So, if I understand you right, a simple query of NOT ORANGES gets me every document that does not contain the word oranges, while a separate query with -ORANGES added will force the score to zero for all documents in which oranges does not appear. One's a selector, the other is a filter.
Not quite. NOT oranges is not possible. Neither is -Oranges. Both will make a query that score each doc to 0 if oranges is not found...but ever doc will start with 0 also...non will return. You need a piece of the query to generate a positive score for the NOT or - to take effect -- otherwise every document scores 0 and does not return. - mark
