c4countdown

The object of the exercise is to type out all the words of 10 letters and longer. This will be fun.

Resources for those partaking:

You will need: 1 Spindlex, 1 ODE, and 1 strong cup of coffee.

Cooking instructions
1. Post in here or email me (charlie@apterous.org) to reserve a block of the dictionary.
2. Open the dictionary at the relevant page.
3. Open Spindlex and read the instructions (fairly simple, the keyboard shortcuts make life easier but you can get started without them).
4. Get typing!
5. If/when you finish your block, let me know, and you can have another one if you want.

Current blocks
Page range [Word range] Reserved by...
1 - 101 [A - attention deficit disorder]: Charlie. Done. Words: 2,544. (Ran over by 1 page, oops.)
102 - 159 [attentive - ?]: Kai.
160 - 200 [? - bound]: Maxine.
201 - 300 [boundary - chime]: Neb.
301 - 349 [chimenea - communication]: Innis. Done.
350 - 400 [communication cord - ?]: Charlie. Done.
401 - 410 [coxswain - criticality]: Jimmy. Done.
411 - 450 [critical angle - ?]: Howard. Done.
451 - 500 [declarer - disorientate]: Charlie and Damian. Done.
501 - 600 [disown - eventing]: Maxine. Done.
601 - 700 [eventive-function word]: Paul.
701 - 804 [functor-hedgehod]: Sid. Done. Words: 1,682.
805 - 900 [hedgehog fungus - intendment]: Ben Hunter (Note: weird alignment because Sid got a bit overexcited by hedgehogs]
901 - 1000 [intense - leg warmer]: Raccoon. Done. Words: 1,948.
1001 - 1102 [legwork - metabolize]: Sid. Done. Words: 1,311.
1103 - 1111 [metacarpal - mien]: Kirk.
1112 - 1200 [Mies van de Rohe - Northern Marianas]: Jim.
1201 - 1220 [Northern Paiute - office]: Ian V. Done. Words: 422.
1221 - 1300 [office-bearer - penalize]: Charlie. Done. Words: 2,437.
1301 - 1400 [Penal Laws - privateer]: Lesley. Done. Words: 3,018.
1401 - 1500 [privateersman - respite]: Sid. Done. Words: 2,976.
1501 - 1550 [respite care - sacking]: Damian. Done.
1551 - 1600 [sack lunch - self]: Ian
1601 - 1700 [self-abandonment - speedball]: Howard. Done.
1701 - 1720 [speedboat - Stainer]: Howard. Done.
1721 - 1740 [stainless - stole]: Andy.
1741 - 1761 [stolen - substituent]: Done.
1761 - 1800 [substitute - Tammany]: Howard. Done.
1801 - 1810 [Tammerfors - ?]: James.
1811 - 1900 [? - turn]: Jimmy. Done.
1901 - 2000 [turnabout - wept]: Charlie. Done. Words: 2,907.
2001 - 2054 [were - Zyrian]: Charlie. Done. Words: 1,446.

The rest of the workload is currenly unallocated. Let us know if you'd like to join in the fun! You don't have to reserve a full block of 100 pages, if you'd like to try something a bit smaller then let me know.

Tips

• All words of 10 letters or longer should be added, provided they meet the usual rules (no proper nouns, no US spellings, no words that only appear in phrases, no hyphens etc). This includes words which look very unlikely to come up; who knows what variants we might one day play?!
• Remember to check for shorter words in the dictionary which may have implicit inflections of 10 letters or more, e.g. AIRMAIL -> AIRMAILING.
• All inflections of subentries should be entered, however dubious this might be. For example, AIRLESSNESS is listed as a small subentry of AIRLESS, and says only "noun", so we have to assume that AIRLESSNESSES is valid.
• You can enter words of 9 letters or less into Spindlex, it will just silently ignore them.
• Don't worry too much about any one word!

Also it would be useful if you could post, at some convenient number of pages (at least 10), the number of words you had entered. I'll use this to improve the estimate of the total number of words to be added. For example:

Me: 1695 words in 65 pages.
Raccoon: 809 words in 10 pages [ouch!]

BETTING OPPORTUNITY ALERT!

Was having a chat earlier with Charlie about how varied the number of 10+-letter words in a section of x pages is proving to be, and how based on the stats currently being reported (like the post above), the final number of words could realistically prove to be anywhere between 50,000 and 150,000.

