A couple of years ago, I watched the movie, The Village, directed by M. Night Shyamalan. I did not really like it. In fact, to a certain extent, I thought it was a silly movie; so unreal! It was about a group of people who were confined to a small village, and locked out from the rest of the world.
Q20) The Village that keeps One who is locked in without a key.
Yet another example of the "cruel" CoC making fun of us hunters (smile). Note the "The Village" and the word "One", which all begin with capital letters. Is there any significance in those capital letters?
Well, as in the case of the previous post where Jay used a capital "L" in the word "Labour", the capital letters in the above clue had no significance whatsoever. It's just his way to lead the hunters off the correct path. This clue, as are all of his clues, involves several levels of cryptic complications.
First, it is double container puzzle; and although everything is thrown into a single sentence, actually, there are two puzzles here. I am not ashamed to admit that I was totally defeated by this clue. I think this kind of clue would be suitable for a virtual hunt where one is able to spend weeks to mull over the puzzle(s) in the comforts of his home, as opposed to hunting on foot under the hot sun and under time pressure. Anyway, coming back to the puzzles, this sentence could be separated into 2 components:
The Village that keeps...; and
One who is locked in without a key.
In order to solve the question, the solver must first decide how to deal with the second sub-sentence above. It is quite clear that this puzzle involves a container operation because of the container indicator, "locked in". Of the words "One" and "who", which should contain which? Looking at the flow of the sentence, perhaps it is more promising to guess that the "One" should be containing the "who". If that is indeed the intention of the CoC, then we have 2 possible configurations:
O-WHO-NE or ON-WHO-E.
In this case, the solver has to guess between the two possible outcomes above.
Q20) The Village that keeps One who is locked in without a key.
Yet another example of the "cruel" CoC making fun of us hunters (smile). Note the "The Village" and the word "One", which all begin with capital letters. Is there any significance in those capital letters?
Well, as in the case of the previous post where Jay used a capital "L" in the word "Labour", the capital letters in the above clue had no significance whatsoever. It's just his way to lead the hunters off the correct path. This clue, as are all of his clues, involves several levels of cryptic complications.
First, it is double container puzzle; and although everything is thrown into a single sentence, actually, there are two puzzles here. I am not ashamed to admit that I was totally defeated by this clue. I think this kind of clue would be suitable for a virtual hunt where one is able to spend weeks to mull over the puzzle(s) in the comforts of his home, as opposed to hunting on foot under the hot sun and under time pressure. Anyway, coming back to the puzzles, this sentence could be separated into 2 components:
The Village that keeps...; and
One who is locked in without a key.
In order to solve the question, the solver must first decide how to deal with the second sub-sentence above. It is quite clear that this puzzle involves a container operation because of the container indicator, "locked in". Of the words "One" and "who", which should contain which? Looking at the flow of the sentence, perhaps it is more promising to guess that the "One" should be containing the "who". If that is indeed the intention of the CoC, then we have 2 possible configurations:
O-WHO-NE or ON-WHO-E.
In this case, the solver has to guess between the two possible outcomes above.
After making up his mind on which one to choose, then the solver will have to deal with the deletion indicator, "without". It means that the solver has to delete something from the resulting word of the containter operation. But before the deletion process, he must first figure out what is a "key"? In this case, the CoC intended that the "key" is a musical key, "E" (or did he say it was the type-writer's key?)
So now, we are getting the "feel" of the question. We have guessed the word OWHONE (after discarding ONWHOE, which's the other possible configuration of the container operation). Then we take away the "E" on account of the deletion operation, and end up with OWHON.
OK, fine. Now we are ready to proceed on to the next phase of the clue, i.e.
The Village that keeps...
It means that "The Village" shall contain the OWHON because of the container indicator, "keeps".
BUT! before that we must first translate "The Village" into Malay. We therefore arrive at the word "Kampung" (the Malay word for Village). Finally, before we contain the OWHON, we must abbreviate that word "kampung" to become "KG".
So now, we have come to the final homestretch. The KG contains the OWHON to arrive at the required answer: KOW HONG.
On paper, by averaging out the allocated time per question, I believe the solver has approximately 9 minutes to solve this clue. That 9-minute duration includes travelling to the sector, cracking the clue, and spotting the answer on the signboard.
Oh how I was humbled by Jay in his Eye-Q Hunt! In spite of his very, very punishing questions, I must say that I have high respect for Jay. Of the hunts that I have joined so far, I find that Jay's questions have been the most accurate on technical and grammatical grounds. He is a very meticulous CoC. He painstakingly put a lot of efforts to prepare an outstanding answer presentation—even to the extent of meddling with a picture of a sexy woman in a tight mini skirt to illustrate his point! Jay, you've got it, man!
10 comments:
Personally I don't condone using Proper Nouns to mislead the reader, when the setter has no intention of using these Proper Nouns or its off-shoot in the answer.
I read that this CoC has the inclination to do so (could be his style) from the few questions that you have shared.
It is grammatically wrong to do so, although cryptically, I am of the opinion that it is acceptable. Setters from certain countries do the same too, I have noticed.
How do the others feel?
I agree with you, 2R1I. To use the capital letters to mislead the solver like in the Eye-Q questions is not something I would do in my hunt questions.
