It seems like switching
eland from common to rare was one of the most controversial decisions I ever made. And how did I come to that decision? Trying to be consistent, that's how.
Yelnats queried why
eland was common when
echidna was rare. As a result I made
eland rare. Seemingly in my attempt to eliminate an inconsistency I created a multitude of new inconsistencies.
The original poster TRex has said he was not suggesting any words be reclassified. I'm tempted to grant him his wish and do nothing. But I think there is another solution, short of drawing up a huge matrix in which every mammal can be compared with every other mammal. As TRex notes,
springbok is a seed word - a nine-letter word used to generate a puzzle. The word can only come up in a puzzle where it is the niner. And I've verified that it can't come up in any ten-letter puzzle. The bar has always been set a little higher for seed words than for common-or-garden common words. If there's any doubt that the word would be known to players all over the world, then it shouldn't be a seed word.
Well, I don't think any of the forumites contributing to this thread actually said they didn't know the word
springbok, but I imagine there are people who have no interest in antelopes or rugby, or the anti-apartheid protest movement of the 1970s, who would not know the word. So I'm removing it as a seed word. Whether it's common or rare is irrelevant, since it won't be in any future puzzles.
But should I make
eland common again?