Words found in WordTwist not in Lexicus dictionary

[the cryptogram keeper]

Sometimes after a game, I'll look at all the words found by me and other players and I'll get curious about a word and click on it. Every now and then, Lexicus tells me "sorry that word is not in our dictionary." An example I found today was "SEPTUAGINTILLIARDTHS" for 38pts, found by Spike1007. "Septuagintillion" is a word (1 followed by 213 zeroes, I think), but "septuagintilliardths" doesn't even seem to exist (at least not on the internet).

I guess my question is: why does a word not in Lexicus qualify as a correct answer in WordTwist?

(Related question: why are plurals of acceptable words often rejected by WordTwist?)

Just curious - if you have some insight into this, it is much appreciated.

[bwt1213]

For the example you gave, the "ard" and "ardths" endings are legal BY RULE and have an established meaning. Lexicus could say that "centilllion" exists, for example, and "centillionths" does not, but I would reject whatever argument they might make if they did so.

As far as plurals not being accepted, I think that matter will be cleared up when WordTwist updates their dictionary the next time, supposed to be at the end of this year.

[the cryptogram keeper]

Thanks for your reply.

I don't know what you mean by "legal by rule."

A person found and was given points for septuagintilliardths, but the game's own dictionary did not contain this word. This is not a rare occurrence, either. Seems like a person just has to know what is acceptable/not acceptable to WordTwist, regardless of whether it's an actual word, or in WordTwist's own dictionary.That is, we must learn to "game" the game.

I just find it odd that the game accepts a word not in its own dictionary - it kind of bothers the slightly OCD stickler in me.

Your example of centillionth is a good one - I bet you could get points for centillionth, but not for centillionths - at least until they update.

When I googled septuagintilliardths, I found one reference. It was on a Scrabble-related page, which noted that the word wasn't useable in Scrabble, because it is too long and doesn't fit on the board! Now, I'm off to google -ard and -ardths....

[Naboka]

Thanks for your reply.

I don't know what you mean by "legal by rule."

A person found and was given points for septuagintilliardths, but the game's own dictionary did not contain this word. This is not a rare occurrence, either. Seems like a person just has to know what is acceptable/not acceptable to WordTwist, regardless of whether it's an actual word, or in WordTwist's own dictionary.That is, we must learn to "game" the game.

I just find it odd that the game accepts a word not in its own dictionary - it kind of bothers the slightly OCD stickler in me.

Your example of centillionth is a good one - I bet you could get points for centillionth, but not for centillionths - at least until they update.

When I googled septuagintilliardths, I found one reference. It was on a Scrabble-related page, which noted that the word wasn't useable in Scrabble, because it is too long and doesn't fit on the board! Now, I'm off to google -ard and -ardths....

You aren't alone. Most of us have wondered the same things. A couple of years from now, if you're still playing, you'll see a comment from a new player wondering the same stuff.

As bwt1213 indicated, a new word pool should be available by years end. But, decisions have to be made about what to include and exclude. A tremendous amount of effort is going into the project. But, in the end, someone's going to be disappointed that the latest slang term popular in a happening northeastern Wales club doesn't work here--when "everyone I know has been using it for years!!!!!!!"

It's a learning process that will leave you endlessly frustrated.

The little-known scientific, medical, philosophical, musical terms that are accepted,

while fairly common ones are not.

The word classifications will leave you puzzled also. Common words in certain fields classified as ultra-rare, while esoteric ones that fewer than 1 in a hundred know can come up as "wide."

Archaic words like saist get the nod while other old verbs ending with -st get nothing. Deare, beare, heare, leare, seare, steare rake in the points, but eare gets nothing.

After hundreds and hundreds of hours studying which words work here and which don't, I find myself confused as to whether I had learned that a word that seems playable will get points or not. Sometimes it takes dozens of boards. Like gein and gien. One works, the other doesn't. Seen it sooooo many times and still wonder. Is it gien or gein.
Is it dern or derne? Cern or cerne?

