Dodger wrote:
> I was wondering if there was any way to somehow modify a fulltext
> search to be able to match on full synonyms and (perhaps more
> importantly) alternative spellings.

This is a tough one. As you said, you could build a dictionary of
synonyms and use that to expand your query, but you will have a hard
time getting good coverage.

What is most effective in natural language is blind relevance feedback,
i.e. automatic query expansion using terms from the documents that use
your initial terms. You will thus find documents that share common
words with documents talking about cars, tires, and curbs, which will
hopefully include documents talking about automobiles, tyres, and
kerbs. However, this is obviously far from perfect and only works when
you have a large document collection, including documents that match
your initial query.

You can use this in MySQL by using the "WITH QUERY EXPANSION" option.
You will find more documentation by googling for this option.

HTH, HAND,
Jens