Minor break

Belatedly, there will not be a new game for Friday; the MUMS puzzle competition has been killing me.  I'll resume on Tuesday (which will get the numbering back in sync with the weeks).

Meanwhile, the re-run is episode 320; its rounds are here and its writeup is here.

Ep 300 redux

Rounds: Here.

The previous writeup may be found here.

On Monday, I'll be resuming the "new games" -- I really need a better name for those.

Ep 299 redux

Rounds: Here.

The previous writeup may be found here.

Ep 298 redux

Rounds: Here.

The previous writeup may be found here.

EP 297 redux

Rounds: Here.

The previous writeup may be found here.

Ep 296 redux

Rounds: Here.

The previous writeup may be found here.

Ep 295 redux

Rounds: Here.

The previous writeup may be found here.

Apologies for putting this up late -- I ended up busier than expected last night.  I hope everyone has a nice Easter!

Ep 294 redux

Rounds: Here.

The previous writeup may be found here.

I'm taking a break from providing new games until this final series is over.  After then, I'm likely to run new games in parallel with the links to the series four episodes, but we'll see how I go.  In any case, I will be linking to the older writeups (complete with links to rounds) for people's convenience.

Reruns back on!

Thanks to commenter Justin Thai for pointing out that SBS has started showing some more re-runs (who knows for how long).  Ignore the website's erroneous claim that they are showing season 4; the two episodes currently available on the show's webpage are 251 and 252.  For anyone wanting to watch them on TV as they air, it appears that they are showing at 5:30PM on SBS ONE.

If they keep showing them then we have 43 episodes to see that I have not covered yet (before we hit the season three finals).  I'm going to suspend new games while the re-runs are on, and aim to catch up on those shortly.  It will be interesting to see what it's like playing the show's games after this time.  I've got a suspicion I've been overly lenient with my timings.

Revised acceptable word policy

It's hardly news that the official rules do not interact with the Macquarie's vagaries as well as one would hope, leading to many words being rejected that "should" be accepted.  In the past I've noted such instances as invalid (and generally complained about it).  The time has come, I feel, to adopt a slightly different set of rules for acceptable words.  This breaks compatibility with the show, of course, but by now that's hardly a drawback.

The revisions are as follows:

• Derived forms of variant spellings are allowed when the corresponding derived forms are listed for the main spellings.  Thus the listing of MOULDIER and MOLD as a variant of MOULD means that MOLDIER is valid under this modification.  Similarly for AMBRIES and AUMBRY making AUMBRIES valid.
• Nouns ending in -y do not require the plural form to be explicitly listed if this form is made by replacing the -y by -ies.  So LORRIES is valid even though no plural form of LORRY is listed.  (I am avoiding being explicit about which words are assumed to have a plural of that form, but loosely speaking it will be nouns where a consonant preceeds that final Y).
• Two-syllable adjectives ending in -y or -ey do not require comparative or superlative forms to be explicitly listed if those forms are made by replacing the -y or -ey by -ier or -iest as appropriate.  So (to cite a recent example) the forms BLOCKIEST and BLOKIEST are now valid, even though not listed, since BLOCKY and BLOKEY are listed.  Again, I am avoiding explicit mention of the requirements, going for a "I'll know it when I see it" approach.
• Words, and derived forms of them, that only appear in phrases will be considered valid unless they are otherwise invalid.  This makes EARSHOT (only listed as part of phrases) valid, and also the verb senses of MINOR and MAJOR (and thus MINORED and MAJORING are valid, for instance).  Words that are part of compound nouns (the BOK of BOK CHOY, for instance) remain invalid (unless they have a standalone meaning, of course).

I think that covers the majority of the particularly bad cases that we've experienced.  I'll probably still end up noting cases where such answers would not be valid on the show for a while by marking them with a *.  In the meantime, it should make things a bit better.

