Discuss anything that happened in recent games. This is the place to post any words you got that beat Dictionary Corner, or numbers games that evaded Rachel.
Who will have a Springfield in their steps and who will just be going Homer
You're slipping James: you forgot to point out that today is Thursday, that the week is nearly over, that Ryan might become an octochamp if he keeps winning games and all the other usual fascinating titbits.
Who will have a Springfield in their steps and who will just be going Homer
You're slipping James: you forgot to point out that today is Thursday, that the week is nearly over, that Ryan might become an octochamp if he keeps winning games and all the other usual fascinating titbits.
Well, Damian has pointed out that it's Thursday.
It seems pretty obvious to all of us taht if Ryan carries on winning, he'll be an octochamp.
One little titbit is that Bob De Caux will drop out of the top 8 if Ryan wins today. So, that'd be one Apterite in and one Apterite, assuming Ryan wins of course.
Sue Sanders wrote:Is it slightly cynical of me to suggest it would be nice if Ryan knew these as words rather than strings of letters?
Kirk's had similar accusations levelled at him plenty of times, so you'd have to be willing to tar him with the same brush.
Ryan's conversation with Corby in another spoilers thread suggests this is a competition to him rather than a love-of-words game, and deciding whether that's wrong or not will always be subjective opinion.
Sue Sanders wrote:Is it slightly cynical of me to suggest it would be nice if Ryan knew these as words rather than strings of letters?
'Fraid so - it seems to be a common tactic. Kirk was very kindly teaching me the PAINTERS stem (cos you never know when it'll come in handy) and he didn't know what they meant either. Besides, that's how women think. I can only submit words I know. Men are much better at random strings - it's the way their brains work. But we still have tits
Sue Sanders wrote:Is it slightly cynical of me to suggest it would be nice if Ryan knew these as words rather than strings of letters?
'Fraid so - it seems to be a common tactic. Kirk was very kindly teaching me the PAINTERS stem (cos you never know when it'll come in handy) and he didn't know what they meant either. Besides, that's how women think. I can only submit words I know. Men are much better at random strings - it's the way their brains work. But we still have tits
I'm learning a lot of definitions as a by-product of my Scrabble study, although I didn't know any of them when I was on Countdown as there weren't any definitions in the word list. It's nice to know them but it's nicer still to have Susie read out the definition properly.
Anyway finished my sarnies so no excuse not to get back to Zyzzyva and it's wonderful 3000+ a day cardbox.
DEISTICAL is from DEISTIC which is from DEIST which is religious philosophy.
Well done Ryan on getting your first conundrum - just in the nick of time too! 123 points is a great score and will get you on the high scores (120+) page on The Countdown Page.
Sue, I think a lot of top players now learn words for Countdown as strings of letters. My mum kept badgering me to learn what they mean but if I was to check up all the new words I learn I'd still be there, memorising their definitions too. It's much quicker and much more efficient to just memorise patterns of letters and link them to words. The only problem with this is not knowing if they are adjectives or mass noun (so take no -S) or if they are nouns/verbs and so you can extend them. An example is VARIATE. Sounds like a verb but it's actually a noun so VARIATED^ is no good, but VARIATES is. It's a term from Statistics and it's a noun - that's as far as my memory takes me. Now it's in the memory bank I move on and remember more words. Simple.
Well done Ryan on getting your first conundrum - just in the nick of time too! 123 points is a great score and will get you on the high scores (120+) page on The Countdown Page.
Sue, I think a lot of top players now learn words for Countdown as strings of letters. My mum kept badgering me to learn what they mean but if I was to check up all the new words I learn I'd still be there, memorising their definitions too. It's much quicker and much more efficient to just memorise patterns of letters and link them to words. The only problem with this is not knowing if they are adjectives or mass noun (so take no -S) or if they are nouns/verbs and so you can extend them. An example is VARIATE. Sounds like a verb but it's actually a noun so VARIATED^ is no good, but VARIATES is. It's a term from Statistics and it's a noun - that's as far as my memory takes me. Now it's in the memory bank I move on and remember more words. Simple.
