Spoilers for Friday 24th October 2025 - Series 92, Heat 85

[Philip A]

In case you're wondering, the plural of GENUS is GENERA — not genuses as you might think. I discovered this and got null points. So there's your 'false-agram': NEGUSES.

[Gavin Chipper]

I'm surprised NEGUS was a drink. I always knew it as some sort of ruler in Ethiopia.

[John Garcia]

I'm surprised NEGUS was a drink. I always knew it as some sort of ruler in Ethiopia.

Same here. Both terms are listed as definitions [1 & 2]. But Negus the ruler is apparently capitalised.

ACONITE was there as an alt 7 in R7.

Anyone else think the conundrum was pretty easy? Surprised it took a last minute spot from Rachel.

[John Garcia]

In case you're wondering, the plural of GENUS is GENERA — not genuses as you might think. I discovered this and got null points. So there's your 'false-agram': NEGUSES.

I've always wondered are 'false-agrams' actually useful, or are you better off just learning the correct word (since you are reinforcing e.g. a word which isn't valid)?

[Philip A]

In case you're wondering, the plural of GENUS is GENERA — not genuses as you might think. I discovered this and got null points. So there's your 'false-agram': NEGUSES.

I've always wondered are 'false-agrams' actually useful, or are you better off just learning the correct word (since you are reinforcing e.g. a word which isn't valid)?

Everyone's different. It works for some brains but not all. I remember falling for amorettis x instead of ESTIMATOR.

[Philip A]

I got the conundrum in one second, but unless you've been practising, it's actually not an easy word to unravel. Common word doesn't always mean it's dead easy for everyone. It's quite a party trick, doing anagrams.