Des Chiffres et Des Lettres

[Mikey Lear]

I was thinking about moving to France and getting a job which didn't involve doing anything at tea-time and learning the language and joining a Des Chiffres et Des Lettres club and applying to be on Des Chiffres et Des Lettres a year later when I'd mastered the French dictionary. But I'm worried that that might make me a bit of a loser. You lot are an objectively minded cross-section of the population. What do you think? And supposing that your unanimous chorus is "Of course you should do it, in fact, I might do it too, after all France isn't that far away and I don't have much to do this year and I like cheese", does anyone know anything about the programme - the rules, the dictionary, youtube URLs etc? 0 ¦7 l >
That, by the way, is a smiley of a Frenchman, in case it wasn't obvious. He's wearing a beret.

[Charlie Reams]

The standard on DCeDL is very high, I think. You'd do well to learn the language that quickly. I think Martin Gardner or Jeff might be able to provide better answers than this one, but that never stopped me making worthless contributions in the past has it?

[Martin Gardner]

I've only seen it a couple of times to be honest, the standard seems to be pretty good as it's basically got the same status as Scrabble there, there are tournaments and clubs and whatnot, where as here there are two clubs I know of in the whole country.

I don't know exactly what the dictionary is like - I play Scrabble which uses the Larousse dictionary but I suppose on DCeDL they use a different one. Using the Scrabble dictionary without conjuguated verbs I got 136 out of 137 missing the only available 7 from AEOUFKSSX. Technically all the other rounds weren't perferct, because for a target of 771 on the numbers I got 773, although the best possible is 770, so 7 points is the maximum but 773 is not the optimum.

Martin

[Martin Gardner]

http://fr.wikipedia.org/wiki/Des_chiffr ... es_lettres seems to answer a lot of questions, so it's the PLI which I own and the Robert which I don't. Two of the most famous dictionaries in France. Basically all words are valid apart from conjuguated verbs. Participles are allowed so JOUE JOUEE JOUANT are fine, JOUONS JOUEZ and JOUASSE are not. In contrast to both Scrabble in French and Countdown, you can have hyphenates, like PAUSE-CAFE and WAGON-LIT.

Martin

[Martin Gardner]

I thought I'd get out my Countdown board game and do some sample rounds - obviously there's no point doing the numbers as there's essentially no difference, apart from you can declare more than 10 away if you want to. I've sorted the game out so the letters are a bit more 'French' - i.e. only one Y and one W. 9 points for a nine-letter word, using the Scrabble dictionary without conjuguated verbs. 5 points for a correct duel, 3 points to the opponent if you get it wrong

M P T G S I E A I

X L L M Y O E U I

C L S S S E I E E

T N T R D O A E A

DUEL : Deux départements français (5 & 4) : ROMANISEE

DUEL : Un mot commun et un nom propre (9 & 9, very hard, sorry) : AEOCDNRST

T D J P H U A E E

B S R R F E U U E

T N R Q W L I U A

C T N N O O O E A

Maximum score seems to be 61.

[Dinos Sfyris]

Here's my shitty attempt at the French language. Plz let me kno the maxes, whats allowed etc

IMAGES

MILLE

CESSE(ES?)

ROTANTE

Duel 1: No idea

Duel 2: DONCASTER?

HAUTE

REFUSER

TRAIN

CANTE

[Martin Gardner]

I'll try and give definitions otherwise it doesn't make much sense.

IMAGISTE (8) - presumably someone who makes images.
MOUILLÉ (7) - only 7 here, it means wet or wetted.
ÉCLISSÉES (9) - note that this doesn't score 18 points. Une éclisse is like a supporting piece of wood, so éclisser means to support with wooden beams. For 8 CISELEES which means cuts with scissors.
DÉRATANT, RADOTANT, RATONADE, TORDANTE (8) - dérater is to remove the spleen, yes seriously. Radoter is to speak without making sense, ratonade isn't in the Wiktionary and tordante is from tordre which means to twist, hence torsion in English. ROTANTE is not valid - roter is tu burp but there's no adjective rotant that means 'burping'.

DUEL 1 : MARNE et OISE. On the real show they'd just jumble the letters up in any random order. This would probably be considered quite easy.

DUEL 2 : DONCASTER and TRANSCODÉ - I wouldn't have got this, it's actually quite hard to find proper nouns that are nine letters long and have exactly one anagram.

