c4countdown

Stewart Gordon

Both this forum and wiki.apterous.org (not sure if they're hosted on the same server) have been very temperamental today. I first noticed around midnight. Pages loading only about half the time if even that, and posts here nearly always failing. I didn't try Apterous itself.

Stewart Gordon

Worth pointing out that -IZE is actually not an American spelling, contrary to popular belief. -IZE is in fact an Oxford spelling. In most (but not all) verbs, both spellings are correct in UK English. The US do tend to use -IZE, but it is not an Americanism. Yes, I'm fully aware of this, and I ima...

Stewart Gordon

Susie seemed to think GLAMORISE was an example of an American spelling becoming naturalised into UK English.

But this can't be the case, as that would surely be GLAMORIZE?

Rather, it seems to be a case of the U being dropped when forming a derivative, like in HUMOROUS, INVIGORATE, etc.

Stewart Gordon

I think Susie confused DIALOGUE wtih DUOLOGUE....

Stewart Gordon

That’s it. A target of 100 should be totally, utterly and categorically banned. I quit. My recollection is that the range of allowed targets was originally 100 to 999, but was subsequently changed to 101 to 999. I see it was in 2010 that "The target can range anywhere from 101 to 999" was...

Stewart Gordon

I'm not sure what happened there - I could've sworn I only drafted that message and didn't press the Submit button!

But still, I wonder if the clue made a lot of people here think of the same thing it made me think of.

Stewart Gordon

What's the relevance of pizza to the first TTT? The first thing the clue made me think of is MARGARITA due to the similarity with MARGHERITA.

Stewart Gordon

"You picked the fine time to collect small guitars."
Does anybody get this clue? "Small guitars" is obvious but the rest of the clue? Colin didn't stop to explain it or seek an explanation.

And I'd thought it was spelt UKULELES....

Stewart Gordon

Were DC not ELOCUTING about round 7 because they weren't given the chance? No, but because it's not in the dictionary I'm not at all convinced that's the reason. A word not being in a particular dictionary may be a barrier to giving the word as one that was available, but frequently it isn't a barr...

Stewart Gordon

Were DC not ELOCUTING about round 7 because they weren't given the chance?

Stewart Gordon

I think there was also an inconsistency because words that end in Y (e.g. BRANDY) had their plurals specified so BRANDIES was allowed but not LAGERS. Is this right? Was LAGERS ever disallowed? If it was, it shouldn't have been. Susie is right on poteens imo, poteen (and moonshine) refer to alcohol ...

Stewart Gordon

For the first TTT, I saw first CONIFERS and then FORENSIC. I began to think the clue was maybe a reference to clues used to solve a crime.

But FIRCONES and CONIFERS are very apt anagrams - I wish I'd sooner realised this myself!

Stewart Gordon

When I went to school, a NOCTURNE was a musical piece suggestive of the night. One of my piano books even explained that it means "night song".

Stewart Gordon

I'd like to know how RUNTIME came to mean the time only of a film or a DVD, and not of a VHS cassette, a Blu-ray disc, a TV programme or any audio medium. But I'm much more familiar with the computing sense - more or less, the execution of a program as distinguished from the compilation of it. I'm s...

Stewart Gordon

Booking myself in now.

Why do you have "(map)" at the end of the address but no actual map there?

Stewart Gordon

I completely disagree, because she didn't mention the photographic process. She said "we talk about Lumières in France". Maybe the photographic process was invented in France, but I don't see that anybody would say "Lumières in France" meaning this. She was quite clearly, as I he...

Stewart Gordon

(Just corrected a tpyo in my earlier comment.) But does the name of this movement derive from the names of people, or the French word for light? I would have thought the latter. OTOH, the Lumière photographic process is named after two brothers. I've just rewatched it and Susie clearly said "na...

Stewart Gordon

Susie's comment disallowing LUMIERE was puzzling. It would seem she looked at everything except the definition. A quick search tells me that Lumière, capital L, is a photographic process, not a light show in France. So I would make out that Graeme was trying the French word in the hope that it's nat...

Stewart Gordon

(50 − 4 × 4) × (10 + 6 + 1)

Spotted well after the time. I probably should've tried factorising by 2 sooner than I did....

Stewart Gordon

Why is ETHANOLS valid? Simply because the dictionary lists ETHANOL as a noun and doesn't explicitly label it as a mass noun? That's weird.

When I went to school, ethanol was one specific chemical compound - there were never different varieties of it.

Stewart Gordon

That puts me out of it.

Hopefully there'll be a next time....

Stewart Gordon

I'm pretty sure the true meaning of "Hobson's choice" is a "this or nothing" choice, rather than literally no choice at all. According to what I was taught, Mr Hobson himself is reputed to have said to his customers something like, "You're having the horse nearest the stable...

