SYNONYMY AND SAMENESS OF MEANING: AN INTRODUCTORY NOTE Fredric Dolezal: University of Georgia, USA (fdolezal@uga.edu) “Robert said to me, he said, ‘Coach, there’s a difference between injured and being hurt. I can guarantee I’m hurting right now — give me a chance to win this football game, because I can guarantee I’m not injured,’ ” Shanahan said. “That was enough for me.” (Sally Jenkins and Rick Maese, Washington Post, March 16, 2013) “Most synonimes have some minute distinction that deserves notice.” (Thomas Reid, 1785, as quoted in the Oxford English Dictionary) Two years ago Paul Bogaards wrote to me suggesting a special issue on syn- onymy. In his message, he noted that ‘a special issue of IJL devoted to the central concept of synonymy, or more broadly, sameness of meaning, could be of utmost interest. In my view, synonymy is a central issue in lexicography indeed: definitions try to describe the meaning of lexical units in other terms, in bilingual dictionaries equivalents should have, as far as possible, the same meaning as the lexical units in the source language, alternative translations of a given lexical unit in another language are more or less synonymous.’ I agreed with Paul. Of course, the ‘problems’ with devising a meaningful thematic issue on synonymy as it pertains to lexicography are much the same as considering synonymy as it pertains to the theory and practice of lexicography: (1) one can say that since absolute synonymy is rare—and when found mostly fleeting—the discussion must focus on the user’s perception of synonymy, or on the identification and treatment of partial- and near-synonymy. This then becomes a discussion of homography, polysemy, and the distinguishing of senses (etc): for example, lexical items are related to a general meaning (one entry); or they are presented in separate entries (the distinguishing of general meanings: lexical items with distinguishable general meanings); and (2) from another perspective one can say that people recognize the phenomenon, and dictionary makers exploit the user’s understanding of synonymy to create explication, and lexicographic definition. How does a lexicographic International Journal of Lexicography, Vol. 26 No. 3, pp. 255–259 doi:10.1093/ijl/ect018 255 # 2013 Oxford University Press. All rights reserved. For permissions, please email: journals.permissions@oup.com