c4countdown

Martin Gardner

How about being the first person ever to solve a hyperconundrum in the wrong language? I often guess at these when time runs out, so I guessed at RHINOPLASTIE which turns out to be the French for RHINOPLASTY, but alas not allowed in English

http://www.apterous.org/viewgame.php?game=34762

Martin Gardner

Apologies for the size!

Martin Gardner

First of all, I remember that Jeff corrected me in a thread for something a bit like the following example: "I have two brothers, Sam and Matt; Matt is the most annoying." Jeff said something like "most annoying of the three, more annoying of the two". I tend to disagree. While ...

Martin Gardner

Yawn, now I remember why I hate the ISC so much. Apterous is down, so I play two games. My opponent starts beefing because I have all the good letters after I win the first game, and my second opponent disconnects when he sees I'm going to win on the last move to avoid losing any points. Not to ment...

Martin Gardner

However, in the particular case of Prince Harry, I think he was using it only in the way that I might call Raccoon a poofter - it's just a bit of banter and, importantly, I know him well enough to know he's not offended by it. That doesn't make it okay for me to call anyone else a poofter and procl...

Martin Gardner

D Eadie wrote:
Charlie Reams wrote:Of the 82,162 words in the Apterous lexicon, 46,263 have now been offered. Which is pretty cool?
And as of yet, i'm the only person to play EUNUCHS. Must be a taboo word for some

The rest of us just don't have the balls to play it.

[groan]

Martin Gardner

When did this get unlocked? Anyway, is Apterous totally down? I can't even got on the website itself, so I can't see the recent games or anything. I will try the CDB as that is part of the same URL.

Martin Gardner

This all makes sense! Now that we're onto grammar, a quick question- does English still have a subjunctive? If so, how/when do you use it? In some languages it has a definite use, e.g. in French to express doubt, but is there something similar in English? Someone tried to use it in English and I be...

Martin Gardner

Re the subjunctive, I should definitely try and find out more about it, but I do know there are two distinct forms in English. The preterite used as the subjunctive, as pointed out by Charlie (if I were, were doesn't refer to an action in the past here) but also the infinitive. A good example would ...

Martin Gardner

Yeah "to boldly go", the argument is that in Latin the infinitive is one word, so you can't put an adverb in the middle. That makes no sense to me whatsoever! For the simple reason that English is not Latin, and Latin is not English. Next question, when doing essay titles, when and where s...

Martin Gardner

I thought I'd start a little thread for any linguist points anyone wants to make, or questions they have. I'll start First of all, I remember that Jeff corrected me in a thread for something a bit like the following example: "I have two brothers, Sam and Matt; Matt is the most annoying." J...

Martin Gardner

How many have been offered as maxima? ;) In fairness, twice in one day I risked a five only to find that the max was four. I first risked GOUDA, which is a cheese I think. So is it capitalised or is it not valid at all? Then ZORIL^ a Scrabble word. Based on words like ZORIL and EPOXY, I guess Chris...

Martin Gardner

This is not gonna win, but still, impressive.

http://www.apterous.org/viewgame.php?game=32952

Martin Gardner

It would be good to have a list of all the valid threes played by human players, just for a laugh. I've definitely been down to three at least twice, BAP was one and the other I can't remember.

Martin Gardner

Martin Jarvis' head on a stick?

Martin Gardner

Another great game by Kirk but it's interesting how the nines can hide how well a player does over the course of the whole game. Using the nine for nine method, Kirk's score would be just 103 and Julian's 146 would be 110, both nowhere near the top of the record list. I think Tom Hargreaves has the...

Martin Gardner

Can we take it that the four people in favour of a filter are not professional programmers? Perhaps there are some that work, but they generally seem to make themselves and the associated a forum a laughing-stock. People living in Scunthorpe and Penistone have problems, too. :lol: And anyone wearin...

Martin Gardner

OMG, Just got my first ever max game and it was on the duel which also means my first win on the duel (ok it might be a joint win but I'll settle for that!!!) :o :o :) :) :D :D Yeah, surely the flattest duel ever. ENCHANTER was difficult, as were the conundrums, but the other letters games were rea...