Stewart Gordon

I think the problem with the first numbers round was not so much too many even numbers as too many powers of 2, such that you couldn't divide them to get an odd number.

Stewart Gordon

When Mr Murray told us on 29 Jan that it's National Colin Day, one of the first things I wondered is whether this has anything to do with the 'name days' celebrated in some religious traditions. Of course, the other thing I noticed quite quickly is that it's at the time of year that COLIN is held. I...

Stewart Gordon

A mule is the offspring of a male donkey and a female horse. A hinny is the offspring of a male horse and a female donkey.

Strangely, the Road Traffic Act considers a mule, but not a hinny, to be an animal.

Stewart Gordon

My method for the last numbers game (seen only just within the time):
75 × 3 + 7 + 100 ÷ 50 − 25

Not sure whether Rachel was just showing off....

Stewart Gordon

Marc Meakin wrote: ↑Fri Dec 22, 2023 5:51 pm
Stewart Gordon wrote: ↑Sat Dec 16, 2023 3:10 pm
Marc Meakin wrote: ↑Wed Dec 06, 2023 9:24 pmIf lunch is provided the downside is the catering cost will up the entry fee or any prize fund
Huh? How do you mean it will up any prize fund?
If lunch is provided then the cost of providing the lunch will affect any prize pot surely

Affect, yes, but up? How?

Stewart Gordon

Marc Meakin wrote: ↑Wed Dec 06, 2023 9:24 pm If lunch is provided the downside is the catering cost will up the entry fee or any prize fund

Huh? How do you mean it will up any prize fund?

Stewart Gordon

As TCap says, get the players to look away if need be. Put the conundrum in the right orientation on the table and cover it with an object other than your hand. Something like a phone works well. Don't have the object physically touching the conundrum paper though. Place one edge of the phone in fr...

Stewart Gordon

Does anybody have some low effort high impact suggestions for reducing the % of botched printed conundrum reveals? I had a botched conundrum given to me in at least 5/8 of the events I attended in 2023 which had paper conundrums. Reasons for botched conundrums reveals could be any of (but not limit...

Stewart Gordon

We've had two events recently with lunches organised - Edinburgh where the bridge club had lovely sandwiches, soup and cakes, and Newcastle where there was a cafe where we pre-ordered. That's good to know - shame I didn't manage to make it to those two events. Both were great (for someone with no s...

Stewart Gordon

Over the years, these have varied from event to event. Different arrangements I can remember are: something served to us from an on-site kitchen (mainly at Ben's early events) an on-site buffet lunch making use of restaurant facilities at the venue going together somewhere down the road to get somet...

Stewart Gordon

Should be noted that on number ordering, it's only since Rachel took over that the large numbers have always been on the left. Carol always did it in reverse order of how the contestant said it (which I personally prefer) so there are several examples of large numbers NOT being in the middle. Off t...

Stewart Gordon

During the final, either display the scores or announce them after every round . There's really no excuse for not doing this. This brings me to my next point: Always have the letters and numbers in clear view, be it on a screen or on a board. It defeats the whole point of having a final if people c...

Stewart Gordon

I'd love to come but am not sure at the moment – I have potentially a lot of travelling to do in July! Have you got enough of your fancy letters/numbers boards to go round?

Stewart Gordon

REMEDIALS in R12?

Stewart Gordon

Back in Methuselah's time, 100 was probably considered young. Didn't it turn out Methuselah's age was actually given in months? Hmm. It seems virtually all translations give it as 969 years. Looking at those on Bible Gateway , it seems the only exceptions are: * GNT states "years" for tim...

Stewart Gordon

Could be that it’s considered a common expression Considered by whom? To me, it's neither common nor an expression. and it’s not a new word? So what? Newness and obscurity have little to do with each other. Way back in the Series 7 final, no definition of ATTABOY was given then either so not the fi...

Stewart Gordon

Philip A wrote: ↑Thu Oct 19, 2023 9:23 pm
Stewart Gordon wrote: ↑Thu Oct 19, 2023 9:11 pm No definition of ATTABOY was given. This is bizarre.
Why is it bizarre?

Because normally when DC give a word people are likely to be unfamiliar with, they do give one, of course.

Stewart Gordon

Marc Meakin wrote: ↑Thu Oct 19, 2023 2:25 amIm starting to wonder if this generation will be the last to reach old age

Probably not, because the definition of "old age" will change to reflect the age people are generally living to.

Back in Methuselah's time, 100 was probably considered young.

Stewart Gordon

No definition of ATTABOY was given. This is bizarre.

Stewart Gordon

Sam Cappleman-Lynes wrote: ↑Tue Oct 17, 2023 9:25 amHere are all the U-less Q words of 9 letters or more:

ACQHIRING
MGQASHIYO
MGQASHIYOS
MQHASHIYO
MQHASHIYOS
NASTALIQS
NOTARIQON
NOTARIQONS

By "all" do you mean "all in the Countdown dictionary" or "all in the English language as a whole"?

