c4countdown

First off, I have absolutely no issue with plural nouns used in conundrums for as long as the singular noun form in English does not exist; for example, historically Countdown and Apterous have had DROPPINGS (dropping is a verb, not a noun) and SECATEURS (no secateur). After all they are still gettable and not overly obscure. Nothing wrong with them. Usually they come up in about 1 out of every 100 games.

Usually, such plural nouns would be headwords in premium.oxforddictionaries.com – in other words, they would exclusively have their own entry on their own page on the website. ‘Ourselves’ in an example; it has its own page. It is not actually listed underneath ‘ourself’.

If conundrums were 8 letters, then plurals that are headwords such as CRUDITES would be a valid example because there is no ‘crudite’.

I agree with some fans that plural noun conundrums are unpopular and really not good but they seem technically correct.

I do think, though, I would change this contestant guideline as of May 2024:

"The conundrum will never end in ‘S’ to make a plural of a singular word, so words BUNGALOWS will not be used. Some CAN end in ‘S’, but they will not be plurals, ie DIAGNOSIS, HEARTLESS etc."

The second line is incorrect, because DATACOMMS, DROPPINGS, SECATEURS – all on Apterous – are plurals and end in S. The latter two have even been used on Countdown.

Take a closer look at a conundrum used in a recent episode of Countdown in 2025: OURSELVES.

OURSELVES is a plural and ends in S. Indeed OURSELF is also in the dictionary as a non-standard substitute of ‘we’. However, OURSELF is also a plural, not a singular, so OURSELVES is still a viable conundrum.

Therefore, the guideline is misleading.

Instead, the guideline should more clearly stipulate that the answer to the conundrum cannot be an inflected plural of a singular noun. It should then outline that occasionally, they can exist only in plural form, but the singular form will not exist.

Here is how I personally would write this guideline:

‘Conundrums will not use plurals of singular nouns. Therefore, answers such as and BUNGALOWS and TORNADOES would not be answers because they are plurals of BUNGALOW and TORNADO respectively.

Occasionally, conundrums may be plural nouns, but without singular noun form. Therefore, answers such as SECATEURS and DATACOMMS may be answers because ‘secateur’ and ‘datacomm’ respectively are not words.’

Hopefully this would explain the technicality better and its interpretation would be less misleading.

In short, nothing against plural conundrums without their singulars, but I would rewrite the guideline accordingly.

Really I don't think a rule is required. They don't ever stick an S on a verb either as far as I know, but there's no rule about it. So they should just use what they think make good conundrums, which in practice might mean largely following your rule but if they don't on any occasion then it's fine.

My other point is - what is so especially bad about sticking S on the ends of words? They use -ED and -ING conundrums and I don't really see why they're so much better.

And actually one more point - if the plural of a word is different enough from the singular, it seems reasonable to allow it, which is presumably why the S thing was specified in the first place rather than no plurals full stop. PENKNIVES was a conundrum on Apterous in the past which intuitively seems fine to me, but disallowed by the rules. I was also thinking of things like SERAPHIM and CHERUBIM that don't end in S, but they're only eight letters. Someone else might be able to think of 9-letter examples.

In conclusion don't have a rule but just decide individually if something makes a good conundrum.

Edit - PHENOMENA has been a conundrum, but wouldn't be allowed by Philip's rule.

I think the reason why conundrums neither use -S plurals of singulars nor -S present tense verbs is simply because they would be too predictable and too easy – frankly they would be a bit boring and not much fun. The guidelines are there for a reason.

In some Countdown puzzle books published during the Stelling era, a sound word of advice when solving conundrums was to actually keep in mind “we don’t use plurals of 8s” as conundrums.

But as I said, it doesn't need a rule - there isn't one for verbs. And it's no easier than -ED or -ING. I pre-emptively addressed all your points.

No rule needed.

Gavin Chipper wrote: ↑Sun Jul 13, 2025 5:33 pm Really I don't think a rule is required. They don't ever stick an S on a verb either as far as I know, but there's no rule about it. So they should just use what they think make good conundrums, which in practice might mean largely following your rule but if they don't on any occasion then it's fine.

My other point is - what is so especially bad about sticking S on the ends of words? They use -ED and -ING conundrums and I don't really see why they're so much better.

And actually one more point - if the plural of a word is different enough from the singular, it seems reasonable to allow it, which is presumably why the S thing was specified in the first place rather than no plurals full stop. PENKNIVES was a conundrum on Apterous in the past which intuitively seems fine to me, but disallowed by the rules. I was also thinking of things like SERAPHIM and CHERUBIM that don't end in S, but they're only eight letters. Someone else might be able to think of 9-letter examples.

In conclusion don't have a rule but just decide individually if something makes a good conundrum.

Edit - PHENOMENA has been a conundrum, but wouldn't be allowed by Philip's rule.

I’ll admit I forgot to point out loanwords (words borrowed from other languages into English), and these can actually be plurals like PHENOMENA and METATARSI. This is not mentioned in the guidelines, but I meant to stipulate English plurals of singulars which contain an added -S. Sorry!

By the way, they are not *rules*. They are guidelines. Guidelines and rules are not quite the same thing.

It's just telling us what can't be a conundrum. Whether you call it a rule or guideline is neither here nor there. Though if it's a rule, it's a rule for the production team rather than the contestants I suppose.

Edit - So how would you word the guidelines now, allowing for PHENOMENA etc.? What if a plural happened to end in an S but wasn't just a case of sticking an S on the end?

I do have an issue with DROPPINGS given that DROPPING exists as a word and it's irrelevant to Countdown that it is an entirely different meaning. The guideline is that "noun + S does not equal conundrum", but you're right it doesn't outright say it in those terms.

Gavin Chipper wrote: ↑Sun Jul 13, 2025 10:39 pm What if a plural happened to end in an S but wasn't just a case of sticking an S on the end?

DIAGNOSES, to pluralise one of the words from the quoted contestant guidelines. Or something like TORTRIX -> TORTRICES.

Adam Gillard wrote: ↑Sat Aug 02, 2025 9:27 pm

Gavin Chipper wrote: ↑Sun Jul 13, 2025 10:39 pm What if a plural happened to end in an S but wasn't just a case of sticking an S on the end?

DIAGNOSES, to pluralise one of the words from the quoted contestant guidelines. Or something like TORTRIX -> TORTRICES.

Thanks for the examples. It would seem very strange to not allow these just because they happened to end in S.