plural and singular Game of Empathy

16 replies. Last post: 2006-03-10

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plural and singular
  • BIG BAD WOLF at 2006-02-23

    I seen the new rule that has been put into play for about a week now, so when it came to the word children - instead of using both kids and kid in my list, I just used kid - since I thought the the plural would not be counted.

    So what is up with the word “kids” getting 43 points, and the word “kid” only getting 20 points. Should either word be worth 63 points?

    If not, then I disagree with this new rule.

  • ypercube at 2006-02-23

    What rule? I did not see any rule. For a week now? Where did you see that?

    There was only a proposal for a rule.

  • ypercube at 2006-02-23

    Oh, terribly sorry.

    There was a new rule! Oh, what a shame. :(

  • Ed Collins at 2006-02-23

    Wolf, I'm going to give it some more thought, but offhand I think I agree with you.

    As it is now, we aren't allowed to use both KID and KIDS, (in the CHILDREN example) but if you're sure both of them will probably be there, as it is now you will have to take an educated “guess” which one will score higher.

    Note that if BOTH happen to be in the top ten, then obviously no one could have a “perfect” score that game!

    Also note that KIDS (plural) scored more than KID but both BOY and GIRL (singular) scored more than BOYS and GIRLS. (Where's the logic in that?)

    How does everyone else feel?

    1) Put it back the way it was… allow the use of both singular and plurals as part of your ten entries and count each one separately.

    2) Do NOT allow the user to enter both the singular and plural form of a word, and yet each one itself is a valid answer. (Current.)

    3) Do NOT allow the user to enter both the singular and plural form of a word, since both the singular and plural of a word will be considered the same thing in the scoring. (What Big Bad Wolf thought was the case.)

    The question really comes down to this: What would make for a more enjoyable game?

  • BIG BAD WOLF at 2006-02-23

    Well first I thought the rule meant that no matter if you make it singular or plural, the system would put the points toghether as one word.

    How it is now, you just have to choose one and hope it is the best.

    If both words can still be put and scored, then I think it is a bad restriction.

    I would vote to just put it back how it was since it might be hard for the system to know all the sigular/plural of all words to put them together in on score.

    Either way, they way it is now just limits you.

  • Ed Collins at 2006-02-23

    From a programming standpoint, it's MUCH harder to implement Option #3 as I mentioned above… because as we all know, not all plurals simply end in the letter S.

    KID and KIDS is easy, but, for example, the plural of BABY is BABIES. The plural of CHILD is CHILDREN…

    If one player submits the word BABY and another player submits BABIES, should that also count as the same word? If so, Richard has to be able to write the code to recognize this - no easy task.

    Thus, if Option #3 is not an valid option, then it's a choice between Option #1, #2, or fourth option that I haven't thought of.

  • Lori Andreas at 2006-03-01

    If option #3 is not valid from a programming standpoint, then how does the program distinguish between our singulars and plurals when we submit our answers? Is it then counting on US not to use the plurals (such as your example of child/children or baby/babies?)

    I think option 3 is best - else we should be able to submit singular and plural as separate words (option #1). I'm quite new here, but like Big Bad Wolf above, it never ocurred to me that the scores would be different for plural vs singular having read that both wouldn't count as separate submitted words.

  • ypercube at 2006-03-02

    Lori is right. Option #3 is not that difficult to implement.

    But I'd like to throw new light in the discussion. Whatever option is finally accepted, what about when there are three words than one has an s more than the other? Are they counted as plural of one another? I'll give an example - where none is plurar of the other - just to give you the difficulty of programming.

    3 words: a, as, ass. Why can't I put them together in my list?

  • BIG BAD WOLF at 2006-03-02

    Had to choose between tulip & tupips - I choose the wrong one and lost out of 15 points.

    I still vote to go back how it was with both allowed, since both are still allowed by different players. (Then I could have had 41 extra points.)