Stewart Gordon

Not sure why this hadn't been started already.

"There will not be back-to-back nines from Flo-Glo, because we've got a Q, no U at all."

Has this actually been confirmed, that there are no 9-letter Q-without-U words in the dictionary?

Stewart Gordon

I was hoping for OFRENDAS in R1.

Stewart Gordon

I'm surprised nobody got 515 by what seems to me the most intuitive method. I saw it within the time.

((9 + 1) × (8 + 2) + 3) × 5

Stewart Gordon

I've produced a list of ELO ratings for Countdown players based on real life games. This accounts for games from Television and games from Co-Events. I used all games that I could find. Top 25 Players v0.0.3 Where can the rest of us find out our ratings? FAQs What does this stand for?

Stewart Gordon

Philip A wrote: ↑Sun Apr 30, 2023 1:58 pm Exclamations take plurals if they exist as a noun, otherwise the plural isn’t valid.

That isn't an exclamation taking a plural at all. It's a noun taking a plural.

Stewart Gordon

(As an aside, I'm puzzled at why IC isn't valid. I get the impression that Roman numerals derive from a way of marking tally sticks, whereby 17 would be IIIIVIIIIXIIIIVII, shortened to XVII. Furthermore, apparently 'subtractive' notation is actually ordinal in origin (IX meaning "the I just be...

Stewart Gordon

I know of UPDATION from my Indian colleagues. Essentially, the pattern of other verbs ending in -ATE has been applied, although the morpheme is actually DATE.

But ... "we would normally call it UPDATING, as a noun"? Really? My experience is that the noun is normally UPDATE.

Stewart Gordon

Interesting story about the 99. I recall it being covered on Balderdash and Piffle (presented by Victoria Coren as she was known back then - now best known for doing Only Connect), if I remember correctly. One of the ideas mentioned on that programme is of "IC", for "ice cream", ...

Stewart Gordon

What Susie said about MATIES didn't make sense. "You can spell it EY, in the singular, MATEY, or [same] without the Y, and the regular plural for that is IES." MATEY can also be spelt MATE, for which the plural is IES? (The subtitles said "matie" but this didn't factor into what ...

Stewart Gordon

Another interesting and enigmatic thing: the genus of the giant panda is Ailuropoda , literally meaning "cat foot". Ailurophobia is the fear of cats. However, Ailuridae isn't the cat family, but a family whose sole surviving species is the red panda! This makes me wonder what is the common...

Stewart Gordon

An interesting talk from Susie about pandas, but I'm inclined to question its factual accuracy. For a while I've wondered which is the true panda. Susie implied that it's the giant panda. However, multiple sources give the impression that it's actually the red one. Indeed, "giant" implies ...

Stewart Gordon

Interestingly, you can slot an M in GERANIUM for GERMANIUM. Didn’t know that. Alex upped his numbers from last time. I was shocked that nobody in the studio spotted GERMANIUM, even more so given that the remaining M was directly below the A (IIRC) when GERANIUM was put up on the board. TBF, germani...

Stewart Gordon

Philip A wrote: ↑Wed Apr 05, 2023 9:22 am Interestingly, you can slot an M in GERANIUM for GERMANIUM. Didn’t know that.

Alex upped his numbers from last time.

I was shocked that nobody in the studio spotted GERMANIUM, even more so given that the remaining M was directly below the A (IIRC) when GERANIUM was put up on the board.

Stewart Gordon

"You have to be a donator, not a donater."

I always thought the word was DONOR.

Stewart Gordon

The last few times I've tried to access the FOCAL website, it's been down. Hmm. We’re having trouble finding that site. We can’t connect to the server at focalcountdown.co.uk. If you entered the right address, you can: Try again later Check your network connection Check that Firefox has permission t...

Stewart Gordon

That's the way I interpreted it. But what's the Bible reference? And what translation are you using? This is one of the starkest examples. You can choose whichever translation you like on that website. But in order to interpret "as he lieth with a woman", you need a pre-established norm. ...

Stewart Gordon

Philip A wrote: ↑Sat Dec 10, 2022 12:41 pm Yeah, INERTIAL describes forces of which the bodies (i.e. objects) are at rest or in a straight motion.

When I went to school, the term referred to the absence of any forces acting on an object, thereby causing an absence of change in the object's velocity.

Stewart Gordon

E.g. "the bible says it is wrong for two men to have sexual relations together" is an 'is' statement that is scientifically true. No it's not. I'm pretty sure that Callum means that it is (scientifically) true that the bible says it! That's the way I interpreted it. But what's the Bible r...

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