Spoilers for Tuesday 25th June 2024 (Series 89, 4th Quarter-final)

[Philip A]

Can’t call this one – two returnees, both 800 club members and only 6 points between their totals; regular Co-event player Jessica Pratesi (822 points, 5 conundrums solved) against crossword and sudoku fiend Mark Goodliffe (816 points, 4 conundrums solved).

[Philip A]

Brilliant win from Jessica; very few would’ve pulled out MADUROS. LOUDISH was another good spot even though a rare 8 was available. Unlucky, Mark, but good finish on a tricky and technical conundrum (ftr, ‘secateur’ does not appear in ODP).

[Phyl Styles]

Muishond is clearly a compound noun (literally mouse-dog) so the s and h are separated and not said as 'sh'. Approximately pronounced as mouse-hont.
Similarly for keeshond and dachshund.
Unless secateur had any alternative usage, for example in the verbal way that scissor does, I guess you wouldn't expect it to feature in the singular in English.

[David Williams]

What are the rules? I thought they didn't have plurals for conundrums, and SECATEURS is a plural noun, even if it doesn't exist in the singular. If it had been crucial, and the loser claimed to have seen it and rejected it?

[Ryan Lam]

I'm sure some of us are counting down to the UK Election with just single digit days left (or maybe counting down how many days left till you go insane after Marcus Brigstocke's facts about clocks ), and after seeing the goalless draw between England and Slovenia which was teased hours after this episode aired, this is the match where it can certainly go either way most of the time, with Rachel guessing if most #4 and #5 Seeds in the same Series played ten times, the winning rate would be split even (5 - 5). However, there's no such thing as second chances here, so let's see if Jessica's watch party on Discord can support her to sprint to the finish line remotely from thousands of miles away or will it be Mark's subscribers on YouTube that will see him past it instead!

Letters: Yet another great game in terms of this aspect with many ties just like yesterday! The ones that probably stood out were Mark's DOWNRATE in R5 that made him take the lead by a single point and of course, Jessica's all important, tremendous spots of LOUDISH firstly in R8 to take back the lead, and MADUROS in R11 to take her out of the crucial conundrum danger zone! Commendable spot by both contestants of COSINES at the very end to ease our way into a Mathematical round thereafter too!

Numbers: I was expecting Jessica to go 4 Large here and boy did it not disappoint with a not so easy R3 to start with and she grabs the first seven points by getting the best possible solution. Wow, Mark goes for 6 Small in R6 and at this rate, the selections would be identical to yesterday. Too bad CECIL gave a low target which meant there's an easy way out and while that's not exactly the case here, it should not be tough for both contestants here! R9 and R14 was the definition of disappointment with extremely achievable targets, and in the latter round, it was over for Mark as that means no crucial conundrum will happen!

Conundrum: Everyone's predictions in the studio were so wrong in terms of this show ending in a nail biter as Jessica had won by this point, but let's see who can unscramble this SECRET to the USA perhaps. I somehow got the answer by having a completely different word "Secretary" initially and then quickly taking out the letters that did not exist followed by inserting the rest of the letters in place. Mark buzzes in a fraction of a second after I had the answer, and it takes him to a score just shy of a century!

What are the rules? I thought they didn't have plurals for conundrums, and SECATEURS is a plural noun, even if it doesn't exist in the singular. If it had been crucial, and the loser claimed to have seen it and rejected it?

I think if the singular form doesn't exist then the plural is eligible for being used as a conundrum? I could be wrong but maybe someone else can help clarify on this point.

If anyone thought I was like the presenters thinking a crucial conundrum would happen, you'd be damn right and I predicted Jessica to prevail. The margin was within my predicted range of less than ten points, but of course no crucial happened. Fantastic play all round and I'm sure for Mark, he never let his fear of losing again get the better of him especially what happened in his final preliminary when he made that great comeback to ensure he's in this spot today. At the top of the show, Colin mentioned Mark was a Sudoku Champion which was not mentioned beforehand. Hats off to you Mark because I happen to love Sudoku as well and for that, you've earned a subscription from me on your channel! Continue to solve all those puzzles online for as long as you can and for all you know, maybe you could eventually persuade Simon Anthony to come on the show! Here's to more brainpower and hope that you won't run out of it for years to come!

Semi-Finals time now, and the first one has the younger pair in it. Will Arthur Page make an "A" out of this fifth Finals game or will Jessica make a stunning upset that will shock everyone should it happen? The last three games have been close, so let's see if the other three will follow this trend or not!

Progress:
QF1 (20 June 2024): Arthur Page (#1) vs Isabelle Heward (#8) (123 - 51)
QF2 (21 June 2024): Mark Finnerty (#2) vs Jack Harvey (#7) (104 - 100)
QF3 (24 June 2024): Toby Byfield (#3) vs Michael Calder (#6) (82 - 84)
QF4 (25 June 2024): Jessica Pratesi (#4) vs Mark Goodliffe (#5) (102 - 99)
SF1 (26 June 2024): Arthur Page (QF1 Winner) vs Jessica Pratesi (QF4 Winner)
SF2 (27 June 2024): Mark Finnerty (QF2 Winner) vs Michael Calder (QF3 Winner)
GF (28 June 2024): (SF1 Winner) vs (SF2 Winner)

[Andres Sanchez]

What are the rules? I thought they didn't have plurals for conundrums, and SECATEURS is a plural noun, even if it doesn't exist in the singular. If it had been crucial, and the loser claimed to have seen it and rejected it?

I mean we've had OUTSKIRTS twice as a conundrum before if that adds anything to this discussion.

[Gavin Chipper]

What are the rules? I thought they didn't have plurals for conundrums, and SECATEURS is a plural noun, even if it doesn't exist in the singular. If it had been crucial, and the loser claimed to have seen it and rejected it?

I mean we've had OUTSKIRTS twice as a conundrum before if that adds anything to this discussion.

From a recent Apterous ticket, the rules seem to be:

The conundrum will never end in ‘S’ to make a plural of a singular word, so words BUNGALOWS will not be used. Some CAN end in ‘S’, but they will not be plurals, ie DIAGNOSIS, HEARTLESS etc. Whatever comes out in the mixed-up version will never be the answer (so if the conundrum spells out a word when it is first revealed, this won’t be the actual answer – ie – If the conundrum is revealed as GERANIUMS, then the answer will not be GERANIUMS. In this case, it would be MEASURING.

It's open to interpretation to some extent, but it does say "to make a plural of a singular word", and if outskirt and secateur aren't valid singulars, then I think OUTSKIRTS and SECATEURS are probably acceptable conundrums.

It seems to be an old rule, based on this post from 2010, which says the same thing.

[Andres Sanchez]

I 100% agree on that, just wanted to bring up another example on my end.

Wonder what other words fall in the same category as SECATEURS and OUTSKIRTS tho, that'd be an interesting dive I feel.