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General Category => Words => Topic started by: mkenuk on February 29, 2020, 04:34:16 AM

Title: ternary - common?
Post by: mkenuk on February 29, 2020, 04:34:16 AM
re the carpentry challenge game.

ternary was played by 23 from 411, roughly 5.5% of those taking part.

Surely a suitable candidate for reclassification?
Title: Re: ternary - common?
Post by: TRex on February 29, 2020, 05:51:31 AM
I concur
Title: Re: ternary - common?
Post by: Jacki on February 29, 2020, 06:31:18 AM
I've never heard of it - possibly an alternative meaning is where thirsty terns hang out for a drink!
Title: Re: ternary - common?
Post by: Ozzyjack on February 29, 2020, 08:38:36 AM
Binary - Yes or No?  ;)

What about Quinary?   Luckily Quaternary has too many letters to be relevant.
Title: Re: ternary - common?
Post by: mkenuk on February 29, 2020, 10:35:04 AM
Binary - Yes or No?  ;)

What about Quinary?   Luckily Quaternary has too many letters to be relevant.

binary is common, I would think; most people have heard of the binary system; I don't think I've ever seen it in a Chi game, though.
unary is rare - I tried it in a game recently;
quaternary could conceivably turn up as a ten-letter seedword.
Title: Re: ternary - common?
Post by: Ozzyjack on February 29, 2020, 10:48:03 AM
quaternary could conceivably turn up as a ten-letter seedword.

Touche.  I didn't use my tenth figure to count. :D

Somewhere in my youth I had to deal with number systems with different bases.  I can't remember whether it was high school maths or programmer training.
I am not arguing for them to be common
Title: Re: ternary - common?
Post by: Alan W on March 28, 2020, 01:51:58 PM
Quaternary is in the Chi lexicon as a rare word. However there's no conceivable puzzle that could include it, so it's neither here nor there. Quinary is also rare.

As well as its use in mathematical and scientific senses, ternary is also used in talking about musical structures. Still, I'd have to agree that it's quite a technical term, so I'll make it rare.

Binary should certainly continue to be a common word. As well as its technical meanings, it's often used in more general senses, as in this sentence from Yuval Levin in the Atlantic a few days ago:

Quote
Policy makers are acting as if we face a binary choice between letting a deadly disease run rampant or strangling our economy, making every proposed course of action seem irresponsible.

Title: Re: ternary - common?
Post by: Calilasseia on April 02, 2020, 11:55:26 AM
This has connections with another word I tried in a past puzzle, namely arity. Which is the term used to describe the number of operands that an operator takes, or the number of input parameters that a function requires.

If memory serves, arity was, when I raised this, regarded as too obscure even to be added to the rare words list.
Title: Re: ternary - common?
Post by: Alan W on April 02, 2020, 12:01:48 PM
Actually I added arity as a rare word (https://theforum.lexigame.com/index.php?topic=3165.msg51081#msg51081).