Grex Language Conference

Item 112: Word Guess, Mastermind rules

Since we're experimenting with word game rules, here's my contribution:

Whoever's It specifies how many letters are in their word. People guess words
of that length, and instead of only giving the number of letters in the
correct position, It also specifies how many letters are correct, but in the
wrong position (as in Mastermind).

For instance, if the word is "seven", then the following words would be scored
as indicated:
blurt 0,0
blind 0,1
stain 2,0
stone 1,2
sieve 1,3
stein 2,1

... and so forth.

Certain rules which should be obvious from the examples:
(1) The first number indicates the letters that are in the correct position
(2) The second number indicates the letters that are in the incorrect position
(3) Letters which are duplicated in the It's word count as many times as they
appear (that is, in the example, a guess would score 1 if it had 1 e, 2 if
it had 2, but only 2 if it had 3 or more... eleve would score 0,3).

Administrative rules:
There can be no more than 5 unanswered guesses.
No person can guess twice consecutively, unless there is 48 hours between the
guesses or it's obvious that nobody else is playing.
No person can guess twice in the same batch of five unanswered guesses, unless
there is 48 hours between guesses, or it's obvious that there are less than
six people (including It) playing.

I'll start. I'm thinking of a three letter word.

eye

sat

eye 0,0
sat 0,0

run

run 0,0

tea

tea 0,0

god

god 1,2

(that next guess SHOULD be right ;})

dog

dog 3,0   ... Blaise is up.

OK, I'm thinking of a 4 letter word.

damn

damn  0,0  (brighn)

roar

 roar  0,0  (prp)

cube

 cube  0.0  (brighn)

milk

fang

slow

 milk  2,0  (gelinas)
 fang  0,0  (brighn)
 slow  0,2  (prp)

will

r
tips

 will  4,0  (brighn) *DING, DING, DING* Winner!
 tips  1,0  (prp)
You're up, brighn.

Ok, let's keep going with a five-letter word

right

why don't you believe me?

oh wait, that's your guess. =}

right 0,0 (blaise)

flank

undid

minus

flank 0,2 (gelinas)
undid 0,2 (prp)
minus 1,0 (jhudson)

lands

makes

lands 2,1 (gelinas)
makes 1,1 (prp)

dance

dance 5,0 (gelinas)

you up d00d

So let's try six letters.

mayhap

rivers

 mayhap  0,1  (brighn)
 rivers  0,3  (prp)

search

 search  1,1  (blaise)

versus

 versus  2,0  (brighn)

fliper

(is fliper a word?)

curses

I don't think so; offer a citation and I'll score it. ;)

Until then, we need someone to play before Paul.

oh phooey *pout* Maybe I shouldn'thave pointed that out.

Wouldn't have helped, Paul.  I noticed. ;)

Well filpper is  a word, but it has seven letters.  So let's try

flippy

I'll re-enter curses

 flippy  3,0  (prp)
 curses  1,1  (brighn)

floats

 floats  2,1  (prp)

flavor

 flavor  1,0  (brighn)

fleet

 fleet   1,2  (metafric)

verses

 verses  2,0  (brighn)

flints

flints  3,1  (kiddo)

This doesn't work.  It's impossible for search to be 1,1 while flippy is 3,0.

Well, those scores are right.  So your statement is false. :)

D'oh.  I wasn't awake when I wrote that.  It'd been a long day.

No more guesses?

flirts

flirts 3,1 (blaise)

For future reference (like maybe in a couple of days), is there a 48-hour rule
in this game, or do I need to wait for another person to make a guess no
matter what?

According to #0, the 48-hour rule applies.  Unless it becomes obvious that
no one else is playing.

OK, it has now been 48 hours.
feisty

feisty 6,0 (blaise)

So you are up, if anyone else is playing. ;/

I half expected someone to come up with that after Gillard's column on his
pet squirrel.

OK, I don't know what column you're talking about.

