Couple of "s" words - possible spoiler

[rhino]

Hi, had a look at the previous words suggestions and couldn't find these - "towards" and "outwards", both possible in the Standard puzzle, 8 January. My argument is that these are not plurals of their "singular" versions, but genuine "s" words in their own right ...

[mkenuk]

You beat me to it, Rhino, although I was going to leave it until the game had closed. What about all the other adverbs that end in the same way: -  'onwards', 'upwards' homewards', downwards' etc? I can't remember any of these being rejected, yet some of them must surely have come in Chi games before?

MK

[Alan W]

Certainly, by the rules of Chi, these words should be allowed. They are not plural nouns or inflections of verbs - they're adverbs I think.

Yes, MK, there are quite a few similar words, and most of them are not currently allowed. Many of them are so long that they're unlikely to have been possible in any puzzles anyway, which might explain why the question hasn't come up previously. There are a few words of this form that are already accepted, somehow: afterwards, earthwards and rightwards. Words currently not allowed are:

backwards
downwards
eastwards
forwards
frontwards
homewards
inwards
leftwards
northwards
onwards
outwards
rearwards
southwards
towards
upwards
westwards

I'll allow all of these.

I found I don't have to change hogwards. It turns out this does not mean "towards a hog" - nor is it a mispronunciation of Harry Potter's school. It's a word for people who look after hogs, so it is correctly treated as a plural.

[rhino]

Thank you Alan ...

[birdy]

I always find it strange that afterwards is underlined in spell-checking programs.

[TRex]

Wow! An amazing job as usual, Alan. I can't think of any you didn't get.

I always find it strange that afterwards is underlined in spell-checking programs.

I find it amazing that towards is underlined unless I change dictionaries.