c4countdown

Seems to me that WRONGER and WRONGEST should definitely be included.

Charlie Reams wrote:Seems to me that WRONGER and WRONGEST should definitely be included.

It seems wrong to me that they're left out, but it seems even wronger to include them as I can't imagine how you'd ever use the words.

Jon Corby wrote:

Charlie Reams wrote:Seems to me that WRONGER and WRONGEST should definitely be included.

It seems wrong to me that they're left out, but it seems even wronger to include them as I can't imagine how you'd ever use the words.

Your logic is the most wrongest of all logics.

Matt Morrison wrote:

Jon Corby wrote:

Charlie Reams wrote:Seems to me that WRONGER and WRONGEST should definitely be included.

It seems wrong to me that they're left out, but it seems even wronger to include them as I can't imagine how you'd ever use the words.

Your logic is the most wrongest of all logics.

Isn't 'logic' a mass noun?

Jon Corby wrote:

Matt Morrison wrote:Your logic is the most wrongest of all logics.

Isn't 'logic' a mass noun?

It isn't that big, 'defibrillator' is a much more massive noun.

LOGICS used to be allowed (yo for real) but now it isn't. Crazy.

This is the wrongest argument on the whole forum. Even wronger than Sandwiches: The Official Debate.

I had 'Littler' disallowed today. Not an error I should hasten to add because it's not in the great book. However, are were really supposed to say 'His brother was more little than his sister' or 'His **** was the most little I'd ever seen.' (Sorry, just pointlessly lowering the tone of things!)?

Karen Pearson wrote:I had 'Littler' disallowed today. Not an error I should hasten to add because it's not in the great book. However, are were really supposed to say 'His brother was more little than his sister' or 'His **** was the most little I'd ever seen.' (Sorry, just pointlessly lowering the tone of things!)?

I suppose you'd just say 'his brother was smaller than his sister' instead, or 'his **** was so little that one would require a microscope to see it'

Karen Pearson wrote:I had 'Littler' disallowed today. Not an error I should hasten to add because it's not in the great book. However, are were really supposed to say 'His brother was more little than his sister' or 'His **** was the most little I'd ever seen.' (Sorry, just pointlessly lowering the tone of things!)?

This strikes me as a definite error - in NODE2r if not in CountMax. LITTLER perhaps sounds slightly contrived, but LITTLEST is incredibly common (a Google search comes up with nearly 5 million hits) and the dictionary is supposed to reflect common usage. If a contestant declared LITTLEST on the show I would be very surprised if Susie disallowed it even though it's not specified.

I just checked Collins Dictionary and that lists both LITTLER and LITTLEST (although it does say "not standard" in each case).

Phil Reynolds wrote:I just checked Collins Dictionary and that lists both LITTLER and LITTLEST (although it does say "not standard" in each case).

I asked Susie about these when I first filmed having noticed during 'training' that LITTLEST wasn't specified and therefore not valid. As someone who grew up with 'The Littlest Hobo' I found this quite upsetting. Anyway, she actually made a note of it and said she would pass it on as being a definite erroneous omission. I forgot to follow up the progress on subsequent visits, but I assume she would have to disallow it.

The littlest pet shop?

Yeah, this is why real paper dictionaries aren't great for word games, as there's too much room for interpretations, or even some things that are just errors. I've pointed out quite a few (nailerys, funer, funest) that under the letter of the rule (as I understand them) should be allowed, but blatantly they won't allow them for a very good reason. They could just get rid of as many of this nuances in the dictionary as they can, but the dictionary is a large thing, it's not going to be easy!

I think pisseder / pissedest was one that Charlie came up with - no real reason to disallow it, awful as it may be.

I've seen "not comparable" used in other dictionaries, so you can have something like:

prone adj. (not comparable)

Therefore proner and pronest would be right out of the window.

Martin Gardner wrote:Therefore proner and pronest would be right out of the window.

PRONEST + A = PRONATES

Martin Gardner wrote:I've seen "not comparable" used in other dictionaries, so you can have something like:

prone adj. (not comparable)

Therefore proner and pronest would be right out of the window.

Looks like that tag is missing on stuff like RIGHT, FAUX etc. then.

