Editing Talk:1750: Life Goals

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I'm gonna go out on a limb and say this isn't actually about the last three letters of the alphabet, but about the five "power letters" in Scrabble (hence the last line): J, K, Q, X, Z. [[User:Schiffy|<font color="000999">Schiffy</font>]] ([[User_talk:Schiffy|<font color="FF6600">Speak to me</font>]]|[[Special:Contributions/Schiffy|<font color="FF0000">What I've done</font>]]) 18:09, 24 October 2016 (UTC)
 
I'm gonna go out on a limb and say this isn't actually about the last three letters of the alphabet, but about the five "power letters" in Scrabble (hence the last line): J, K, Q, X, Z. [[User:Schiffy|<font color="000999">Schiffy</font>]] ([[User_talk:Schiffy|<font color="FF6600">Speak to me</font>]]|[[Special:Contributions/Schiffy|<font color="FF0000">What I've done</font>]]) 18:09, 24 October 2016 (UTC)
 
:I would agree that there is a couple of other letters but there is hardly enough Q, K and J to make it worth mentioning... --[[User:Kynde|Kynde]] ([[User talk:Kynde|talk]]) 21:01, 24 October 2016 (UTC)
 
:I would agree that there is a couple of other letters but there is hardly enough Q, K and J to make it worth mentioning... --[[User:Kynde|Kynde]] ([[User talk:Kynde|talk]]) 21:01, 24 October 2016 (UTC)
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::But it's about Scrabble point count, not just letters toward the end of the alphabet. The fact that many rare (and thus high-ranking) tiles happen to be toward the end is irrelevant. The focus is on high-ranking Scrabble tiles, no matter where in the alphabet they are. I thought I might as well verify this, though, so I put the words (without "Mister") onto a letter frequency counter, then looked up the letter frequencies in English on Wikipedia to compare to the average frequencies. The letters that appeared at least 1% LESS often than expected were C, D, E, F, H, I, N, O, R, S, T, and W, and all of these letters are worth fewer than 5 points in Scrabble. (E, N, and S appeared more than 4% less often, and these are very common letters worth very few points.) The letters that appeared at least 1% MORE often than expected were J, K, P, Q, X, Y, and Z. All of those are worth multiple points. Only two of those (P and Y) are worth fewer than 5 points, and Y is worth 4 points, very close... and its unique position as the only vowel worth more than 1 point elevates its status somewhat. P was only slightly over 1% increased. (All tiles except X, Y, and Z have less than a 2% increase. Y has a 7.66% increase, while X and Z each have an increase of about 14%.) It's true that X, Y, and Z show the most dramatic increase (though E shows nearly as dramatic a decrease), but the analysis certainly shows that Randall might have had some bias toward using J (1.33% increased), K (1.45% increased), and Q (1.39% increased) as well as the obvious X, Y, and Z. [[Special:Contributions/172.68.79.81|172.68.79.81]] 04:26, 25 October 2016 (UTC)
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::But it's about Scrabble point count, not just letters toward the end of the alphabet. The fact that many rare (and thus high-ranking) tiles happen to be toward the end is irrelevant. The focus is on high-ranking Scrabble tiles, no matter where in the alphabet they are.
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:::My impression of the comic was not that it was just about Scrabble (too many words are impossible under typical Scrabble tile distributions) or specifically the last three letters of the alphabet (there's a decent amount of Qs in the comic), but the difficulty in reading/pronouncing the words.  I was following along fine at first, but by the end of the comic had no phonetics in my head to describe what I was reading.  I think the title-text supports that interpretation.  From xkcd's [http://www.xkcd.com/about/ About page]: "It's just a word with no phonetic pronunciation". [[Special:Contributions/108.162.210.196|108.162.210.196]] 05:01, 25 October 2016 (UTC)
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:My impression of the comic was not that it was just about Scrabble (too many words are impossible under typical Scrabble tile distributions) or specifically the last three letters of the alphabet (there's a decent amount of Qs in the comic), but the difficulty in reading/pronouncing the words.  I was following along fine at first, but by the end of the comic had no phonetics in my head to describe what I was reading.  I think the title-text supports that interpretation.  From xkcd's [http://www.xkcd.com/about/ About page]: "It's just a word with no phonetic pronunciation". [[Special:Contributions/108.162.210.196|108.162.210.196]] 05:01, 25 October 2016 (UTC)
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::::There are only two Q's in the comic. I have now removed the Q from the table. It is only XYZ heavy words that are used excessively. I do not think this comic is about scrabble point. It is just a way to list all these weird words Randall has found. And the to make a joke he put in the scrabble goal. (Also just fixed a problem with the post two above here, which was divided in two, and then the next post was posted in the middle of that post...) --[[User:Kynde|Kynde]] ([[User talk:Kynde|talk]]) 19:33, 25 October 2016 (UTC)
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I thought I might as well verify this, though, so I put the words (without "Mister") onto a letter frequency counter, then looked up the letter frequencies in English on Wikipedia to compare to the average frequencies. The letters that appeared at least 1% LESS often than expected were C, D, E, F, H, I, N, O, R, S, T, and W, and all of these letters are worth fewer than 5 points in Scrabble. (E, N, and S appeared more than 4% less often, and these are very common letters worth very few points.) The letters that appeared at least 1% MORE often than expected were J, K, P, Q, X, Y, and Z. All of those are worth multiple points. Only two of those (P and Y) are worth fewer than 5 points, and Y is worth 4 points, very close... and its unique position as the only vowel worth more than 1 point elevates its status somewhat. P was only slightly over 1% increased. (All tiles except X, Y, and Z have less than a 2% increase. Y has a 7.66% increase, while X and Z each have an increase of about 14%.) It's true that X, Y, and Z show the most dramatic increase (though E shows nearly as dramatic a decrease), but the analysis certainly shows that Randall might have had some bias toward using J (1.33% increased), K (1.45% increased), and Q (1.39% increased) as well as the obvious X, Y, and Z.
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[[Special:Contributions/172.68.79.81|172.68.79.81]] 04:26, 25 October 2016 (UTC)
  
 
I didn't feel that the release schedule (or the lack of such) of the What if? mentioned is in any means important for the explanation. So I removed it... [[User:Elektrizikekswerk|Elektrizikekswerk]] ([[User talk:Elektrizikekswerk|talk]]) 08:37, 25 October 2016 (UTC)
 
I didn't feel that the release schedule (or the lack of such) of the What if? mentioned is in any means important for the explanation. So I removed it... [[User:Elektrizikekswerk|Elektrizikekswerk]] ([[User talk:Elektrizikekswerk|talk]]) 08:37, 25 October 2016 (UTC)

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