The 'defrocked' Standard game

[mkenuk]

I think most regular players would agree that this game was easier than usual, hence the large number of rosettes.
Although the 'rosette target' was 37, no fewer than 13 of those words came from adding an (e)d or an (e)r suffix to other words, effectively making the target 24.

Some interesting statistics:
frocked was played by 483 (86%) of those taking part, but was rated 'uncommon'.
docker was played by 467 (82.5%) - more than played such Chi regulars as redo (425) and doer (459) -and that, too, was 'rare'.

I'm not suggesting that either of these words should be made common, but I wonder if, in the case of docker, its 'rare' status comes from its meaning of 'stevedore' not being known in US?
It's certainly very common in UK

[Tom44]

I played docker but assumed it meant a person who parked his boat at the dock.    Who knew??

The UK/Australia v. US divide is always interesting to me.  I learned the word abseil from playing the game, but rappel was very common to me.  The common/uncommon is always somewhat problematic and I am sometimes amazed, but that is actually part of the charm of the game.  You say
"to-mah-toe", I say "to-may-toe".............

[yelnats]

In Oz, we had a notorious "Painters & Dockers Union" when the docks were really bad. I heard of importers who imported left shoes on a different ship to the corresponding right shoes to avoid pilfering. There were also murders connected to the dockers.

[cmh]

Gee thanks for pointing out how easy it was to get a rosette! To think I was chuffed to get one for once!