ADEPTE, DÉPUTÉ, TAUDÉE and TAUPÉE are the only sixes.
REFUSER, FUREURS, SURFEUR, BEURRÉS/BEURRES (7). BEURRE means butter and BEURRÉ means buttered
RUILANT, QUINTAL and INQUART (7). I can't find ruiler or inquart but quintal is a measure of mass equal to 100 kg.
CANETON CONNOTÉ, COTONNÉ, ETANCON (7). Un caneton is a duckling, connoter is to have a connotation, cotonner is to cover with cotton and étançon is another supporting piece of wood, for which the wiktionary gives 'stanchion'.

Max score seems to be 61 or 51 without the duels. I would get 49 from that (MITIGÉS instead of IMAGISTE and CLISSÉES instead of ÉCLISSÉES!)

Martin

[Kevin Thurlow]

Today's programme had an impossible numbers game, 1 2 2 3 4 6 with target 670 or some such, but one player got points despite missing the target by about 300! The standard is good - all the other numbers games were possible, although two were really difficult, but both contestants got them all. I was really pleased to get them, and was rather deflated when they did too. I think there were only two occasions that Arielle pointed out a longer word than the one the contestants got.

Kevin

[Martin Gardner]

Can you tell me how to get it in the UK? Do I need Sky or can I get it with Freeview?

Martin

[Kevin Thurlow]

It's certainly on Sky, on TV5 (which is channel 799). At present it is on 0945 but it has been shown at other times. Later on you have "Questions pour un champion", which is same format as "Going For Gold", for those with long memories...

Kevin

[Jason Larsen]

Mikey, first of all, how are you?

Also, I know that Des Chiffres et Des Lettres has been running just as long as The Price is Right here in America and Mastermind in the UK. It's not going anywhere anytime soon, so you have time.

[Mikey Lear]

Fine thanks Jason. Yeah, I'm going to need a little while because I don't really speak much French at the moment. But it would be pretty cool if I could get on it, even if it's just so I could get anihilated by Creig Beveres.

[Jason Larsen]

I'm glad to hear that, Mikey.

Also, it would be very interesting if there was an American Countdown contestant on in the near future.

If it were me, I would tell Des O'Connor that I admire him and tell him that I know he appeared on American TV 50 years ago, which he did.

[Jeff Clayton]

Bonjour mes amis

Apologies for not replying sooner on this one.

Well, some news for you all. I am now the owner of one application form for Des Chiffres Et Des Lettres, and several passport photographs (though I only need one) to accompany the aforementioned for subsequent sending back to the offices of France 3.

I made a brief return to France in early February for a long weekend, that managed to see several things fall together within a few days of each other - my old club's weekly rendez-vous (Thursday evening), a day of recordings in the audience at the studio (Friday) and the annual tournament at Fontenay-sous-bois (Sunday), just east of Paris.

For those of you who can receive either France 3 or TV5Monde, I will be appearing on the airwaves once again to give the solution to a numbers game that stumped everyone else. It goes out on France 3 on Thursday 27 March, and I would assume TV5 will rediffuse this one week later. So as to give you a heads-up, the target number is 601.

At the tournament on the Sunday, well, Fontenay is regarded as one of the most hardcore events on the national circuit. The five matches (20 rounds as 8C 12L) are preceded by a qualification stage (30 rounds as 10C 20L) known as the "duplicate". This is absolutely critical in determining which group of 16 you are locked into for the day: A for 1st-16th, B for 17th-32nd, C for 33rd-48th, D for 49th-64th and D-prime (a coy play on words in French) for 65th and below. The turnout was 72.

I managed to qualify in at 63rd, so just scraped into the D with 186 points out of a possible 226. This is only about 82%, and when I practice these 30-rounders in my own time I try to aim for 90%, so needless to say I was quite peeved to produce such a poor effort when it mattered but equally quite glad that I could salvage something from the rest of the day.

On the day, anywhere between 205 and 209 got you into the C, 209 to 216 into the B, and 216 upwards got you into the A (the highest was 223). So even to get into the top 32 required about 92% of the available maximum, dropping only 17 points over 30 rounds.

At the end of the day I finished 55th/72 (win, win, defeat, defeat, win). At the same tournament two years previously, I managed 69th/74. But I feel it's now got to the point where my performance won't improve without some sort of shot in the arm - say, a stab at the auditions.

There are two dictionaries used on the show, one of which is the very informative Petit Larousse, which costs about 35€ off Amazon. If however you're just in it for the words, a chap called Jacques Colard produces an A4 ring-binder booklet every year with just the word lists, and this retails for about 18€. If anyone is interested, I can put you in touch.

