Countdown Scattergories 7

[Joseph Bolas]

It's been a month since the last one of these games so here is a one-off game (for now).

Below are 10 word rounds and for each round you are to find a word of a specific length. The idea is to come up with a word, that you think will be the least mentioned by the other players. For each round, there are now only 7 possible answers (well hopefully ).

R01: B A I T M A T E S - 7 Letter Word
R02: C A L F Q U I N T - 6 Letter Word
R03: C A T E R D I S H - 8 Letter Word
R04: H A S B U R P E D - 7 Letter Word
R05: I J E E R K I D S - 6 Letter Word
R06: L I N E S C A S E - 8 Letter Word
R07: N A I L S R O P E - 8 Letter Word
R08: O A T E N G I N E - 7 Letter Word
R09: V O T E S M A T T - 6 Letter Word
R10: W I Z E R O N Y X - 5 Letter Word

How To Enter
Please PM me with your answers for each round . You can do this by viewing my Profile and clicking on the PM icon, to send me a private message .

Rules
1. Check that your words are allowed before submitting your entry. The best way to do this (because not everyone will have an OED2r) is to use the Stemmer feature on Apterous. To use the feature, just type in your word but leaving out one letter (eg if word was APTEROUS, type in APTEROU etc) and then it should come up below. If you do have an ODE2r, you can obviously use that as well to check your word.
2. Check that your words match the required length for each round before submitting.
3. Check that your words match the selection for each round before submitting.
4. Check that you have spelt your words correctly before submitting.
5. If your word breaks any of the rules above (1 - 4), then you will be allowed to come up with a second word for the round, however, you will then only score half the points for the word (Eg if in Game 1, Round 1 you came up with HEARING, which is too short and then after being allowed to guess again, you then said CHEATING, you would then have only scored 3.5 points). If you have to come up with a second word, but don't submit it within the time limit, you will get no points for the round.
6. Once you have submitted a word that is acceptable for the round, you can not change your answer.
7. Once you have submitted an entry, you are not allowed to delete it before I have read it. If this happens, you will be allowed to have another go, but your OVERALL SCORE at the end, will be halved.

Scoring
Each word is scored depending on the number of times that it has been mentioned. If a word is only mentioned once, then it will get 10 points, a word mentioned twice will get 9 points and so on down to 0 points for words mentioned more than 10 times. In instances where you have to submit a second word, you will then only score half the points for the word (see rule 5). If you have to come up with a second word, but don't submit it in the time limit, you will get no points for the round.

Time Limit
The competition will close on Friday 6th March at 10 PM (22:00)
All entries received after the closing date and time, will not be counted.

[Joseph Bolas]

Also just to add to rule 1:

As well as the Stemmer, you can also just use Lexplorer too and type the word in to see if it's valid.

[Joseph Bolas]

The competition has now closed

The winners of the seventh Countdown Scattergories game are Phil Reynolds and Callum Laddiman

The overall scoreboard came out as follows:

1st - Phil Reynolds: 93
1st - Callum Laddiman: 93
3rd - Matt Morrison: 88
4th - Rosemary Roberts: 87
5th - Dinos Syfris: 86
6th - Kai Laddiman: 84
7th - Howard Somerset: 80
8th - Ian Fitzpatrick: 79

Everyone's guesses and scores can be found here.

Thank you to all who participted and well done to Phil and Callum

Here are the available words (I had) for each round, that were not mentioned:

R01: ABATTIS, TATAMIS
R02: ACQUIT, INFULA, QUAINT
R03: RACHIDES
R04: DAUBERS, PURDAHS
R05: DESIRE, EIDERS, JERKED, KIERIE
R06: CLEANSES, LICENSES, SILENCES
R07: PERSONAL
R08: ATONING
R09: MOTETS, OVATES, TAMEST
R10: NIXER, WINEY

The 8th game will be in a few weeks time, and there will be a change to the rules as well

[Rosemary Roberts]

Interesting game, Joseph, thanks for running it.

And well done to Phil and Callum !

[Phil Reynolds]

I won something! I blipping WON something!

I'd like to thank my agent, my gorgeous partner (thanks for being there for me - you truly are the wind beneath my wings), my fellow nominees, all the members of the Academy and everyone who voted for me. And of course, my inspiration - Kirk Bevins.

