Top-level Keyword dilemma- can someone explain "include"?

Question

Aloha fellow LR users! I use LR 1.4.1 and LR2beta on windows Vista 32 PC. My problem is with top-level keywords. I have read many blogs and other keyword procedure specific tutorials on the web. Most all of them are extremely useful and enlightening, but none of them seem to explain the option definitions for keywords in terms that I understand.
If I right-click and choose edit keyword a dialogue box presents several options, some of which depend on whether an image is selected or not. Ill proceed as if no image is selected.
Three basic options (numbered here for reference only) are checked by default:
1-Include on Export
2-Export containing keywords
3-Export synonyms
Option 3, I pretty much understand and I get that synonyms are NOT included on Export when the option to maintain LR hierarchy is UNCHECKED in the Export dialogue box.
My real question boils down to; do these options only refer to actual exports or do they affect the keywords applied to an image?
Okay, I dont use the traditional controlled vocabulary that serious pro level photographers use, but I have created one that works for me. There are times when I would prefer the top-level keyword NOT be included in the metadata. Is that even possible using LR? I assumed that de-selecting option 1 would prevent it from being included, but it hasnt worked for me.
If anyone can enlighten me with defining these options, I would be grateful.
Thank you.

Answer 1

>My real question boils down to; do these options only refer to actual exports or do they affect the keywords applied to an image?
Yes they do refer to export. Lightroom will apply the keywords to your image regardless of these export settings.
>2-Export containing keywords
When on will export Parent,Child
When off will export Child only.
The option on the export page "Write Keywords as Lightroom Hierarchy" uses the | (vertical bar or pipe) as keyword hierarchy separator and will write keywords as
Parent|Child when checked
Parent.....Child when not checked (..... represents tab character)
>There are times when I would prefer the top-level keyword NOT be included in the metadata. Is that even possible using LR? I assumed that de-selecting option 1 would prevent it from being included, but it hasnt worked for me.
When you add a keyword to an image the Parent is also added. There is no option to turn this off. Neither can you create a Top Level keyword tag using the same name as an existing Child keyword. But you can choose to export only Child keywords using option 2 in your list.