Martin Gardner

OMG, Just got my first ever max game and it was on the duel which also means my first win on the duel (ok it might be a joint win but I'll settle for that!!!) :o :o :) :) :D :D Yeah, surely the flattest duel ever. ENCHANTER was difficult, as were the conundrums, but the other letters games were rea...

Martin Gardner

Kai Laddiman wrote:I know that Carol did, not sure about Des, but none of them were as good when drunk as Rachel

That's an experience most men would like to have, I think!

Martin Gardner

Cuntier and cuntiest are popular disallowed words on Apterous.

Martin Gardner

Matt Morrison wrote:13.30: Cousin Vinny
14.05: Tatenen
14.40: Star de Mohaison
15.20: Master Minded
16.00: Garde Champetre
16.40: United

I was gonna post this same joke, but I know f-all about horses.

Martin Gardner

I didn't even know that there were defective verbs in English, now I do. What's so special about French that the verb for "to rain" is only used in the third person singular? Surely that's true in any language, including English. True story: I once made a tit of myself at a wedding recept...

Martin Gardner

Hmmm.

Martin Gardner

You might want to say poetically "I was the sky and I rained" True. Or perhaps, and (arguably) more plausibly: "My opponent thought he'd surged into the lead with ORCHESTRA for 9 but I rained on his parade by equalling him with CARTHORSE." So Martin, are you saying that idioms l...

Martin Gardner

Rosemary Roberts wrote:
Martin Gardner wrote:a male dominated forum, not surprising given the mathematical nature of Countdown
Come outside and say that!

Why?

Martin Gardner

For the words f*ck, c*nt and sh*t I always remove the vowels, unless I really want to express myself I never do that. I either use these words in a post or don't. I don't really seeing the f*cking point. It makes me feel a bit better about myself. I suppose. Other than that, it's completely pointle...

Martin Gardner

Arse, bollocks, crap . tut tut, I see vowels Mr Gardner. (Phil: the purpose of this post is to point out how Martin has put entire swear-words when he says he likes to not put in the vowels. I'm trying to point out how ridiculous I find this whilst also trying to be mildly amusing. I wait to see yo...

Martin Gardner

Kai Laddiman wrote:
JimBentley wrote:showing a lack of vocubulary
Wonderful way to destroy your argument there, Jim.

Not if you read it in context

Martin Gardner

I do think that after Charlie's Octochamp run we got a lot of newbies, a lot of whom "didn't fit in". I'd like to see people being more open-minded to new people joining this forum, because there is a "clique culture" (as there is on any forum, I suppose). If you haven't spotted...

Martin Gardner

An expletive is sometimes required in order to adequately express strength of feeling; far from showing a lack of vocubulary (as is the usual accusation), I think appropriately-used swearing can be helpful in getting a point across, particularly in the written word. Yeah definitely, I don't see how...

Martin Gardner

I've mainly going to repeat things I've said in other threads, but here goes anyway. This is quite a male dominated forum, not surprising given the mathematical nature of Countdown and that males are "generally" more competitive than women. A lot of the seemingly "rude" stuff on ...

Martin Gardner

I'll repeat my earlier post, then: We should have a poll on here to see how many members like the swearing and how many would rather it wasn't allowed. For the words f*ck, c*nt and sh*t I always remove the vowels, unless I really want to express myself (see cricket in Pakistan, I'm to lazy to put a ...

Martin Gardner

Nick Wainwright wrote:This was pretty horrific on my part:
http://www.apterous.org/viewgame.php?game=32985

Round one wasn't your best...

Martin Gardner

Charlie Reams wrote:
D Eadie wrote:How to play it properly...........

http://www.apterous.org/viewgame.php?game=33281
Can't believe FANIMOTOR isn't valid, I will raise this with Susie next time I see her.

I can't believe ERECTION isn't valid, I will raise it with Susie next time I see her.

Martin Gardner

We should have a poll on here to see how many members like the swearing and how many would rather it wasn't allowed. For the words f*ck, c*nt and sh*t I always remove the vowels, unless I really want to express myself (see cricket in Pakistan, I'm to lazy to put a link) but otherwise, how do we exp...

Martin Gardner

Arse, bollocks, crap.

Martin Gardner

Hmm, crap. I made two bad decisions yesterday, first of all going for ADULTNESS in the first round, which seemed perfectly plausible at the time, but less probable now. I was thinking of the 'quality or state of being adult' - what is the noun derived from adult, then? Then in round 3 I tried ARSONS...