I wouldn't recommend rushing it though. I've been watching the show/playing the game for just over three years and I still have difficulties.

Does that go some way towards answering your questions..?

TIA
Jeff

[Jason Larsen]

Wait a minute.

Jeff, how were you involved in this?

[Jeff Clayton]

What, this thread? Or the tournament circuit et al in France?

In the meantime, to come back to Mikey's original points:

- You could indeed move to France - they're a nice bunch;
- Why just go for a job that doesn't involve doing anything at teatime? With the money you earn from a regular job, you can afford a video recorder to go with your TV and watch the programmes in your own time afterwards;
- Learning the language is a continuous thing - I've been doing it for over 11 years and still catch myself short on vocab;
- Do join a Des Chiffres et Des Lettres club - they're great;
- Applying to be on Des Chiffres et Des Lettres within a year is ambitious, though that depends on your current "niveau de compétence".


Jeff

[Jason Larsen]

Jeff, you weren't the original poster of this thread. So, I don't understand how you just chimed in.

[Karen Pearson]

Maybe I'm being stupid but I thought the whole point of a forum was just to 'chime in' if you feel you have something to add.

And, probably of all of us, Jeff has the most to add on this topic as the person with (I assume) the most experience of DC et DL having recently lived in France for a year, attended the filming of the programme on more than one occasion and having been a member of a DC et DL club.

[Martin Gardner]

Jeff, you weren't the original poster of this thread. So, I don't understand how you just chimed in.

I have no idea what you're talking about! Jeff is the one that knows most about this subject!

Martin

[Gavin Chipper]

I am now the owner of one application form for Des Chiffres Et Des Lettres

And your application form for this thread?

(Sorry)

[Jason Larsen]

I hope you enjoyed France, Jeff, and by the way, happy Easter!

[Martin Gardner]

Jeff,

My countdown MSN is mgcountdown@hotmail.fr, if you want to add me then maybe we can have a few practice games together, as the only practice I get is watching Countdown in English and checking the words in the Scrabble dictionary. We could probably both improve if we hooked up for a few online games.

Martin

[Kevin Thurlow]

The aficianodos will know this already but I observed in this morning's game that "Y" counts as a vowel, and the electronic randomness of the letters gave "Q" in two successive selections and 2 "Z"s in one selection!

Kevin

[Jeff Clayton]

2 "Q"s in one selection has been known aswell!

Jeff

[Jeff Clayton]

Just a quick one to tell you that I have an audition in Paris for DCeDL later this month.

Ooh. La. Vache.


Jeff

[Jason Larsen]

Jeff:

Can you speak some simple French to me?

[Ben Pugh]

Just a quick one to tell you that I have an audition in Paris for DCeDL later this month.

Ooh. La. Vache.


Jeff

Bonne chance!

I watched the show last week to revise for my AS oral exam, saw PLEURANTE but as I think it's only worth nine points, rather than eighteen, it failed to distract me from being beaten in every other round.

[Martin Gardner]

Jeff:

Can you speak some simple French to me?

Non!

Martin

[Martin Gardner]

I got a reply from Jeff in private, apparently there are no series quarter-finals like there are in this country, it's more of a "continuous" thing. Every few years they have championship of champions style thingies when they invite back some of the best players from the past, but it's not done on wins and points or anything. And I believe you can go on DCeDL more than once too.

Martin

[Jason Larsen]

Nice!

[Howard Somerset]

I enjoyed watching a few DCeDLs during the last couple of weeks in France. Of course, only having a limited knowledge of French is a handicap, but was pleased to solve one of the word DUELs before the winning contestant. Also managed a niner, but that was an English word, which wasn't allowable in French.

The letters rounds can come up with some quite bizarre selections. One round last week had five Es and I believe three Rs. And a year or two ago I remember once seeing two Xs and three Is come up on one selection - the winning word contained both Xs I think.

One of the numeric DUELs had some easy short cuts, which the winning contestant didn't see. I was surprised that he took nearly the whole time to come up with the correct answer to:
((((33 x 33 ) : 9 ) + 858 ) : 11 ) - 88

One thing that seemed strange to me was that when one contestant answered incorrectly to a DUEL, the other contestant did not get the opportunity to answer within the remaining time.

I look forward to seeing some more programmes when I go back again next week.

[Dinos Sfyris]

How do these numeric duels work?

[Howard Somerset]

How do these numeric duels work?

