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mous; when this occurs, preference has been given to the form that appears to be pre
dominant, as long as doing so does not compromise consistency in the thesaurus as a
whole – in other words, preferred terms have been chosen not only for their use, but also
for how well they fit with each other.
For example, the words ‘typeface’, ‘font’, and ‘face’ are often used synonymously in
compound terms. In some cases, only one of these words occurs: thus, one speaks of ‘fat
faces’ or ‘pi fonts’ but never of ‘fat fonts’ or ‘pi typefaces’. In other cases, there is some
variation: where none of these variants predominates, the selection of a preferred term
from one synonym set becomes tied up with the selection of a preferred term from other,
related synonym sets. Thus, the choice between ‘slab-serif typefaces’ and ‘square-serif
fonts’ is made in conjunction with the choice between ‘slab serif and ‘square serif’.
For the most part, a policy of inclusiveness has been followed in developing the
TGDT.