The strange, the bizarre and the unexpected

[hoople365]

Last night, I dreamt that Wordtwist had a new and cruel twist: for every mis-spelled word, points were deducted.
(It's because I'm always hammering away at the keyboard and throwing out words, in the hope that they're words)

[crazykate]

I accidentally typed GIUST instead of GUST, and it turns out it's actually a word and it was actually in the grid. It means the same as JOUST.

Makes sense! The German word for it is "Tjost", the pronunciation sounds very similar.

[Nylimb]

I accidentally typed GIUST instead of GUST, and it turns out it's actually a word and it was actually in the grid. It means the same as JOUST.

[DrPlacebo]

I didn't expect to get points for SENSIFICATION(S). Or, on the same board, for NONCAT(S).

[BoggleOtaku]

Got TAMEHEARTEDNESSES and found out LovesWords previously scored SADHEARTEDNESSES on the same board. Have people found other multiple prefixes on the same board for endings such as -HEARTEDNESSES, -SIGHTEDNESSES, -HANDEDNESSES, -HEATEDNESSES, etc. ?

[BoggleOtaku]

I thought I remembered you mentioning REORTHONORMALIZATION before and searched and found it (had fun rereading some of the "ramblings..whatever" thread): if you do it once, you can do it again!

In searching I also ran across the "dictionaries" thread where I found RENORMALIZATION but not RENORMALIZE and admin replied there were 3 boards with the former and 0 boards with the latter/ (I realized I and accidently reused the E. )

[Spike1007]

I've never heard that before either. On the other hand, some words I often saw or used (like REORTHONORMALIZATION) don't seem to work here as far as I remember.

Anyway, apparently attempted gallant efforts sometimes do pay off.

[BoggleOtaku]

Thought it would be a gallant effort, but now in a bit of disbelief at CIRCUMCIRCLES. Somehow I got through a geometry-laden career without encounter this word and instead saying things like circumscribed triangle. Am I the only one?

[DrPlacebo]

Unexpected compound word: got points for AIRSTONE and AIRSTONES.

Noun. A piece of aquarium furniture, traditionally limewood or porous stone, whose purpose is to diffuse oxygen gradually into the tank, eliminating the noise and large bubbles of conventional air filtration systems.

[Somervillain]

Apparently something can be RADIOSTERILIZED, but one cannot RADIOSTERILIZE it.

[Nylimb]

Thanks, BoggleOtaku. That sounds plausible. The Oxford English Dictionary lists that meaning, and also an obsolete use from the 1500s where it meant "To rain down, fall as rain.": https://www.oed.com/search/dictionary/?q=derain

[BoggleOtaku]

I found as obsolete spelling of deraign; maybe this definition was unintendedly left out of lexic.

[Nylimb]

In a recent game I saw that someone had played DERAIN and DERAINED. Unsurprisingly, the second word is defined at https://www.lexic.us/definition-of/derained as "Verb. (past of derain)". But the first is only defined as "Noun. French painter and exponent of fauvism (1880-1954).".

[DrPlacebo]

I didn't expect to get points for SMITHEREENING... thought SMITHEREEN was only a noun, but tried the gerund anyway and it counted.

[Naboka]

I was surprised to see that pluralising a word with the letter "s" could turn a 15 point word into a 26 point word. That was totally unexpected!

image.png

Happens a lot. Especially with words ending with -ing/ings.

It can go the other way also, where removing an s from some common and wide words will make them ultra rare.

The longer the word, the greater the point differetial with the added or subtracted s.