c4countdown

Seeing as quite alot of forumites play Scrabble, what are your favourite words? Mine include:

• VAU
  UVA
  XU
  JA
  QI
  JIZ
  DZO
  AIA
  AUA

(needless to say I doubt any of these are allowed on apterous)

I also like EUOUAE, GJU, MZEE, QADI and QAID

QA

DOG

Rhys Benjamin wrote:QA

Not in the official Tournament and Club Wordlist from Collins

Scrabble uses CSW. Hah!

Rhys Benjamin wrote:Scrabble uses CSW. Hah!

zyzzyva says NO - did you Mean QAT

Peter Mabey wrote:

Rhys Benjamin wrote:Scrabble uses CSW. Hah!

zyzzyva says NO - did you Mean QAT

Or even QUA?

TWIGLOO, YABA and FUBAR.
Edit Edit, Learnt SOUTPIEL in the 2 minutes between posting and seeing Ben's reply.

I'm going to side with Mark Nyman and say TAGHAIRM, also SOUTPIEL and PISSASPHALT.

EQUATORS across two triples for 203 points.

GALJOENS triple-tripled (got it in a game yesterday)

Joseph Krol wrote:GALJOENS triple-tripled (got it in a game yesterday)

It ain't good mate. Which numpty failed to challenge that?

Oliver Garner wrote:

Joseph Krol wrote:GALJOENS triple-tripled (got it in a game yesterday)

It ain't good mate. Which numpty failed to challenge that?

The teacher I was playing at the time, who allowed it because Google said it exists. I thought that pretty much every ODE word was allowed save a few soils (e.g. ENTISOL)

Joseph Krol wrote:

Oliver Garner wrote:

Joseph Krol wrote:GALJOENS triple-tripled (got it in a game yesterday)

It ain't good mate. Which numpty failed to challenge that?

The teacher I was playing at the time, who allowed it because Google said it exists. I thought that pretty much every ODE word was allowed save a few soils (e.g. ENTISOL)

Not once you get into the more obscure regions.

There were well over 2000 ODE-only words when I was studying a few years back. A lot of the South African ones got added to CSW, but would imagine there are still plenty ODE-only words left.

I got GRUNDIES on the DS scrabble game. The dictionary on the game said it meant underwear. I'd remembered on QI once, an Australian woman saying Reg Grundies are an Australian version of cockney rhyming slang for undies (the British being Alan Wickers:-Knickers). Still can't believe stuff like that is allowed. The CSW is mad.

Mark James wrote:The CSW is mad.

I disagree. CSW is played all over the world so every English-speaking country's slang words would need to be included. I agree that CSW has flaws, especially in ridiculous pluralisations of mass nouns (all chemical elements take an s - Craig correct me if I'm wrong), but I wouldn't necessarily call it mad.

Oliver Garner wrote:

Mark James wrote:The CSW is mad.

I agree that CSW has flaws, especially in ridiculous pluralisations of mass nouns

What would you have done?

Charlie Reams wrote:

Oliver Garner wrote: I agree that CSW has flaws, especially in ridiculous pluralisations of mass nouns

What would you have done?

Not allowed these ridiculous pluralisations.

Oliver Garner wrote:

Charlie Reams wrote:

Oliver Garner wrote: I agree that CSW has flaws, especially in ridiculous pluralisations of mass nouns

What would you have done?

Not allowed these ridiculous pluralisations.

Hahaha, fucking good answer.

Oliver Garner wrote:

Charlie Reams wrote:

Oliver Garner wrote: I agree that CSW has flaws, especially in ridiculous pluralisations of mass nouns

What would you have done?

Not allowed these ridiculous pluralisations.

Then it just becomes arbitrary. The -ING words taking an S or not, amongst others, are already bad enough. It just creates irritating parts of the game where you *have* to study the specific word list to have much idea whether a word is in or not. For instance in a friendly team game I suggested HIKINGS* saying it should be in but it might not be. Sure enough it wasn't allowed even though it's used in a nounal sense on a regular basis.

Oliver Garner wrote:

Charlie Reams wrote:

Oliver Garner wrote: I agree that CSW has flaws, especially in ridiculous pluralisations of mass nouns

What would you have done?

Not allowed these ridiculous pluralisations.

Haha excellent. So now it's the Oliver Garner's Opinion Word List. Much more suitable for the world stage.

On a related note, does the ODE2 only specicify mass nouns for shorter words? You get some very strange stuff in Unlimited and Spoilage that I'm sure wouldn't be allowed in normal Countdown.

Gavin Chipper wrote:On a related note, does the ODE2 only specicify mass nouns for shorter words? You get some very strange stuff in Unlimited and Spoilage that I'm sure wouldn't be allowed in normal Countdown.

Think so. Can you give me an example? Could be a Spindlex error.

Charlie Reams wrote:

Gavin Chipper wrote:On a related note, does the ODE2 only specicify mass nouns for shorter words? You get some very strange stuff in Unlimited and Spoilage that I'm sure wouldn't be allowed in normal Countdown.

Think so. Can you give me an example? Could be a Spindlex error.

