inconsistent antelopes?

[TRex]

I thought someone might have mentioned this by now, but ....

Some time back, one African antelope was demoted from common to rare and yet a much less-used antelope (referring to word frequency; I have no idea which species is more common) recently appeared as a seed word. According to the Ngram Viewer, eland has been consistently twice (or more) used than springbok.

[Jacki]

I thought the same thing when I worked out the seed word was Springbok. I said to my husband, that's nuts cause eland is considered rare! He couldn't give a toss cause he doesn't play but inconsistent is the right word T-Rex!

[yelnats]

I think springboks may be more common than elands in the animal kingdom; elands are bigger than springboks. However  for the word, the South African national rugby team are called the springboks,(I had to look up which sport) so the word would be widely known for that.

[cmh]

I mentioned this the other week in another thread as an example of rare/common demotions that always seem to involve common words I usually get regressing to rare and causing me frustration!

[pat]

I mentioned this the other week in another thread as an example of rare/common demotions that always seem to involve common words I usually get regressing to rare and causing me frustration!

Perhaps your frustration could be eased by remembering that's one less word you need to find in order to gain a rosette!

[cmh]

ROSETTE!!!!!!!!!!11 That'l be the day!!!!!!!!!!!

[pat]

 

[Greynomad]

I must admit that I felt that Springbok was a reasonable word as a seed word.

I certainly would consider it to be common.

[rogue_mother]

I must admit that I felt that Springbok was a reasonable word as a seed word.

I certainly would consider it to be common.

And yet reebok, which has an athletic shoe brand named for it and hence likely more widely known, is classified as less common. Probably all three antelopes should be classified that way.

[TRex]

I must admit that I felt that Springbok was a reasonable word as a seed word.

I certainly would consider it to be common.

For the record, I wasn't suggesting words be reclassified as common or rare — just that it seems inconsistent to make the one which only appears in English texts about half as frequently as the other should be common (and a seed word at that) whilst the more frequently appearing word was classified as rare.

[Jacki]

I understood that's what you meant T-Rex and that's why I posted that it seemed strange that one was rare and one was common. I'm going to out myself here as a bit of a dummy but RM, I did not know reebok was anything but a brand till your post. Thanks for teaching me something new today!

[Valerie]

I thought the animal was spelt rhebok (or rhebuck) as it is in Africa.  Not reebok.  But I will stand corrected.

[mkenuk]

The COD gives rhebok as its main spelling, with reebok and rhebuck as alternatives.

Apparently it is spelled reebok in Dutch; thanks to advertising and the popularity of the trainers, that is probably the best known of the three.

[Valerie]

Thanks MK.  I somehow knew you'd have the answer!

[Alan W]

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?