Probably the most common usage of findExamples is with datasets containing pairs of words. This function is a simple wrapper around findExamples which hopes to facilitate its use in this most common case. Instead of the five arguments that findExamples requires, this function only takes two. It is, of course, at the cost of control but should a more fine-tuned search be required, findExamples can always still be used instead of findPairs.
The default is the inexact mode (exact set to 0 or FALSE). It corresponds to distance.start and distance.end being both set to -1, na.value being set to 0, and zeros being set to FALSE, which are also the default settings in findExamples(). The risk here are false positives. In my experience, however, those are rare, and because they are displayed, the user has a chance to spot them.
The opposite is the exact mode (exact set to 1 or TRUE), which corresponds to distance.start and distance.end being both set to 0, na.value being set to -1, and zeros to TRUE. The risk are false negatives, in my experience both much more common than false positives in the inexact mode, and effectively impossible to spot as they are simply not displayed.
A middle ground is the semi-exact mode (exact set to 0.5), where distance.start and distance.end are both set to 1, na.value is set to 0, and zeros to FALSE. It decreases the risk of false positives while increasing only a little the risk of false negatives.