ANTIDISESTABLISHMENTARIANISMS, UNNEIGHBOURLINESSES, CARNIVOROUSNESSES, SENSELESSNESSES. -NESSES basically. They seem like they should be mass nouns to me.

Gavin Chipper wrote:

Charlie Reams wrote:

Gavin Chipper wrote:On a related note, does the ODE2 only specicify mass nouns for shorter words? You get some very strange stuff in Unlimited and Spoilage that I'm sure wouldn't be allowed in normal Countdown.

Think so. Can you give me an example? Could be a Spindlex error.

ANTIDISESTABLISHMENTARIANISMS, UNNEIGHBOURLINESSES, CARNIVOROUSNESSES, SENSELESSNESSES. -NESSES basically. They seem like they should be mass nouns to me.

At a guess, these nouns are all listed as derivatives, where no distinction is made. Like NAILERY. No dictionary to hand but I think the rule of thumb is pluralisable-until-stated-otherwise and derivatives have no [mass noun] tag.

Jon O'Neill wrote: At a guess, these nouns are all listed as derivatives, where no distinction is made. Like NAILERY. No dictionary to hand but I think the rule of thumb is pluralisable-until-stated-otherwise and derivatives have no [mass noun] tag.

Yep.

Charlie Reams wrote: Haha excellent. So now it's the Oliver Garner's Opinion Word List. Much more suitable for the world stage.

Countdown does alright with not allowing (most) mass nouns. Also, I only gave an opinion and I never said that my opinion is a good indicator as to whether it would be more/less suitable for the world stage.

Oliver Garner wrote:

Charlie Reams wrote: Haha excellent. So now it's the Oliver Garner's Opinion Word List. Much more suitable for the world stage.

Countdown does alright with not allowing (most) mass nouns.

Countdown has the luxury of being based on only one dictionary, had no sensible mass noun rules for most of its history, still permits a lot of ridiculous plurals like ALARMISMS and exclusions like CLOVERS, and has an element of arbitrariness with different words being allowed or not according to the whim of one person which also changes from time to time. You can get away with that on a TV show but not for a game you want people to take seriously worldwide.

Charlie Reams wrote: You can get away with that on a TV show but not for a game you want people to take seriously worldwide.

Point taken. I guess the problem is that CSW is only updated every 4 or so years, so if a pluralisation becomes popular in that time, it has the be accounted for in the dictionary before it becomes popular. Because you have one list which everything which is in it is allowed (obviously not the case in the ODE because it's primarily a dictionary rather than a word list), arbitrary decisions on the spot cannot be made. Talking of which, I remember Stewart Holden talking about early Scrabble tournaments where it was well known that some adjudicators would allow words that others wouldn't. With any dictionary used for a word game there are going to be additions and omissions which aren't going to please everybody.

Anyway, wasn't the main point of my original post to say that CSW wasn't "mad" as Mark had suggested?

Just like to say that I wasn't saying the CSW shouldn't be mad, just that it is. When I play scrabble I would probably benefit more from its madness than the people I play against would. On another note, despite this being a scrabble thread, can I ask, what dictionary do people use for boggle?

Some of the omissions from CSW are really annoying; at my first ever tournament I had PADRINO and ANODIZER challenged off.

Charlie Reams wrote:Countdown has the luxury of being based on only one dictionary, had no sensible mass noun rules for most of its history

What am I looking at?

Gavin Chipper wrote:

Charlie Reams wrote:Countdown has the luxury of being based on only one dictionary, had no sensible mass noun rules for most of its history

What am I looking at?

Think I posted the wrong link, it was meant to be the GUNFIRES one.

Why do threads always go off track so much? This thread is now a place to rant about the CSW dictionary by my reckoning.

also SUBERECT

I got BRAINSTORMED the middle row on my second turn in a recent game, via (approximate speech included):

Me = JK
Opponent = MP (a teacher at the unofficial scrabble club)

JK:
Rack = MOSBRET
Play = STORM

OP:
Rack = NIARZGN
Play = RAIN(storm)
Speech = "Aren't prefixes great?"
JK:
Rack = BEFDINL
Play = B(rainstorm)ED
Speech = "Aren't front and end hooks great?"

Not sure of the score, we both had scores in the high 300s, but I won by about 30 points. Not necessarily my best play but probably my most memorable.

Nice of your opponent to show you his rack, too.

Charlie Reams wrote:Nice of your opponent to show you his rack, too.

You still got the screenshot of my 14?

Charlie Reams wrote:Nice of your opponent to show you his rack, too.

We started the game just before the end of lunch so we wrote down the plays and racks just before the end. When I got them out at the start of the next club I may have had a slight peek... Didn't use it to my advantage though. Honest.

Looking at this thread, I must be a rubbish scrabble player.

Jon O'Neill wrote:

Charlie Reams wrote:Nice of your opponent to show you his rack, too.

You still got the screenshot of my 14?

Don't think so

My dream sequence of moves would be to have ETCH on the board, then put a V in front of it for VETCH, than put a K in front of it for KVETCH (a Yiddish word meaning to moan or complain, or a person who frequently moans or complains). My proudest moment is probably playing NIGIRIS (a type of sushi) against my mum.

