c4countdown

Obviously I got neither, but I'm rubbish, but I still reckon the crucial one was a lot harder. Opinions needed!

Eclampsia, largely because I actually got Ergonomic (at about the half-way mark according to my notes) but would never have seen Eclampsia.

I'd seen ERGONOMIC, with that exact scramble, somewhere before, and I still didn't get it. Dunno whether I would've got ECLAMPSIA in the 30 seconds but certainly didn't have it when Kirk got it. So in conclusion, I have no useful input whatsoever.

I'd say ECLAMPSIA but ERGONOMIC is also very tricky - I was just thinking RECOOMING for 30 seconds

I reckon ERGONOMIC is easier to spot because it's a more common word structure.

I managed to get ERGONOMIC but I'd never even heard of ECLAMPSIA.

I'm with Neil Z on this one - "I wouldn't have got it even if I had 30 minutes!"

I didn't get either, but I'd've at least felt I had a chance to get Ergonomic- even though it may have taken me a bit longer than 30 seconds. I wouldn't have got Eclampsia unless you gave me enough time to manually go through all 181440 combinations of the letters. And perhaps not even then.
Having said that, as I said to Kirk on apterous a few weeks before the finals- I prefer the harder conundrums, since it makes it less of a speed-buzzer-pressing lottery. Of course, when you're playing against Kirk, that doesn't apply...

Moving to public forum...

If you have both words in your vocabulary I'd probably go for ECLAMPSIA, but because i think more people are likely to have ERGONOMIC in their vocab, i'd have to say its easier than ECLAMPSIA

Ergonomic is the easier word out of the two in my opinion as I haven't even heard of Eclampsia. Having said that, Ergonomic is still quite a hard conundrum to solve as the ING sticks out like a sore thumb.

Haven't a clue what this is on about. It looks suspiciously like a spoiler to me. Were there two conundrums on Friday?

[Edit - I've now checked the date on the first post!]

Darren Carter wrote:Ergonomic is the easier word out of the two in my opinion as I haven't even heard of Eclampsia. Having said that, Ergonomic is still quite a hard conundrum to solve as the ING sticks out like a sore thumb.

I never got ERGONOMIC sat in the audience. I was lucky.

Darren Carter wrote:Ergonomic is the easier word out of the two in my opinion as I haven't even heard of Eclampsia. Having said that, Ergonomic is still quite a hard conundrum to solve as the ING sticks out like a sore thumb.

Although I'd imagine most players at the finals will realise that any ING in a conundrum is going to be a decoy (although obviously the relevance of that depends on how one interprets my original question).

As soon as I saw that ECLAMPSIA was the answer to first one, I thought, "Only someone like Kirk was going to get that!" And of course, he did.

I managed to get ERGONOMIC with about 2 seconds left, after ruling out just about every word that would end in -ING or -ER.

Kirk Bevins wrote:

Darren Carter wrote:Ergonomic is the easier word out of the two in my opinion as I haven't even heard of Eclampsia. Having said that, Ergonomic is still quite a hard conundrum to solve as the ING sticks out like a sore thumb.

I never got ERGONOMIC sat in the audience. I was lucky.

I didn't get it either, so if that had been our conundrum there is a chance that Eclampsia would've been used anyway, since the scores were still tied. So you'd still have won. So I wouldn't say you were lucky in that respect.

I've gone for ERGONOMIC as harder by a bit, but I'm not really sure why. Pretty sure I was nowhere near either at the time, though.

Neil Zussman wrote: I didn't get it either, so if that had been our conundrum there is a chance that Eclampsia would've been used anyway, since the scores were still tied. So you'd still have won. So I wouldn't say you were lucky in that respect.

I think they have a different conundrum lined up in the event of a tie-breaker, rather than shuffling everything else forward. Apparently BASSIDRUM (the conundrum from Junaid's game with Tony Warren) would've been the tie-breaker in our series final. Also ROVINGERA would've been pretty weird to have in the semi-final.

ECLAMPSIA I reckon by a long way. Never heard of it before then and don't know what it means.

ERGONOMIC I got in about 3 seconds - heard of the word before and probably got at the time because at University I remember doing an essay on ergonomics and the job I work in sometimes requires me to use that word.

Charlie Reams wrote:

Neil Zussman wrote: I didn't get it either, so if that had been our conundrum there is a chance that Eclampsia would've been used anyway, since the scores were still tied. So you'd still have won. So I wouldn't say you were lucky in that respect.

I think they have a different conundrum lined up in the event of a tie-breaker, rather than shuffling everything else forward. Apparently BASSIDRUM (the conundrum from Junaid's game with Tony Warren) would've been the tie-breaker in our series final. Also ROVINGERA would've been pretty weird to have in the semi-final.

But then the GANDISEEG pun would be spoiled. Would he have got another conundrum beginning with E in - ERGONOMIC fit that bill.

Charlie Reams wrote:

Neil Zussman wrote: I didn't get it either, so if that had been our conundrum there is a chance that Eclampsia would've been used anyway, since the scores were still tied. So you'd still have won. So I wouldn't say you were lucky in that respect.

I think they have a different conundrum lined up in the event of a tie-breaker, rather than shuffling everything else forward. Apparently BASSIDRUM (the conundrum from Junaid's game with Tony Warren) would've been the tie-breaker in our series final. Also ROVINGERA would've been pretty weird to have in the semi-final.

Yes, I never imagined they would move the final conundrum to the semis, but I like to imagine (though I may be way off) that Damian had a list of at list 3 or 4 words to pick from for the semis, and it just happened to start 'Eclampsia, Ergonomic...' It could equally likely have started off with those two words in reverse.

I knew that COOMERING^ = ERGONOMIC, but I don't know whether I would've remembered.

Craig Beevers wrote:I reckon ERGONOMIC is easier to spot because it's a more common word structure.

Same here - also, I would have doubted ECLAMPSIA, having only heard of PRE-ECLAMPSIA.