[Jimmy Gough]

I won something! I blipping WON something!

I'd like to thank my agent, my gorgeous partner (thanks for being there for me - you truly are the wind beneath my wings), my fellow nominees, all the members of the Academy and everyone who voted for me. And of course, my inspiration - Kirk Bevins.

Perhaps it would be polite to thank more than one person.

[Matt Morrison]

I won something! I blipping WON something!

I'd like to thank my agent, my gorgeous partner (thanks for being there for me - you truly are the wind beneath my wings), my fellow nominees, all the members of the Academy and everyone who voted for me. And of course, my inspiration - Kirk Bevins.

Congratumalations Phil! I'm so proud of you! The wind beneath my wings is the excellent vegetable, bean and cheese pie I made.

[Joseph Bolas]

Interesting game, Joseph, thanks for running it.

And well done to Phil and Callum !

I'm glad you liked it . I enjoyed organising it .

A tiny bit disappointed though that only 8 people played.

[Howard Somerset]

Well done Phil and Callum. And thanks Joseph.

[Joseph Bolas]

Well done Phil and Callum. And thanks Joseph.

It was fun to do . The next game won't be for another few weeks, but in the meantime, I am making changes to the game.

Its been brought to my attention that my rules might be a bit too stingy for the game.

The rules I have are as follows:

1. Check that your words are allowed before submitting your entry. The best way to do this (because not everyone will have an OED2r) is to use the Stemmer feature on Apterous. To use the feature, just type in your word but leaving out one letter (eg if word was APTEROUS, type in APTEROU etc) and then it should come up below. If you do have an ODE2r, you can obviously use that as well to check your word.
2. Check that your words match the required length for each round before submitting.
3. Check that your words match the selection for each round before submitting.
4. Check that you have spelt your words correctly before submitting.
5. If your word breaks any of the rules above (1 - 4), then you will be allowed to come up with a second word for the round, however, you will then only score half the points for the word. If you have to come up with a second word, but don't submit it within the time limit, you will get no points for the round.
6. Once you have submitted a word that is acceptable for the round, you can not change your answer.
7. Once you have submitted an entry, you are not allowed to delete it before I have read it. If this happens, you will be allowed to have another go, but your OVERALL SCORE at the end, will be halved.

Now its been discussed that there could be a situation where if somebody submits PRONATS and the E is there, and the required length of the word is 8 letters, then it's clear that that is a simple typo. Even though I would know that this word was meant to be PRONATES, I would reply to the player asking them to come up with another word for the appropriate round and then once I received this word, it would then only be worth half its score, penalising the player for their spelling mistake (which could be considered unfair to the player).

Therefore before the next game, the rules are going to be changed but I was wondering what other rules people would consider changing or is there even a rule I could add to the game?

[Rosemary Roberts]

Now its been discussed that there could be a situation where if somebody submits PRONATS and the E is there, and the required length of the word is 8 letters, then it's clear that that is a simple typo. Even though I would know that this word was meant to be PRONATES, I would reply to the player asking them to come up with another word for the appropriate round and then once I received this word, it would then only be worth half its score, penalising the player for their spelling mistake (which could be considered unfair to the player).

Therefore before the next game, the rules are going to be changed but I was wondering what other rules people would consider changing or is there even a rule I could add to the game?

I think your existing rules are perfectly adequate. You really don't want to put yourself in a position where you are expected to guess what a typo was intended to mean - you would be laying yourself open to endless discussions and recriminations. Besides, it is not that difficult to construct a legal set of moves - even I have only screwed up a couple of times!

[Howard Somerset]

I'm with Rosemary here. I'm certainly one who's been penalised for making spelling mistakes. But when I make a mistake like this there's only one person to blame - me! So it's quite correct that I should be penalised if I don't check my entries properly.

I consider the rules quite adequate as they are, and will endeavour to check my entries more carefully in future.

[Kai Laddiman]

FIX

Also it's Laddiman not Laddiamn

[Howard Somerset]

FIX

Also it's Laddiman not Laddiamn

I'd assumed it was someone else with a similar name.

