c4countdown

So we discovered today that PETROLS is allowable, in the secondary sense of the colour (i.e. petrol blue), even though both senses are mass nouns. The entry for GASOLINE says:

gasoline (also gasolene) > noun North American term for petrol

I can't really imagine an antiques dealer in the US would sell "gasoline blue vases". Everyone knows that it means the primary sense of petrol, but the dictionary never says that. So presumably Susie would be forced to accept GASOLINES which, given that PETROLS is already questionable (although I agree with her conclusion), would make it about the nastiest word you can possibly get away with.

Except, perhaps, INDOORSES.

I like your reasoning. I agree.

Believe it or not, the newest pricing game on The Price is Right this year and Drew Carey's first new one ever is called, "Gas Money." But, wouldn't it be funny if it were called, "Gasses Money?"

I'm not convinced about allowing plurals for specific shades of colours. BLUES, GREENS etc are obviously fine and there's the question of where to draw the line (is mauve a colour or a shade), but allowing PETROLS seems a little daft to me. Actually, spending time discussing this stuff seems daft to me, is this really what my life has come to?

There is no shade of any color anywhere in the world called, "gas."

Paul Howe wrote:allowing PETROLS seems a little daft to me

And yet it has fifteen times more Google results than DEINSTAL...

It's funny, because gases seems like a more common word!

Strange, I would have presumed that PETROLS was allowed in the sense of there being different types of petrol (leaded, unleaded, whatever) - I've never even heard of petrol blue. I agree on the pluralising a shade of colour thing - wouldn't a fairly objective way to do it be to only allow plurals of colours which are one word by themselves (such as mauve), and not when the word you're pluralising is being used as an adjective (by that logic couldn't you have BURNTS, for instance, or DARKS? (I appreciate there may be senses in which these can be pluralised which I don't know about because I'm ignorant, feel free to correct)).

I'm struggling to think of a two word shade that, when pluralised, sounds as sensible as BLUES and GREENS does.

Charlie Reams wrote:

Paul Howe wrote:allowing PETROLS seems a little daft to me

And yet it has fifteen times more Google results than DEINSTAL...

I'm sure you've got better things to do, but find me one where it's used as a colour and I'll be impressed.

When I was preparing to go on the show I googled words that weren't in dictionary.com and found some that should really be consigned to a dictionary of not so common usage. HIELAMAN, with 126 matches before you get to results that are too similar to be displayed, was probably the worst offender, and the great majority of those were either dictionary entries or word lists. Even funest has 278,000!

Paul Howe wrote: Even funest has 278,000!

But they're all on this forum!

Anyway, why couldn't he just have declared PETRELS and saved us all a lot of grief?

Michael Wallace wrote:Strange, I would have presumed that PETROLS was allowed in the sense of there being different types of petrol (leaded, unleaded, whatever) - I've never even heard of petrol blue. I agree on the pluralising a shade of colour thing - wouldn't a fairly objective way to do it be to only allow plurals of colours which are one word by themselves (such as mauve), and not when the word you're pluralising is being used as an adjective (by that logic couldn't you have BURNTS, for instance, or DARKS? (I appreciate there may be senses in which these can be pluralised which I don't know about because I'm ignorant, feel free to correct)).

I'm struggling to think of a two word shade that, when pluralised, sounds as sensible as BLUES and GREENS does.

I agree with this bascially - you shouldn't allow PETROLS on the BASIS of PETROL BLUE because in the unlikely event you would want to pluralise it you would have PETROL BLUES not PETROLS BLUE. You should only allow PETROLS on the basis that there is more than one type of PETROL, if that's what you decide.

As for shades/colours, I see that as an arbitrary distinction - surely we just look to see if it's listed as a noun? Actually a quick look through my old NODE suggests that main colours are listed as mass and count nouns, whereas those like MAUVE and CRIMSON are just listed as count nouns. An arbitrary decision would be required.

I missed this episode by the way - what did Susie actually say as the explanation?

Jason Larsen wrote:Believe it or not, the newest pricing game on The Price is Right this year and Drew Carey's first new one ever is called, "Gas Money." But, wouldn't it be funny if it were called, "Gasses Money?"

If it were, we'd be saying how funny it would be if it were called "Gasseses Money".