All you have to do is evaluate the expression. The colon, btw, is how DCeDL represents the symbol for divide. For the duels, the contestants have to move to another part of the studio where there are no writing materials, so the evaluation must be done mentally.

And rather like our conundrum, they are working against each other. The first to give the correct answer wins the points.

[Dinos Sfyris]

Oh so the answer to the one above would be 1. How long do they have to do these duels? The one above took me about 45 secs.

[David O'Donnell]

You get 45 seconds in Des Chiffres but if you took that long you may actually be retarded.

[Howard Somerset]

What surprised me was that the contestant did take nearly 45 seconds on that one. If you keep looking ahead, it can be done considerably quicker.

[Dinos Sfyris]

If you keep looking ahead, it can be done considerably quicker.

As I realised after I'd done it lol!

[Jeff Clayton]

The "chiffres" rounds all last 45 seconds but all duels - including the "calcul mental" as shown above - last 30 seconds.

What happens here is that Laurent hands over to either Arielle or Bertrand, who explain that the duel will be a mental arithmetic exercise. (S)he thanks the viewer who sent it in, saying where they are and usually something nice about that part of the world.

Then they say something like "Voici l'opération qu'il vous faut effectuer:"
* Pan to two contestants and background audience bathed in soothing blue light. *
* Show numerical graphic as expressed above. *
Then as fast as they can and as coherently as they can, they would say: "Trente trois multiplé par trente trois divisé par neuf plus huit cent cinquante huit divisé par onze moins quatre vingts huit."
* Cue music and start clock *.

Interestingly, if a "calcul mental" features as a duel in a show, it always is the first and never the second of the two...


Jeff

[Gavin Chipper]

One of the numeric DUELs had some easy short cuts, which the winning contestant didn't see. I was surprised that he took nearly the whole time to come up with the correct answer to:
((((33 x 33 ) : 9 ) + 858 ) : 11 ) - 88

Let's get this out in the open then - what are the easy short cuts?

To me it seems you can cut (33 x 33) : 9 down quite easily by dividing both sides by 9 and end up with (11 x 11) which is 121. What else is there though? OK, so it's quite easy from then but you implied there were a few things you could do.

[Howard Somerset]

One of the numeric DUELs had some easy short cuts, which the winning contestant didn't see. I was surprised that he took nearly the whole time to come up with the correct answer to:
((((33 x 33 ) : 9 ) + 858 ) : 11 ) - 88

Let's get this out in the open then - what are the easy short cuts?

To me it seems you can cut (33 x 33) : 9 down quite easily by dividing both sides by 9 and end up with (11 x 11) which is 121. What else is there though? OK, so it's quite easy from then but you implied there were a few things you could do.

ok
First shortcut, as you've suggested, is to replace 33 x 33 : 9 with 11 x 11

This leaves you with (11 x 11 + 858) : 11 ...

858 is a multiple of 11, so the bit I've just written above reduces to 11 + 78

So the whole thing becomes 11 + 78 - 88, which is 11 - 10, and hence 1.

(the last line is hardly a shortcut, but certainly taking out a factor or 11 is)

[Gavin Chipper]

ok
First shortcut, as you've suggested, is to replace 33 x 33 : 9 with 11 x 11

This leaves you with (11 x 11 + 858) : 11 ...

858 is a multiple of 11, so the bit I've just written above reduces to 11 + 78

So the whole thing becomes 11 + 78 - 88, which is 11 - 10, and hence 1.

(the last line is hardly a shortcut, but certainly taking out a factor or 11 is)

Yeah OK, but I wouldn't have thought that it would be any harder to add on the 121 and divide 979 by 11. You've still got to divide 858 by 11 anyway.

[Howard Somerset]

Yeah OK, but I wouldn't have thought that it would be any harder to add on the 121 and divide 979 by 11. You've still got to divide 858 by 11 anyway.

I must admit that, when I did it while watching the programme, the only shortcut I used was to replace (33 x 33) : 9 with 11 x 11, and this meant I got the solution long before the winning contestant. It was afterwards that I looked more closely, and reckoned that dividing 858 by 11 was marginally quicker than adding 121 to 858 and then dividing by 11.

Anyway, back to France again for a few days at the end of the week. May get chance to see a few more DUELs, and try some more.

[Martin Gardner]

Just a note for anyone who can see the show on Sky, Patricia Pay a member of our British French-language Scrabble association is appearing on DCeDL on the 23rd of June.

Martin

[Jason Larsen]

I'm just curious.

