c4countdown

Good luck to Ben on his 2nd game.

EDIT: You had Paul Zenon in DC, I'm so jealous.

I thought TARMAC was a trademark, and therefore would be capitalised in the dictionary. Isn't it?

1st numbers alternative - ((100 + 6) x 7) - 2

smjg wrote:I thought TARMAC was a trademark, and therefore would be capitalised in the dictionary. Isn't it?

Lots of them have become generic, like HOOVER and VASELINE.

Can you have COMEDOS in ODE? I seem to remember COMEDONES being in as a plural of COMEDO.

REGALIST in round 13

Michael Wallace wrote:REGALIST in round 13

RETRIALS too as an equaller.

Are RETIRALS / GLARIEST also in?

Also, went for (75-((8*4)+5))*9=342; didn't see the easier method!

Charlie Reams wrote:

smjg wrote:I thought TARMAC was a trademark, and therefore would be capitalised in the dictionary. Isn't it?

Lots of them have become generic, like HOOVER and VASELINE.

Just looking at them in my 2001 OPD:

• Hoover (cap) as a noun is a trademark, but apparently the verb (-cap) was never trademarked
• vaseline is a trademark, but nonetheless is given in lowercase
• tarmac is a little more complicated, but not capitalised at all. Strange - I'm sure I've seen it capitalised as a trademark somewhere.

So maybe I was right. Still, what's the policy on accepting words that are trademarks but nonetheless given in lower case?

smjg wrote: Still, what's the policy on accepting words that are trademarks but nonetheless given in lower case?

If it's lower case, it should be allowed. Starting off as a trademark is just another way for a word to enter the language. In addition to the examples that Charlie gave, HEROIN, ESCALATOR, TANNOY, FRISBEE, TRAMPOLINE and many others all started life as trademarks.

For the record, I saw Ambient in the ?3rd? round, but didn't want to risk it as wasn't 100% as to whether it was ent or ant.

Benji Hanks wrote:For the record, I saw Ambient in the ?3rd? round, but didn't want to risk it as wasn't 100% as to whether it was ent or ant.

Ambient is fine.

Martin

My post didn't appear before for some reason. Anyone else had this trouble?

Anyway here's a more intuitive R14. I found this way easier anyhow.

75 - 5 = 70
9 - 4 = 5 multiply = 350 - 8

DC

DaveC wrote:My post didn't appear before for some reason. Anyone else had this trouble?

If someone posts while you're writing your message, clicking Submit will give you a page warning of the possible clash rather than submitting your post. However it doesn't look much different to the expected page and on a few occasions I've nearly shut the window without realising. That might be the cause.

Paul Howe wrote:

smjg wrote: Still, what's the policy on accepting words that are trademarks but nonetheless given in lower case?

If it's lower case, it should be allowed. Starting off as a trademark is just another way for a word to enter the language. In addition to the examples that Charlie gave, HEROIN, ESCALATOR, TANNOY, FRISBEE, TRAMPOLINE and many others all started life as trademarks.

I think the capital/non-capital is a bit of a dubious way of distinguishing. Probably the best way there is, but still not entirely satisfactory in my eyes. My main example is that I don't see why currencies of countries are any less "proper" than certain other proper nouns but they just happen not to be capitalised.

Edit - well if the definition of "proper noun" is a particular being or object as opposed to one of many, as opposed to simply a capitalised noun, then is there a name for capitalised nouns? "Englishman" for example would not be proper but is capitalised.

Gevin-Gavin wrote:

Paul Howe wrote:

smjg wrote: Still, what's the policy on accepting words that are trademarks but nonetheless given in lower case?

If it's lower case, it should be allowed. Starting off as a trademark is just another way for a word to enter the language. In addition to the examples that Charlie gave, HEROIN, ESCALATOR, TANNOY, FRISBEE, TRAMPOLINE and many others all started life as trademarks.

I think the capital/non-capital is a bit of a dubious way of distinguishing. Probably the best way there is, but still not entirely satisfactory in my eyes. My main example is that I don't see why currencies of countries are any less "proper" than certain other proper nouns but they just happen not to be capitalised.

A fair point, but as you say, there doesn't seem to be an alternative. For an example oddity, DBX would be valid according to the current rules. I assume the rule was taken from Scrabble where it has lead to some other odd consequences (like PH and EMF) over the years.