OK, I'll go on to seven letters.

netizen

netizen 1,0 (brighn)

(A few weeks ago, Jack Gillard wrote about a new squirrel in his yard, smaller
but more aggressive than the ones that had been living there for a while. 
He named the little thing "Feisty.")

nothing

nothing 1,2 (gelinas)

Since it's been (a bit) more than 48 hours:

haggard

haggard 1,2 (gelinas)

created

created 0,2 (brighn)

A summary of clues is in ~blaise/letter.matchmm.

noggins

noggins 1,1 (gelinas)

dubious

naughty

dubious 1,1 (brighn)
naughty 1,2 (gelinas)

nemeses (plural of nemesis)

nemeses 0,0 (brighn)

interesting... derails my train *ponders*

ravings

ravings 1,1 (gelinas)

ravines

solidly

ravines 1,1 (brighn)
solidly 5,0 (gelinas)

Based on solidly, nemeses, and haggard, an obvious guess:
 
holiday

(That's what I thought, 'til I took a closer look at the score for "dubious".)

hmmm... good point.

well, if you've got a guess, go for it

No, I don't.  I'm going to have to wait for "holiday"'s score.

was there a scoring error on dubious? as far as I can tell, there's no string
of letters that satisfies all the clues, let alone a word.

I tried an analysis, but it's too long to actually post.  I recommend
patience. :)

So I tried again. :)


 netizen 1,0 (brighn)    --tiz--         ---i---
 nothing 1,2 (gelinas)   -othi-g         -o-hi-- i is right, so o or g placed*
 haggard 1,2 (gelinas)   haggard         ha--ar- ha + a|r
 created 0,2 (brighn)    cr-at-d         cr-a--- one of ra, so c
 noggins 1,1 (gelinas)   -oggi--         -o--i-- i is right, so o or g placed*
 dubious 1,1 (brighn)    dubiou-         ---io-- i, if g not b
 naughty 1,2 (gelinas)   -aughty         -au-h-y a|u
 nemeses 0,0 (brighn)
 ravings 1,1 (gelinas)   ravi-g-         ravi---
 ravines 1,1 (brighn)    ravi---         ravi--- if one rav, not g.

The two lines marked by * put the "correctly placed" /g/ in _different_
places, but both have /o/ in the same place.

Given the elimination of /s/ by "nemeses", and the elimination of /d/
by "dubious", we are left with:

 solidly 5,0 (gelinas)   -oli-ly

Note that the scores for "haggard" and "created" result in four letters,
/h/, /a/, /c/, and either /r/ or a second /a/, to fit in two spots.

holiday 7,0 (brighn)

You're right, I screwed up on dubious, it should have been 1,2.

Here's my own analysis. From "solidly", we know:
_olidly = 5,0
giving us one of these frames:
1.__lidly
2._o_idly
3._ol_dly
4._oli_ly
5._olid_y
6._olidl_

From "netizen" and "nemeses", we know:
__tiz__ = 1,0
This rules out 3 (because _olidly would be worth 6).
Further, we know that three of the letters must be in "haggard", which rules
out 4.
This leaves us:
1.__lidly
2._o_idly
5._olid_y
6._olidl_
where the two blanks must be filled with two of (h,a,g,g,a,r). Also, we know
that exactly one of the two letters from haggar_ must be in the right place:
1a. hglidly
1b. hrlidly
1c. galidly
1d. aalidly
1e. ralidly
2a. hoaidly
2b. horidly
2c. aogidly
2d. gogidly
2e. rogidly
5a. holiday
5b. holidgy
5c. aolidry
5d. golidry
6a. holidla
6b. holidlg
6c. holidlr

Exactly two of the letters are from rad (created, no c, e, t in the remaining
strings), which rules out 1a, 1e, 2d, 5b, 5c, 6b.
Exactly two of the letters are from oggi (noggins, no n, s [nemeses]), which
also rules out 1b, 1d, 2c, 2e, 5d.
Since there's no e, there's no g (ravines/ravings), ruling out 1c.

