This is the 7-letter word game.  It works like this:  One person is "it".
That person thinks of a seven-letter word.  It must be a real, English word,
which can be found in some dictionary.

Other players try to guess the word, and their guesses must also be real,
English words.  The person who is "it" scores the guesses according to how
many letters in the guess match those in the word he's thinking of.  So for
instance, if the word is "privacy", then the scoring might go like this:

waffles  0  (no letters in common with privacy)
splashy  1  (both splashy and privacy have y as the 7th letter)
spinach  3  (spinach and privacy match in 3 places)

etc.  The game continues until someone guesses a word, and then that person
becomes "it", and the whole thing starts over again.

Complete rules are in ~rcurl/letter.match .  They were written for the 5- 
letter version of the game, but you can figure it out.  It's customary for 
the person who's "it" to store a list of all the current guesses in a file 
called letter.match7 in his or her home directory.  So for instance if 
kentn is "it", the guesses so far will be in ~kentn/letter.match7 .
Most people also display all guesses so far when they score a new guess.

1000 responses total.

I'm currently it, and the guesses so far are:

chronal  0  (lastword)
parties  0  (kentn)
product  0  (prp)

summary

forever

abandon

unaware

chronal  0  (lastword)
parties  0  (kentn)
product  0  (prp)
summary  1  (carson)
forever  0  (prp)
abandon  0  (gelinas)
unaware  2  (kentn)

degrade

chronal  0  (lastword)
parties  0  (kentn)
product  0  (prp)
summary  1  (carson)
forever  0  (prp)
abandon  0  (gelinas)
unaware  2  (kentn)
degrade  2  (janc)

sparkle

expiate

chronal  0  (lastword)
parties  0  (kentn)
product  0  (prp)
summary  1  (carson)
forever  0  (prp)
abandon  0  (gelinas)
unaware  2  (kentn)
degrade  2  (janc)
sparkle  2  (carson)
expiate  1  (kentn)

spectre

chronal  0  (lastword)
parties  0  (kentn)
product  0  (prp)
summary  1  (carson)
forever  0  (prp)
abandon  0  (gelinas)
unaware  2  (kentn)
degrade  2  (janc)
sparkle  2  (carson)
expiate  1  (kentn)
spectre  1  (prp)

upbraid

chronal  0  (lastword)
parties  0  (kentn)
product  0  (prp)
summary  1  (carson)
forever  0  (prp)
abandon  0  (gelinas)
unaware  2  (kentn)
degrade  2  (janc)
sparkle  2  (carson)
expiate  1  (kentn)
spectre  1  (prp)
upbraid  7  (kentn)

That was very interesting - the casual observer ight have thought the word
ended in e, from those scores.  Were you able to prove that it didn't?

I did for a while think it ended in e, but there were other possibilities
such as upbraid that didn't. At this point in the game, upbraid was about
the only reasonable choice.
 
I'll try to have a word in mind next time.

All right, I'm thinking of a 7-letter word that is not
 
  upbraid  0  (The Last Word)
 
A summary of guesses is in ~kentn/letter.match7 and in this
item.

referee

element

burning

  upbraid  0  (The Last Word)
  ----------
  referee  1  (gelinas)
  element  0  (aruba)
  burning  1  (albaugh)
  ----------

rumbles

jungles

  upbraid  0  (The Last Word)
  ----------
  referee  1  (gelinas)
  element  0  (aruba)
  burning  1  (albaugh)
  ----------
  rumbles  0  (gelinas)
  jungles  0  (albaugh)
  ----------

believe

limning

  upbraid  0  (The Last Word)
  ----------
  referee  1  (gelinas)
  element  0  (aruba)
  burning  1  (albaugh)
  ----------
  rumbles  0  (gelinas)
  jungles  0  (albaugh)
  ----------
  believe  1  (aruba)
  limning  1  (gelinas)
  ----------

bikeway  (a thoroughfare for bicycles)

  upbraid  0  (The Last Word)
  ----------
  referee  1  (gelinas)
  element  0  (aruba)
  burning  1  (albaugh)
  ----------
  rumbles  0  (gelinas)
  jungles  0  (albaugh)
  ----------
  believe  1  (aruba)
  limning  1  (gelinas)
  ----------
  bikeway  1  (aruba)
  ----------

bombrun

kernels

  upbraid  0  (The Last Word)
  ----------
  referee  1  (gelinas)
  element  0  (aruba)
  burning  1  (albaugh)
  ----------
  rumbles  0  (gelinas)
  jungles  0  (albaugh)
  ----------
  believe  1  (aruba)
  limning  1  (gelinas)
  ----------
  bikeway  1  (aruba)
  ----------
  kernels  1  (aruba)
  ----------
 
Joe, I can only find "bomb run" as two words and at that, found it
in only one of the 6 dictionaries I checked.  Do you have a cite for 
"bombrun"?

Guess not.  I was certain I'd seen it that way in literature, but I'm not
going to find it very quickly.  So let's go with 

quickly

  upbraid  0  (The Last Word)
  ----------
  referee  1  (gelinas)
  element  0  (aruba)
  burning  1  (albaugh)
  ----------
  rumbles  0  (gelinas)
  jungles  0  (albaugh)
  ----------
  believe  1  (aruba)
  limning  1  (gelinas)
  ----------
  bikeway  1  (aruba)
  ----------
  kernels  1  (aruba)
  ----------
  quickly  0  (gelinas)
  ----------

session

  upbraid  0  (The Last Word)
  ----------
  referee  1  (gelinas)
  element  0  (aruba)
  burning  1  (albaugh)
  ----------
  rumbles  0  (gelinas)
  jungles  0  (albaugh)
  ----------
  believe  1  (aruba)
  limning  1  (gelinas)
  ----------
  bikeway  1  (aruba)
  ----------
  kernels  1  (aruba)
  ----------
  quickly  0  (gelinas)
  ----------
  session  0  (aruba)
  ----------

amblers

  upbraid  0  (The Last Word)
  ----------
  referee  1  (gelinas)
  element  0  (aruba)
  burning  1  (albaugh)
  ----------
  rumbles  0  (gelinas)
  jungles  0  (albaugh)
  ----------
  believe  1  (aruba)
  limning  1  (gelinas)
  ----------
  bikeway  1  (aruba)
  ----------
  kernels  1  (aruba)
  ----------
  quickly  0  (gelinas)
  ----------
  session  0  (aruba)
  ----------
  amblers  0  (gelinas)
  ----------

running

- Backtalk version 1.3.30 - Copyright 1996-2006, Jan Wolter and Steve Weiss