Is the the first UK-born contestant on that show?

[Jeff Clayton]

Yes I had heard that une anglaise by the name of Patricia would be appearing.

From all the people I have asked - tournament circuit regulars through to programme production staff - it appears she is the first British person to appear on the show. And if she actually isn't, she certainly is the first in living memory.

I failed my audition by the way. Will have to try it encore une fois later in the year I suppose!

Jeff

[Julian Fell]

Hang on though, I remember reading a post a little while back about a person (I presumed, an English contestant - actually I thought it was you Jeff!) chatting to the DCedL hosts about the differences between DCedL and Countdown, and the hosts saying it's no wonder they take 45 minutes on Countdown if contestants talk as much as that (or something along those lines...)

Am I completely making that up? Or was the person they were talking to not actually a contestant? I'm confused anyway

[Dmitry Goretsky]

Here is the intro: . It's VERY IMPRESSIVE!! I also give you a cool avatar: . Enjoy!

[Jeff Clayton]

Ah bah oui..........

Mikey - did you realise your ambition of March 2008?

Jeff

[Dmitry Goretsky]

Differences in rules
Le compte est bon (Numbers)
45 seconds for numbers round. You can't choose between small and large numbers. 9 points for exact solution, 6 points for any inexact (there is no within-10 limit)

Example

1 6 2 7 7 9 -> 945
45 seconds on the clock!
Please note: bar instead of clock.
Time up. Arnaud: le compte est bon (target is met).
7*2=14
14+1=15
7*9=63
15*63=945

Le Mot le plus long (Letters)
30 sec for letters round. Unlike in Countdown, players take turns selecting vowel or consonant (you'll understand this when watching the example video). There must be at least 2 vowels in players' selection. There are now TEN letters instead of nine (since 5 April 2010). No double points for using all 10 letters

Example

MUSETESNA
30 seconds on the clock!
Please note: bar instead of clock.
Arnaud: 8. Jean Claude: 7.
Arnaud: MATEUSES.

Duels
30 sec for duels. 5 points if correct, 3 points automatically for opponent if incorrect (unlike Conundrum, player can't buzz if his opponent was wrong, only ONE buzz-in per duel permitted)

Le duel traditionnel (The traditional duel)
Two words from 10 letters. Much like Conundrum, but with two words and word theme.

Example

Theme: CONTRE LES ÉCLABOUSSURES.
BGURDOEAE.
30 seconds on the clock! Wait, no clock, even no bar! Only arrow which points to buzzed player, Arnaud.
Arnaud: GARDE BOUE.

L'un dans l'autre (One and the other)
Common noun and proper noun. One of the two words must be 10-letter

Example

Proper noun theme: SOMBRE PRINCE.
Common noun theme: BOEUF.
HBEUBTLEZ
30 sec starting now!
Arnaud buzzed. Arnaud: BELZEBUTH & ZEBU.
La Bonne Orthographe (The Good Spelling)
Spell the word, hence the name

Example

Arnaud Beucherie spelled a word parallélépipède, which is parallelepiped in French.

Le Calcul mental (The mental calculation)
No explaining necessary

Example

You've seen this before.
((((237+456):11)-14)*15)-69
Arnaud's mental calculation took 15 sec!
Arnaud buzzed. Arnaud: 666.
Arnaud vs Arielle (hostess):
237+456=693
693:11=63
63-14=49
49*15=735
735-69=666

That's all the rules. Enjoy!

[Ian Volante]

(there is no within-10 limit)

So it's effectively 3 points for a right answer?

[Dmitry Goretsky]

(there is no within-10 limit)

So it's effectively 3 points for a right answer?

6 points for any inexact in numbers round. Like in Countdown, closest (I didn't mean exact here) solution wins associated points

[Kirk Bevins]

Duels (aka Conundrums)
5 points if correct, 3 points automatically for opponent if incorrect (unlike Conundrum, player can't buzz if his opponent was wrong, only ONE buzz-in per duel permitted)

So if you're 4 points ahead you'd just buzz in with "no idea sorry" (but in French, obviously) which gives your opponent 3 points, locks him out of the game and secures the win for you. Stupid idea.

[Dmitry Goretsky]

Duels (aka Conundrums)
5 points if correct, 3 points automatically for opponent if incorrect (unlike Conundrum, player can't buzz if his opponent was wrong, only ONE buzz-in per duel permitted)

So if you're 4 points ahead you'd just buzz in with "no idea sorry" (but in French, obviously) which gives your opponent 3 points, locks him out of the game and secures the win for you. Stupid idea.

