I had one today where I cannot see any logical distinction between the two choices.

"Jeep" and "minicar" were the given words, and you had to pair them with either "automobile" or "motorcar."

The given definition for "automobile" was identical to the definition for "motorcar."

I had that pairing, too, and (once again) chose wrongly! Guesswork shouldn't really be part of this game, even though it's the same for everyone who plays the set.

dozens is related to large indefinite quantity



You said: large indefinite amount



shipload is related to large indefinite amount



You said: large indefinite quantity



Eeny, meeny, miny, moe

Actually, there is a subtle difference here. A quantity refers to countable things (i.e., dozens, something that can be looked at as having units and uses an "s" plural), whereas an amount is usually non-countable, like a shipload, pile, etc....

Sue

I can count an amount.

From today:

service club is related to gild

You said: xxxxx

service club means "a club of professional or business people organized for their coordination and active in public services"
gild means "a formal association of people with similar interests"

Shouldn't that be "guild" instead of a word meaning to coat with gold or "to give a pleasing aspect to"?

From the dictionary on my word processor: "Note that the noun guild can also be spelled gild, but the verb gild cannot be spelled guild
Encarta ® World English Dictionary © & (P) 1998-2005 Microsoft Corporation. All rights reserved."

Apparently it's a valid spelling too.

It's an alternate archaic spelling. "Guild" derives from the Old English "gild" or "gyld."

In the first set "Definitions" I had

throw off is get rid of
get rid of is dispose of

I got them both right, but since "get rid of" was on both sides, it could be said that they match up with each other. Shouldn't something be done so the same word or phrase doesn't appear on both sides?

Hmm, I'd be surprised if many got that one wrong. A definition, by definition (lol), is a word or words that express what something MEANS. It cannot be "the thing itself". I do admit I had a giggle at that particular set though : )

As well, if you match the two identical terms, the other two don't really fit together that well. Each of them is a possible use of 'get rid of', but they are used in distinctly different ways.

There goes the whole "If a=b and b=c, then a=c" idea.

If they were equal, transitivity would apply. But they are only similar. A is similar to B, B is ismilar to C. And it is true that A is similar to C, but they are not as closely related as either of them is to B. B is stuck in the middle with two partners.

a(throw off) =(is) b(get rid of)
b(get rid of) =(is) c(dispose of)
No similarities. just exactitudes.
Therefore, a must = c. If a only =
c in some subsets of c then b cannot = c entirely. and a possibly cannot = b.
But, throw off(a) can mean(=) dispose of(c) so the game had multiple possible answers.

Throw off would not be used in the same situation as dispose of. The issue seems to be the game's uise of the word 'is' as a shorthand when it really means something more like 'has a meaning related to'. So you cannot translate that sloppily-used word into an equal sign, which has a very precise meaning that is NOT in the words, even if it looks like it. Just consider the many matches it displays, many of which are not at all equal. Many terms have multiple definitions because they can be used in a number of ways, and those definitions do not necessarily match up with each other in a meaningful way.

A record of the points for each team in a game is a score.
A score is twenty of the same objects considered together.

But twenty of the same sort of objects is NOT a record of the points for each team in a game. Each of them can be sensibly matched to score, but if you match score to itself, you are left with a nonsense pairing.

Edited to fix typo.

I agree, Looney - they are not exact, only similar. You have to consider context and connotations among other things. It comes up as a problem in translating - just because one English word for example has two in German, it doesn't make the two German words exactly equivalent.

You can be thrown off a steer in rodeo riding. And I'm sure he'd be glad to be rid of you : )

But words are not numbers. There are no "exactitudes" within language. That's the nature of the beast (and what makes it so interesting). Simple logic does not apply.

Again, you cannot match "get rid of", with the definition "get rid of". If that were true, then looking up a word like "dog" in the dictionary would simply say "dog". Sheesh, I don't understand the splitting of hairs lol

... but speaking of hair of the dog........ ~~~

I thought women would join the battle against "what I said is not what I meant" and well, now I'm convinced it all depends on what your definition of the word 'is' is.

Ho hum. It isn't the definition of "is" that is the problem. It's the fact that there are shades of meaning expressed by separate definitions of the same word. Reeshy gave the best example so far, I think. And language isn't logic, as Jakeroo said, but a living evolving tool for communication.

Sue

With two on the left matching in possible ways to two on the right, there are four possible matches.
Left1(l1)
Left2(l2)
Right1(r1)
Right2(r2)
The match ups are: l1-r1; l1-r2; l2-r1; and, l2-r2.

I agree with Sue that definition does not equal definition. In this case that equates(oops) to l2=r1 (or, get rid of = get rid of) and thus we discount that possible match up as a viable response. We are then left with three possible equations to a puzzle which only accepts two.

Edit: that def=def situation means the the other option that exists when l2-r1, namely l1-r2, cannot exist either making the only possible answers as l1 matches r1 and l2 matches r2. So, if this never can exactly equal that, there never was any possibility of incorrect answers and everyone should have gotten those correct. I know I did.

I happened to get this one right but only because it was the only one left. Can someone explain why these two match?

disarmer is related to grownup

disarmer means "someone opposed to violence as a means of settling disputes"
grownup means "a fully developed person from maturity onward"

Same problem here.

overpopulate is related to shack

overpopulate means "cause to have too great a population"
shack means "make one''s home or live in"

Also an extra apostrophe.

The disarmer/grownup question came up in a team message board discussion, and my only suggestion for a possibility was that either could be a human being.

I did not play that set and do not know what the other choices were.

Possibly a little more of the developed human, like adult. I think it was addressed here a few pages back.

I searched for "disarmer" on the forums and only found the two recent usages of it on this thread.