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Contestant Guidelines

From Countdown

The current contestant guidelines for Countdown as of May 2024 read as follows:

Countdown use Oxford Dictionaries Premium (ODP), which can be found at https://premium.oxforddictionaries.com/english/

We do not accept American spellings of words on the show, but we accept American words, such as SNEAKER and ZUCCHINI, but we will not allow labor ☓, favor ☓ and cigaret ☓ etc.

Rules for deciding plurals of nouns

These notes outline the general rules that the judges in Dictionary Corner use when deciding whether a noun can have a plural.

Nouns and senses of nouns may be labelled in the dictionary as being either [MASS NOUN] or [COUNT NOUN].

If an entry for a noun has no label, it indicates that the noun is an ordinary countable noun, and a plural is allowed: for example, TABLE – TABLES, BOY – BOYS, BOOK – BOOKS, LASS – LASSES, and so on.

If an entry for a noun has the label [MASS NOUN] it means that the word is not usually or typically used in the plural, for example SANIDINE. In this case the plural would not be allowed.

The label [COUNT NOUN] means the word can be pluralized.

Other areas of adjudication

1. Allowed

Logical inflections: e.g. KNIGHTED, SCALDED, are fine.

Special care should be taken when pluralizing words ending in:

I. –AGE

Words in this category denoting an action (BREAKAGE), the product of an action (DOSAGE) or a place of abode (ORPHANAGE) may be pluralized. Many others do not have a logical plural sense.

II. –ING

The plural of a word ending in –ING will not be allowed unless it is entered in the dictionary in a pluralized form, e.g. ENDINGS is fine but bakings ☓ would be disallowed.

III. Accented words are allowed, e.g. FIANCÉ.

2. Not allowed

(a) –ER agent nouns. For example, CURER is fine but guester ☓ is not.

(b) –ILY words not listed. For example, STUBBILY is fine but mankily ☓ is not.

(c) –LESS and –NESS words not listed. For example, EARLESS is fine but beefless ☓ is not, REDNESS is fine but beigeness ☓ is not.

(d) –UN words and RE– words not listed. For example, UNSAY is fine but unscrape ☓ is not, REWORD is fine but recrack ☓ is not.

(e) –BE words not listed. For example, BESTREW is fine but bescatter ☓ is not.

(f) –ISH words not listed. For example, YELLOWISH is fine but maroonish ☓ not.

(g) Hyphenated words are not allowed.

(h) Words in italics are not allowed.

(I) Words beginning with capital letters are not allowed.

(j) Words with an apostrophe in place of a letter. For example, whensoe'er ☓, are not allowed.

(k) Words which only appear in combinations. For example, mistle ☓ (mistle thrush) and quo ☓ (status quo) are not allowed.

(l) American spellings such as color ☓, favor ☓, cigaret ☓ etc.

Adjectives

Also, please be aware that comparatives of adjectives can also be risky. Words like GREEDY do have specified next to them their logical comparative (GREEDIER, GREEDIEST). Unless the comparatives are specified, they will not be valid and no points will be awarded.

The rule of thumb for Countdown is that comparatives of all two-syllable adjectives must be specified in the dictionary or they will not be allowed on the show. You’ll get used to what is acceptable and what isn't over a period of time – but in general, if it’s not listed in the dictionary, it is not allowed – with ONE exception – and this is for one-syllable adjectives like DARK, COLD, BLEAK. The dictionary doesn’t list DARKER and DARKEST, COLDER and COLDEST etc, as we have a general rule that all one-syllable adjectives can be extended in this way, and they are pretty obvious anyway, so there's no need to take up website space.

Verbs

Also all verbs can be extended with –ING, so if someone offers an –ING word and it is listed as a verb, it will be accepted, even though the full word is not printed in its entirety – so things like FLUNK might be listed as a verb, so it is acceptable to allow FLUNKED and FLUNKING.

Conundrums

The conundrum will never end in S to make a plural of a singular word, so words like BUNGALOWS will not be used. Some CAN end in S, but they will not be plurals, ie DIAGNOSIS, HEARTLESS etc. Whatever comes out in the mixed-up version will never be the answer (so if the conundrum spells out a word when it is first revealed, this won’t be the actual answer – ie – if the conundrum is revealed as GERANIUMS, then the answer will not be GERANIUMS. In this case, it would be MEASURING.

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