24. The tangible, non-transitory storage medium according to claim 14 , wherein when the word is not recognized by the query answering system, the query results are determined from a keyword generated based on an analysis of the relative placement of alphabetic characters, numeric characters, and non-alphanumeric characters of the word.
14. A tangible, non-transitory storage medium having stored thereon machine executable instructions, the machine executable instructions, when executed by one or more machines, cause the one or more machines to: cause a query to be transmitted via a network to a query answering system, wherein the query is in an imprecise syntax and includes a word having multiple meanings or senses; receive query results that are based on a first meaning or sense of the word in response to the query, wherein: when the word is not recognized by the query answering system, the query answering system: determines, based at least in part on relative placement of alphabetic characters, numeric characters, and non-alphanumeric characters of the word, one or more entities to which the word corresponds, or chooses, based at least in part on the relative placement of alphabetic characters, numeric characters, and non-alphanumeric characters of the word, the first meaning or sense; when the word is recognized by the query answering system and the word refers to multiple entities, the query answering system determines, with one or more computing devices, the entities to which the word corresponds; when the word corresponds to multiple entities in a same category, the query answering system ranks, with one or more computing devices, the multiple entities in the same category to which the word corresponds using a set of attributes common to entities in the category, wherein the set of attributes is different than other sets of attributes common to entities in other categories; when the word is recognized by the query answering system and the word has multiple meanings or senses, the query answering system ranks, with one or more computing devices, the multiple meanings or senses of the word based on attributes of a user; when the word is recognized by the query answering system and the word has multiple meanings or senses, the query answering system ranks, with one or more computing devices, one or more meanings or senses of the word based on a measure of popularity of the one or more meanings or senses; and when the word corresponds to multiple entities in a same category, or the word is recognized by the query answering system and the word has multiple meanings or senses, the query answering system chooses, with one or more computing devices, the first meaning or sense based on the rankings; receive an indication of the first meaning or sense of the word in response to the query, wherein the first meaning or sense corresponds to an entity in a category; receive a user interface mechanism to permit selection of another meaning or sense from a set of one or more meanings or senses different than the first meaning or sense in response to the query; and cause the query results, the indication of the first meaning or sense of the word, and the user interface mechanism to be displayed on a display device, wherein a list of entities in the same category to which the word corresponds are displayed in an order according to a set of attributes common to entities in the category, wherein the set of attributes is different than other sets of attributes common to entities in other categories.