apterous.org

Charlie Reams No two-letter pencils have been awarded, even for Omelette. Surprising.

Matt Morrison so presume that's bayfield down there with the world's longest ever pencil?

Ben Wilson Who got the only Greek pencil?

Charlie Reams Anglo of course :) [link]

Matt Bayfield Oddly enough Charlie, I tried a few games of Jr Goatdown specifically to get a 2-ltr pencil, but could never get a suitably unfriendly selection of letters to manage it.

By the way, I'm not sure the lengths of those pencils in Greek and Russian and German is correct - I think the "Umlauted/non-English characters counting as two characters" effect is in force here. For instance, Anglo's Greek pencil was for a 7-ltr word, not a 14-ltr word.

Matt Bayfield And yes Matt, that's me with the 22- and 20-ltr pencils in Dutch. I'm fairly sure the 19-ltr pencil in ODE is also mine (for DISINTERESTEDNESSES), so I have 3 of the longest 4 pencils awarded (at time of writing). Pleased with that...

Matt Bayfield I stand corrected - Lloyd actually has the pencil for DISINTERESTEDNESSES. I don't think pencils for v long words were working properly when I declared the same word as a max 3 months earlier that Lloyd (see [ link]). Incidentally, for those curious, there may have been a reent development on the subject of 2-ltr pencils...

Charlie Reams Well spotted by the Human Umlaut, now fixed.

Marc Meakin Wonder what comination of letters could produce an OED 2?

Lloyd Pettet I have the longest English Pencil with unostentatiousnesses rock and roll!

Ian Volante I'm not sure there is one Marc, even playing goat. Would have to be ridiculously bad consonants and UU probably.

Kieran Child UUUUXKWQ (select Q)

Ian Volante I'm not sure there is one Marc, even playing goat. Would have to be ridiculously bad consonants and UU probably.

Kieran Child UUUUXKWQ (select Q)

Marc Meakin xu

Charlie Reams There have been five ODE games with a 2 as a max, all five were Omelette and all five times the max was XU. Oddly enough. Here's one for your amusement: [link]

Marc Meakin unwaxed should have been allowed. in that game.

Adam Gillard XU all wrapped up thanks to Unlimited Jnr. XI and QI were alternative pencils. [ link]

Matt Bayfield It's a ridiculous "word", but this table now needs to be extended to 26-letter pencils... [ link]

Matt Bayfield The first 21-letter English language pencil: [ link]

Adam Gillard Is there a Hebrew variant coming? Because there's a column in the table...

Joe Denniss I don't believe an English word longer than 21 letters is possible unless Charlie creates "Ultra Unlimited" with 12 letters in the selections.

Adam Gillard It is in Aegilops and maybe Omelette too. E.g. PCCCC in Aegilops would give the darrenic max PNEUMONOULTRAMICROSCOPICSILICOVOLCANOCON​IOSIS. Obviously that selection wouldn't come out, but somehow it must be possible for a word of more than 21 letters to be pencilled in.

Charlie Reams Who knows what the future may bring :D

Marc Meakin nasty aegilops maybe.

Adam Gillard Aegilops yielding a 45-letter max: [ link]

Adam Gillard Table needs to be extended again: [ link]

Adam Gillard 67332/136981 English (ODE) words have been pencilled. Almost half-way done.

Charlie Reams More than that, if you count all the words which are valid in ODE but were pencilled in another dictionary.

Ben Wilson And yet the silver pencil still hasn't arrived...

Charlie Reams :) I think I'll bring the silver pencil out when the number awarded drops below 10 a day.