I thought it'd be a good idea to bet on how many it would turn out to be. Have a little sweepstakes for a couple of quid or for pride, in blocks of say 1,000 words?

Currently claimed:
72,001 - 73,000 (Charlie Reams)
42,001 - 43,000 (Matt Morrison)

I'm not putting any money on it but my personal estimate is 72,124.

I know so little that I've had to base my guess on Charlie's, as I've learnt that he's right about most things. Hopefully others will be more brave with their guesses.

Is there any way of checking the spindlex wordlist?

Whack me down for 1301-1400 - only right we should all help if we all want to enjoy the benefits. Added the pneumonoetc. just to test I'm happy to volunteer for more but I'll get that done first.

Ben Hunter wrote:Is there any way of checking the spindlex wordlist?

Not currently, would that be useful for anything?

Edit: I guess it would, yes. Will do this tomorrow.

I seem to have fallen off the list, but I'll do the first untaken block (1112 to 1200) if that's cool with everyone.

Can I only get to the Spindlex from the link on the PM or is there a way from the Home Page?

Can i take 1801 - 1900 [Tammerfors - turn]?

very glad to help

JimBentley wrote:I seem to have fallen off the list, but I'll do the first untaken block (1112 to 1200) if that's cool with everyone.

Sure.

Maxine Silkstone wrote:Can I only get to the Spindlex from the link on the PM or is there a way from the Home Page?

There's a link at the top of this post, and I suggest bookmarking it. I haven't linked it from the homepage because it won't make much sense to people without reading this topic.

james doohan wrote:Can i take 1801 - 1900 [Tammerfors - turn]?

very glad to help

Enjoy

1280 words, 51 pages. It's more like 1275 though because I did a few duplicates as a test, which it added to the count. Apologies if that messes up the stats slightly.

So that's all the Hs done, I'll work on my Is tomorrow, or tonight if I don't have anything better to do. My favourite words so far are HELLBENDER and HEMIDEMISEMIQUAVER.

Also, I've discovered that there's no way of explaining what you're doing when a housemate walks in on you typing out a list of long words from the Oxford dictionary without sounding weird.

Adverbs are only valid if they're explicitly listed in the dictionary aren't they? I'll stop adding extra ones then after having that revelation...

So as the grammatical ignoramus here, let me see if I have it right...

Nouns can be pluralised with an s or es as necessary, except when it says in sq brackets that they are MASS NOUNs. (unless they are foods or drinks apparently?)
Verbs get an es, an ed, and an ing just about every time (perfect, past and present tenses?(I think i vaguely recall)
Adjectives I'm a little grey on.
And Adverbs only when mentioned explicitly.

And this AltM, AltN, AltL thing doesn't seem to be working for me (and caps lock is on)

Only 3 pages so far

I have noticed the spellchecker picking up on some of the words with a red wiggly underline, should i trust this and delete those it doesn't like or is it not reliable?

not seen any hyphens yet, are they actually hyphenated in the ODE or is there some mysterious symbol i'm missing? coz some of the ones the spellchecker didn't like looked like they ought to be hyphenated to me.

Ben Hunter wrote:Also, I've discovered that there's no way of explaining what you're doing when a housemate walks in on you typing out a list of long words from the Oxford dictionary without sounding weird.

Lol - get them together with my husband - he thinks I've finally lost the plot!

Maxine Silkstone wrote:I have noticed the spellchecker picking up on some of the words with a red wiggly underline, should i trust this and delete those it doesn't like or is it not reliable?

Don't trust your spellchecker. If it contained the words we wanted then we'd just use the dictionary that browser spellcheckers use .

HANDY HINT:
Tape three empty ring binders together to make a wedge shaped book support!
A blob of blu tac will ensure it doesn't slide off and deposit your coffee all over the dog!

Ben Hunter wrote:

Maxine Silkstone wrote:I have noticed the spellchecker picking up on some of the words with a red wiggly underline, should i trust this and delete those it doesn't like or is it not reliable?

Don't trust your spellchecker. If it contained the words we wanted then we'd just use the dictionary that browser spellcheckers use .

Doh! Of course!

Maxine Silkstone wrote:So as the grammatical ignoramus here, let me see if I have it right...

Nouns can be pluralised with an s or es as necessary, except when it says in sq brackets that they are MASS NOUNs. (unless they are foods or drinks apparently?)
Verbs get an es, an ed, and an ing just about every time (perfect, past and present tenses?(I think i vaguely recall)
Adjectives I'm a little grey on.
And Adverbs only when mentioned explicitly.