But, who wants their challenges to be unchallenging?

[BoredInTheCar]

we must learn to "game" the game.

With the exception of the truly great players, simultaneously found at the top of both highest total score and highest average score lists, I think most people who play competitively game the system pretty hard - it's pretty much required if you want to see your name among the top scorers. Depending on my mood and my goals for any particular month, I certainly do. If you see me in the top 10 average score list for 5x5, it's definitely due to having gamed it.

Sometimes I think it would be cool if it were impossible to game Wordtwist - if everyone had to play every single game they clicked on through to the end and their scores were all recorded. Total and average scores would drop precipitously even for legends like MegaWord, as those players skip past boards with stats showing they aren't terribly productive.

On the other hand, gaming strategically is part of the intellectual challenge. I view it as not dissimilar to any of the complementary steps people take to be top at their "sport" due to more than just raw talent and dogged practice.

[the cryptogram keeper]

I hear you Naboka! My brain always thinks "lita" is a word, no matter how many times i try it and it gets rejected. I do like to try random words, and am often surprised that they are real words.

Hi Bored - I don't play competitively and don't worry about my stats. By "gaming" I only meant "learning which words WT accepts, even if they aren't in WT's own dictionary. I'm such an innocent!

It's all interesting, though. Thanks for your comments/insights.

[Naboka]

I hear you Naboka! My brain always thinks "lita" is a word, no matter how many times i try it and it gets rejected. I do like to try random words, and am often surprised that they are real words.

Hi Bored - I don't play competitively and don't worry about my stats. By "gaming" I only meant "learning which words WT accepts, even if they aren't in WT's own dictionary. I'm such an innocent!

It's all interesting, though. Thanks for your comments/insights.

Sometimes it's just the thrill of the hunt. The adventure of discovery.

And iffy rules get magically applied.

If you've gone to the optomitrist or opthamologist, you might have heard the word "sclerotitis" which means inflammation of the sclerotic coat of the eye. There would be no reason to pluralize it. They only see one patient at a time, and it's either inflamed or not--rather than having multiple inflammations. But, maybe there were a lot one day.

So, on a gamble:

Screen Shot 2022-07-20 at 10.29.40 PM.png

Eureka! It worked.

What's weird about words is that sclerotize (sclerotise) has to do with the hardening of an anthropod's cuticle. Truly an ultra rare word. But, sclerotitis? Maybe rarish, but no super uncommon.

Go figure.

ps: kudos to jennyunderpants for finding the following:

Screen Shot 2022-07-20 at 10.31.56 PM.png

[mcdonna]

Thanks for your reply.

I don't know what you mean by "legal by rule."

A person found and was given points for septuagintilliardths, but the game's own dictionary did not contain this word....

I agree with you that the game dictionary should match the internal WordTwist dictionary.

But as for "legal" big number words themselves, https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Names_of_large_numbers does a pretty good job of explaining how those words are formed. The "ard" and "ardth" suffixes are said to be used in the "Traditional European" notation.

There is also an interesting internal Talk page discussing (and some arguing) about the page presentation and sources. Look at the row of tabs just above the page title. The second tab on the left accesses the Talk page.

[folkslinger]

Hi to the cryptogram keeper,

Below I have quoted a fairly recent post by mcdonna which gives a link to a page that helps explain those crazy number words. I had earlier found them under "Names of Large Numbers - Extensions of The Standard Dictionary" via https://www.liquisearch.com.
When these began to appear there a few people (lalatan, Spike1007,and others) (not me) who recognized what they where seeing. I had the same problem at first I could not find them.

As far as the Dictionary is concerned I believe the official dictionary is a version of the sowpods and not the same dictionary that you get linked to when you ask for a definition within the game (Lexi). I am sure that the Admin could explain that part if you wish write him. He runs this thing really well and the longer I play the more I see how hard a task that must be.

Yeah over the years I've learned how to mash bits of words together to make mystery medical compounds. I even have an idea of what some of the bits mean.

