The strange, the bizarre and the unexpected

[Naboka]

Interesting. I didn't know xyst was a word. Years ago when I played 4x4 I noticed that 2xysters was a prolific player of games. Thereafter I looked up xyster and found it's defined as "a surgical instrument for scraping bone." A somewhat gruesome username I thought but maybe he's a surgeon.

Awhile ago I saw his stats in the 4x4 HoF. At the time, assuming he played every game the full 2 minutes, he had spent 290 24 hr days playing 4x4. Now he's at 334.86 full days, almost a complete year of his life. He has played more games (241k) than anyone else. He's 40 million pts ahead of the next player in the total pts category. I have often wondered, "What on earth would motivate a person to go so hard at it for so long?!"

Did you factor in the time between games? And the sundry other time-consumers being on the site?

Not sure of the gender. But always just assumed the handle was "to exist" codified as a noun. One who exists. The specific person cognizant of being alive and existing. Thought it a clever name.
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I imagine the top players in every category spend a lot of time studying words. You can't just accidently run up scores or find words--at least not in sufficient quantity to play at the higher levels. The vocabulary has to come with some effort.

And exactly how to arrange that vocabulary into quickly usable patterns.

Especially since a lot of vocablulary on 4x4 is just purely useless except as a vehicle for scoring points.

Thus, the time playing is sometimes only a fraction of the time involved.

Personally, I spend a lot more time analyzing and studying than actually playing.

Would it be fair to assume you do also?

Lately, I've just been opening games and trying to flash recognize the board's patterns. Trying to exercise the old memory cells to make them agile and responsive. Then shutting the game down after 15-30 seconds, not even typing anything.

Of course, if the board seems particularly viable, it gets played to the end. Like having k's, q's, z's and particular vowel blends connected to promising consonants. ai and ei support a lot of useful words. -ate and -ase promise scientific terms.

But, promises are often fragile.

[lalatan]

One of the earliest words to go in my notebooks was "xyst." Years have gone by and never ran across it again until about a month ago.

Ran across it again today.

The fun part was the player holding the board's total words and points:

2xyster.

Everytime I see that name I think of xyst. Not that they have anything in common other than sequence of letters, but...

Interesting. I didn't know xyst was a word. Years ago when I played 4x4 I noticed that 2xysters was a prolific player of games. Thereafter I looked up xyster and found it's defined as "a surgical instrument for scraping bone." A somewhat gruesome username I thought but maybe he's a surgeon.

Awhile ago I saw his stats in the 4x4 HoF. At the time, assuming he played every game the full 2 minutes, he had spent 290 24 hr days playing 4x4. Now he's at 334.86 full days, almost a complete year of his life. He has played more games (241k) than anyone else. He's 40 million pts ahead of the next player in the total pts category. I have often wondered, "What on earth would motivate a person to go so hard at it for so long?!"

[Qlaudie]

I chuckled while typing this, not actually thinking it'd be a word, and then let out a wee gasp when it was accepted.
PEWTERIER.

"I like this bin pull, but I wish it were pewterier."

[Naboka]

One of the earliest words to go in my notebooks was "xyst." Years have gone by and never ran across it again until about a month ago.

Ran across it again today.

The fun part was the player holding the board's total words and points:

2xyster.

Everytime I see that name I think of xyst. Not that they have anything in common other than sequence of letters, but...

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[DrPlacebo]

RODENTIAL sounds like insurance for mice, but it counts.

[crazykate]

OREOLOGIST(S) is accepted. The dictionary doesn't have a definition, although I'm pretty sure I've done field research in that discipline before.

[bwt1213]

In Wisconsin, there is Racine, which shares a border with Kenosha to its south, which shares a border with Pleasant Prairie to its south. The total distance from Pleasant Prairie to Racine is perhaps ten or fifteen miles. I lived in Pleasant Prairie for 14 years and a bit, and went often to Racine; they have the O&H Danish Bakery which sells Danish Kringle. It is authentic Danish Kringle and it is excellent, but the price by mail order may be exorbitant.

