Plurals in Chihuahua

[Alan W]

Let's try a poll, to get players' views on one of the issues that has generated a lot of dissension since the beginning of Chihuahua.

I think the first ever comment on the game from someone I didn't know was, "You don't recognize 'ants'??"

Our current policy is to exclude "plurals and verb forms made by adding S to the end of a word". It is based on the rule applied by a lot of Target-style puzzles in newspapers. Our implementation of that rule is the result of an automated procedure which has created a few anomalies. Hence requests such as the recent one from Viz to allow "afters", since there is no singular noun "after". "Afters" will be added, as other words have in the past, but would it be preferable in the long run to revise the whole policy?

Please share your views. Cast a vote if you wish, but more importantly, tell us why you prefer a particular approach.

[Alan W]

Well, so far results are even, between the pro- and anti-plural views. But I was hoping for some discussion of why people feel the way they do. So I'll set out some of my own thoughts, in the hope it might stimulate others to comment.

The main reason for excluding plurals (using "plurals" as a short-hand term for inflections generated by adding S to the end of a noun or verb) is of course that any puzzle that includes an S is likely to have a large number of word pairs, like "note", "notes" that don't test the player's skill or vocabulary and are simply tedious to enter. The tedium factor is mitigated by the recent upgrade that allows you to bring back a previous word and extend it, but the real issue, I think is dilution of the skill factor.

Of course, the same effect occurs to some extent if a puzzle has an E and a D, or an E and an R, and so on. But it's a matter of degree - there are a lot more words with the -S inflection (nouns and verbs) than with an -ED inflection (verbs only), for example.

So, what are some of the disadvantages of our existing approach? It annoys people, especially those who are just starting to play Chihuahua and are not expecting this restriction. We all aim to maximise our score, and are likely to be disgruntled about anything that stands in our way, even if we know, in the logical part of our brains, that the same restriction applies to all our competitors.

Some players might also be confused by some of the words ending in S that they see in the solution. They might ask, "Why can't I play "tiers" when "theirs" is allowed?" (Although I've never actually received such a complaint, so maybe people don't study the solutions as closely as I imagine.)

One solution could be to allow the plurals in one of the puzzle types only (Standard or Challenge), or to introduce a third puzzle which allows plurals. But this might just make matters worse, as people switching from one puzzle to another would have to keep reminding themselves whether plurals were allowed or not. So far nobody has voted for these options in the poll.

Another way out would be to avoid all puzzles containing an S, but this would rule out almost half the possible puzzles, so I'd rule it out for certain.

A possible relaxation of the rule would permit four-letter words that are plurals. Since the three-letter singular forms would not be permitted, the argument about diluting the skill component of the game does not apply. But would players find it confusing that some plurals are allowed and not others?

Over to you...

[biggerbirdbrain]

Alan,

All your reasoning is correct. Allowing the "s" for a plural is already somewhat mitigated by certain words that become plurals when adding "es" as in "glass-es", etc. Scores would become artificially inflated and the game would become, as you said, infinitely more tedious. Keep it as it is.

Fondly,
B-B-B

[mymermaid]

Alan, as you say making plurals by adding the "s" is tedious - there are other word games that do this and its boring and inflates the numbers.
Keep Chihuahu as it is.

Mandy

[abra]

Would adding "s" words truly benefit the game?....or would it simply raise the numbers?  Higher scores do NOT equal a better game.  B B B will continue to kick my butt with or without the "s" - so why add it?

Abra

[Alan W]

Well the voting, and the comments, are firmly in favour of keeping our "plurals" policy the way it is.

That's easy for me!

I'll continue to refine the word list from time to time, to include words wrongly excluded under the rule. (A couple of examples I'm aware of are "besides" and "annals".) There seem to be quite a few such cases, so if you spot one, let us know.

[anonsi]

I recall that a major reason for disallowing words ending in "s" is that for people like Dave, it can be a major inconvenience to have to type in multiple forms of words.  However, as we have all witnessed, Dave has made more word suggestions than any other player! (Or it at least seems that way if this isn't the case.)

Also, forms such as ed, ing, ies, etc, are all allowed at present.

When this poll was open, I voted to allow all s words.  Time and time again we are forced to determine whether certain s words are allowed.  I don't think it would be tedious at all, but then that is just my opinion.

Alan, I certainly don't want to create a lot more work for you, but I wonder if just including them all now would eliminate even more hassles further down the road.

[birdy]

I think I remember a comment in the past - from Alan? - about some word games that allow only one form of a word, e.g. report or reporter or reported but not all three.  I suppose that could work for plural vs. singular forms of nouns too, but we'd still be having problems with words like axes -  is that the plural of axe where "s" is added, or the plural of axis, where it's not just adding an "s".  In both cases, it's now a 4-letter word.  And of course, the infamous "pants."

I think I agree with Anonsi - it just seems simpler to allow all forms of a word rather than trying to figure out if it's a plural or a different word spelled the same way but with the addition of an "s".  And it seems as if it would save you time, Alan, in having to make the decisions.

I didn't vote, so my opinion isn't recorded in the poll.

[technomc]

See, i am really torn about this issue.
When i see that the target has 178 words [like yesterdays] i groan and think, oh God i'll be here for hours, and, as in yesterdays game i gave up...or might run out of time to do the game my usual dedicated justice.

If we allow all 's' ending words, will we ever again have a game of less than 100 words [if the letters include an 's'....] Think how many more words there would have been in Sundays game...at least another 30?!

So i really can't decide..

Pants  - no pants -pants  -no pants.....it's a difficult decision.....

But actually i want Pants for pants sake because that is what we wear...not pant....so it is a bit different...

Maybe we could review Viral's list of 's' endings that he proposed before...

[Alan W]

T, the way the puzzles are created at the moment, there are limits to the number of words - higher limits for the Challenge puzzle than the Standard puzzle. So, if we were allowing plurals, the result when there's an S would probably not be a bigger puzzle, but a puzzle with fewer non-plural words.

This gets back to the issue I mentioned in the original discussions in this thread, the dilution of the skill factor. You might be looking for 178 words, but 70 of them might be plurals. Making sure you got all those plurals would be a test of attention to detail, rather than word knowledge and mental agility.

Part of the problem with super large puzzles is that the size limit is applied to the common words. A Challenge puzzle must have 40 to 85 common words, but there's no theoretical limit to the number of rare words. Maybe the size factors for the Challenge should be based on the total word count. What would you suggest as a reasonable maximum number of words?

I've mentioned before the next major upgrade to Chihuahua, that will allow people to create and share their own puzzles. This might allow us to resolve the plurals issue eventually, by letting people choose whether to allow plurals.

[technomc]

Thanks Viral for explaining that more fully, I can see now that including plurals wouldn't change the 'size' of the game.
I think 200 words is as large a game as i would want to see...in fact i find todays labourious at 178 [or what ever it is...i forget to look...] so wouldn't want to look for more...i could not justify the time it would take me...

But i am more than happy to 'go with the flow'.

Thanks again...