This leaves us with:
2a. hoaidly
2b. horidly
5a. holiday
6a. holidla
6c. holidlr

No n, u, g, or t, so naughty tells us there is an a, h, and y, and that the
y is in the final position (since h and a are different in all cases from
naughty). That rules out all but 2a. and 5a:

2a. hoiadly
5a. holiday

created rules out 2a ("a" in the same position), so "holiday" is the only
string of seven letters that satisfies all the scorings but dubious. Which
means that at least one of the words is scored wrong (or the solution word
has more than 7 letters). =}

Hey, at least we got to see how two different people approached the same
problem. ;} And since Joe and I came to the same conclusion, I'll take the
next round.

Ironic that dubious's scoring would be dubious.

Since we appear to be slowly losing our group on sanity, I'm thinking of an
eight latter word (fewer options, I think, but increasingly obscure ones).

erp! dyslexia struck in 2a, it's hoaidly, and it isn't ruled out by created
after all. Oops. =} So 2a. and 5a. are equally possible under all the scorings
but dubious, but only 5a. is a word (I s'pose 2a. could be a loan word, or
a joke misspelling of "widely" with an affected British accent, which had
worked its way into the lexicon in its own right).

To get us going:

starting

software

starting 2,2 (gelinas) (good first guess ;} )
software 2,1 (blaise)

This next guess has been a 

struggle

struggle 1,2 (gelinas) (hopefully not too much of a struggle...)

sandwich

sandwich 1,1 (blaise)

shutters

shysters

shutters 1,1 (gelinas)
shysters 1,1 (blaise)

Looks like we are getting nowhere fast.

manatees

manatees 0,3 (gelinas)

*ponders if 8 isn't getting to the point of too difficult*

I should point out: The solution word is one that any college-educated person
should recognize easily, but which may be at the fringes of a high school
student's vocabulary.

solution

I have now created an automatic scoring system similar to do.lm for this. 
It is in ~blaise/bin and the two files are mm.awk (the guts of the system)
and check.mm (the wrapper).  It expects a file word.mm in the current
directory containing the target word and accepts a list of words and users.
It overwrites matm with the current set of guesses and appends it to
master.match.
This will keep at least me from repeating the mistake I made this past time.

Thank you, Jim.  I, at least, will, in due course, crib from you. :)

solution 1,1 (gelinas) *whimpes* no more 1,1, I'm getting sick of it =}

"Solution" was Jim's word, not mine.  And I'm gettin' just as tired of
the 1,1 scores as you are. ;/  Maybe this will generate something:

guardian

solution 1,1 (blaise) sorry!
guardian 3,2 (gelinas) ... back on track?

I'm finding all the 1,1's ironic, but I won't say why just yet. =}

how would I use the checker program, blaise?

Paul, would you mind double-checking your scores?  Using the only word that
matches based on simple exact-only clues, I get a couple of different results. 
(Specifically, struggle and shutters give me one additional loose match.)

Either put ~blaise/bin in your path or copy ~blaise/bin/check.mm and
~blaise/bin/mm.awk into a directory in your path.  Then put a file readable
only by yourself in your home directory called word.mm containing the word
that you have chosen.  Then run check.mm and feed it each guess as a single
line:
guess user
and after you've entered all the guesses you're scoring enter a period alone
on the line (like ending a response in bbs).  It will generate two files, matm
(which contains the current session's guesses with scores) and master.match
(which contains all of the guesses with scores).

Ah, I hadn't thought to look at that before.  It will be trickier for you
because you use the bbs as your login shell.  Let me experiment and I'll let
you know.

Paul, if you need more detailed instructions, email me.  I think this should
be plenty for general distribution in this forum.

