaxon.

Mu Beta "set" -5

Hmm. Now I'm thinking of a word that has quite a lot of synonyms...

B

is the answer relative?

As in relative to something else?




GT

"Near universal thing" - Sun or moon?

>>What near universal thing...<< - plus - >>...do you imagine...<<

Hokay
. Parallel
. Universe