BUMP

I have been thinking about unlikely 7-letter CSW words (yes my life is that sad). Possible canditates for the most unlikely include PIZAZZY, ZYZZYVA and MUUMUUS. Can't think how to measure unlikeliness though. Most unlikely would probably involve 2+ of the big four and both blanks. Any ideas?

There are plenty of people on c4c far more qualified to advise on calculating probabilities, but since I'm first here:

You can estimate the likelihood of a Scrabble word appearing from your rack, on the first turn, as follows:

For PIZAZZY, you need to draw P I Z A Y blank blank. The chance of drawing those letters in that order is:

(2/100) (if there are 2 Ps in the Scrabble distribution, can't remember exactly)
multiplied by (9/99) if there are 9 Is
multiplied by (1/98) for the Z
multiplied by (9/97) for the A if there are 9 As
multiplied by (2/96) for the Y
multiplied by (2/95) for a blank
multiplied by (1/94) for the other blank - remember there is only one left in the bag as you've just drawn the other one.

To then factor in the options for drawing the same seven tiles, but in a different order, you need to multiply by 7 x 6 x 5 x 4 x 3 x 2 x 1, but divide by 2 x 1 because there are two tiles the same (the two blanks).

I think that's right, but if isn't, someone please correct me.

And it gets more complicated for words which don't require both blanks, as obviously you could make the word like MUUMUUS, say, with zero, one or two, blanks. Which makes it more likely to appear on a rack than if you had to draw M U U M U U S (with no blanks).

There's a 0% chance of drawing PIZZAZZ if you're working in Kirk probability. Otherwise it's about as unlikely as you can get.

I like words without vowels. Including y, and even those words that use w as a vowel.

pfft, pst, and brr[r] (but not brrrr or anything longer) are among my favorites.

Think the thing I've wanted to do most in Scrabble is play QUETZALS as a triple-triple. That, or bingo on a 15-letter word across an edge (It's possible with stuff like, say, ELECTROMAGNETIC, which was the first one I came up with a viable scenario on as a really young kid).

According to my edition of the scrabble tournament word list that I won at a recent scrabble tournament, pizazzy isn't allowed. Only the four Zs version pizzazzy is in.

Had my first ever 4-bonus game today - CORTINAS (off the C of CLEW), ISLANDeR (off the S of CORTINAS), ANEMONE (hooked onto MO to make MOM) and KILTERS (hooked to make ISLANDERS) - all played within six goes (other two were GAG through the A of ISLANDER on a triple word and MO hooked on the M of MOWS mainly as a way to try to fish for an M for ANEMONE). Unfortunately I was just practising against myself so it doesn't really count.

Mark James wrote:According to my edition of the scrabble tournament word list that I won at a recent scrabble tournament, pizazzy isn't allowed. Only the four Zs version pizzazzy is in.

According to facebook scrabble PIZAZZY is fine:

My best play within the last year was probably ACUITIES across two triples for 149 points, through a C which was placed in the previous turn.

I had a couple of good spots on my way to an extremely rare win against Martin Harrison on Monday- sticking B-TZ either side of OR for 72 points, and playing ROSETED- which the world championship-level player challenged- as a 5-way parallel play for over 90.

A few days ago I was dragged to my mum's work and ended up playing scrabble against someone who'd never played it before and despite her cheating really badly (like going diagonally and putting words on the ends of other letters e.g. putting TAXES next to a D which read DTAXES (and my mum let her!)) and because she went diagonally over a load of double words she was winning by miles but I still won in the end by getting BEWITCHING (over WITCH) on a load of bonuses. Proof that cheats don't always win

csb time

Been cleaning out a closet with a bunch of games and found a "Deluxe Edition Scrabble" with each slot marked off with plastic so the tiles don't slide and a rotating base for the people who can't read upside down very well.

The box has a picture of a sample game, pretty standard, and the first word played was "deluxe". Except it wasn't played in a way that puts the X on the double letter square. This bothers me a lot more than it should.

Mine is SJAMBOK
I bumped this thread, (mainly cos I cant start my own ) because I wanted to get a consensus from here.
I played in a scrabble tournament at the weekend and in one of the games I played the word SIzZLING on a tripple word score at A1 going down. I misdeclared 104 instead of 131 and my opponent accepted it and won the game even though she knew I had made a mistake.
I realise that she hadn't cheated, but if the glove was on the other shoe, I could not take avadvantage due to an abundance of ruth.
What do you think?

Marc Meakin wrote:What do you think?

I think you should threaten to kill her.

still going back to that well ,Corby!

Sclerotia, just ask Chris Davies But seriously my favourite words are the 3 letter words hooks that you can make from 2 letter words as they increase the potential of scoring well in tight situations.

Joseph Krol wrote:I got BRAINSTORMED the middle row on my second turn in a recent game

I've played SURFBOARDING in a similar three-step manner.

In an online game, I once had AEIMS?? and played MAxIxES.

Some of my best live spots have been WHIPLASH, BUSHLAND, HEMATOMA and PEATERIES.