Geez, how did that happen... maybe scoring is getting difficult, and it's
distracting from the game. Jim's correct, there's an error. For review, here
are the correct scores:

starting 2,2
software 2,1
struggle 1,3
sandwich 1,1
shutters 1,2
shysters 1,1
manatees 0,3
solution 1,1
guardian 3,2

Since struggle and shutters were both indeed off by one on the second value,
I presume you have the correct answer. It's humbling to have made two goofs;
the second value is hard to score mentally, so I've also written my own code
to check for me, and that code verifies the scores I gave here. My algorithm,
which is in VB:
 
Private Sub Command1_Click()
Dim sSolution As String, sGuess As String
Dim bCount As Integer, wCount As Integer
Dim gFlags() As Boolean
Dim I As Integer, J As Integer

    sSolution = txtSolution.Text
    sGuess = txtGuess.Text
    bCount = 0
    wCount = 0
    
    If Len(sSolution) <> Len(sGuess) Then
        MsgBox "Solution and Guess should be the same length"
        Exit Sub
    End If
    
    ReDim gFlags(Len(sGuess))
    For I = 1 To Len(sGuess)
        If Mid(sGuess, I, 1) = Mid(sSolution, I, 1) Then
            bCount = bCount + 1
            gFlags(I) = True
        End If
    Next I
    
    For I = 1 To Len(sGuess)
        For J = 1 To Len(sGuess)
            If Not gFlags(J) Then
                If Mid(sGuess, I, 1) = Mid(sSolution, J, 1) Then
                    wCount = wCount + 1
                    gFlags(J) = True
                End If
            End If
        Next J
    Next I
        
    txtScore.Text = CStr(bCount) & "," & CStr(wCount)
        
End Sub
 
Simpe enough algorithm, too bad I was too lazy to write it before I started
scoring. =} Anyway, you can either pop the word, or let Joe have a go, or call
foul and have me come up with another word.

I don't think we need to restart.
continue

continue 1,2 (blaise)

I'm shooting blind, I think.  

cochlear

One comment re 130:  !csh gives a bbs user C Shell, which can then be used
to modify paths and set up directories.  It does require (or induce) some
familiarity with csh.

cochlear 0,3 (gelinas)

tripwire

tripwire 3,0 (blaise)

Methinks Jim doesn't want this one, and is hoping to coax Joe into the correct
answer. I just hope that Joe doesn't start doing the same thing, else we'll
be here a while... trapped in the swamps, the bog, the goo, the ... oops, ran
out of words.

A noun, Senator, we need a noun!

I'd love to solve this one, but nothing's coming up yet.  I'm hoping to 
come up with a word that actually eliminates some letters, but no joy, yet.

wildfire

networks

wildfire 3,0 (gelinas)
networks 0,2 (blaise)

This doesn't fit, but it may help me figure it out:

auguries

auguries 2,4 (gelinas)

Hints: Six of the eight letters appear in auguries; of the other two letters,
one has appeared only once, and the other hasn't appeared at all yet. All
eight letters are different.

quixotic

quixotic 2,1 (blaise)

This response has been erased.

OK, I think I have a word.  The hints helped.

        quagmire

woowoo =}
 
quagmire 8,0 (gelinas)

so, do we have the guts to try a nine-letter word? ;}

I need a break, and even then I don't know that I can think of even one
nine-letter word.

Hey, Jim, had you come up with quagmire?  If so, how so?

Yes, I had come up with quagmire as the only possibility when we got the score
for guardian.  I used the same approach I use in the n-letter match games,
where I construct regular expressions using the information I've gotten so
far (using only the exact match information), and then see what possible words
there are that match one of the regular expressions (or in some cases, one
regular expression for each clue).  I do automate it by using a file (which
I keep on another machine because it's too large to keep on grex) of words
to match against using grep.  (The file wordlist is a little over 3M.  My
regular expressions use anchors to get only words with the right number of
letters.)

That's not something I can compete with.  Ah well.