Today I found my first incomprehensible number! Though it's only 19 letters: QUINQUAGINTILLIARDS

Evidently while I was on my 2-year sabbatical either Stephen added a cosmic scale to the boards or else people started seeing what had been there all along. I was flummoxed at first, then remembered Google. (Not googol.) And turned up a Wikipedia page with the formulae for compounding these numbers. According to it, QUINQUAGINTILLIARDS is 10³⁰³ in the Traditional European (aka Peletier or "long scale") format. And yes I used their table while working the board. Is that cheating? Give me a few years and I might not need it any more.

In case anyone else is interested, the page is wikipedia dot org slash wiki slash Names_of_large_numbers.

[folkslinger]

mcdonna I'm sorry it took me so long to type my post that you had already responded with your info before these old hands could type more than one or two long words

[the cryptogram keeper]

Thanks for all the info people!

@Folkslinger: I kind of wondered if Lexicus was WT's actual dictionary, and it makes sense that it is not.

Regarding large number-names - I am in my 50s, with a (very non-current) linguistics degree and a life-long interest in words, but have never come across the "-ard" or "-ardth" suffixes. But, I am in North America. and not in the mathematical field, so that kind of makes sense. I will definitely check out those references!

[Spike1007]

I think at one time WordTwist faithfully used Lexic or SOWPODS or some other dictionary, but over time (for instance when longer words were allowed in 5x5), more words were introduced and no one dictionary works. Instead I think there is some unknowable (except to Stephen) master internal word list. A list makes more sense, since a dictionary may not be comprehensive in terms of the forms of the words (plurals, prefixes, suffixes, etc.) that are accepted. (In practice, each board has its own attached list, which of course should be a subset of the master list. Ideally, these board lists are constructed by running through the master list and seeing which words appear in the board, but this can also be done manually. (A while back, Stephen was working on adding some of these "missing" words. (A number were cases where -NESS worked but players noticed that -NESSES didn't.) This was apparently fixed by updating the board lists the manual way. The upshot was that very occasionally, a player could get credit for a -NESSES word that didn't actually appear on the board.)

I assume the lack of availability of a definitive dictionary or word list affects the speed players more than me. I play for high average points per word. (I'm in awe of players who seem to be able to do both.) Anyway, because of that, I'm much more dependent on learning & knowing potential word parts rather than whole words, and I have the luxury of being able to stare at the board for three minutes trying to put something together that works. As an example, I just cobbled together POLYMETHACRYLATES, which I don't think I knew previously.

I could never memorize a dictionary anyway, so many of the words & word parts I know come just from playing WordTwist & seeing what others have found. That's where any knowledge of the "big number" words comes from. (I did know that milliard was an obsolete British English word for a billion.) Others were the pioneers there. I just learned (and sometimes guessed) some parts, then kept an eye out for boards that had a couple of QUs & -LLION- or -LLIARD-.

[bwt1213]

There are rules for how to make plurals of nouns, for example. But you could derive those words in the dictionary only if the dictionary contained information about each word's part of speech. But then there are words spelled identically, bur are different parts of speech, which would mean the word would have to be in the dictionary more than once. And then there are the exceptions to the rules. So you throw up your hands and cease worrying about parts of speech. You just have a word list. The disadvantage to that is simple: words derived from common words are sometimes missing. So: Dole, doler, dolers. A doler is one who doles. If I remember correctly, it's not in the dictionary. Why not? It's an obvious word, formed strictly from the English rules for forming nouns of this type. There are tens of thousands of words like this, ones everyone would recognize and may well even use. They're not in WordTwist's word list, not in Sowpods, and not in pretty much anyone's list. Best we can do is report them and hope Stephen adds them. Manually. I don't envy him the job.

[officeann]

This morning the word "breastplough" was both longest and best word. I clicked on it. Dictionary said it doesn't know that word.

[the cryptogram keeper]

Yes, officeann, that sort of thing happens a lot, which got me wondering and led me to start this thread. Breastplough is a great find! (and it paints an intriguing picture).