Word suggestion: summons

[jancsika]

This was not accepted in the MOMENTOUS 7 by many, whereas its plural "summonses" was! I guess this is because it's also  the second person singular of the verb "to summon", but it is nonetheless a fairly common singular noun in its own right and should be allowed, I  think.

[mkenuk]

It's been suggested before, Jancsika, by me and others. It's currently on the list of suggestions awaiting a decision.
You can read all about it here:

https://theforum.lexigame.com/index.php?topic=2868.msg49274#msg49274

[jancsika]

Yes (belated) thanks for this link. It seems to be the rule that if a word ending in s is both both a singular and a plural (or 3rd person singular present verb), then the "commonness" of the word takes precedence. I have since fallen foul of this rule with “evens” (“the odds are evens” vs “he evens the bedclothes”), “bases” (plural of both “basis” and “base”) and “hippies” (plural of both “hippy” and “hippie”).  I only regularly play the 7-by many game, and the letter s was only introduced fairly recently, hence my confusion!

[Calilasseia]

One outstanding issue is that some words excluded on the basis of being a plural ending in 's', are not just nouns. The words in question have verb forms with the same spelling. A simple example is star, which can either be a noun (namely, any of a huge number of objects of interest to astronomers), or a verb (namely, to be among the most important performers in a play, film or TV show). Consequently, stars can either be a noun plural (as in "there are numerous bright stars in the constellation Orion"), or a verb form (as in "he stars in the new Broadway musical that's just opened"). The fun part being, of course, that the verb form "stars" in that latter sentence, is third person singular.

Quite a few words that would readily come to mind to the regular players, are excluded on the basis that the verb forms have identical spelling to plural noun forms.

The problem we face here is that the website, and the associated database, are all maintained and run by one individual, and consequently, the manpower to implement the rococo bureaucracy that would be needed to solve this problem is lacking. Alan would need to be working something like 1,000 hour days to handle such issues, which of course, is not going to happen because it's a physical impossibility.

Handing the project over to a large number of developers is also a non-starter, because that option would require Alan to pony up for their salaries. Given that decent full stack developers command salaries of £50,000 per annum or more here in the UK, I suspect that even if Alan did have the multi million pound budget required to make this a reality, he has more important uses to put the money to.

So, unless Alan wins the lottery, or secures venture capital funding for such a project, we have to live with the site's quirks. Sometimes, the regulars exhibit some frustration over this, but at others, they admit that the quirks are part of the charm here.

Rather more irksome from my standpoint, is when I alight upon a word that's missing from the database, but that's another story entirely.

[Alan W]

The effort that would be required to distinguish between nouns and verbs isn't really an issue, Calilasseia, because I've never aimed to do so. The rule has been summarised as "you cannot generally use plurals and verb forms made by adding S to the end of a base word".

There are just too many nouns that are also verbs. More problematically, there are lots of common nouns that are also rare verbs, and common verbs that are also rare nouns. If we allowed verb inflections ending in S, provided the verb isn't also a noun, there would be endless confusion and complaints. The player who thinks takes can be played because take is a verb would possibly be cheesed off if it's disallowed because takes can be sections of a movie shot continuously with the one camera.

[Calilasseia]

Hence my reference to "rococo bureaucracy" ...

[jancsika]

I came a cropper yet again, this time with "axes", which is the plural of "ax" and "axis" as well as of "axe". Even if we leave "axis" aside, is "axe" really more common than "ax"?

[pat]

... is "axe" really more common than "ax"?

It is in the UK. We never spell it without the e at the end.

[les303]

Same here in Australia, we never give E the chop.

[Jacki]

I too played axes! And I've done it before. Hopefully now I've learnt my lesson. I guess because I play scrabble a lot that I'm so used to ax or axe.