Urg.  It's the only way I can start to handle it when there are as many
possibilities as there are in this.  I lose track too easily when there are
n^26 theoretically possible permutations.

Less than half that!  You gotta have vowels.

That's why I keep a file with the current guesses, their scores, and my notes.

Of course, this past word is a nice example of why it doesn't work; nothing
eliminates the most frequently used letters, especially the consonants tnsh.
Once you get hooked on them, it's hard to get loose.

I'm ready to continue.  I'm thinking of a nine-letter word.

combatant

  combatant  0,3  ((blaise))

Current guesses are in ~gelinas/master.match

strengths

  strengths  0,5  (brighn)

announcer

  announcer  0,2  (blaise)

blackness

  blackness  1,5  (brighn)

jailbreak

bleakness

  jailbreak  1,4  (blaise)
  bleakness  2,4  (brighn)

cataracts

Uh, no.  It's not your turn, Paul. ;)

premodern

cataracts
=P

That's better. :)

  premodern  0,1  (blaise)
  cataracts  2,1  (brighn)

estrogen

incumbent

Jim, I choose not to score words that don't have exactly nine letters.
So I'm not scoring "estrogen".

  incumbent  0,4  (brighn)

guh.  Duh, I can count.
astrology

enveloped

That's better. :)

  astrology  3,1  (blaise)
  enveloped  1,1  (brighn)

sagebrush

  sagebrush  3,3  (blaise)

sympatico

  sympatico  1,3  (brighn)

Puzzle Item 157, "Word Guess, Mastermind rules", has been linked to
Language Item 112.

(it's been 3 days...)
preordain

So it has.

  preordain  0,3  (brighn)

entertain

  entertain  2,2  (blaise)

ensnaring

bootblack

  ensnaring  2,2  (brighn)
  bootblack  2,2  (blaise)

sagacious

  sagacious  1,3  (brighn)

disabling
(I think it's 4,1)

disasters
 
I'm still guessing at this point. One of these days I'll sit down and try to
suss it out based on the clues. =}

  disabling  4,1  (blaise)
  disasters  1,5  (brighn)

Looks like you are on the right track, Jim.

I have a guess, Jim, if you want to pass this one (I have a word that fits
all the clues, but I haven't done the work to see if it's the only such word).

producers
(0,2)
Have at it, Paul.

  producers  0,2  (blaise)


BTW, I've modified my "do.?m*" scripts to make the two prompts the same
length, which makes it easier to make sure that the guesses are the same
length as the target. :)

That's a good idea; I'm going to add a check for that while each word is
processed.  (Because of the way I use them, with the word.lm? file, I don't
get the first prompt.)

My scripts have been updated.  ~blaise/bin/check* and ~blaise/bin/*awk, or
~blaise/bin/do*.  I've also added checks for score files that contain previous
winners.

establish

And we have a winnah!

        establish 9 (brighn)

(No, I didn't use the script for this one. ;)

All right, I'm just insane enough to say this:
 
I'm thinking of a ten-letter word.

*maniac cackling*

providence

providence 1,4 (blaise)

provenence

Joe, you typoed that; it should be provenance.

Thanks for noticing.  I typed it right in the "dict" command. :/

provenance

cyberspace

provenance 1,3 (gelinas)
cyberspace 0,3 (blaise)

penitently

particular

penitently 3,1 (gelinas)
particular 0,5 (blaise)

participle

tremendous

participle 1,4 (gelinas)
tremendous 1,3 (blaise)

reticulate

reticulate 1,3 (gelinas)

temperance

antepenult

temperance 0,3 (blaise)
antepenult 1,3 (gelinas)

expedition

expedition 1,4 (blaise)

rationally

rationally 3,4 (gelinas)

seven out of ten letters!  Progress, at last.  :)

yep, and three in the right place.

orthodoxly

orthodoxly 4,1 (blaise)

irrational

ordination

irrational 1,7 (gelinas)
ordination 7,0 (blaise)

Now, Jim, do you have it and are playing, or did this finally give it to you?
(I can't believe there's many words that share seven letters with
"ordination.")

