In early 2016 I was visiting my older brother who took great pleasure in showing me his brand new fancy computer.
He had upgraded from an old laptop which he explained was on its last legs however this old laptop would still perform basic functions & asked me if I would like to have it otherwise it was just going to the dump because be would get nothing for it if he tried to sell it.
Ok , I said , i'll take it but of course you will have to come over & set it up so that I can connect to the internet etc. & even then i have no idea what i am am going to use it for.
So he did set me up & connect me to the internet & being aware of my liking of crosswords , he suggested i try the Chi site.
Of course , like so many others , i was immediately addicted to Alan's wonderful game & that was probably due to how easy he has made it for everyone to play , even for a novice like me.
I was quickly dumbfounded by the fact that i was playing with people from all over the world & there was this thing called the forum where , if i chose to register then i could actually talk to these people.
As i continued to play i got curious about all these other options on the site which i did not understand & also wanted to query some of the " chi quirks " which i was encountering so with much hesitation i registered for the forum & started asking some really stupid questions.
To my surprise , there were several forumites who responded to my silly questions but in particular Pat had a way of explaining my " computer questions " in plain English so that even i could understand & i will always be grateful for that , because without her taking the time to give me with those simple explanations not to mention the endless amount of encouragement that she provided then i probably would have given up.
Mike , i felt i had to include that prelude before responding to your post as it is players such as yourself & Morbius that have helped & taught me so much since i began playing that i would not presume to tell you anything about this game.
However you have asked the question & the simple answer is that you are definitely not alone as i am sure that almost every player has done something similar on at least one occasion.
The explanation is also pretty simple , the word is so common to you that you see it & think that surely i would have already played that or you probably have played it in a recent game but don't bother to check your words played list because you are to preoccupied for searching for that non - existent " tricky "word , just one more reason none of us will ever get sick of playing this incredible game.