Shifting to a new format (plus link to NG 18)

I've decided that the previous way I've been doing this has been a bit awkward; in fact, that was pretty clear from the start -- the blog is not well suited to the kind of display of the games that I used, and the comments section is a rather poor place to do the longer breakdowns that I provide.  So this game marks the first shift to a revised way of doing things.  I hope you'll like it; I certainly regard it as an improvement, even if I do not directly benefit.

The new game may be accessed here.  I've added in attempts to duplicate the various timing facets of the show's display (but not the thirty second countdown as yet; maybe as an extension).  In particular, those of you who, like me, are used to writing down the letters should find this new system works somewhat better for that style.  Those who just stare at the monitor may find the letter rounds unbearably slow; apologies.  (I have thoughts as to what to do about that.)

It should all be pretty clear after you experience it. *chuckles*  Suggestions for improvements or general feedback about the new system is encouraged in comments.

In conjunction with this, I shall move back to putting the long breakdowns into blog posts; things flow much better that way, I feel.  And I'll see what I can do about getting a better schedule to the game display compared to my current somewhat erratic one.


Game details after the cut.

Happy blogday to me!

Commenter Victor pointed out that today is the blog's anniversary, something that I had not noticed.  (Strictly speaking, the anniversary was the 23rd as the introductory post went up then, but the first game-covering post was on the 24th.)  Woohoo!  *cue party hats and streamers*

Thank you to everyone who has wandered by over the year, and especially to those who stayed and played along.  My particular thanks to Sam Gaffney, who found this blog fairly early on and whose rivalry and encouragement over its course ensured that my enthusiasm never waned.

A small bonus game of sorts for you, on this occasion: One of the SUMS puzzles this year was based on Letters and Numbers; although some of the rounds are not legal in the game (too few vowels), you may enjoy the change.  The game is below; I'll add answers in the comments eventually if required.

Round 1: N O U P B M I C E
Round 2: T R I F M L E Y F
Round 3: Target 917 from 2 4 6 8 7 8
Round 4: T L U C V S H E N
Round 5: H A T B O X G E N
Round 6: Target 687 from 50 6 10 2 4 4
Round 7: Q M N O P R S T U
Round 8: Target 335 from 50 1 3 1 2 2
Round 9: SHIN AFORE

Corrigenda: Book 1 (the blue book)

Since the first fifty episodes are out of the way, I can cross-check them against the published book.  That's the blue book, since they did not start numbering them until book 5.  The majority of issues are in the solutions; although there are a few issues which should be corrected with the rounds, only one of them would stop one playing through accurately (although two more do affect the word mixes).

I'll note that they use the terms 'round' and 'game' with reversed meanings compared to how I generally use them.  That is, they regard an episode as a round (whereas I would call it a game) and an individual scoring section within the episode as a game (whereas I would call it a round).  I will try to be consistent with their usage rather than mine; apologies in advance if I slip up, though.

One notable difference between the books and the show is that for numbers games the books generally presents the numbers in the opposite order (small numbers on the left, large numbers on the right).  Consequently, when I mention cases below of this order being reversed I am stating that the book is displaying the numbers in the same order in which they appeared on the show; this warrants correction since it is not consistent with the general policy of the books.

Countdown viewing figures

Recently David Knox wrote a piece for TV Tonight where he provided some much-wanted statistics for how Countdown has been received (compared with Letters and Numbers).  It pretty much confirms all expectations: Viewership has dropped by almost 100,000 viewers from 128,000 to 36,000 (weekly average).  This has had flow-on effects for their news viewership as well, which has dropped around 24,000 viewers.

That's a pretty clear demonstration that Letters and Numbers had been doing exactly what it had been commissioned to do: Acting as a feeder to increase viewership for SBS news.  I suspect that other shows have also suffered a little as people who might normally have seen ads for them during Letters and Numbers no longer do so, but it would be hard to draw any compelling connection there.

Such figures do give me a little hope for the eventual reinstatement of Letters and Numbers, as I can't imagine that the drop of 92,000 viewers in such a key timeslot would be viewed with much favour.  Maybe it's time for some more letter-writing.