This response has been erased.

digestives

I had two possibilities in mind, and this decided it for me.  (The other
possibility would have been 6,0.)  But I haven't decided whether I want to
take the reins...

digestives 0,3 (gelinas)

Aw, go on, Jim, you know you want it. ;} I might advise a shorter word,
though, this is starting to get silly. =}

Well, I apparently, have no clue.  I had expected a score of 2,2.

ordinarily

Shoot.  I managed to forget that I'd decided penultimate /l/ was probably
correct.  I was thinking 

divination

but that would require 7,1 for ordination, wouldn't it?

ordinarily 10,0 (blaise)
divination -- I won't bother scoring ;}

OK, I'm dropping back to eight letters.  I do have a word.

eighteen

gracious

  eighteen  0,2  (gelinas)
  gracious  0,4  (brighn)

shafting

(A system of connected shafts for communicating motion.  Just in case folks
had other ideas.  ;)

ululated (ululate: To howl or otherwise make a din)

Sorry, I somehow missed that these had been entered.
  shafting  0,3  (gelinas)
  ululated  1,2  (brighn)

straitly (In a strait manner; narrowly; strictly; rigorously)

thrilled

  straitly  0,2  (gelinas)
  thrilled  1,0  (brighn)

grateful

  grateful  0,4  (gelinas)

pratfall

ungulate

  pratfall  0,2  (brighn)
  ungulate  0,5  (gelinas)

eugenics

regulate

  eugenics  1,2  (brighn)
  regulate  0,4  (gelinas)

eggheads

  eggheads  0,2  (brighn)

weregild

  weregild  0,3  (gelinas)

bookends

;r matm

Let'sth try that again, sthall we?
  bookends  1,2  (brighn)

quisling

  quisling  1,3  (gelinas)

quintets

bungalow

  quintets  1,1  (brighn)
  bungalow  8,0  (gelinas)
Winner!

Congrats, Joe!  You're up!

Cool!  Had you figured it out yet, Paul?

I need a break; I'll come back with a word in a day or so.

To be honest, I hadn't sat down with it yet, I didn't think there was enough
to go on, so I was still throwing out not-quite-random guesses.

Good job.

I am thinking of a six-letter word.

harass

  harass  1,1  (brighn)

forget

Uhh . . . was that command misplaced, Jim?  ;)

  forget  1,1  (blaise)

banana

  banana  0,1  (brighn)

travel

cabana

  travel  2,1  (blaise)
  cabana  0,1  (brighn)

Been a while since anyone tried here.

trails

  trails  2,1  (aruba)

Just as a reminder, current guesses are in 

        ~gelinas/master.match

triple

  triple  0,2  (blaise)

flares

  flares  4,0  (aruba)

glazes

stares

  glazes  6,0  (brighn)
  stares  3,0  (aruba)

Yah!  We have a winner!  You are up, Paul

Unfortunately, I guessed after forgetting that I'll be out of town after next
Friday, for a few weeks, so hopefully I'll be quick (either that, or I'll just
announce it on Friday and leave it open).
 
I've got a four-letter word in mind.

eels

spam

eels 0,0
spam 1,1

tree

ahem

tree 0,1
ahem 1,2

harm

harm 4,0 <- ding ding! Mark's up

OK, I'll think of a word soon.

Sorry to be slow.  I'm hinking of a nine letter word, which happens to be on
the first page I opened the dictionary to.

allusions

allusions  1,3

No action here for a while.  Anyone want to guess?

faltering

Sorry for the delay - I couldn't find where I'd written my word.

faltering  0,1

No guesses here for a week.

cacophony

cacophony 0,3

employee

Grr.  Make that "employees".

employees 1,3

referrals

referrals 1,0

calumnies

clustered

calumnies 1,2
clustered 0,1

What's a calumny?

