Still more Scrabble

Proceedings started with a good augury: a bright and clear half moon, high above the back garden. Drifting in and out of what must have been high cloud. Although, despite tapping to focus, the telephone did not manage this half moon, with zoom only yielding a round white blob.

The very next game after that noticed at reference 2, we broke the 600 barrier again. I also happened to win by a comfortable margin. The rules committee have been consulted about whether it would be appropriate to raise the reporting bar.

I did rather well with 'quinine' scoring both singular and plural forms, snagging the triple word bottom left along the way. BH was not very happy with this at all, having had an 's' all along, but had not scored the conversion on the grounds that words denoting materials like 'gravel' or 'sand' do not have plurals. Something that one learns at school very early on.

She was not impressed by my argument that the rule does not apply when, for example, one is talking about the different gravels one gets from the various gravel pits scattered around the Thames flood plain, that is to say the flatlands to the west of London. So I might, as the manager of a concrete plant, say that 'of all the gravels that we have bought recently, the ones from Feltham Wash were far and away the best'.

Longman's, the dictionary we presently use for these purposes - just 5lbs worth from RPPL - had the word down as a noun and did not say anything about the plural form. Neither did the rather longer entry in OED, although it did say that it was also the name of plants - seemingly not the same plant - in the US and in Australia. Merriam Webster goes even further, allowing the use of the word as a verb. All of which tends to support the use of the terminal 's'.

As does the use of quinine in various forms, as in quinine sulphate, quinine tri-nitrate or tincture of quinine. But BH was not having any of this. Or the different brands of generic quinine one might get over time from the Pearl Pharmacy in Epsom High Street. An outfit that shops around.

Some people play the rule that to be allowed a word has to be in bold face in the chosen dictionary to be allowed, without regard to any qualification like 'foreign' or 'slang' which might follow. This has the advantage of simplicity, but rather goes against the spirit of the rules in not allowed derived parts such as 'runs' and 'running' from 'run'. Which we believe disturbs the distribution of the tiles, computed to allow such derivatives. In any event, a rule we do not play.

I associate to the difficulty of making rules watertight, even in a context as apparently simple as this. There will always be room for lawyers to make money when greedy people are pushing and shoving over a contract - be it ever so simple - provided only that there is a reasonable pot of gold at the end of the tunnel.

And talking of pots of gold, I was amused to read about a swindle yesterday (at reference 3) which was very like that described by Galsworthy a hundred years ago and noticed at reference 2. From which one deduces that the chairmen of large companies taking commissions on the side, unbeknown to board, shareholders or creditors, is a well-trodden path.

I close with something more benign. Regular readers will know about my interest in petals, last noticed at reference 4. The idea being that the number of petals of any particular sort of plant is genetically determined and should not vary much in the field and hedgerow, if at all.One might think that the same is true of the size and form of the navel inside a navel orange, seemingly common at this time of year.

One might think also that all the oranges in a net bag from Sainsbury's come from the same batch, the same variety from the same grower. Both variety and grower will vary from time to time, but all the oranges in any one bag should be the same. Except that in this particular bag, while the size and external appearance of the oranges themselves were all much or  muchness, the size and form of the navels inside varied considerably, from almost absent to maybe an inch in diameter and mostly inedible. Which suggests that genetic factors are very much disturbed by environmental factors. 

The oranges themselves were pretty good. 

Something else to try out on Gemini? Perhaps after breakfast.

PS 1: notice how some trick of the light has brough up the 'R' middle left on the Scrabble board.

PS 2: in among my morning post. Not my favourite colour, but then I suppose that they were not to know that.

References

Reference 1: https://psmv6.blogspot.com/2026/01/more-scrabble.html.

Reference 2: https://psmv6.blogspot.com/2026/01/more-first-impressions.html.

Reference 3: First Brands creditors claim ‘two-man’ firm enabled founder’s brother’s fee windfall: Helios Strategic Advisors is latest firm drawn into scandal over bankrupt US auto parts maker - Robert Smith, Financial Times - 2026.

Reference 4:  https://psmv6.blogspot.com/2026/01/the-real-cheese.html.

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