're-' words

[mkenuk]

I seem to have had a super-abundance of 'sorry, not knowns' when playing 're-' words recently.
The fact that all three games on both the 28th and the 29th had 'r' and 'e' among their letters may explain that; but still the whole thing does seem rather arbitrary at times;

Obviously words like 'renew', 'return' and 'repeat' are always going to be common, but (taking recent examples which would not be spoilers in today's games) why should 'reship' and 'retool' be common, while 'remail' and 'retorn' are rare? Not to mention the many other words which (to me, anyway) are just as common as the ones I've quoted, which get 'sorry, not known'.

I understand the reasoning, of course, why so many 're-' words are rejected - the word count would be far too high if all possible 're-' words were included - but if only there were some way of knowing which ones were among the favoured few and which ones weren't.........

How do other players manage?

MK

[Morbius]

Yes, good point MK.  It's really a trial and error process, and remembering which words counted in earlier puzzles.

The same could also be said for words ending in -er.  These also seem quite random. 

[TRex]

I seem to have had a super-abundance of 'sorry, not knowns' when playing 're-' words recently.

As have I.

How do other players manage?

Not very well! 

I think there must be some player with photographic memory (eidetic memory). (How else can one consistently get every single word with 100% accuracy?) But I have troubling remembering which words are common, uncommon, or not known from a couple of days ago. Sigh.

[Alan W]

If anyone is getting an electric shock from their computer when they see the "sorry ... not known" message, please let me know. It's not meant to work that way. It's meant to inform you politely that the word is not known, so you should try again.

Maybe people don't like to have words rejected because it lowers their hit rate. Leaving aside the fact that the hit rate is not visible to other players on two out of three daily puzzles, and that even on that puzzle, it's not visible to those who have the scoreboard set up to exclude rare word counts, if the hit rate is important to you, don't you want it to be difficult to have a high hit rate? If there was "some way of knowing" in advance whether to try a word, everyone who wanted to maximise their hit rate would have 100%, and it would be completely meaningless. Or am I missing something?

[Morbius]

Yes, we do want it to be difficult to maintain a high hit rate.  However, for me, the satisfaction I derive from the game comes from successfully spotting words rather than from guessing.  I find that I have to do more guessing where re- (and -er) words are concerned given that there isn't any obvious rationale for what counts and what doesn't.  However, that's true for all kinds of words.  It's just part of the nature of the game (and the English language!) and why there's so much discussion in the forum about specific words.  At the end of the day, it's really up to each player to decide whether they're going to not guess at all, or make informed guesses or make wild guesses.     

One of the other pleasures of the game is learning new words, and many of the re- words and -er words fall into that category.  I think we all learn from our mistakes and omissions (and sometimes from wild guessing) and that's definitely a good thing.

I don't think MK or TRex or I are complaining or advocating any changes.  We're merely pointing out one of the factors that makes the game so challenging and addictively frustrating (or frustratingly addictive).        

[TRex]

I don't think MK or TRex or I are complaining or advocating any changes.

Definitely not! It is just my warped personality which, upon receiving a 'not known' to one of my attempts, mentally slaps myself for making a mistake.

I can definitely relate to this

[mkenuk]

 if only there were some way of knowing which ones were among the favoured few and which ones weren't.........

MK

...and if only there were some way of making beer come out when I turned on the cold-water tap in the kitchen..... Wishful thinking in both cases.

In fact, the hit-rate is the least of my concerns when playing Chi. I'm fortunate, being retired, to have enough free time to play all three games every day; my target in every game I play is a rosette ( no way am I ever going to get an 'all words played' cup! ) I don't care if I get there with a hit-rate of 2% as long as I get there by my own efforts.
 
MK