A false accusation of wrongdoing, usually malicious.

illuminer

Liar! You made that up, Joe, just to get out of a real definition!

amorality

illuminer 0,2
amorality 0,3

 :)

No action here for a while.

barbarian

barbarian  0,1

Since it's been 48 hours without a guess, I can guess again (see #0).
 
moneybags

moneybags  2,2

Hm. Either you've made a mistake in the scoring or I've made a mistake in the
analysis. (Probably the latter. ;} Ah well, I've got a few days to figure it
out.)

No, I checked again, and there seems to be a scoring error somewhere.
allusions 1,3
If we loo amorality, illuminer, cacophony, the only possible correctly
positioned letters in allusions are the s's. That means we can rule out all
the other letters in referrals and clustered: acdeflrtu
From faltering>______ing 0 1, we know there's at most one of i,n
From calumnies>____mni_s 1 2, we know there's an m
From barbarian 0 1, we know there's no b
From allusions>____sions 1 3, we know there are two s's and an o
From amorality>_mo___i_y 0 3, we know there's either an i or a y (not both)
(From calumnies, we know there's either an i or an n (not both), so we know
there's no g)
moneybags, there's no e, b, g, a; there's one m, o, s. That leaves n and y.
So we know there's either an n or a y (not both)
It's impossible to have exactly one of (i,n), one of (n,y) and one of (i,y)
at the same time.

Ah, I do see one that I scored wrong.  It should have been

faltering 0,2

Sorry about that.  The program I wrote for the other games doesn't work for
this one, so I have been scoring by hand.  I will try to write a new program
soon, and check all the scoring.

'sok, I botched two or three scores once in this game...

someone else guess, dagnabbit... 
If it helps people, this is what I think I've figured out as far as the letter
set:
None of: abcdeflnrtuy
One i
One or more gmop
Two or more s
Either an h or a second o
Unknown: jkqvwxz (haven't been used)
Last letter is s
 
That means the letter set is gimopss!? where ! is o or h and ? is in
ghkmpqsvwxz (h only if there are two h's):
gimopssog
gimopssok
gimopssom
gimopssop
gimopssoq
gimopssos
gimopssov
gimopssow
gimopssox
gimopssoz
gimopsshg
gimopsshh
gimopsshk
gimopsshm
gimopsshp
gimopsshq
gimopsshs
gimopsshv
gimopsshw
gimopsshx
gimopsshz

That's assuming my analysis is correct and Mark's scoring is correct. =}
So... somebody guess! =}

I've been too distracted to play. :(

Mark, I'm fairly certain I've modified the scoring program to work for
mastermind.  It's

        ~gelinas/Public/bin/do.mm

now.

OK, thanks Joe.  I'll either use that or fix my own program.

well, it's been another 48 hours...
hmm...
threatens

Mark, have you lost interest in this item too? (There's a guess on the table.)
We could just kill the item, or let it slumber...
Although I wouldn't mind seeing if I could figure this one out.

I'm going to be out of town and offline for a couple of weeks.  I should (and
expect to) return refreshed.

Sorry - the problem is I have my word written down on a piece of paper that
I keep misplacing.  I use the computer in several different rooms of the
house, so often it's not nearby.

threatens  1,1

cauteries

cautery 

SYLLABICATION: cau7ter7y 
PRONUNCIATION:   ktt-r 
NOUN: Inflected forms: pl. cau7ter7ies
1. An agent or instrument used to destroy abnormal tissue by burning, searing,
or scarring, including caustic substances, electric currents, lasers, and very
hot or very cold instruments. 2. The act or process of cauterizing.  
ETYMOLOGY: Middle English cauterie, from Latin cautrium, branding iron,
cautery, from Greek kautrion, from kaiein, kau-, to burn.  