[Ian Fitzpatrick]

Hey, wooden spoon for me then!
Thanks Joseph for organising the game. My carelessness let me down.

I would have thought using Lexplorer would have been preferable to the Stemmer as the latter gives other options one might not have thought of.

Congratulations to Phil and Callum (whatever your surname is).

[Phil Reynolds]

Congratumalations Phil!

Congratumalations, n: Congratulations of a warmth sufficiently ardent as to indicate the possibility of tumescence.

[Phil Reynolds]

Now its been discussed that there could be a situation where if somebody submits PRONATS and the E is there, and the required length of the word is 8 letters, then it's clear that that is a simple typo. Even though I would know that this word was meant to be PRONATES, I would reply to the player asking them to come up with another word for the appropriate round and then once I received this word, it would then only be worth half its score, penalising the player for their spelling mistake (which could be considered unfair to the player).

Therefore before the next game, the rules are going to be changed but I was wondering what other rules people would consider changing or is there even a rule I could add to the game?

I think if people are too lazy to re-read their own work before submitting then they don't deserve to be given a second chance. Seriously. Anyone can make a typo - that's not the point. If you can't look at the word PRONATS and see that you missed a keypress then you should be entering a different type of competition. I would scrap rule 5 entirely (and amend rule 1 to refer only to Lexplorer, not the Stemmer).

[Joseph Bolas]

I think your existing rules are perfectly adequate. You really don't want to put yourself in a position where you are expected to guess what a typo was intended to mean - you would be laying yourself open to endless discussions and recriminations. Besides, it is not that difficult to construct a legal set of moves - even I have only screwed up a couple of times!

I'm with Rosemary here. I'm certainly one who's been penalised for making spelling mistakes. But when I make a mistake like this there's only one person to blame - me! So it's quite correct that I should be penalised if I don't check my entries properly. I consider the rules quite adequate as they are, and will endeavour to check my entries more carefully in future.

How about if I was to alter the penality, so that instead of being penalised half the points, you only lost a few points, that way then you could still have a chance of winning the game?

[Joseph Bolas]

FIX

Also it's Laddiman not Laddiamn

I'd assumed it was someone else with a similar name.

I didn't realise I had mispelt Kai's name, but that has now been corrected

[Matt Morrison]

Congratumalations Phil!

Congratumalations, n: Congratulations of a warmth sufficiently ardent as to indicate the possibility of tumescence.

I'm surprised you found it in your dictionary, but yes, they've got the definition bang on!

[Joseph Bolas]

I think if people are too lazy to re-read their own work before submitting then they don't deserve to be given a second chance. Seriously. Anyone can make a typo - that's not the point. If you can't look at the word PRONATS and see that you missed a keypress then you should be entering a different type of competition. I would scrap rule 5 entirely (and amend rule 1 to refer only to Lexplorer, not the Stemmer).

I am definitely changing rule 1 so it focuses on the Lexplorer only

As for the penalising, I was thinking that for each word you're penalised, you lose the same amount of points, going on how many words you are penalised on e.g. if you are penalised on 1 word only, you will lose 1 point of the score, if you are penalised on 2 words, you will lose 2 points off the score of each word etc.

So that would be:

1 mistake - 1 point off overall score
2 mistakes - 4 points off overall score
3 mistakes - 9 points off overall score etc

[Howard Somerset]

Sounds reasonable. Definitely wouldn't want to make mistakes on 10 words then.

[Joseph Bolas]

Sounds reasonable. Definitely wouldn't want to make mistakes on 10 words then.

Noone has ever made more than 2 mistakes , but I guess anything could happen

EDIT: Just going through previous games, if I had used this method of scoring then it would've produced the following outcomes in a few games:

Game 2: Ben Hunter would've tied with Callum Laddiman.
Game 5: Kai Laddiman would've won (instead of Stewart Scott and Dinos Syfris).

[Ian Fitzpatrick]

Sounds reasonable. Definitely wouldn't want to make mistakes on 10 words then.

Noone has ever made more than 2 mistakes , but I guess anything could happen

EDIT: Just going through previous games, if I had used this method of scoring then it would've produced the following outcomes in a few games:

Game 2: Ben Hunter would've tied with Callum Laddiman.
Game 5: Kai Laddiman would've won (instead of Stewart Scott and Dinos Syfris).