Gavin Chipper wrote: I agree with this bascially - you shouldn't allow PETROLS on the BASIS of PETROL BLUE because in the unlikely event you would want to pluralise it you would have PETROL BLUES not PETROLS BLUE. You should only allow PETROLS on the basis that there is more than one type of PETROL, if that's what you decide.

Nope. If PETROL only appeared as part of PETROL BLUE then Susie wouldn't have allowed it at all. The entry says "PETROL (also PETROL BLUE)". So if you allow plurals of colours then you should allow PETROLS.

GASOLINES is a bad move.

Won't be accepted. PETROL(S) is related to the colour, GASOLINE is not.

Charlie Reams wrote:

Gavin Chipper wrote: I agree with this bascially - you shouldn't allow PETROLS on the BASIS of PETROL BLUE because in the unlikely event you would want to pluralise it you would have PETROL BLUES not PETROLS BLUE. You should only allow PETROLS on the basis that there is more than one type of PETROL, if that's what you decide.

Nope. If PETROL only appeared as part of PETROL BLUE then Susie wouldn't have allowed it at all. The entry says "PETROL (also PETROL BLUE)". So if you allow plurals of colours then you should allow PETROLS.

Oh I see. In the NODE, PETROL BLUE has it's own entry. PETROL isn't mentioned as a colour.

Damian E wrote:PETROL(S) is related to the colour, GASOLINE is not.

Well yeah, of course. But the dictionary doesn't say that, so to disallow GASOLINES would basically be overruling the dictionary.

Charlie Reams wrote:

Damian E wrote:PETROL(S) is related to the colour, GASOLINE is not.

Well yeah, of course. But the dictionary doesn't say that, so to disallow GASOLINES would basically be overruling the dictionary.

This is what I meant when I said that Des chiffres et des lettres in France is treated as a serious game and Countdown is more like an exhibition. I'm sure they wouldn't disallow a word that was actually in the dictionary or allow a word that wasn't. Damian seems to be obsessed with "pleasing viewers" by allowing plurals of mass nouns when the dictionary says you can't have a plural, but they'd disallow FUNEST which actually is in the dictionary, albeit it's blatantly a mistake. I just don't like people who write rules then don't apply them to themselves.

Martin Gardner wrote:This is what I meant when I said that Des chiffres et des lettres in France is treated as a serious game and Countdown is more like an exhibition. I'm sure they wouldn't disallow a word that was actually in the dictionary or allow a word that wasn't. Damian seems to be obsessed with "pleasing viewers" by allowing plurals of mass nouns when the dictionary says you can't have a plural, but they'd disallow FUNEST which actually is in the dictionary, albeit it's blatantly a mistake. I just don't like people who write rules then don't apply them to themselves.

I understand exactly what you mean about Countdown being a show at the expense of being a serious competition. But that aside, is FUNEST actually in the dictionary anyway? The comparative and superlative are mentioned at FUNNER and FUNNEST in the usage box, which means we can reasonably discount FUNER, but since they are not listed in the main text, we can also discount FUNNER and FUNNEST. I don't think that's the reason Damian gave (more to do with not being acceptable in standard English), but I still think one can argue that the correct decision has been made on that one.

Also, harsh comment there - you just don't like Damian!

Paul Howe wrote: When I was preparing to go on the show I googled words that weren't in dictionary.com and found some that should really be consigned to a dictionary of not so common usage. HIELAMAN, with 126 matches before you get to results that are too similar to be displayed, was probably the worst offender, and the great majority of those were either dictionary entries or word lists. Even funest has 278,000!

Since I wrote the Wikipedia article on it, the number of results for HIELAMAN has gone up to 124,000. Weird huh?

Charlie Reams wrote:

Paul Howe wrote: When I was preparing to go on the show I googled words that weren't in dictionary.com and found some that should really be consigned to a dictionary of not so common usage. HIELAMAN, with 126 matches before you get to results that are too similar to be displayed, was probably the worst offender, and the great majority of those were either dictionary entries or word lists. Even funest has 278,000!

Since I wrote the Wikipedia article on it, the number of results for HIELAMAN has gone up to 124,000. Weird huh?

652 for me. Do you pay Google for extra hits?