So, in my neck of the woods, the phrase "has the cat got your tongue" was common about 150 years before I inhabited the place. But I have a problem. The first time I heard the phrase was from my maternal grandmother, who was born and raised in Cornwall, England. She would have uttered it about 1951. I thought it was odd, and I was a lad of four or perhaps as old as five. She told me that it was a common saying in Cornwall, which put it in England before she came to the USA in about 1910.

Amusing turns of phrase travel about as rapidly as lies, so it's not at all impossible for something to arise in bumpkin American in the middle 1800s and be common in England fifty years later. It just feels unlikely.

[DrPlacebo]

REREPEAT and REREPEATS count!

[Naboka]

BTW.

Happy Tau Day!!!!!!!!!!!

Been celebrating by trying to create circles with an increasing enlistment of all the senses.

How does one create a cirlce with taste?

Glad you asked.

[bwt1213]

Meanwhile, I'm chasing something I already achieved once: a perfect tie on every category for the previous best. Yesterday, I got the exact same number of words, the same best word and the same longest word. But the number of points wasn't a match -- I was about a hundred points higher. What made it perhaps easier was that the board had only been played twice before. But I've never heard that anyone else got a perfect match like that, before or since. Perhaps no one else thinks it's worth mentioning.

My term for this achievement is "the invisible game", because even though you were the highest/best/longest/most in everything, you will never be seen or mentioned for it.

[Naboka]

Man...

sometimes...

learning a lot of words can bite you in the butte.

Playing this board, I tried fibrations and fibration. Twice. Mathematical mapping terms. Terms in Lexic.

But, either my typing is really bad,(which it often is) or the game doesn't accept them yet.

Sigh...

So close.

Skipping dozens of easy words for a gamble.

But, gambling is where the interesting finds lie.

The gold rush.

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[lalatan]

lalatan, here's a word that was overlooked on this board. Don't know if it's in your arsenal or not.

Monometers was the previous pick.

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Negative, Naboka. I will store it in the cabinet now and hope I can retrieve it at the proper time. Thanks and good find! I've found ATMOMETERS, MONOMETERS and OSMOMETERS but not that one.

You and dannyb had some interesting encounters w marine life. A Vancouver Island kayaker was shooting a video of an orca that was approaching him. (I tried looking up the video again but couldn't find it.) It dove and went right under him. He was understandably very uneasy when that happened. While filming the underwater pass he was coaching it to move along in a subdued voice.

We rented a cottage right next to Northumberland Channel for 8 months. One day we saw 2 orcas swimming by. What a treat! They are huge animals!! About 2 weeks later we watched a gray whale and her calf go by. She made the orca look average-sized.

I think people play games while they are @ work as their jobs are boring & this keeps them awake. Maybe in your case, this person was in the middle of playing this game & either a coworker or the boss walked in & rather than just ending the game, they hid the screen behind the work screen, the game time ran out & that's why it ended w/such a low point total.

That could be 2cute. Nobody knows but him. I saw one other game of his w the result being 1 4 pt word. He just joined WordTwist so could be trying things out.

[2cute]

I saved this screenshot of a game I played 2 months ago. My record was 10x the pt value of the previous record, a personal best. Why someone (likely the same user you cited) would play a game for 3 mins and only play 1 word worth 3 pts befuddled me. I did not even consider his choice of "tire" could be a message to humanity. A lack of imagination on my part I admit. Now I'm interested in how you will philosophize this one.
10X MORE PTS POST.jpg

I think people play games while they are @ work as their jobs are boring & this keeps them awake. Maybe in your case, this person was in the middle of playing this game & either a coworker or the boss walked in & rather than just ending the game, they hid the screen behind the work screen, the game time ran out & that's why it ended w/such a low point total.

[Naboka]

lalatan, here's a word that was overlooked on this board. Don't know if it's in your arsenal or not.

Monometers was the previous pick.

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[lalatan]

LOL, that's great stuff, Naboka.