There are two issues under discussion here:
- Should puzzles with an S be permitted in the daily 7-by-many?
- Should the rules regarding plurals be relaxed or abolished?
As I see it, answering yes to the first question would mean simply that 7-by-many puzzles would be the same as 9- and 10-letter puzzles as far as plurals are concerned. Quite a lot of the puzzles would include an
S, but the vast majority of plurals and verb forms ending in
S would be unavailable to play.
As I've noted before, there was no compelling reason to exclude
S from the 7-by-many puzzle, but I thought as it was a new type of puzzle, I could make a fresh start and avoid some of the disputation engendered by the plural issue in other puzzle types.
I'm quite open to the idea of revising this decision. To be completely clear, allowing
S into the daily 7-by-many puzzle would not result in bigger puzzles, with more words to find. The number of common words would still be between 20 and 65. And most plurals would be excluded from play.
As to the second question, I'm strongly disinclined to make any change in the treatment of plurals. But I must mention that here also, there would not necessarily be an increase in puzzle sizes. If we just started allowing all plurals with no other change, as is an option in Your Puzzles, 10-letter daily puzzles would still have between 40 and 100 common words. And the Standard and Challenge puzzles would each be within their defined size ranges. What
would happen is that some letter combinations currently allowed would be excluded in future because their word totals, including plurals, were too large. And some letter combinations that would not currently be used, because they don't produce enough valid words, would be used in future, since the addition of plurals would bring them up above the minimum. I doubt that these changes would be desirable, but they wouldn't lead to huge puzzles.