DEISTICAL you mean - no I didn't. I played along in the studio and then got home, shoved them through solvers and then watch the show again a month later. I aim to then get a max game. I spotted DEISTICAL this time (CILIATES + CILIATED) which gives me a small sense I'm improving (it probably doesn't - it probably just means I remembered there was a 9 coming out at this point but I like to think I'm learning).
Well done Ryan on getting your first conundrum - just in the nick of time too! 123 points is a great score and will get you on the high scores (120+) page on The Countdown Page.
Sue, I think a lot of top players now learn words for Countdown as strings of letters. My mum kept badgering me to learn what they mean but if I was to check up all the new words I learn I'd still be there, memorising their definitions too. It's much quicker and much more efficient to just memorise patterns of letters and link them to words. The only problem with this is not knowing if they are adjectives or mass noun (so take no -S) or if they are nouns/verbs and so you can extend them. An example is VARIATE. Sounds like a verb but it's actually a noun so VARIATED^ is no good, but VARIATES is. It's a term from Statistics and it's a noun - that's as far as my memory takes me. Now it's in the memory bank I move on and remember more words. Simple.
Well, I know - but I'm old fashioned. I did mispronounce a word in my own game because what I had written, PINNATE had a double letter so I knew how is should be pronounced. But it's a word relating to leaf formation and I mistakenly had it in my brain that it was to do with the shape of pine needles so got all confused and said it as 'pinate'.
DEISTICAL you mean - no I didn't. I played along in the studio and then got home, shoved them through solvers and then watch the show again a month later. I aim to then get a max game. I spotted DEISTICAL this time (CILIATES + CILIATED) which gives me a small sense I'm improving (it probably doesn't - it probably just means I remembered there was a 9 coming out at this point but I like to think I'm learning).
Oh yeah I thought SILICATED was a word but tried a solver afterwards as I am good at spotting letter combinations that yield a nine but can never remember the word.
Thanks for all the Simpsons puns guys...... for the record, I did say d'oh when I lost! But fair play to Ryan, he scored in every round and was a worthy victor.
Overall a very enjoyable experience, although I'm slightly disappointed at missing a rather obvious 9!
DEISTICAL you mean - no I didn't. I played along in the studio and then got home, shoved them through solvers and then watch the show again a month later. I aim to then get a max game. I spotted DEISTICAL this time (CILIATES + CILIATED) which gives me a small sense I'm improving (it probably doesn't - it probably just means I remembered there was a 9 coming out at this point but I like to think I'm learning).
Kirk, are you serious, or are you toying with our gesneriads?
D Eadie wrote:
Kirk, are you serious, or are you toying with our gesneriads?
Ha. I was kinda serious yeah (although it reminded me of something James had typed on here at some point about he always does better when watching the same game at home versus in the studio ).
The seriousness was trying to get what I originally missed. I looked back over some old games of mine from apterous and played the rounds again and see if I'd improved. I had but still missed some silly maxes. It would be an interesting feature on apterous if we could specifically play the rounds where we missed the maximum again to see if we could spot the maximum the second or third times round.
I noticed RUMPLED as a nice contestant-beater in round 11.
Tim talking about karaoke brought back memories of hearing him sing in a karaoke bar at the Pleasance during the 1999 Edinburgh Fringe. Can't remember what he sang as I was sitting at a table with Richard Herring who heckled drunkenly all the way through and then got up and murdered the Osmonds' Crazy Horses. (Actually, thinking about it, the Osmonds had mortally wounded it already - Rich just finished the job.)
Had a slightly strange brain-fry in round 6 when I noticed a common prefix (OUT-), looked to see if there was anything to follow it, and thought, "Oh yeah - OUTSWAY for 7". Never occurred to me it might even be risky, and was surprised when the contestants declared 6s. I was about to post it here as another smug contestant-beater and suddenly thought: "Hold on; is it a word?" and of course it isn't. Somehow, in the space of a few seconds, I'd managed to invent it and convince myself that I'd heard it countless times before. I can only guess I must have subconsciously conflated "outweigh" and "hold sway".