[The American Heritage. Dictionary of the English Language: Fourth Edition. 
2000. Online edition]

misgovern (to govern badly: Cambridge)

cauteries  1,1
misgovern  0,5

kickbacks

kickbacks  1,1

spherical

spherical  0,4

amorphous

amorphous  1,5

pomposity

pomposity  3,3

Is your score of cacophony correct, Mark? I have a guess that fits cacophony
0,4, but none of the strings seem like words on cacophony 0,3.
 
(I could just hold my guess until someone else posts, and then see if I'm
right. ;} )

Ok, Ok.  I modified my program.  Here are the scores so far:

allusions  1,3  (brighn)
faltering  0,2  (gelinas)
cacophony  0,4  (brighn)
employees  1,3  (blaise)
referrals  1,0  (brighn)
calumnies  1,2  (gelinas)
clustered  0,1  (brighn)
illuminer  0,2  (gelinas)
amorality  0,3  (brighn)
barbarian  0,1  (brighn)
moneybags  2,2  (brighn)
threatens  1,1  (brighn)
cauteries  1,1  (blaise)
misgovern  0,5  (brighn)
kickbacks  1,1  (blaise)
spherical  0,4  (brighn)
amorphous  1,5  (blaise)
pomposity  3,3  (brighn)

As predicted, cacophony should have been 0,4.  The rest are as reported
before.  Sorry for the mistake.

BTW scores so far are in ~aruba/letter.match.master, until someone suggests
a better file name.

As far as I'm concerned, ther wasn't any real harm done. The scoring error
probably didn't affect how long it took me to come up with a solution
(assuming it's correct). =}
 
Now I just have to see if someone else is going to sneak it in on me...
heheheh.

I don't want it, so...
gastritis

gomphosis
(immobile articulation, as a tooth in a jaw bone)

gastritis  3,1  (blaise)
gomphosis  9,0  (brighn)

OK, brighn's up!

I'm thinking of a nine-letter word.

facetious

facetious 1,2 (aruba)

I guess I can go again.

exceeding

exceeding 0,1 (aruba)
 
If you're interested in keeping this going, Mark, rule #0 does eliminate the
time limit for new guesses if it's obvious no-one else is playing.

I'm in no hurry, I guess.  Hopefully other people will join.

directing

aardvarks

directing 0,2 blaise
aardvarks 1,0 aruba

loudmouth

loudmouth 1,1 aruba

(It's been a week here)

tailoring

tailoring 0,3 (aruba)

tailspins

tailspins 1,4 (aruba)

maelstrom

maelstrom 0,3 (aruba)

aerospace

aerospace 0,2 (aruba)

deodorant

deodorant 0,1 (aruba)

the word was symbiosis
 
I'm going to be trying to cold turkey Grex for a little while, and I didn't
want to just leave this item in the lurch. (Actually, I"m not all that certain
I'll be back to Grex anytime soon.)

Well, thanks for resolving it, then.  I guess that leaves me as the only
player; it seems silly to start a word and keep checking the item when no
one else is playing, so I'll let it languish.

And I'm still not up to playing this game. :(

I play better when the words are small.

heh we used to call his game cow-bull game . The number of letters in correct
positions are cows and number of correct leters in wrong positions are bulls
. so the responses are liek 2-cow 1 bull .. etc .. Also we wer restricted to
five letter words and 4 guesses and you have to get the word in the fifth
guess. 

It's interesting that there is an antecedent. I learned it in the form
played here, but as a verbal (no dictionary, no notes) five letter game
for car travel. Even though it wasn't restricted to five guesses, people
always got the word in the end. It takes a memory feat, however, and does
sometimes degenerate into some argument about what word got what score.
Having the additional information of how many letters are in the wrong
position should make it easier.

resp:386 There is just such a game around here, somewhere, but I can't
either think of its name nor find it at the moment.    It's with 4 numbers, not
five letters, though.

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