Avoiding Proper Nouns and Abbreviations in Fair Play Lists

TL;DR: Fair-play lists drop names (PARIS), ticker-like junk (NASA if you say so), and abbreviations unless the house allows them. Wordle-like files often ban names. Crosswords often love them. The napkin decides. A finder may include ELIOT. Your club may not. Filter on purpose. Do not argue morality at the table. Argue the napkin. Then slash PARIS.

Write the ban list before the round

Names y/n. Acronyms y/n. Slurs n (always, unless you are a dictionary historian in a closed seminar, which this party is not). Inflections y/n. Write it. If you write it after someone plays PARIS, you are legislating retroactively. Retroactive law is how friends get loud. Loud is not a letter. Prevent loud with a napkin at 0:00, not at 0:45.

If the napkin says Wordle-legal, you need that file, not a general English scrape. General scrapes include names. Names are the villain of this article. Villains need a filter, not a speech.

How names sneak in

Capitalization: paris vs PARIS. Normalize case, then match a name list, or match a “must be lowercase common noun” if you have a tagged lexicon. If you do not have tags, a small stoplist (PARIS, ROMAN, ELLIS) is better than nothing. Nothing is how PARIS scores in a “common words” night. Stoplists are incomplete and useful. Incomplete is fine if shared. Shared stoplists are fair. Secret extra bans in one player’s head are not. If you want a secret ban, you wanted a different napkin. Change the napkin, not the glare.

Place names, given names, brand names: three hydra heads. Decide each. Brands are ads. Ads in a word game feel icky even when legal. Icky can be a house rule. House rules are allowed. Dictionaries are not offended. People are. People sit at the table. Table wins.

Abbreviations

NASA, RSVP, OLED: length five, I not always in 3. RSVP is no I. If an acronym is five and I in 3, it might still be banned as not a “word.” Word is a house noun. Define it. If you define “in merriam,” look it up. If you define “in the Wordle file,” look that up. Do not define “I know it from TV.” TV is an unbounded lexicon. Unbounded lexicons are how rounds never end. Endings need bounds. Bounds are the napkin plus a book or a file. TV is neither.

Periods in U.S.A. make length a mess. Strip punctuation in the pipeline, then ban if it was an acronym. Pipelines from the duplicate article apply. Punctuation is a costume. Costumes should come off before fairness. Fairness is the naked five letters plus a yes/no on names.

Using the finder without importing names

Eye-slash names as you go, or preprocess. Preprocess is kinder for tournaments. Eye-slash is kinder for a sofa. Sofa people who skip preprocess should still slash PARIS when they see it. If they score it, you point at the napkin, not at their childhood in France. France is real. The napkin is the game. Games are smaller than France. That is the point of games.

If the page shows a name, it is not attacking you. It is a wide net. Wide nets catch boots. Throw boots back. Do not email a manifesto. Manifestos are longer than five letters. Five letters was the hobby. Keep the hobby small.

Kids and names

Kids love names. A “no names” rule should be explained as fairness, not as “your name is illegal.” Illegal is a harsh word. “Not this round” is enough. If the round is “names with I in the middle,” then names are the point. Then you need a names list, not this fair-play article. This article is the opposite round. Opposite rounds should not share a scoresheet. Shared scoresheets mix PARIS into DAISY night. Mixing is how a kid cries. Two sheets. Two rounds. Two jokes. Jokes stay jokes when the rule is visible.

Teachers: do not use a student’s name as a banned example in a mean voice. Use PARIS. PARIS is far. Far is kind. Kind is part of fair play. Fair play is not only lexicon. It is tone. Tone is not in the finder. You bring tone. Bring a boring one. Boring tones finish rounds. Spicy tones finish friendships. Friendships were the party. PARIS can sit down.

When a challenge happens

Look up once, in the agreed book. If the book has it as a name, and the napkin banned names, it is out even if the book has it. The napkin is stricter. Stricter is allowed. If the napkin allowed merriam and merriam has it as a noun that is also a name, you have a homonym. Homonyms need a pre-agreed tie-break: “common noun sense allowed.” Write the tie-break before, not during, the glare. During the glare, everyone is a lawyer. Lawyers are slow. Slow kills the next round. The next round is why you came. Keep lawyers on the napkin at 0:00. At 0:45, only look up. Lookup, slash or score, next word. Next word is the only humane ending.