# Easier tagging with consistency - movie vs movies

**URL:** <https://www.ruby-forum.com/t/easier-tagging-with-consistency-movie-vs-movies/74792>\
**Category:** Rails\
**Created:** [November 7, 2006, 10:56am UTC](https://www.ruby-forum.com/t/easier-tagging-with-consistency-movie-vs-movies/74792 "2006-11-07T10:56:33Z")\
**Posts on this page:** 4\
**Page:** 1

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**Author:** ![dorelal](https://www.ruby-forum.com/letter_avatar_proxy/v4/letter/d/3da27b/32.png) [@dorelal](https://www.ruby-forum.com/u/dorelal)\
**Post date:** [November 7, 2006, 10:56am UTC](https://www.ruby-forum.com/t/easier-tagging-with-consistency-movie-vs-movies/74792/1 "2006-11-07T10:56:33Z")

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Tagging is being widely used and there are plugins to help you out. This  
is  
good.

The problem I’m facing is that people are using singular and plural  
names to  
tag something. For example an event about movie can be tagged as “movie”  
or  
“movies”. Same goes for “jobs” or “job”.

I like the delicious interface where when you type “de” then you are  
prompted with options like “design” or “designer”. This mean the users  
are  
less likely to have “designs”.

Is there an easy way to implement something like this. If the user has  
typed  
“mo” then show only one option “movie” and in this way “movies” is  
likely to  
be used as a tag.

Any thoughts.

-=-

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**Author:** ![dorelal](https://www.ruby-forum.com/letter_avatar_proxy/v4/letter/d/3da27b/32.png) [@dorelal](https://www.ruby-forum.com/u/dorelal)\
**Post date:** [November 7, 2006, 10:56am UTC](https://www.ruby-forum.com/t/easier-tagging-with-consistency-movie-vs-movies/74792/2 "2006-11-07T10:56:43Z")

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Yes Delicious does provide auto complete feature for tags, but if you  
observe carefully, they would autocomplete a tag only if that has  
already  
been added by you earlier. what I mean here is that tags added by other  
users are not available to you during auto-complete feature.  
This delicious feature can easily be implemented by using scriptaculous  
auto  
complete feature (look for demos at [http://demo.script.aculo.us/](http://demo.script.aculo.us/)) .  
There is a plugin called acts\_as\_taggable which can be used (  
[http://wiki.rubyonrails.org/rails/pages/ActsAsTaggablePluginHowto](http://wiki.rubyonrails.org/rails/pages/ActsAsTaggablePluginHowto)) to  
achieve tagging functionality, I haven’t used it thought.  
Showing tags added by other users during auto completion needs some  
thought.

Regards,  
Jatinder

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<div class="post-metadata">

**Author:** ![dorelal](https://www.ruby-forum.com/letter_avatar_proxy/v4/letter/d/3da27b/32.png) [@dorelal](https://www.ruby-forum.com/u/dorelal)\
**Post date:** [November 7, 2006, 10:56am UTC](https://www.ruby-forum.com/t/easier-tagging-with-consistency-movie-vs-movies/74792/3 "2006-11-07T10:56:44Z")

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> Is there an easy way to implement something like this. If the user has typed  
> “mo” then show only one option “movie” and in this way “movies” is likely to  
> be used as a tag.
> 
> Any thoughts.

One could argue that a tag holds multiple things so like tables should  
perhaps be pluralized… but I’m nit picking 🙂

Perhaps use the pluralize() and singularize() methods to convert user’s  
input so they are consistent? So if I type in “jobs” and hit save,  
convert that to “job” for me.

-philip

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<div class="post-metadata">

**Author:** ![dorelal](https://www.ruby-forum.com/letter_avatar_proxy/v4/letter/d/3da27b/32.png) [@dorelal](https://www.ruby-forum.com/u/dorelal)\
**Post date:** [November 7, 2006, 10:56am UTC](https://www.ruby-forum.com/t/easier-tagging-with-consistency-movie-vs-movies/74792/4 "2006-11-07T10:56:54Z")

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On 11/2/06, Philip H. [removed\_email\_address@domain.invalid](mailto:removed_email_address@domain.invalid) wrote:

> One could argue that a tag holds multiple things so like tables should  
> perhaps be pluralized… but I’m nit picking 🙂
> 
> Perhaps use the pluralize() and singularize() methods to convert user’s  
> input so they are consistent? So if I type in “jobs” and hit save,  
> convert that to “job” for me.

Note that singularizing an already singular word can change the word  
(e.g. Business). Same thing for pluralizing a plural word (e.g.  
Data). If you don’t know if the input is singular or plural, you  
can’t reliably use .singularize or .pluralize. This bit me as a  
plugin author.

Jeremy