First. I just translated article from French Wikipedia using terrible Google Translate. What's the problem?!
Second. I don't know are the duels at the end of the game or not?!
I only know that there are 8 letters, 4 numbers and 2 duels.
Third. You can't choose between small and large numbers in DCeDL

[Jon Corby]

Duels (aka Conundrums)
5 points if correct, 3 points automatically for opponent if incorrect (unlike Conundrum, player can't buzz if his opponent was wrong, only ONE buzz-in per duel permitted)

So if you're 4 points ahead you'd just buzz in with "no idea sorry" (but in French, obviously) which gives your opponent 3 points, locks him out of the game and secures the win for you. Stupid idea.

First. I just translated article from French Wikipedia using terrible Google Translate. What's the problem?!
Second. I don't know about are the duels at the end of the game or not?!
I only know that there are 8 letters, 4 numbers and 2 duels.

Regardless of whether they're at the end, it seems a bit odd to have a scoring system where you can effectively knock a couple of points off what your opponent deserves. If I'm playing somebody who is clearly better at numbers than me, it's a no-brainer to just hand them the 3 points rather than wait for them to earn all 5.

[Jeff Clayton]

The duels are rounds 7 and 8 of 14 - one either side of the commercial break:

NLLNLLD | DNLLNLL

Given that contestants typically score healthy points in the letters (just as on Countdown), and you can get 9 points in each of the four numbers games, the duels are really just bonus rounds for a few extra marks. Given also that they're slap bang in the middle of the contest, there wouldn't be a strategy for locking someone out and giving them points. The lead can be decided in the duels during a tight game, but equally, someone can get ten points from both duels, and then concede nine points by not getting the numbers in round 9.

[Dmitry Goretsky]

NLLNLLD | DNLLNLL

Where you got it?! Please give me a source

[Dmitry Goretsky]

Differences in rules
Le compte est bon (Numbers)
45 seconds for numbers round. You can't choose between small and large numbers. 9 points for exact solution, 6 points for any inexact (there is no within-10 limit)

Example

1 6 2 7 7 9 -> 945
45 seconds on the clock!
Please note: bar instead of clock.
Time up. Arnaud: le compte est bon (target is met).
7*2=14
14+1=15
7*9=63
15*63=945

Le Mot le plus long (Letters)
30 sec for letters round. Unlike in Countdown, players take turns selecting vowel or consonant (you'll understand this when watching the example video). There must be at least 2 vowels in players' selection. There are now TEN letters instead of nine (since 5 April 2010). No double points for using all 10 letters

Example

MUSETESNA
30 seconds on the clock!
Please note: bar instead of clock.
Arnaud: 8. Jean Claude: 7.
Arnaud: MATEUSES.

Duels
30 sec for duels. 5 points if correct, 3 points automatically for opponent if incorrect (unlike Conundrum, player can't buzz if his opponent was wrong, only ONE buzz-in per duel permitted)

Le duel traditionnel (The traditional duel)
Two words from 10 letters. Much like Conundrum, but with two words and word theme.

Example

Theme: CONTRE LES ÉCLABOUSSURES.
BGURDOEAE.
30 seconds on the clock! Wait, no clock, even no bar! Only arrow which points to buzzed player, Arnaud.
Arnaud: GARDE BOUE.

L'un dans l'autre (One and the other)
Common noun and proper noun. One of the two words must be 10-letter

Example

Proper noun theme: SOMBRE PRINCE.
Common noun theme: BOEUF.
HBEUBTLEZ
30 sec starting now!
Arnaud buzzed. Arnaud: BELZEBUTH & ZEBU.
La Bonne Orthographe (The Good Spelling)
Spell the word, hence the name

Example

Arnaud Beucherie spelled a word parallélépipède, which is parallelepiped in French.

Le Calcul mental (The mental calculation)
No explaining necessary

Example

You've seen this before.
((((237+456):11)-14)*15)-69
Arnaud's mental calculation took 15 sec!
Arnaud buzzed. Arnaud: 666.
Arnaud vs Arielle (hostess):
237+456=693
693:11=63
63-14=49
49*15=735
735-69=666

That's all the rules. Enjoy!

Above is the last edit of the message about DCeDL rules. Last edited by Dmitry Goretsky on Sat Aug 07, 2010 7:11 pm, edited 9 times in total.

[Jeff Clayton]

From watching the programme, Dmitry.

Edited 0 times.

Jeff