Time for some activism

No doubt most readers of this blog will have noticed SBS's announcement that they are "resting" the show.  That's grim news, but I feel there is a chance of doing something about this if we can get enough public outcry about the decision, or at least support for reinstatement of the show.

The show's facebook page might be a natural place for those comments, but it is entirely possible that they would shut that down at the time of resting.  Consequently, I have spent the weekend setting up a separate website to act as a place to solicit votes and feedback for the show's reinstatement.  The address is below; please stop by and add your contributions to it so that it does not look so bare. *chuckles*

And then encourage family, friends, and other acquaintances to do the same.  This sort of thing can snowball once a critical mass of sorts is reached, but the word needs to be spread quickly and far.  The show has a facebook following of almost eleven thousand people; if there is a way to reach them and get a sizeable number to respond then that would be a significant step.

The website is: http://www.lanfans.org/

I sincerely believe there is a chance of success, but I'm going to need a lot of help.  Please join me in making it happen.

Investigating words: Validity (part 4: variant spellings)

Posts in this series: part 1; part 2; part 3; part 4.


One thing I have not yet touched on is the issue of inflected and derived forms of variant spellings.  The Macquarie tends to be fairly poor about listing these (mostly, it does not), and that causes problems if the rules mentioned so far are taken very literally.

Here are some examples that could have arisen from episodes so far:

• PLOW is listed as a variant spelling of PLOUGH, and PLOUGHER as a derived form of PLOUGH; the variant derived form PLOWER (episode 334) is not listed.
• MOLDY is listed as a variant spelling of MOULDY, and MOULDIER as an inflected form of MOULDY; the variant inflected form MOLDIER (episode 357) is not listed.
• STOMODEUM is listed as a variant spelling of STOMODAEUM, which has STOMODAEA as its plural and STOMODAEAL as a derived form.  Neither STOMODEA nor STOMODEAL (episode 423) are listed.
• SIGNALED and SIGNALING are listed as variant spellings of SIGNALLED and SIGNALLING, inflected forms of SIGNAL.  However, while SIGNALLER is listed as a derived form, SIGNALER (episode 424) is not mentioned as a variant of it.
• AUMBRY is listed as a variant spelling of AMBRY, and AMBRIES as the plural of AMBRY; the variant plural AUMBRIES (episode 443) is not listed.

A strict reading of the show's rules, and of the policies that David has announced, would render all of these invalid.  My personal hope, though, is that David adopts a more lenient approach.  Indeed, he may already do so but it just has not come up yet.  Specifically, I would hope that where a variant spelling exists, and a derived or inflected form of the main spelling is listed, then the corresponding derived or inflected form of the variant spelling is also allowed.

There is probably some caveat needed if there are cases for which the variant spelling is significantly different in a way which would impact the derived or inflected form, but my expectation is that very few, if any, cases of this would arise.

Such a policy would make all the above words valid, with the possible exception of SIGNALER.  I'm OK with that, and consider it an acceptable casualty; I do think that all of the others should be allowed, and I hope that David has a policy along those lines in mind.


Posts in this series: part 1; part 2; part 3; part 4.

Investigating words: Validity (part 3: nouns)

Posts in this series: part 1; part 2; part 3; part 4.


Part 1 covered the basics, while part 2 dealt with adjectives and verbs.  This post will go into nouns in a bit more detail, although sadly it will mostly reflect confusion on my part.  This is the section where by far the majority of David's discretion would be required.

Investigating words: Validity (part 2: adjectives and verbs)

Posts in this series: part 1; part 2; part 3; part 4.


In part 1 I covered the basics of allowed words and inflected forms; this post will cover the easier cases in a little more detail.  Those cases are the inflected forms of adjectives and verbs; most of the possible uncertainties in those areas have been cleared up, but not all.

Investigating words: Validity (part 1: basic rules)

Posts in this series: part 1; part 2; part 3; part 4.


