Spoilers for Thursday 31st October 2024 - Hallowe’en Edition!

[Philip A]

Countdown gets the biggest Hallowe’en makeover seen on a gameshow since Noel Edmonds’s Deal Or No Deal. Can David Roe make it 4 in a row?

Can we get Colin to dress up as Santa for a Christmas special?

[Fiona T]

poteens valid on apterous

[Gavin Chipper]

Interesting that Susie explicitly mentioned the restaurant rule when disallowing it.

Edit - Obscurity 0% - ubiquitous.

[Ryan Lam]

What a spooktacular episode that was. I only wished the intro music was the Catsdown Lightning Round music though...the conundrum clock sound effects, I am amazed David managed to get that tough one despite all that distraction

I'll try and process my recording and upload a copy (or highlights if YouTube decides to block the full version) over the weekend!

[Fiona T]

What a spooktacular episode that was. I only wished the intro music was the Catsdown Lightning Round music though...the conundrum clock sound effects, I am amazed David managed to get that tough one despite all that distraction

I'd imagine the conundrum sound effects were added after!

[Matthew Brockwell]

What a spooktacular episode that was. I only wished the intro music was the Catsdown Lightning Round music though...the conundrum clock sound effects, I am amazed David managed to get that tough one despite all that distraction

I'd imagine the conundrum sound effects were added after!

Not sure they were added after actually - I think I heard Colin laugh after one of the noises. Maybe that was added in too though!

[David Williams]

It's not the first time POTEENS has been disallowed and I don't follow the reasoning. If you can allow a plural of every other food and drink what is so different about poteen? You wouldn't order two because it's so strong? Even if that was the case (and there's no reason to think it is) it's allowed by the dictionary and Countdown rules.

[David Roe]

POTEENS surprised me. I didn't think it was a dubious one.

FOREWENT actually generated quite a discussion between Susie and Damian on its allowability. Obviously I didn't get the inside track, but it seems that FORGO is the main dictionary entry and FOREGO as an alternative; but the past tenses are specified as FORGONE and FORWENT. The discussion was whether by extension FOREWENT would be allowed, and that one came down in my favour.

Question - I was sure that MOTTIE had been allowed in a previous edition of Countdown, and was nothing to do with John Motson, but was a South African word. Is my memory playing wild tricks, or is it a word no longer in the dictionary that would have been allowed once over?

Finally, I don't remember the funny noises during the conundrum. I couldn't actually swear, but I'm pretty sure they weren't played (and from a theoretical point, I'd be surprised in any circumstance if they had been played). Even a conundrum irrelevant to a single game can make a difference to final standings.

[Thomas Cappleman]

No other results for MOTTIE on the Apterous wiki, so looks like you're the first to try it.

POTEENS was allowed twice in 2010 (and disallowed before), but no one's even declared it since, which is surprising.

[Fiona T]

POTEENS surprised me. I didn't think it was a dubious one.

FOREWENT actually generated quite a discussion between Susie and Damian on its allowability. Obviously I didn't get the inside track, but it seems that FORGO is the main dictionary entry and FOREGO as an alternative; but the past tenses are specified as FORGONE and FORWENT. The discussion was whether by extension FOREWENT would be allowed, and that one came down in my favour.

There's quite a lot like that where the inflections of the alt spellings are not specified. When we did the big dictionary update recently, we assumed the logical inflections of the alts would be allowed, which sounds like the case here.


Edit - Actually if you type FOREGO/FOREWENT into the dictionary search bar, it takes you to a separate FOREGO page which says it is an alt spelling of FOREGO and does list the logical inflections including FOREWENT https://premium.oxforddictionaries.com/ ... q=forewent


POT(H)EENS has the definition - [mass noun] mainly Irish English - alcohol made illicitly, typically from potatoes.

Perhaps the restaurant would get closed down if they sold it

[Philip A]

Interesting discussions. Few things;

Firstly to the Countdown Team, as someone who hates Hallowe’en, great work. I’d like to see some decor and different lighting for finals and COCs for more of a sense of occasion. I quite liked the decor for the 40th anniversary week two years ago.

Re the sound effects; it’s not just those that would’ve been added post-production. The Countdown clock music is also dubbed in post-production in all rounds even though it is also played in studio where it sounds a bit softer. Lots of shows do it for both sound and visual editing; not always, but most of the time (e.g. the screen on House Of Games is super-imposed because the real one is too dim for the head-on camera) The reason for sound dubbing is due to potential noises in the studio such as a coughing (as heard in 1980s episodes).

They even dub applauses on shows with a visible audience. Welcome to showbiz.

Re FOREWENT; great spot under Hallowe’en pressure! It is unambiguously valid; inflections for FOREGO are actually specified, but they are easily missed due to redirection and the structure of the page. FOREGO has two completely separate definitions, and it needs scrolling down the page to find the specified inflections under its second definition as searching only directs to the first definition. They probably just forgot to scroll down which would have saved them time adjudicating otherwise.

Here’s the page in full:

There are 2 main definitions of forego in English:forego1 forego2
forego 1
VERB

Variant spelling of forgo
For editors and proofreaders

Line breaks: fore¦go

There are 2 main definitions of forego in English:forego1 forego2
forego 2
Pronunciation: /fəˈɡəʊ/ Pronunciation: /fɔːˈɡəʊ/
VERB (foregoes, foregoing forewent Pronunciation: /fəˈwɛnt/ Pronunciation: /fɔːˈwɛnt/ ; past and past participle foregone Pronunciation: /fɔːˈɡɒn/)

[WITH OBJECT] ARCHAIC
Precede in place or time:
‘so Abdulmelik went away to his house, whither he found that the money had foregone him’
More example sentences
Derivatives

foregoer
Pronunciation: /fəˈɡəʊə/ Pronunciation: /fɔːˈɡəʊə/
NOUN

——-

They might have clicked on ‘forgo’ in definition 1 instead of scrolling down.

Finally, incredibly unlucky on ‘poteens’ which I think is surprising, but I think this exposes a flaw in the restaurant rule and is better off scrapped, would be my honest opinion. It would be fairer to simply follow the dictionary, which they did for ‘poteen’, and disallow all plurals of mass nouns which don’t offer a [count noun] sense. After all ODP is based on usage.
Indeed, the rule does not apply to all foods and drinks (at least seemingly).

[Howie Myers]

r5 alt: PIMPLE

[David Williams]

It would be fairer to simply follow the dictionary, which they did for ‘poteen’, and disallow all plurals of mass nouns which don’t offer a [count noun] sense. After all ODP is based on usage.

Agree. The rule was introduced because words like BRANDY and LAGER had no count noun meaning. That was a nonsense, but now they do.