Spoilers for Valentine’s Day 2025 (Series 91, Heat 30)

[Philip A]

HETAIRA for 7 to beat WAITER.

[Gavin Chipper]

No gunkiest in round 13 for some reason. GUNKY is in though.

[Johnny Canuck]

No gunkiest in round 13 for some reason. GUNKY is in though.

Two-syllable adjective rule

[Gavin Chipper]

No gunkiest in round 13 for some reason. GUNKY is in though.

Two-syllable adjective rule

That's why it's disallowed but not why it's not in the dictionary!

(Yeah, I meant that most -IER, -IEST words are in but they seemingly arbitrarily exclude some.)

[Philip A]

No gunkiest in round 13 for some reason. GUNKY is in though.

Two-syllable adjective rule

That's why it's disallowed but not why it's not in the dictionary!

(Yeah, I meant that most -IER, -IEST words are in but they seemingly arbitrarily exclude some.)

It depends on usage, I’m afraid!

If it had been declared though, I reckon Susie would have asked the OUP to include these inflections.

[Philip Wilson]

There's a rather fine line between PRALINES (praline chocolates) being valid, and NOUGATS x not.

[Philip A]

There's a rather fine line between PRALINES (praline chocolates) being valid, and NOUGATS x not.

Agree, and indeed the dictionary says so as indicated by [COUNT NOUN] in the ‘praline’ page and this not being the case for ‘nougat’.

This is why some regular fans are calling for the restaurant rule to be scrapped as it appears to overrule foods which are only given as an uncountable mass noun. After all, the dictionary chosen is about English as it is used.

[Philip Wilson]

There's a rather fine line between PRALINES (praline chocolates) being valid, and NOUGATS x not.

Agree, and indeed the dictionary says so as indicated by [COUNT NOUN] in the ‘praline’ page and this not being the case for ‘nougat’.

This is why some regular fans are calling for the restaurant rule to be scrapped as it appears to overrule foods which are only given as an uncountable mass noun. After all, the dictionary chosen is about English as it is used.

Accepted that in both cases the validity for Countdown was true to the dictionary chosen, but not certain that there can be that much difference between "Oi, you've eaten all the pralines!" and "Oi, you've eaten all the nougats!"
Having said that I'm personally in favour of going by the dictionary rather than the 'restaurant rule'.

[Gavin Chipper]

There's a rather fine line between PRALINES (praline chocolates) being valid, and NOUGATS x not.

Agree, and indeed the dictionary says so as indicated by [COUNT NOUN] in the ‘praline’ page and this not being the case for ‘nougat’.

This is why some regular fans are calling for the restaurant rule to be scrapped as it appears to overrule foods which are only given as an uncountable mass noun. After all, the dictionary chosen is about English as it is used.

It makes much more sense to just go with the dictionary than invent these extra arbitrary subjective rules. But let's be clear, the dictionary is often way off the mark when it comes to usage.