Jon Corby wrote: I asked Susie about these when I first filmed having noticed during 'training' that LITTLEST wasn't specified and therefore not valid.

And GIRLIEST is a weird omission too.

Martin Gardner wrote:I've pointed out quite a few (nailerys, funer, funest) that under the letter of the rule (as I understand them) should be allowed, but blatantly they won't allow them for a very good reason.

NAILERYS? Don't they specify the plurals of all nouns ending in Y?

FUNER, FUNEST - What about my take on it? You must have read it.

Gavin Chipper wrote:

Martin Gardner wrote:I've pointed out quite a few (nailerys, funer, funest) that under the letter of the rule (as I understand them) should be allowed, but blatantly they won't allow them for a very good reason.

NAILERYS? Don't they specify the plurals of all nouns ending in Y?

FUNER, FUNEST - What about my take on it? You must have read it.

You're right, this does deserve a reply. Tricky one actually, because it specifies at the bottom that the comparative and superlative are FUNNER and FUNNEST, but that they're "not universally accepted as standard English". Brings me back to the point I made on another thread - we don't play in Standard English, we just play in English! Otherwise you'd be disallowing loads of stuff that is in the dictionary, like GONNA, WANNA, etc. So I suppose the common sense thing is to allow FUNNER and FUNNEST.

PS looking on Apterous, DRUIDS is among the most commonly disallowed words. I can see it's capitalised. I really don't know why, I think its meaning is more generic than that and it should have a second sense without a capital.

Martin Gardner wrote:You're right, this does deserve a reply. Tricky one actually, because it specifies at the bottom that the comparative and superlative are FUNNER and FUNNEST, but that they're "not universally accepted as standard English". Brings me back to the point I made on another thread - we don't play in Standard English, we just play in English!

But my point was that FUNNER and FUNNEST were only mentioned in the usage box as a sort of aside rather than mentioned in the main text and then also discussed in the usage box.

Gavin Chipper wrote:

Martin Gardner wrote:You're right, this does deserve a reply. Tricky one actually, because it specifies at the bottom that the comparative and superlative are FUNNER and FUNNEST, but that they're "not universally accepted as standard English". Brings me back to the point I made on another thread - we don't play in Standard English, we just play in English!

But my point was that FUNNER and FUNNEST were only mentioned in the usage box as a sort of aside rather than mentioned in the main text and then also discussed in the usage box.

I guess don't really have an answer to that.

I've just had PLUMAGES KO'ed which seems a little wrong to me- it's listed as a mass noun but surely if you're talking about different birds' feathers you talk about their plumages?

Ben Wilson wrote:I've just had PLUMAGES KO'ed which seems a little wrong to me- it's listed as a mass noun but surely if you're talking about different birds' feathers you talk about their plumages?

I'd guess it's considered officially correct to say (e.g.) "The snowy owl and the tawny owl have differently coloured plumage", although informally you might say that they have different plumages.

MAUVINE appears to be missing. As the first synthetic dye, you'd think it'd be there.

Perhaps it's an anti-purple thing?

Kevin Davis wrote:MAUVINE appears to be missing. As the first synthetic dye, you'd think it'd be there.

Perhaps it's an anti-purple thing?

You mean MAUVEINE. In any case this thread is for errors in CountMax, not stuff you think should be in the dictionary but isn't.

Why are gratineed and gratinee valid, but not gratinees? Surely you could say: 'I will gratinee some potatoes. He/ she gratinees some potatoes. I gratineed some potatoes yesterday'? But apparently not.
Martini should be in too, but I believe that's been mentioned before. You can imagine how I felt when that was disallowed...

Neil Zussman wrote:Why are gratineed and gratinee valid, but not gratinees? Surely you could say: 'I will gratinee some potatoes. He/ she gratinees some potatoes. I gratineed some potatoes yesterday'? But apparently not.
Martini should be in too, but I believe that's been mentioned before. You can imagine how I felt when that was disallowed...

gratineed would be ok if gratinee was a verb, which it's not; it's an adjective.

Neil Zussman wrote:Why are gratineed and gratinee valid, but not gratinees? Surely you could say: 'I will gratinee some potatoes. He/ she gratinees some potatoes. I gratineed some potatoes yesterday'? But apparently not.