....and I MIGHT not have won the Wooden Spoon in the last game.

[Joseph Bolas]

Sounds reasonable. Definitely wouldn't want to make mistakes on 10 words then.

Noone has ever made more than 2 mistakes , but I guess anything could happen

EDIT: Just going through previous games, if I had used this method of scoring then it would've produced the following outcomes in a few games:

Game 2: Ben Hunter would've tied with Callum Laddiman.
Game 5: Kai Laddiman would've won (instead of Stewart Scott and Dinos Syfris).

....and I MIGHT not have won the Wooden Spoon in the last game.

Actually working out the scores for both yourself and Howard, you both would've ended up with 84 points thus you would've been joint 6th.

[Ian Fitzpatrick]

....and I MIGHT not have won the Wooden Spoon in the last game.

Actually working out the scores for both yourself and Howard, you both would've ended up with 84 points thus you would've been joint 6th.

Thanks Joseph, I feel SO much better now, I will definitely enter if you do another one

[Kai Laddiman]

Love that misqouting, makes it look like Bolas lost

[Ian Fitzpatrick]

Love that misqouting, makes it look like Bolas lost

You got in while I was changing it!
I have real trouble once we get to three quotes, and the Preview button doesn't seem to help!

[Charlie Reams]

the Preview button doesn't seem to help!

I'm sure someone already explained to you that you're using it wrongly.

[Ian Fitzpatrick]

the Preview button doesn't seem to help!

I'm sure someone already explained to you that you're using it wrongly.

They may well have done but they didn't tell me how to correct my misuse I'm afraid, so any help would be appreciated.

[Charlie Reams]

the Preview button doesn't seem to help!

I'm sure someone already explained to you that you're using it wrongly.

They may well have done but they didn't tell me how to correct my misuse I'm afraid, so any help would be appreciated.

http://www.c4countdown.co.uk/viewtopic. ... 946#p33946
To summarise: Look up.

[Matt Morrison]

the Preview button doesn't seem to help!

I'm sure someone already explained to you that you're using it wrongly.

Indeed.

They may well have done but they didn't tell me how to correct my misuse I'm afraid, so any help would be appreciated.

Trouble is Ian, it's pretty hard to explain without some idea of the trouble you're experiencing. The reason being, it's utterly simple to use the preview button, that is why the only suggestion I could come up with before was just to press preview and then look above the text entry box.
If you really need me to, I'll be happy to provide a screenshot to help you understand the layout. Just ask.

[Ian Fitzpatrick]

the Preview button doesn't seem to help!

I'm sure someone already explained to you that you're using it wrongly.

Indeed.

They may well have done but they didn't tell me how to correct my misuse I'm afraid, so any help would be appreciated.

Trouble is Ian, it's pretty hard to explain without some idea of the trouble you're experiencing. The reason being, it's utterly simple to use the preview button, that is why the only suggestion I could come up with before was just to press preview and then look above the text entry box.
If you really need me to, I'll be happy to provide a screenshot to help you understand the layout. Just ask.

OK this is being edited and previewed - amazing, the actual "previw" box was above the editing box and out of sight due to my choice of window size. I couldn't see how I could press the Preview button incorrectly.
Thanks guys, I promise no more editing mistakes - apart from spelling, typos etc.
Cheers

[Joseph Bolas]

....and I MIGHT not have won the Wooden Spoon in the last game.

Actually working out the scores for both yourself and Howard, you both would've ended up with 84 points thus you would've been joint 6th.

Thanks Joseph, I feel SO much better now, I will definitely enter if you do another one

There will definitely be an 8th game, but it will be a little while yet

I did use to do the games every week consecutively, but I am going to spread them out this time

[Joseph Bolas]

Just a note that the 8th games of Countdown Scattergories will be posted on Monday

[Joseph Bolas]

Just a reminder that Countdown Scatergories 8 will start in about 3 hours

[Kevin Thurlow]

Sorry I missed it - jetted off (or in this case propellered or pistoned off) to sunnier climes for a few days...

I think the spelling rules are ok as they stand - it doesn't seem a great hardship to spell correctly in a word game!

Kevin