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Eggs and egg is an example of stemming, see http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stemming

The milk example as stated could be solved using fulltext indexing and searching.

I think your approach might work, but you could get results much more quickly using existing database fulltext search.

I am not convinced that just fulltext search would work. Wouldn't fulltext search fail in the case of goat. You have goats milk, goats milk cheese, goat meat. So if someone searched goat all three types would be returned?

Well, if someone claims to have a goat, they probably have all three of those, or can at least make them. ;-)

not if it's a boy goat

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