Martin Gardner

Dinos Sfyris wrote:
Paul Hammond wrote:I had ORBITERS, but somehow failed to see ARBITERS.
Ditto. But they're both good!

And ROTARIES?

Martin Gardner

Have there been any changes to the scoring system since the launch of the original pilot? You used to get 5 points for being closest on the numbers, even if you were more than 10 away. I think that was changed between the pilot and Episode 1, although I'm not sure. On the original French version yo...

Martin Gardner

I do intend to check a load of recaps when I can next be bothered. Frankly it could be 2010 in that case.

Martin Gardner

Yeah it makes me think about online Scrabble games when a player complains that they have 5 E's on their first rack. That's the thing with random selections and a large number of games, you get some really weird letters from time to time. If you role a die 100 000 times it's not exactly unlikely tha...

Martin Gardner

As as Scrabble player I kinda like defective verbs in French. Typically they are ones where you can't have all normal conjugated forms. For example: Pleuvoir - only third person (it rains, it rained, it was raining) you can't say "I was raining" or "they were raining" Then there ...

Martin Gardner

Matthew Green wrote:I dont know what all the fuss is about, Zimbabwe have had a black president for years and he's crap.

LOL !

Martin Gardner

And of course people use came as the past tense of 'cum' as well, because cummed would rhyme with 'comed' which is a grammatical error.

Martin Gardner

In fairness, for anyone that never saw Julian Fell play, he played a heck of lot like that.

Martin Gardner

Matt Morrison wrote:shouldn't this thread have a poll?

And be on the spoilers forum?

Martin Gardner

I suppose the real question is, if you send a long text message and your phone company sends it as two texts in order to charge you more money, is that two texts or two halves of a text? I'll be quiet now.

Martin Gardner

Using the 'lite' mode is a good solution here. Lite mode gets rid of the sounds and images, which good for me because I put music on, and without the pictures the dialogue is a lot less effective. Then you just need to skim-read the beaters/equallers (i.e. the only ones in capitals) and you're there...

Martin Gardner

Joseph Bolas wrote:
Jason Larsen wrote:Again, good luck, Ian.
You are aware that Ian has just been on and lost out by 2 points, aren't you Jason?

Where's your crown king nothing?

Martin Gardner

Me earlier today: 100, 50 , 8, 5, 3, 1 -- Target 667

50*5*8 = 2000
2000 + 1 = 2001
2001/3 = 667

Not very often you go up to 2000 when there are only two large numbers.

Martin Gardner

My first win (albeit joint) on a duel. Yay me.

Martin Gardner

HOARSEST in the first round (see John Davies vs. Jerry Humphreys for confirmation that this is ok).

Martin Gardner

now I think about it that seems like it could get messy (what if someone gets carded in the period that 'didn't actually happen because there had really been a goal'?)). It's perfectly possible to get carded while the ball is dead (e.g. for arguing with the referee) so this isn't a big problem. In ...

Martin Gardner

I haven't really understood football's reluctance to use any sort of video-assisted refereeing Good point. Obviously you can't use it for every single incident, but say if it was used only for goals or immediate goal-scoring opportunities, that would be OK. So if there's a foul on the half-way like...

Martin Gardner

Charlie Reams wrote:...is fucking great.

Excellent.

Martin Gardner

Does exactly what it says on the tin.

Martin Gardner

Haha yes I decided to risk GENOTYPE because of the quality of the opposition, and got JAPONICA, but then fcked up on the first numbers by using a number twice, and went for FEUDING in the DEFAMING round. A little numbers alternative while we're here (8+2) * (9+6/3) = 110 110 + 75 And fo the last one...

Martin Gardner

...obviously if you're 85 behind at Countdown with two rounds left, you can't win! Again, it would be ridiculous not to try and get the numbers or the conundrum, but I wouldn't pick four large or six small there just because it's pointless... But surely the "one strike and you're out" sce...

Martin Gardner

Yes - "uncreate" is an odd one, meaning [according to Chambers Dictionary] to 'deprive of existence';whereas "uncreated" means 'not (yet) created' or (according to Milton) 'not produced by creation' - which, of course, means everything if you spell Creation with a big C. I have ...

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