@@vladdythebear5872 Pretty sure the 'ABDICATES' reference was from Peter Serafinowicz's time in Dictionary Corner on 8OOTCDC - unless, of course, he was himself referencing something earlier?
@@adh0c468Here’s how I’d deliver it: “Yep, I’ve got a five.” “I’ll spell it out for you. M-M-V-I-I. And if you’re having trouble pronouncing it, that’s understandable. It’s pronounced like ‘two-thousand-and-seven.’”
There's one more 5 letter word: Imaum which means - (Islam) the man who leads prayers in a mosque; for Shiites an imam is a recognized authority on Islamic theology and law and a spiritual guide
I think we’re all extremely fortunate that you hopped on here to validate the work of lexicographer and BA graduate in modern languages, Susie Dent. I was myself, wondering whether she could be trusted, but no more. 🙏
Technically not the "worst ever letters game". There have been two occasions (in 1983 and 2010) where you couldn't get more than a 3: the selections being ZVDUFITUD and FVBPIAOQI. Answers: ZVDUFITUD yields DID, DUD, FID, FIT, and TUI. FVBPIAOQI yields AVO, BAI, BAP, BIO, BOA, BOP, FAB, FIB, FOB, FOP, OAF, OBA, OBI, OVA, PIA, POI, and VIA.
@@RenegadeShepard69 as long as it's in the dictionary, then it is fine, in the countdown rules. And slang words are in the dictionary. That's how English works, it's a descriptivist language, not a prescriptivist one like French for example.
All these people in the comments absolutely tripping over themselves to show how much smarter they are than the contestants seeing MIAMI, without even considering that maybe there's a reason why the contestants didn't offer that one up are absolute perfect examples of why a little bit of self-humility goes a long way in life.
And how do those statements relate? Grammar is important, and that fact gives you a right to be rude? Now you're being an idiot as well as unnecessarily rude.
“Um, it actually already is a word. Mvmfiuiaj.” “Good heavens, really? Could you, um, use it in a sentence for us?” “Good morning, that’s a nice mvmfiuiaj”
For people who dont know how countdowns word game works it can be any word recognised by the oxford dictionary as long as it's not the name of a person or place so words like fuji, miami, Fiji dont count
Fuji and Miami should have been capitalized in your sentence. As with Scrabble, proper names that begin with capital letters are not allowed, except when there is also a lower case variant unconnected to the name. (e.g. the name 'Dick' isn't acceptable, but the word 'dick' is.)
Rachel just got something Susie couldn't, I'm telling you, Rachel is unbelievable in the numbers game but also a dark horse in the letters too. Can probably rival Susie Dent almost.
Avis is the Latin word for bird, so "avium" roughly means "of bird" as in the wild cherry (prunus avium) named after birds eating them. In German it's called "Vogelkirsche" meaning "bird cherry", so there you go. It's not an English word at all. The closest English word would be avian or aviary. With all that talk, I also only got "jam" in 30seconds. He gave it a good shot with the letters he had, but I would have liked to hear him explain what he think it means.
The male contestant found it so difficult that he invented a whole new language and tried to pretend he spoke it fluently. The sensible woman stuck with jam.
@@AutPen38 From wikipedia "Prunus avium, commonly called wild cherry, sweet cherry, gean, or bird cherry is a species of cherry." There are plenty of latin names of species in the dictionary, so it was worth a try. This one, unfortunately, wasn't there.
@@bryanmcsweeney007 It has Latin routes, but so do a lot of words in English. Pretty much any word ending in "ius", "ium", "us", etc. But they're also counted as English words because that's the only word we have for them. Just like how we use a lot of French words. It still should count, I'm sure they wouldn't discount "stadium" for example.
But as of right now, it isn't a standalone word. There's thousands of words out there that have entered the everyday lexicon, but by definition aren't dictionary verified words.
@@julianrolheiser6061umami isn't used only in "science". Many people use it, eg those who cook, dine out, read, went to school, or have general knowledge know about taste and flavours. It's pretty basic general stuff, she just missed it on the day. You don't need to follow science. In fact I'm sure, being well educated and highly literate, SD is in a better position than most to perfectly understand what umami is. Pretty sure even kids know these days.
The letters are stacked in two piles and the only variation is maybe two or three letters deep based on how many vowels they take. Always wondered if they stacked them with that in mind.
If a contestant is in the lead going into the last letters round, wouldn't it be a good tactic to choose all consonants? You would get nothing but so would your opponent, ensuring that the relative scores stay the same.
I think most people go on the show for the prestige rather than to win the countdown teapot, so generally just play honestly and without tactics, but yes you're right.
The rule makers are such killjoys. Did they also change the numbers game rules after that guy kept picking all the big numbers just to make it difficult?
Yes it was the worse letters game from the point of view of points scored, but it was one of the best for being informative and, for me at least, learning a brand new word.
I'm an experienced comments section deviant and I've been all over the website talking to all kinds of people, but I can confirm that Countdown video comments sections are the absolute best :)
@@KirbyGamingLive No, too depressing. At least here people are arguing about how legitimate "avium" is. Over there people are arguing about whether or not the sun comes up. I can't deal with that level of absurdity. But I take your point :)
@@sanny8716 She uses a computer. I imagine she goes on a website where you can type in an anagram and once all the letters are typed in you get a list of all the words you can make out of those letters. Then whatever word the contestants get Suzie just needs to type it in to see if it pops up or not.
they obviously missed mamuvijif, which is the official shortened way to say "my movie jeff" that doesn't need any apostrophes like other word contractions
I watched the very first episode in 1982. The first programme aired on the new channel 4. At first i thought you had to use all the numbers on the numbers game haha. 12 years old then & wild haha.
I like that these contestants actually address the card presenter kindly by name ,instead of ones that just yell at them not even acknowledging them. ie: Wheel of fortune / most American game shows
I think it's because they do more than just present the cards. Rachel does the maths problems, and Susie does the words. But overall, including them adds to the entertainment (it would be interesting to see the same on the US shows, rather than just the host and contestant interacting)
*"I like that these contestants actually address the card presenter kindly by name ,instead of ones that just yell at them not even acknowledging them. ie: Wheel of fortune / most American game shows."* Traditional British values and behaviour versus traditional American values and behaviour.