GRATINE (also GRATINEE) is another term for AU GRATIN, i.e. it's a postpositive adjective as in "potatoes gratinee". GRATINEED is the normal adjective, as in "gratineed potatoes", but there's no verb "to gratinee" (well, not in the ODE). I think that's right, anyway!

SIRLOIN is in, but I had SIRLOINS disallowed today, incorrectly IMO.

Paul Howe wrote:SIRLOIN is in, but I had SIRLOINS disallowed today, incorrectly IMO.

It's all opinion. It's a mass noun so I'm glad it disallows it as I hate learning plurals of words from countmax only to find they are mass nouns and I have them disallowed in a competitive situation. I was super cautious on the show not risking dodgy plurals even if I knew countmax gave it, just in case it was a mass noun.

Kirk Bevins wrote:

Paul Howe wrote:SIRLOIN is in, but I had SIRLOINS disallowed today, incorrectly IMO.

It's all opinion.

Indeed. According to my hazy understanding of the rules, foodstuff mass nouns can be pluralised, and I remember it being allowed on the show before, in the Fell v Wills special I think.

Paul Howe wrote:SIRLOIN is in, but I had SIRLOINS disallowed today, incorrectly IMO.

Yeah, probably should be included under the "portions of food or drink" pluralisable mass noun rule. There's probably still a lot of these not yet included, one day I'll try to do a semi-rigorous check through and counsel the opinion of the Apterous massive.

Martin Gardner wrote:HOARSER and HOARSEST.

Err HOARSER/HOARSEST is in my version and that's why on Friday's show one of the OT words (check review) was HOARSEST.

Martin Gardner wrote:HOARSER and HOARSEST.

*mock Jo-Bo (without the hyphen) here*

Kirk Bevins wrote:

Martin Gardner wrote:HOARSER and HOARSEST.

Err HOARSER/HOARSEST is in my version and that's why on Friday's show one of the OT words (check review) was HOARSEST.

Sometimes the recap writer misses stuff out, like on COOT game against Kirk there were the nines ALTITUDES and LATITUDES but the recapper only put one of them, even though both were considered valid.

Martin Gardner wrote:

Kirk Bevins wrote:

Martin Gardner wrote:HOARSER and HOARSEST.

Err HOARSER/HOARSEST is in my version and that's why on Friday's show one of the OT words (check review) was HOARSEST.

Sometimes the recap writer misses stuff out, like on COOT game against Kirk there were the nines ALTITUDES and LATITUDES but the recapper only put one of them, even though both were considered valid.

POISED was in round two of this game: http://www.c4countdown.co.uk/viewtopic.php?f=7&t=1766 but not mentioned in the OT list. So this is normal then?

Gavin Chipper wrote: POISED was in round two of this game: http://www.c4countdown.co.uk/viewtopic.php?f=7&t=1766 but not mentioned in the OT list. So this is normal then?

There were a few 6s missing, I must've forgotten to check for OT words.

Paul Howe wrote:

Kirk Bevins wrote:

Paul Howe wrote:SIRLOIN is in, but I had SIRLOINS disallowed today, incorrectly IMO.

It's all opinion.

Indeed. According to my hazy understanding of the rules, foodstuff mass nouns can be pluralised, and I remember it being allowed on the show before, in the Fell v Wills special I think.

I was going to ask about this re: QUINOAS, which I had disallowed.

I had Sluttier disallowed in a game earlier. I'm wondering weather its not a word or weather it was just missed out of the dictionary file

JackHurst wrote:I had Sluttier disallowed in a game earlier. I'm wondering weather its not a word or weather it was just missed out of the dictionary file

ODE2r just has the adjective SLUTTY specified.
As it's more than one syllable, the comparative and superlative have to be specified to be allowable.
Annoying, I know, you'll just have to whether the storm.

Regarding AUDIOS, in this game it was allowed, but it is among the most common words disallowed on apterous*.

*Yes, apterous.org.

Kai Laddiman wrote:Regarding AUDIOS, in this game it was allowed, but it is among the most common words disallowed on apterous*.

*Yes, apterous.org.

There was someone called Phredd!

I can't find FRONTES in the ODE2r. Can anyone else?

