New word suggestion - NERDINESS

[blackrockrose]

I tried 'nerdiness' in the 10-letter TRENDINESS game, but it was rejected.

I'd like to suggest it as a rare word.

[Morbius]

I tried it too.  It's in several dictionaries including the Oxford online.  I think there's a case for it being common given that nerdiest (and presumably nerdy) are common words.

[mkenuk]

Thirded wholeheartedly.
I think nerdy, which came up in a couple of games recently, is common.

[Alan W]

I've no doubt nerdiness should be accepted as a word, although my spell-checker does have doubts.

But if I agree to the proposition of making it a common word, do people feel I should go the extra step of making it a seed word for 9-letter puzzles?

[Morbius]

I'd have no problem with it being a seed word.

[blackrockrose]

I only suggested it as a rare word because I felt that to go from 'not known' to 'common' seemed too big a leap.

I'd be perfectly happy to see it become a seed word.

[yelnats]

I think few of the regular forumites and players would not know "NERDINESS"; and a few would practise it!

[Jacki]

What is a seed word?

[Alan W]

It's the nine- or ten-letter word that is the basis of a puzzle. So, the question is, if there is a 9-letter puzzle and the 9-letter word turns out to be nerdiness, will some people feel it was unfair (because they've never heard of the word, or they thought of it but decided it wasn't a "proper" word, or because they've set themselves a goal of only playing common words and they assumed this would be a rare word, or ...)?

[Scouser1952]

Thanks Stanley I’m a current practitioner of nerdiness, quite successfully according to my daughters.

Tony

[TRex]

All of my children think I'm a nerd (and I probably am), but I'm not sure about taking a word from not being accepted at all to being a common word and therefore eligible to be a seed word might be too much. Given that nerdiness gets a squiggly red underline by my web browser's spell-checker (as apparently, it is in Alan's web browser) — and, in my experience, a web browser's spell-checker is a good test of how common a word is — I think common status is unwarranted.

[pat]

It’s one of those silly words that most people could probably come up with but have never actually used. Common? Probably not. Seed word? More probably not.

Lots of probablys there. Probablies?

[mkenuk]

I have always been of the opinion that, if a word is familiar to an adult native speaker of English, it should be classed as common.

I also feel that if a short adjective in -y is classed as common, then the comparative and superlative forms of that adjective, made by adding -ier and iest to the root word, should also be common, on the grounds that they too would be familiar to an educated native speaker:
 eg trendy, trendier and trendiest should all be common, because the first form trendy is common.

I would go further and say that a noun formed by adding the suffix -ness to a common adjective should also be common - trendiness should be common because trendy is common.

So, if nerdy is common, then nerdiness should also be common.

Should nerdy be common? That's another question.

Just my opinion.

[Alan W]

MK, your rules would certainly make life easier for me, since there are several outstanding requests to make words like hammier, bandier and ashier rare. But it would also require reversing some of the changes previously made. For example blowsier and blowsiest were made rare though blowsy was left as common. Likewise with ornerier and orneriest. Also googlier and googliest.

As for -iness words, blowsiness and googliness are not in our word list at all, and orneriness is rare. A while back we added antsiness as a rare word, though antsy is common. Antsier and antsiest are rare.

[Les303]

I initially agreed with the comments from TRex & pat but then the point of view put forward by mkenuk was very convincing. ( Oh shit , does my participation in this thread mean that i am turning into a nerd? )


Alan, for what it's worth, my personal opinion is that some of your previous decisions could & should be reversed.

I would be interested to know if other players agree & are prepared to nominate a particular word that they feel has been unfairly treated & if our doyen is prepared to reverse the odd deciscion?