Basically you should type out only those words which are exactly listed, except nouns and verbs which have the default inflections you mentioned. Also remember that alternative spellings should be carried through to all inflections (implicit or explicit); so if it says "SHAKEABLE also SHAKABLE" and then gives SHAKEABLY as a subentry of SHAKEABLE, you should also add SHAKABLY even though that word is not listed explicitly.

And this AltM, AltN, AltL thing doesn't seem to be working for me (and caps lock is on)

This might not work in Internet Explorer, I have no idea.

Not seen any hyphens yet, are they actually hyphenated in the ODE or is there some mysterious symbol i'm missing? coz some of the ones the spellchecker didn't like looked like they ought to be hyphenated to me.

There are real hyphens, but they're pretty rare.

By all means put me down for a batch, Charlie. It'll keep me out of mischief while my wife's away, again.

Charlie Reams wrote:so if it says "SHAKEABLE also SHAKABLE" and then gives SHAKEABLY as a subentry of SHAKEABLE, you should also add SHAKABLY even though that word is not listed explicitly

Damn, I haven't been doing this. Is there any way of quickly going through them and changing them?

Also I just literally put what is written in the dictionary, no mass nouns or whatever.

One sticky point for me was AVOIRDUPOIS, listed as a noun, but am I seriously concerned if AVOIRDUPOISES is valid.

I was entering plurals of derived nouns, even when they sounded like mass nouns. After all, if all the -nesses are in, why the hell not!

Done my section by the way. That'll do for the moment!

Charlie Reams wrote:

Maxine Silkstone wrote:
And this AltM, AltN, AltL thing doesn't seem to be working for me (and caps lock is on)

This might not work in Internet Explorer, I have no idea.

I'm running Chrome.

Howard Somerset wrote:By all means put me down for a batch, Charlie. It'll keep me out of mischief while my wife's away, again.

Put me down for 1601-1700. Self-abandonment seems an appropriate place to start. Is it ok to start before I've been assigned that batch?

There's quite a list for what you can pluralise (mass noun or not). I've put the dictionary guidelines for what's acceptable and what isn't into a word document (copied verbatim from the info that's sent out to countdown contestants) - please email me for it as I can't for the life of me see how to put all this into a thread or publicise the document here

I'm at lesleyshines@hotmail.com, and it's in Word compatibility 97-2003 format. If you'd rather rich text/html etc that's fine, just let me know.

Thanks
Lesley

I've just saved the first few words. I counted 26 that I'd typed in, yet my word count has been recorded as 25.

Is it possible that the last word has been ignored if I didn't press Enter after it?

EDITED: Possible answer to that last query is that one of my words was only 9 letters long. Maybe the system's clever enough to recognise that.

Howard Somerset wrote:I've just saved the first few words. I counted 26 that I'd typed in, yet my word count has been recorded as 25.

Is it possible that the last word has been ignored if I didn't press Enter after it?

EDITED: Possible answer to that last query is that one of my words was only 9 letters long. Maybe the system's clever enough to recognise that.

Yeah - any words <10 letters automatically get ignored (I asked Charlie this last night).

Ben Hunter wrote: My favourite words so far are HELLBENDER and HEMIDEMISEMIQUAVER.

As a kid I learnt the latter one as SEMIDEMISEMIQUAVER. And coincidentally, that's one I've just entered.

I had a hemidemisemi once. She was entirely disappointed.

Kai Laddiman wrote:One sticky point for me was AVOIRDUPOIS, listed as a noun, but am I seriously concerned if AVOIRDUPOISES is valid.

I have similar concerns about the plural of SENSUOUSNESS, listed as a noun without qualification. But following the rules, I've put it in.

374 words in 10 pages

Can't we get prime or rex to do this since they're so fucking clever?

Wondering if anyone else pays attention to how many words they get from any particular page.

I just did page 916 and got 112 words

Michael Wallace wrote:Wondering if anyone else pays attention to how many words they get from any particular page.

I just did page 916 and got 112 words

Ouch, you got a tough part of the dictionary didn't you? I've had a page (in my nODE at least, in L somewhere) that had 0 words! The next page had 3.

I'm halfway through my allocation and I only have a mere 603 words...

Michael Wallace wrote:Wondering if anyone else pays attention to how many words they get from any particular page.

I just did page 916 and got 112 words

Let me guess- all beginning INTER-?