Kirk Bevins wrote:I can't find FRONTES in the ODE2r. Can anyone else?

FRONS (pl FRONTES) the forehead of an animal

Julie T wrote:

Kirk Bevins wrote:I can't find FRONTES in the ODE2r. Can anyone else?

FRONS (pl FRONTES) the forehead of an animal

Good spot! Well done.

OK cleverclogs, find VERENDAH.

Kirk Bevins wrote:OK cleverclogs, find VERENDAH.

Go on then, where is it?

Julie T wrote:

Kirk Bevins wrote:OK cleverclogs, find VERENDAH.

Go on then, where is it?

Under HAMSTER.

Me and Innis both got Sporulated in a hyper game and it wasn't allowed. I can't link to the game, because it broke halfway through, and then there was no option to resume later. When i looked at Sporulated on lexplorer it said it was not valid, yet in one game it had been declared by dictionary corner. Its got an entry on dictionarydotcom:

http://dictionary.reference.com/browse/SPORULATE

so this suggests to me that it accidentally got deleted from the database of alloweable words at some point. ???

As I said in the FAQ, for words of 10 letters or more, the dictionary is extremely incomplete and often inconsistent. It's the risk you take when playing Hyper. Future complaints on the subject will be taken as implicit offers to type out the rest of the dictionary.

Charlie Reams wrote:As I said in the FAQ, for words of 10 letters or more, the dictionary is extremely incomplete and often inconsistent. It's the risk you take when playing Hyper. Future complaints on the subject will be taken as implicit offers to type out the rest of the dictionary.

I just got SPORULATING and it disallowed it. Why was this?

RAREBITS should be in.

Kai Laddiman wrote:RAREBITS should be in.

ODE2r does say it's a mass noun.
It also says that it can be made using different ingredients, so maybe there's an argument for it being countable.
Does anyone remember Susie ever ruling on it?

Julie T wrote:It also says that it can be made using different ingredients, so maybe there's an argument for it being countable.
Does anyone remember Susie ever ruling on it?

Yeah, it's definitely fine, it was offered most recently by Susie just last month.

It qualifies under the somewhat flaky "ordering in a restaurant" plural rule

Julie T wrote:

Kai Laddiman wrote:RAREBITS should be in.

ODE2r does say it's a mass noun.
It also says that it can be made using different ingredients, so maybe there's an argument for it being countable.
Does anyone remember Susie ever ruling on it?

More importantly it's a portion of food, and there's a Countdown rule saying these can be pluralised even if listed as a mass noun in the ODE. I'm fairly certain Susie's given it the thumbs up before too.

Dammit Corby

Paul Howe wrote:

Julie T wrote:

Kai Laddiman wrote:RAREBITS should be in.

ODE2r does say it's a mass noun.
It also says that it can be made using different ingredients, so maybe there's an argument for it being countable.
Does anyone remember Susie ever ruling on it?

More importantly it's a portion of food, and there's a Countdown rule saying these can be pluralised even if listed as a mass noun in the ODE. I'm fairly certain Susie's given it the thumbs up before too.

Dammit Corby

She also allowed "fennels" using the same reasoning, which pretty much opens you up to allowing anything you can eat as a plural.

Jon Corby wrote: She also allowed "fennels" using the same reasoning, which pretty much opens you up to allowing anything you can eat as a plural.

Yep, "dogs" works.

Ian Volante wrote:

Jon Corby wrote: She also allowed "fennels" using the same reasoning, which pretty much opens you up to allowing anything you can eat as a plural.

Yep, "dogs" works.

As in Fido pastries! Groan. Sorry!

Reminds me of the joke:

My favourite curry is Tarka Massala. It's like Chicken Tikka Massala, only 'otter.

Jon Corby wrote:She also allowed "fennels" using the same reasoning, which pretty much opens you up to allowing anything you can eat as a plural.

What would the plural (in the multiple portions sense) of "molasses" be, I wonder?

Phil Reynolds wrote:

Jon Corby wrote:She also allowed "fennels" using the same reasoning, which pretty much opens you up to allowing anything you can eat as a plural.

What would the plural (in the multiple portions sense) of "molasses" be, I wonder?

Yeah. What about 'panini' too?