Can't find the old WU thread, so I'll just make a new one

[Istenem]

got my tenth different 15 today: not a beautiful word but REACQUAINTANCES ticked a box. not fussed about numbers, i think it scored 4xx. on reflection it would have ended in a 5. and i was £1 richer; that is what really matters.

[kingzilla]

[quote="Istenem"]got my tenth different 15 today: not a beautiful word but REACQUAINTANCES ticked a box. not fussed about numbers, i think it scored 4xx. on reflection it would have ended in a 5. and i was £1 richer] Cool word Iste i didnt have to look it up to see what it ment

[Ernest W. Quality]

I don't see what's so beautiful about Zeptosecond. I thought you were against contrived foreign words, and some of the more obscure SI prefixes and units fall into that category. It would be easy to invent some even more obscure but technically valid combinations, and then play dictionary lottery to see if it's in. Zeptobecquerels anybody?

Even sillier "words" can be invented by combining prefixes to give a name to a big number that any sane person would describe as "10 to the power of N".


http://users.skynet.be/nizgorur/very_big_numbers.htm

millimillillion = 810 pts if anybody's keen.

[Nil Satis]

Ah yes, but how many points for megafugagargantugoogolplex?

[Ernest W. Quality]

1482

[Istenem]

i realise i'm saying this out loud but i got timed out today.

i was spelling VAMPIRISHNE~~. bah.

but CHINCHILLAS is a bit pleasing. (without the S it is still 300+ but not an eleven+.)

[dmac]

xyz

[Istenem]

good work DMAC, an impressive score. but a black mark for overvaluing Qs and Zs.

the latest adjective which has been allowed as a noun: IMAGINARIES. i was busy IMAGINARIZATIONING. ffs. ops:

then i got BURGLARIZED and wept a foolish tear. bastards, they nicked my dignity.

[dmac]

xyz

[Istenem]

good point DMAC.

aside from getting rid of the mickey mouse wordlist, maybe nullifying suffixes would bring a bit more dignity to the gameIFICATIONIZATIONINGS .
but then it might alienate casuals. having BRITH and CANEH in the default scoreboard is bizarre, i have no idea what either of those might mean.
but if allowable words can have a legitimate suffix of IZATIONALLY, it really does devalue English.

the other day i was enjoying some respite from work and played ten games of soup on the machine in my home pub. it was a joy, without any regard for winning i played the game as a game.

i lost £5.

i can afford to lose £5. especially when i get joy from SWITCHEROOS. there is plenty of free money in boring quiz games. (unless QM has been there first and made yet another million.)

[roberto la vigna]

how to program word up in such a way that it rewards elegance

It already is programmed to reward elegance: elegance of strategy.

[fotherz]

A game this evening yielded some nice words;

QUINTESSENCES
POSTPONEMENT
DISPROPORTION (unfortunately no -ATELY for the end).
QINDARKAS

One or two others too.

[dmac]

xyz

[Istenem]

good work Fotherz.

QINDARKAS

but isn't QINDARKA already plural?

[Ernest W. Quality]

Cutting out the prefixes and suffixes for words would be silly. It's one thing to say there are silly obscure words in the list that shouldn't be, but another thing to say let's remove bona fide words and have only stems. The original version was infuriating for it's inconsistent incusion or exclusion of plurals, and -ING words etc.

How about doing away with tile points, i.e. all tiles worth the same (say 1 pt). This would mean the value of a word is just the square of its length, irrespective of how many Qs and Zs are in it.