Spoilers for 8/10 Cats Does Countdown Friday 2nd September 2016

[Gavin Chipper]

It's about time we had a spoilers thread for one of these. And here it is - four days late.

The conundrum scramble was BADGROINS. The "solution" was BOARDINGS, which arguably isn't even valid - BOARDING is a mass noun and it's not on Apterous. And yet ADSORBING and SIGNBOARD are both there.

By the way on BOARDING, one of the definitions is some sort of foul in ice hockey (still as a mass noun), and yet in the usage sentences it's not very noun-like - "He was given a five-minute penalty for boarding ". That's not a noun is it? It's a verb. No-one really speaks of this but I think the whole ING/noun/gerund thing is a bit of a grey area, but I don't see how this is a noun in this case. You're not using the word anything like a noun here.

[JimBentley]

It's about time we had a spoilers thread for one of these. And here it is - four days late.

The conundrum scramble was BADGROINS. The "solution" was BOARDINGS, which arguably isn't even valid - BOARDING is a mass noun and it's not on Apterous. And yet ADSORBING and SIGNBOARD are both there.

I think you might be taking it a bit seriously, Gev...

[Gavin Chipper]

It's about time we had a spoilers thread for one of these. And here it is - four days late.

The conundrum scramble was BADGROINS. The "solution" was BOARDINGS, which arguably isn't even valid - BOARDING is a mass noun and it's not on Apterous. And yet ADSORBING and SIGNBOARD are both there.

I think you might be taking it a bit seriously, Gev...

Well, I suppose I was wondering where these conundrums come from. Who sets them? It's not like BOARDINGS is more of a comedy answer than the others.

[James Robinson]

It's about time we had a spoilers thread for one of these. And here it is - four days late.

The conundrum scramble was BADGROINS. The "solution" was BOARDINGS, which arguably isn't even valid - BOARDING is a mass noun and it's not on Apterous. And yet ADSORBING and SIGNBOARD are both there.

I think you might be taking it a bit seriously, Gev...

Well, I suppose I was wondering where these conundrums come from. Who sets them? It's not like BOARDINGS is more of a comedy answer than the others.

I'm not sure either, but they don't use the ODO on Catsdown. Are any of those words recent additions??

[Gavin Chipper]

I'm not sure either, but they don't use the ODO on Catsdown. Are any of those words recent additions??

ADSORBING and SIGNBOARD are both in the NODE, which is several editions out of date.

[Rhys Benjamin]

That does it, I'm going to complain.

Dear Sir, it has come to my attention...