  • Judy at 2006-03-03

    I too have been “cheated” out of points regarding the use of singular and plurals. Who thinks of Holland and just one TULIP?(Obviouslly almost everybody!)

    If writing a program to compile singular and plurals is too difficult…I think we should be allowed to use them ourselves. Right now, it is beyond even a guessing game in Empathy with our other players, it is LESS than that.

    Please change it back…

  • Paavo Pirinen at 2006-03-04

    Generally there are many many words that can be put into different conjugations. It might be frustraiting trying to guess what form others will use, but it is possible. Even if you could write (and often you can - only singular/plurar-combo is forbidden) both (or all) forms, it might take more slots than it's worth. I might be using only six really different words today because words are adjectives and I can't decide if any form would be much better than other.

    I don't like the singular/plural-rule too much. It seems kind of a makeshift rule that just tackles the most imminent way to use a same word twice. I think we would do better without, but I don't think the rule as complete nonsense, since it effectively forces us to use more words. It's harder for anybody to get high points, but in a way the game is more interesting.

    On the other hand problem with expressions like a, as and ass is a good reason to oppose the rule. As far as the program goes, we could still use pairs like leaf and leaves, but program prevents us from using some (well, very rare) really different words just because they seem like different forms of the same word.

  • Dustin at 2006-03-04

    We could go back to the original rules but just agree as a community to not use plurals. That would avoid the programming issues and not force players to choose between plurals and singulars. Of course, people could still enter the plural of a word but it would not score very well…

  • BIG BAD WOLF at 2006-03-04

    Thing is when something like super powers comes along, I was able to do good - since I was able to use: fly, flying, and flight - all scoring pretty well and giving me my first 1st place in the game.

    I mean why have “same word with s not allowed”, when it is still allowed to use the same type of word many times, like in my fly example.

  • David Scott at 2006-03-09

    i don't know if it is a bad thing to allow only plural or singular. It certainly changes the strategy. Before the rule change, I scored heavily by choosing singular and plural of the most popular words. I like the new rule because it forces you to pick more root words, and also leaves you with a strategic decision to make on each word - plural or singular. It is even more interesting when the empathy word itself is plural (which has been the case a lot recently).

    Congratulations Big Bad Wolf on your successful “to fly” conjugation strategy - I wish I had thought of it! (I used multiple conjugations of “invisibility”). I also made the critical error of picking “superstrength” instead of simply “strength” which didn't sound like a super power to me (just have to go to the gym to get that!)

  • Dustin at 2006-03-09

    Allowing plural and singular to count but not allowing us to play both words forces players to make a more or less random decision (“with or without an 's'“?) even though they already thought of the word. I think that the crux of the game is in the decision on what words to use (which requires some thought), not in the frequently arbitrary decision between plural and singular.

    In yesterday's game, I played “toy” for 1 point while “toys” got 26 points. I was clearly thinking along the same lines as many other players, I was empathetic, but not rewarded for it because of the figurative coin flip I made in deciding between plural and singular.

    I restate my assertion that we should either go back to the way it was or count different forms of the same word as one.

  • Paavo Pirinen at 2006-03-10

    If decision between plural and singular would be arbitrary, they would score nearly same. If 26 people flip heads while only you flip tails, probability is playing a marvelously big trick on you.

    The game will never be only a game of choosing right words (though that is the crux, yes), it will always be a game of thinking about forms also. Plural/singular rule changes problems more than creates them.

    If we lose the rule, stongest words will get stronger and weaker words weaker beacause people will use less words. It will also still be bad tactics to put all the words in both forms because people don't have enough room to sacrifice two slots to a word they are not sure about (and there are people, who never visit forums and never think of using both forms). Different forms will score differently and poorly chosen forms will score bad.

    I (as I kind of hinted on that earlier post) also used fly/flying/flight -combo on super power day. I also used invisibe/invisibility and immortal/immortality -combos. Last one was a bad choise.

    Plural/singular -rule is not completely stupid, but we could do without. Carthago delenda est.

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