Since I'm not going to reblog the current episodes (here's the link page for them), I thought this would be a good week to talk about some other things.  We'll see how that turns out.


An ongoing concern for me and perhaps for other watchers of the show -- and certainly for contestants! -- is how to tell if a particular word is going to be allowed or not.  A lot of the time this is fairly easy to answer, but there is also a considerable grey area.  When a contestant steps into that realm of uncertainty then David makes a ruling, but the players at home are not so fortunate.  This is the first of three posts in which I am going to attempt to set out the situation as I understand it.

Additionally, over the course of this blog there have been several words come up for consideration which are of uncertain validity (or were at the time).  If they had been chosen on the show then we would have got a ruling, of course, so these are words which have not yet been tried.  (Or possibly, tried in episodes before this blog started.)  I'm going to list many of them in the appropriate parts, often with my guesses as to validity.

Investigating words: Why the Macquarie?

A while ago I posted a comment on the Letters and Numbers website responding to complaints about the show's use of the Macquarie dictionary.  It has long since vanished, and I figure that sooner or later I'll want to say much the same again, so here's a post about it for posterity.  This is somewhat longer than the original comment, because I now have more room to ramble.

Every so often on that website someone will complain (usually with disproportionate ire) about some particular word being disallowed (or, more rarely, allowed).  Obviously, the show must have some decision procedure about which sequences of letters are going to be considered valid words for its scoring purposes; otherwise the contestants would be all "That's a nice tnetennba" about things.  So a list of valid words is needed, and the natural and sensible approach is to use a dictionary for this purpose.

One could take this suggestion further and say that several dictionaries would be better, as any specific dictionary is likely to have omissions due to the English language continually evolving.  That is a reasonable point of view in general, but I feel there are two reasons that it does not work for the show.  The first is a pragmatic one: Having to check more than one source would slow down the show production for very little benefit.  The other is more about the keen home viewers (or prospective contestants): A desirable feature is for them to be able to do this checking themselves; this increases involvement and a sense of transparency in the decision procedure.  Having more than one source would significantly raise the cost to them of doing so.

The second reason also argues against using some custom word list that the show has put together (or one of the Scrabble word lists); it is harder for the interested home viewer / prospective contestant to get their hands on that than a published dictionary.

Assuming that the above reasoning is accepted, the question becomes: Which dictionary to use?  There are many points to take into consideration, but one point trumps them all: Since this is an Australian show, as much as possible of the everyday Australian vernacular should be allowed.  The Macquarie is unquestionably the most comprehensive dictionary of English as used in Australia, including a wide range of colloquialisms and regionalisms, and it is thus the only sensible choice of dictionary for this show.

There are drawbacks to using only the Macquarie (as there would be to any dictionary), and I've gone on about some of them in the past before.  But the key point is that it is the most appropriate of the available alternatives.  I support the show's use of the Macquarie as their reference dictionary, while at the same time hoping that the next edition will address what I see as some of the deficiencies in it (especially with regard to its use in Letters and Numbers).


If anyone from the Macquarie somehow ends up reading this: The major issue is the inflected forms, which are lamentably inconsistently handled.  In some cases reading an entry leaves me completely unclear as to the correct spelling for an inflection (usually the plural of a noun or the present tense of a verb, where the question of -s or -es is not always straightforward).  Nouns ending in 'o' are particularly troublesome in this regard; there are examples where the plural form(s) are explicitly listed when only -s is allowed, when only -es is allowed, and when both are allowed.  So when no plural form is listed (for an obviously pluralisable noun) there is no good basis to infer which is supposed to be the case.

In contrast, my copy of The Chambers Dictionary (1993) does a wonderful job of dealing with this that I would love the Macquarie to emulate: In just two pages up front it gives the basic rules that it follows for what the default inflected forms are (depending on the last letter or so of the word).  It then only lists inflections where those rules do not suffice, and as a result I can be completely certain when I look at an entry in it what all the accepted inflected forms are (according to it).