"remove.meta.chars" <-
function(terms,chars=";")
{
  if(!is.character(terms) || !is.character(chars))
    stop("terms and chars must both be character")
  for(char in chars) {
    if(length(grep(char,terms)))
      terms <- unique(unlist(strsplit(terms,split=char)))
  }
  return(terms)
}