Phil Reynolds wrote:Had a slightly strange brain-fry in round 6 when I noticed a common prefix (OUT-), looked to see if there was anything to follow it, and thought, "Oh yeah - OUTSWAY for 7". Never occurred to me it might even be risky, and was surprised when the contestants declared 6s. I was about to post it here as another smug contestant-beater and suddenly thought: "Hold on; is it a word?" and of course it isn't. Somehow, in the space of a few seconds, I'd managed to invent it and convince myself that I'd heard it countless times before. I can only guess I must have subconsciously conflated "outweigh" and "hold sway".
My mind is going, Dave; I can feel it.
Next thing you know you'll be singing "Daisy, Daisy......" in some karaoke bar with Tim Vine.
Sue Sanders wrote:
Well, I know - but I'm old fashioned.
Well, I'm young-fashioned and I don't do it either- as I've said before, I prefer just playing the game as I have neither the time nor the inclination to learn all these long stems, the only one I know being the CANTERS one. I'm sure this will be to my detriment come quarter-finals, in addition to the fact I haven't watched a show or been on Apterous since my broadcast dates!
Well done on making the quarters Ryan, I hope you kick on to become an Octochamp.
Jeffrey Burgin wrote:Well, I'm young-fashioned and I don't do it either- as I've said before, I prefer just playing the game as I have neither the time nor the inclination to learn all these long stems, the only one I know being the CANTERS one. I'm sure this will be to my detriment come quarter-finals, in addition to the fact I haven't watched a show or been on Apterous since my broadcast dates!
Jeffrey Burgin wrote:
Well, I'm young-fashioned and I don't do it either- as I've said before, I prefer just playing the game as I have neither the time nor the inclination to learn all these long stems, the only one I know being the CANTERS one. I'm sure this will be to my detriment come quarter-finals, in addition to the fact I haven't watched a show or been on Apterous since my broadcast dates!
Well done on making the quarters Ryan, I hope you kick on to become an Octochamp.
Andy Wilson wrote:Just watched this and well done again Ryan. Was surprised MILAGES was disallowed so i checked it and apterous lexplorer says it's valid!
Susie said MILAGES was fine - it was declared as an eight (MILEAGES) but there was only one E in the selection.
Andy Wilson wrote:Just watched this and well done again Ryan. Was surprised MILAGES was disallowed so i checked it and apterous lexplorer says it's valid!
Susie said MILAGES was fine - it was declared as an eight (MILEAGES) but there was only one E in the selection.
Andy Wilson wrote:Just watched this and well done again Ryan. Was surprised MILAGES was disallowed so i checked it and apterous lexplorer says it's valid!
Susie said MILAGES was fine - it was declared as an eight (MILEAGES) but there was only one E in the selection.
Correct. I had Goalies down for 7, to match Ryan, but had to take a gamble to try and claw some points back. Heaven knows where I "saw" that extra "e" though....
Well, post-recording I had a break from Apterous for a bit as I obviously wasn't practicing any more and I was at work a lot, and as I started uni on the 5th October I haven't really had any time to spare what with general socialising/getting slashed and chasing clunge. Oh yeah, that and my assignments. Anywho, you can't watch TV live on your computer and evenings are spent doing the above, and 45 minutes is too long a period of time to justify taking out of my day when I could be on Facebook. This, and the fact that the port for Apterous is blocked and despite me emailing the techie people they are lazy bastards who obviously don't check their emails or don't give a shit.
Ok I lied, I'm in prison. I'm on day-release for quarters. If someone can smuggle me out in one of the goody bags, it'd be appreciated.
Jeffrey Burgin wrote:as I started uni on the 5th October I haven't really had any time to spare what with general socialising/getting slashed and chasing clunge.
If any owners of said clunge have seen the Facebook photo to which Matt has just drawn my attention, I imagine it's not you but they who'll be doing the chasing.