Technical-Writers - your vocabulary.

[ChrisGreaves]

Please and Thank You on this non-critical issue:
What is the (technical writers?) term for words that are bundled or grouped in an Index at the back of a manual?

They aren't "synonyms". They aren't "aliases".
They are some sort of generic match, I know.
If I were explaining to my correspondent how to deal with them, what word would I use to describe them?

Alias, 9, 13 This encompasses "alias" and "Alias" with "Case Sensitive" unchecked
ALIAS, 10, 11, 13 Would be nice to be able to optionally bundle these all together.
Aliases, 13, 14, 63
ALIASES, 11, 19

Word2003 help doesn't seem to identify them by name in describing the AutoMark command:-
From Word2003 help files: "Word searches through the document for each exact occurrence of text in the first column of the concordance file, and then it uses the text in the second column as the index entry. Word marks only the first occurrence of an entry in each paragraph."

[John Gray]

I would simply call them "index entries", unless you are referring to the example you give, which should all have been included under the single entry "Alias(es)".

[ChrisGreaves]

I would simply call them "index entries", unless you are referring to the example you give, which should all have been included under the single entry "Alias(es)".

Thanks, John.
But aren't all the entries in the index called "index entries"?
I was hoping for a term that describes a group-of-index-entries, where the group is defined as a generic set.

"genus/genera" rings a faint bell from biology.
I contemplate describing "alias, aliases, ALIAS, ALIASES" as a genus.
Then all such sets would be a genera.
No?

[HansV]

If you generalize this, you'd get a generic genera.
If you create a lot of them, you'll be a generous generic genera genius.

[John Gray]

All I can find on Google is the word 'group'...

[PamCaswell]

Variants? That's what a dictionary calls different spellings of the same word. I think "different presentations" would also fit the definition.

[ChrisGreaves]

Variants?

Thanks Pam; I feel that "Variants" says just what we want to say.