Spoilers for Wednesday 10 August 2022 (Series 86, Heat 38)

[Toby McDonald]

UPSTATER in R10

Well done on octochampdom, Quinn!

[Gavin Chipper]

I thought Susie's reasoning for allowing DOUGHS was a bit dubious and made up on the spot. It is valid on Apterous though anyway. But what in the definition makes it valid?

Edited to change Rachel to Susie. It was way past my bedtime.

[L'oisleatch McGraw]

Susie, not Rachel.

Christ, what a game that was!
The amount of time the challenger had to get TARNISHED. Quinn is one of the all-time luckiest Octochamps, like Latchford before him (think TARANTULA).
Quinn is also one of the best contestants as regards entertainment value and the right attitude towards the show, that we have seen in a long long time.

More like him plz.

[John Garcia]

I thought Rachel's reasoning for allowing DOUGHS was a bit dubious and made up on the spot. It is valid on Apterous though anyway. But what in the definition makes it valid?

She should really stick to doing the numbers.

[Philip A]

Debatable for sure, but personally I agree with allowing DOUGHS, which was allowed once before in 2012. Googling suggests there no evidence to say that it’s grammatically incorrect to talk about a collection of, or wide variety of, different kinds of doughs, cheeses, mueslis and wheats, even though the singular would be the more common use.

Trouble with standard dictionaries is that there are not definitive, unlike Scrabble dictionaries which list absolutely every single word in strict alphabetical order and includes any sensible inflections, so they don’t explicitly say whether words are invalid/incorrect. I wouldn’t say it was “made up on the spot,” but they do try their best to go for what is sensible instead of trying to adhere to rules/dictionary.

You can do more research/Googling on this matter outside standard dictionaries, which is why Lexplorer has alternative dictionaries. In Wiktionary (not terribly reliable but still reasonable), it gives a logical use for celeries, despite this being currently invalid on Apterous.

[Gavin Chipper]

My understanding was that it was much stricter than that. Basically unless it's indicated in the dictionary entry or allowed by a specific rule (like the restaurant rule) you can't pluralise it. It's certainly better that way in any case. Otherwise it becomes too subjective and your word can be allowed or disallowed on the whims of the adjudicator.

[Fiona T]

My understanding was that it was much stricter than that. Basically unless it's indicated in the dictionary entry or allowed by a specific rule (like the restaurant rule) you can't pluralise it. It's certainly better that way in any case. Otherwise it becomes too subjective and your word can be allowed or disallowed on the whims of the adjudicator.

Yep the rules of the game are the words, so when they are subject to interpretation it makes it very difficult.

If you had two players, one declaring wheat (knowing the dictionary lists it as a mass noun) and one declared wheats, which would it be correct to allow?

[Philip A]

I can recall being given production rules after passing my auditon, and it listed all the dictionary rules, which I read and found useful to know. It even said they considered EXEUNTED incorrect, despite it being mentioned in a previous episode. So at least contestants are made aware of the rules before they travel to the recordings.