c4countdown

I really get pissed off with people who argue about what's in the dictionary and what isn't. It's printed on paper for Christ's sake words don't magically appear and disappear overnight. I for years have simply thought of words in the context of anagrams as simply a string of mathematical symbols - if I learn words I never learn meaning I just learn the order of the letters and whether you can add an S or an ED or not. You get people on the Internet Scrabble Club who moan when their opponent plays a valid word they don't know the meaning of, then end up resigning the game. As I always say to people on the site, if you care that much about word meanings you should probably take up chess or bridge or something, because Scrabble is not going to be for you.

Martin

I love knowing definitions. I can appreciate why most people on this site couldn't care less as they take up precious brain space for learning more point-scoring meaningless words (I think back now to COLIN where about 6 people got SUPERACID in the Goatdown game and I asked "Wow whats that?" and was confronted by a sea of shrugs!). I think without definitions a lot of the obscure words offered by DC would be hollow and also where would we be without Des O's utterances such as "Oh of course we all knew it meant that!"

Martin Gardner wrote:I really get pissed off with people who argue about what's in the dictionary and what isn't. It's printed on paper for Christ's sake words don't magically appear and disappear overnight. I for years have simply thought of words in the context of anagrams as simply a string of mathematical symbols - if I learn words I never learn meaning I just learn the order of the letters and whether you can add an S or an ED or not. You get people on the Internet Scrabble Club who moan when their opponent plays a valid word they don't know the meaning of, then end up resigning the game. As I always say to people on the site, if you care that much about word meanings you should probably take up chess or bridge or something, because Scrabble is not going to be for you.

Did it change to c4scrabble while I was gone?

I have one contention with the ODE: ONLIEST.

dinos_the_chemist wrote: How many times did Des O say okey-doke today? I didnt notice anything til Stuart mentioned it but it IS quite annoying after a while! *grinds teeth*

I think there was only one okey-doke(y) on Thursday, and only one on Friday. Maybe he's spotted it himself... I'll try and do a regular count, because it's obviously in the public interest for someone to monitor these things.

dinos_the_chemist wrote:I love knowing definitions. I can appreciate why most people on this site couldn't care less as they take up precious brain space for learning more point-scoring meaningless words (I think back now to COLIN where about 6 people got SUPERACID in the Goatdown game and I asked "Wow whats that?" and was confronted by a sea of shrugs!). I think without definitions a lot of the obscure words offered by DC would be hollow and also where would we be without Des O's utterances such as "Oh of course we all knew it meant that!"

Dinos I couldn't agree with you more, I've been talking to Jono about something along these lines... I think it's a real shame if people playing word games just treat words like a computer does, i.e. as a random collection of letters which could mean anything for all they care. It's nice to have a rough idea of definitions.

Of course they won't get you any extra points, and of course I'm not saying you should resign from the game if your opponent gives a word they can't define, and of course I myself will find some words whose meaning I don't have a clue about... but all the same, I find your attitude disappointing Martin, although I guess it is common among Countdowners. Do you (all of you) have no interest at all in how language is used?

And to say that, if you're interested in word meanings then a word game "isn't the game for you", is frankly ludicrous.

dinos_the_chemist wrote:I can appreciate why most people on this site couldn't care less as they take up precious brain space

The brain doesn't work like that at all. If you attempt to memorise pages and pages of definitions then yes, that will eat into your time for learning words. However looking at the definitions occasionally will probably reinforce the relevant neural pathways and makes it less likely that you completely forget the word. Some people find it easy to remember words as arbitrary symbols (Martin evidently does) but to say it's objectively superior has no basis in fact.

Nicely put Charlie! Where I do agree with Martin though, is in his impatience with people who try to argue that words which aren't in the official dictionary should be allowed on Countdown, or who get pissed off that words are disallowed for that reason.

Malcolm: for 25 and a quarter years it's been the most basic, fundamental rule of Countdown that "if it's not in the dictionary it's not allowed". If you can't cope with that, I think you're going to struggle with this game... it's probably just as well that, as you say on the Welcome thread, you've got no real plans to apply to go on the programme.

Yep. No dictionary is anywhere near comprehensive. Even if they used the 20-volume leather bound OED (and watching Susie flick through that would be quite amusing in itself), people would still have plausible words (like RETOAST) disallowed. That's just the way of English, there's no need to take it personally.

For the most part, I'm not particularly interested in what the words mean. There are a few words which I think 'sound' as though they could be interesting and I pick-up the definitions of these.

And I think people are being harsh on Martin. He never said that if you're interested in word-meanings then Scrabble (and Countdown?) isn't for you, merely that if you care about them enough to make them an integral part of the game.

Yes ok Conor, fair enough, Martin didn't say that exactly but I thought he was coming close to saying it, and I wanted to get in there quickly to knock that idea on the head because I feel strongly about it. And I did agree with him that it's silly to resign a game because your opponent doesn't know the meaning of a word.

I'm sure Martin won't take it personally - his differences of opinion on UK-Scrabble generated a much more vicious set of replies than anything here!

Which is why I left that site lol.

In fairness that was a bit strong, but still I don't really know any good Scrabble players who learn the meanings of words. I'm not trying to pass it off as fact because it's not, but it's my observation that players who have to know the meaning of a word to remember it lag behind players who don't need to learning the meanings.

Martin Gardner wrote:I don't really know any good Scrabble players who learn the meanings of words.

I can think of one off-hand- David Sutton, who is phoenomenally intelligent anyway and one of the best Scrabblers in the land. I for one would love to see him have a go at Countdown.

Allan Simmons is extremely good on the definitions too, and he must be doing something right as a Grand Master with a rating around 180. David Sutton is similarly rated.

Martin Gardner wrote:who don't need to learning the meanings.

Reminds me of that Fonejacker