Recently there was
some unrest over a 7-by-many puzzle where the all-letter word was
glasnost.
Frankly I was surprised that people would find this word so obscure: Les said he'd never heard of it and yelnats said it was as foreign and uncommon as
langosta, a type of lobster. I realise some people are too young to remember the last days of the Soviet Union - though I didn't think many Chi players would be that young! But surely everyone has a little awareness of the major events of the 20th century, and even a brief account of the collapse of the Soviet Union and the end of the Cold War would include the words
glasnost (openness) and
perestroika (restructuring).
No doubt my reaction is due to the fact that I'm quite interested in politics and history. In any case, whether a word is common isn't decided by whether I, or anyone else, think it
should be known by everyone.
Obviously
glasnost isn't known to every Chi player. And it certainly hasn't been used much in news articles over the last 25 years or so. And it's a principle of Chi that the puzzle seed word should be especially common. So I'll make
glasnost a rare word (just as glasnost itself has become rare in modern Russian government) and remove it as a seed word.
* * *
I've recently responded to a few comments about words that people have made in the 7-by-many topic. I think in future I won't automatically do that - and I probably haven't succeeded in picking up all the word suggestions implied in people's reflections on the puzzle of the day. Any time a forumite wants to suggest a word be added or changed between common and rare status, they are welcome to start a topic here in the Words category. That will make it more certain that I'll follow it up eventually. And it will be a little easier for anyone to look back later on and see what was said about an issue in previous discussion, rather than having comments interspersed with a lot of unrelated posts.