Lesley Hines wrote:There's quite a list for what you can pluralise (mass noun or not).

Apart from mass nouns, all nouns are pluralisable. The rules on mass nouns are included in the dictionary itself, although for our purposes it's fine to just exclude all the mass noun plurals.

Kai Laddiman wrote:Damn, I haven't been doing this. Is there any way of quickly going through them and changing them?

Nope.

Kai Laddiman wrote:One sticky point for me was AVOIRDUPOIS, listed as a noun, but am I seriously concerned if AVOIRDUPOISES is valid.

It is. Yes, it doesn't make much sense for the definition, but that's not our decision to make.

Ben Wilson wrote:

Michael Wallace wrote:Wondering if anyone else pays attention to how many words they get from any particular page.

I just did page 916 and got 112 words

Let me guess- all beginning INTER-?

IRR, actually. I ploughed through all the INTERs last night.

Simon Myers wrote:Ouch, you got a tough part of the dictionary didn't you? I've had a page (in my nODE at least, in L somewhere) that had 0 words! The next page had 3.

Well I've done 18 pages and my average is a mere 60 - it was 80 last night after my first 10! I'm hoping that J and K will be a lot less dense, though.

Extra reminder: remember words that only occur in phrases do not count. So "vesicourteric" occurs only in the phrase "vesicourteric reflux", so should not be added.

Is there any way of removing a word once submitted, other than by message to you Charlie?

Howard Somerset wrote:Is there any way of removing a word once submitted, other than by message to you Charlie?

Currently no. Maybe tomorrow.

Call for check in:
Please can everyone participating post the number of pages you've done and the number of words you've entered. Don't worry if it's not many, this is just to help me update the running estimate of the total workload.

For me: 6897 words, 275 pages.

1350 words, 51 pages - my average is tumbling now I've hit the Js and Ks

597 words, 37 pages
(1 word to be removed, should that facility become available)


Strangely, Spindlex records my number of words as only 596. However, I make my total number of letters as 6937, and that agrees with Spindlex's count. I wonder why there is a discrepancy in the number of words.

Regarding the ...NESS ...NESSES peculiarity.

As directed, I've been including the plurals of all the ...NESS derivatives, as they are all listed as nouns, rather than count nouns, even though many of them are quite ugly sounding.

However, I've just come across the word SICKNESS, which is listed in its own right, and not as a derivative of SICK. I'm sure it would be reasonable to pluralise SICKNESS, indeed one of its definitions is a particular type of illness, which lends itself to pluralisation, yet SICKNESS is quite definitely listed only as a mass noun.

Should I add SICKNESSES to the list, or should I be pedantic and omit it?

45.5 pages. 689 words. 7953 letters (though Spindlex says 688 and 7953)

Back later

Unchanged from last night- 49 pages, 603 words. Will pick it up later this morning.

Charlie Reams wrote:Call for check in:

1280 words, 51 pages. Same as yesterday, getting back to work on it today.

Is this project taking over my life? This morning I visited the dentist, and to relieve the boredom in the waiting room, I started reading the information on the walls. Before I knew what was happening, I realised that I was counting letters to see which words were 10 letters or more.

That was only interrupted by an advert on the TV which I was definitely not watching. I immediately thought "DirectLine - 10 letters".

Half way now.
50 pages, 774 (773 according to Spindlex) words, 8919 letters

204 pages, 2970 words, 34809 letters.

Howard Somerset wrote:Should I add SICKNESSES to the list, or should I be pedantic and omit it?

Be pedantic

Cheers for your updates chaps. You may notice you've lost a few words since yesterday because I'm now suppressing duplicates (although not in the letter count, because I couldn't figure out how to do that).

Thanks chaps. Looks like my original estimate was a considerable overestimate, which is good news. Current best estimate is around 42k, which puts us at 42% done already! Great news, let's keep it up.

Edit: I've also added a few new keyboard shortcuts which are fun.

Now 60 pages, 909 words.

Back this evening.

I'm just behind on 60 & 906.

Has anyone else reached the point yet where the words start being really funny?

501-509... Disown - DNA ... Done.

Hopefully accurately and correctly

A Tortoise not a Hare.

Dis, Dis, Dis, Dis, Dis, Dis, Dis

A mere 482/17.

Charlie Reams wrote:Has anyone else reached the point yet where the words start being really funny?

I'm at the point where the words are finding me funny.

8 pages, 370 words. Slow start, but I'll do some more tonight.