Spoilers for Wednesday, 23rd April

[Joseph Bolas]

You know what to do here.

[Joseph Bolas]

RELIANT as an equaller.

[Joseph Bolas]

ADORNERS another equaller.

[Martin Gardner]

TSUNAMI, a bit of Japanese for you.

[Joseph Bolas]

TSUNAMI, a bit of Japanese for you.

Nice spot. I should've got that .

With words like DETACHES and APEMAN, I think David just might beat Ben , hopefully I am wrong though.

EDIT: 554 variant = ((10 + 5 + 7) x 25) + 3 + 1

[Martin Gardner]

By the way, you don't think Paul just used a deck of 52 queens of hearts?

Martin

[Joseph Bolas]

The dreaded DELATIONS round

[Martin Gardner]

Christine got the conundrum in about 15 seconds.

Martin

[Stewart Gordon]

952
10 9 9 7 6 1

I did it!

(9 + 6) * 9 = 135
+ 1 = 136
* 7 = 952

[Craig Beevers]

I did it this way

6 * (9+7) * 10 = 960, 960 - 9 + 1 = 952.


You just know it's there when Carol says she thinks it's probably not doable.

[Ben Pugh]

Bet he regrets going for 6 small.

[Benji Hanks]

I saw delations but didn't know it was a word

[Joseph Bolas]

I saw delations but didn't know it was a word

At least you didn't do what I did

I came up with the 9 letter words INSOLATED which is a word, but it hadn't made its way into the ODE

EDIT: Just to add, has Ben Hanks now knocked Matthew Coates out of the seed list?

[Martin Gardner]

EDIT: 554 variant = ((10 + 5 + 7) x 25) + 3 + 1

Yeah I came up with this straight away and was a bit surprised that Carol went a completely different way. Basically 10+7+5 is the only way to get the 22, then you've got 3 and 1 left!

Martin

[Michael Wallace]

I think GROUSED was an equaller in round 12 (?)

[Paul Howe]

EDIT: 554 variant = ((10 + 5 + 7) x 25) + 3 + 1

Yeah
I came up with this straight away and was a bit surprised that Carol
went a completely different way. Basically 10+7+5 is the only way to
get the 22, then you've got 3 and 1 left!

Martin

Or 5*3 + 7, or 7*3 + 1

I think Carol gets some unfair stick on here sometimes (not referring to this thread in particular but just making a general point). She occasionally misses easy numbers games, but after doing the same thing every other week for 22 years I doubt she puts full effort every time, and she manages to find excellent solutions on a regular basis.

[Martin Gardner]

I think Carol gets some unfair stick on here sometimes (not referring to this thread in particular but just making a general point). She occasionally misses easy numbers games, but after doing the same thing every other week for 22 years I doubt she puts full effort every time, and she manages to find excellent solutions on a regular basis.

Well I certainly wasn't saying that - after all, she didn't miss this one!

Martin

[DaveC]

R3: I wondered about GORSIEST, or is that a SOWPODS only?

I never worked out the rule for when you can and can't add "IEST", GORSY is specified in the dic.

DC

[JasonCullen]

I got ARMIGERS in round 9

[David O'Donnell]

R3: I wondered about GORSIEST, or is that a SOWPODS only?

I never worked out the rule for when you can and can't add "IEST", GORSY is specified in the dic.

DC

I think Paul Howe had it disallowed but that it was subsequently allowed so probably safer to go with STRIGOSE which is the one I (try) to remember.

[Gavin Chipper]

I never worked out the rule for when you can and can't add "IEST", GORSY is specified in the dic.

DC

Isn't the rule that you can have it if and only if it's listed? One-syllable adjectives only can have -ER and -EST added by default.

[Charlie Reams]

I never worked out the rule for when you can and can't add "IEST", GORSY is specified in the dic.

DC

Isn't the rule that you can have it if and only if it's listed? One-syllable adjectives only can have -ER and -EST added by default.

Yep. Although there seems to be an implicit exception for participle adjectives like PISSED, because you presumably can't have PISSEDER/PISSEDEST, although I'm not sure if this rule has ever been tested.

[Gavin Chipper]

Yep. Although there seems to be an implicit exception for participle adjectives like PISSED, because you presumably can't have PISSEDER/PISSEDEST, although I'm not sure if this rule has ever been tested.

Is this just something assumed by people who discuss online? I think they should be allowed for consistency, unless a concrete rule is laid down to properly exclude such words.

[Jon Corby]

Yep. Although there seems to be an implicit exception for participle adjectives like PISSED, because you presumably can't have PISSEDER/PISSEDEST, although I'm not sure if this rule has ever been tested.

There's no need to for these two as they both have valid anagrams, but yeah there are others...