How to play

The idea

You get a word. Sometimes it is a real one, sometimes it is nonsense we made up. Either way it has a sound, and that sound is written out in the alphabet linguists use, so there is no arguing about how it goes.

Your job is to find as many different ways to spell that sound as you can. SED is one. So is SAID. So is CED, because C says S in front of an E. Same sound, different spelling.

Scoring

• Every spelling is worth between one and four points. The more unusual the spelling, the more it is worth.
• The screen tells you how many spellings there are, so you always know how much is left out there.
• You cannot score the same spelling twice, and a guess after the clock stops does not count.

The clock

Short words get about 45 seconds. Longer ones get more, up to a minute and a half or so. The clock runs on our side, not on your device, so nothing you do to your phone changes it.

When a spelling does not count

We tell you why. Sometimes there is a rule behind it, like a word does not end in -EDD. Sometimes the honest answer is that a person has not approved that one yet, and we say that rather than pretend you were wrong.

If you think we have missed one, use Flag this spelling. A human reads every flag. Nothing in the game changes until one of us has looked at it.

One a day

Everybody gets the same word, and the day turns over at midnight in New York. If you want more than that, there is practice, with as many rounds as you like at whatever level you have unlocked.

Levels

• Beginner from the start
• Intermediate at 40 points
• Advanced at 120 points
• Expert at 250 points

Points add up across every round you play, daily or practice. They live in your browser, so they stay on the device you played on.