Spoilers for Friday 11th June 2021 (Series 83, Prelim 115)

[Tony Atkins]

VASELINE should be valid as it is a verb as well as a noun (it is valid on Apterous)

[Tony Atkins]

Nice that Rachel found a standard method solve for the 3L, whereas I could only find a normal method solve:
(50+75+6)x7-4=913

[Gavin Chipper]

Champion geezer lost out through not being able to get close on numbers where he couldn't get spot on. One of the targets was 674 and there was a 100 and a 7. He got nothing.

[Gavin Chipper]

VASELINE should be valid as it is a verb as well as a noun (it is valid on Apterous)

The verb (in the free version at least) is still presumably capitalised (it's only listed with the capital). It's a rare "proper verb".

The example sentence has a lower case v, muddying the waters, but these are known to be unreliable.

[Fiona T]

VASELINE should be valid as it is a verb as well as a noun (it is valid on Apterous)

Compare to Hoover which lists

VERB
1 (hoover)

[Phil H]

To misquote Douglas Adams: just as I thought the Gloria Hunniford cringe would peak, it struck upward with renewed ferocity until I thought my very brain would vaporize.

[Philip A]

VASELINE is *not* valid and therefore will be removed from the Apterous dictionary (note that it lags behind Countdown). Where a headword is capitalised, it must have an un-capitalised sub-entry in bold to be valid, which is the case for the aforementioned HOOVER but not for vaseline.

Can also confirm: example sentences are no longer used for adjudication on Countdown. https://www.apterous.org/ticket_view.php?ticket=6151

[David Williams]

VASELINE is *not* valid and therefore will be removed from the Apterous dictionary (note that it lags behind Countdown). Where a headword is capitalised, it must have an un-capitalised sub-entry in bold to be valid

So why does Susie go through the example sentences for mass nouns to see if any of them suggest it has a count noun sense? Every single one of the example sentences, noun and verb, has it as lower case, and indeed my ancient NODE has it as a lower case trademark. It must be very unusual to have actually reverted to capitalised.

Validity on apterous means nothing.

[Fiona T]

It does seem odd - in real usage as a verb, you're never going use a capital.

[Gavin Chipper]

It does seem odd - in real usage as a verb, you're never going use a capital.

Really? I'd use a capital for a verb if I'd do the same for the noun it comes from. I wouldn't say "I'll facebook you on Facebook."

[Philip A]

VASELINE is *not* valid and therefore will be removed from the Apterous dictionary (note that it lags behind Countdown). Where a headword is capitalised, it must have an un-capitalised sub-entry in bold to be valid

So why does Susie go through the example sentences for mass nouns to see if any of them suggest it has a count noun sense? Every single one of the example sentences, noun and verb, has it as lower case, and indeed my ancient NODE has it as a lower case trademark. It must be very unusual to have actually reverted to capitalised.

Validity on apterous means nothing.

I think Countdown has changed the rules, David. They’ve abandoned the practice of reviewing example sentences now. I had a discussion with the producer following Susie ruling vaseline invalid:

“The example sentences are lifted from the internet, which i didn't know at the time, hence we've decided to ignore them and use the main entry as the boss.”

[David Williams]

Interesting. Mind you, the reasoning is pretty bizarre. Words and their meanings get into a dictionary by being in common usage. I don't see why that excludes the internet. And they didn't just arrive in the dictionary by accident. The OUP selected them.

I wonder if we will see fewer mass noun plurals being allowed. The example sentences have often been the source of a count noun variation.

[Fiona T]

It does seem odd - in real usage as a verb, you're never going use a capital.

Really? I'd use a capital for a verb if I'd do the same for the noun it comes from. I wouldn't say "I'll facebook you on Facebook."

Would you Google for an answer?
Would you Vaseline your nipples before a run in a thunderstorm?
Would you Hoover before the queen pops round?

[L'oisleatch McGraw]

If this is to be the start of a trend of removing words from the game, Elliott Mellor and the two Lukes may well have found themselves a lucky window of word fruitfulness in which to partake. 1000 will be harder to reach with fewer words available...

It would be great if CD just switched to the Scrabble word list and be done with it.
Clear cut. No grey areas.
(Short term: a pain, but long term: It would be worth it for the cross-pollination of the Scrabble and Countdown worlds.)

[Gavin Chipper]

It does seem odd - in real usage as a verb, you're never going use a capital.

Really? I'd use a capital for a verb if I'd do the same for the noun it comes from. I wouldn't say "I'll facebook you on Facebook."

Would you Google for an answer?
Would you Vaseline your nipples before a run in a thunderstorm?
Would you Hoover before the queen pops round?

I would definitely Google for an answer. The others - I dunno. But I would Vaseline with Vaseline or vaseline with vaseline etc. I don't think I'd mix them.

[Philip A]

Only a handful of words will be removed from the Apterous dictionary – will hardly affect the game.

[David Williams]

It would be great if CD just switched to the Scrabble word list and be done with it.

The reason they didn't do that in the first place is that they didn't want an elite group of contestants who would be so well prepared that ordinary mortals wouldn't stand a chance. I guess that ship sailed a while ago.

[L'oisleatch McGraw]

Sometimes ships sail back again.
40 years later, and given the pain in the hole ODO has been for CD fans, perhaps it is worth a rethink.

[Rhys Benjamin]

It does seem odd - in real usage as a verb, you're never going use a capital.

Really? I'd use a capital for a verb if I'd do the same for the noun it comes from. I wouldn't say "I'll facebook you on Facebook."

Would you Google for an answer?
Would you Vaseline your nipples before a run in a thunderstorm?
Would you Hoover before the queen pops round?

Google is not capitalised, hoover is allowed as "(also hoover)" is listed. So why they haven't given a lower case V seems more of a dictionary error to me.

[Gavin Chipper]

Another thing is that adjectives often have a capital first letter - e.g. French, British. It seems logical to me that if you have a proper noun then its derivatives would be capitalised as well.

I wonder where the idea comes from that it doesn't happen with verbs. Have you you been taught it? Is it intuition? To me, it seems like something that comes up rarely enough that there isn't really much to go on other than what just feels right. Maybe I'll Google it.

Edit - Well, proper adjectives seem much more of a thing than proper verbs where are just a few random discussions.