But then again, when I signed up for the Eye-Q, I did not expect the kind of "fairness" in an ordinary cryptic clue. In fact, I feel that the Eye-Q should have been some sort of "unofficial" festive hunt where "no bars held" (or however it is you people describe that kind of hunts.)
I will only use the Capital letters for words which we know should only start with capital letters, e.g. Malaysia, Singapore or Britney Spears; and of course words placed at the starts of sentences.
Another thing about the Eye-Q questions that I've found rather "hitting below the belt" was the usage of punctuations for the purpose of deliberately misleading the solvers. This is another thing which I shall not do in my own questions.
Check out this question:
Q) Harry, a wacky local, just now, giving chase.
Not only with a dubious surface reading, but also questionable placements of the commas in the sentence.
I shall elaborate on this question later. Now I need to move my butt; otherwise JJ is gonna be late for school!... hahaha
Now, where was I? Oh yes, the commas which almost resulted in causing us hunters to end up in a coma:
Q) Harry, a wacky local, just now, giving chase.
Generally speaking, cryptic clues are frequently not properly punctuated—they are devoid of commas, apostrophes, open/close quotes etc. Apparently the setter owes no duty to include them in the clues. I can accept that, but to include them for the sole purpose of misleading the solvers is quite a different matter altogether.
Let's try to identify the keywords in this clue for a start. Firstly, the word "Harry". It seems that "Harry", being the name of a person, must be referring to some well-known figure. For example, "Potter" or "Prince" might come to mind.
Secondly, the word "local", which is a well-known translation indicator in Malaysian hunts.
During the hunt, we were stumped big time! But then I had a suspicion that "Harry" might have a different meaning. So I asked Margaret to look the word up in the dictionary. I would have checked that word myself, but there was no hard copy dictionary. These days, "dictionary" means the program found in the laptop, you see. This is something, I've come to realise, that is common amongst most top teams in KL. Anyway, Margaret said there's no other meaning of "Harry" other than the name of a person. I took her word for it, because she's a very careful hunter.
Anyway, it turned out that "Harry" can mean "to pester" and therefore it's meant to be an anagram indicator in this clue.
But even if we are aware of these indicators, we still need to identify which are the fodders?
In spite of those commas, the hunters are supposed to anagram "a wacky". Then the word "local" is an indicator for the words "just now". The words "giving chase" are somehow intended to mean that Malay translation of "just now" should be placed in front, i.e. leading the other words in the answer, hence "giving chase"!
The required answer:
A) Tadika YWCA
I think some teams did get this answer. But I doubt that they actually solved it because of the correct analysis. I think it is more likely that they scanned the sector, spotted "tadi", and then was triggered by the remaining letters found on that board, saw "a wacky" in them somehow, and finally took that as the answer because there was nothing better! And then later on, they might have gradually convinced themselves of the solution as intended by the CoC!
I agree with you that capital letters and commas had been used in Eye-Q Hunt to mislead hunters. I had to remind myself over and over again that this is the COC's style after going through previous hunt Qs.
But we do tend to forget and go back to the usual KL ways...
Still, to each his own way!
Best option for the COC is to capitalise every letter in the question which by the way is a signature of certain COC. He gets away with it, problems solved !
Yes, that is a good idea. It used to be my own "style" of setting the questions. For example, during last year's Sutera Hunt, and all my hunts before that, all my questions were in block letters.
But as I matured in my clue-setting, I wanted to raise my standard and wanted to take up the challenge of conjuring up master pieces without having to hide behind block letters.
That's why after the Sutera, I've abandoned the BLOCK-LETTER approach. And I am happy to report that there is in fact no need to hide behind the block letters. There is still enough tricks in the language and wordplay to create truly beautiful and elegant clues.
Claire dear, I was given to understand that there might be another hunt by Jay some time in July or August. It is called, if I'm not mistaken, the Cayote 6. Perhaps we can all get ourselves mentally tortured again, huh? This time if we can't spot the answer for wacky, then perhaps we will become wacky ourselves!
I've learned my lesson. This time I will come prepared with sunblock lotion and highly tinted sunglasses.
Oh! don't forget to bring along lots of correcting liquid too... we need those to erase out all the commas before we mislead ourselves!
Oh boy, a friend of mine had just successfully embarrassed me. In his email to me just shortly ago, he pointed out that the correct phrase should have been "no holds barred" as opposed to "no bars held".
I hope there will be no questions on all these common terms and phrases (by the master hunters) during the Kiwanis. I'd be dead meat!... hehehe
Ximenes Golden Rule
"I may not mean what I say, but I must say what I mean."
That cryptically stated rule means that when a clue is written down, its meaning on the first reading is usually not the correct one. That is what the first part of the rule means. The second part , however, states that whatever is written down must still convey, albeit after a little thought , the true meaning .
So the first part allows deception. The second part demands logic.
Hence , the use of punctuations and capital letters is fully allowed in the modern cryptic crossword.
Let me illustrate the usage of capitals in a recent clue from the Straits Times.
Flipping Game Boy, I would secure a type unable to adapt (8)
Imagine the clue without capitals. It would read poorer. The first part “Flipping game boy I would…” would be grammatically bad.
But with the judicious use of a comma and capitalizing “game” and “boy”, an order is imposed on the sentence. A video game becomes a specific object.
So to include capitals inside a sentence is not grammatically wrong.
However, what I would additionally like to point out is this: the presence of the capital letters is in fact a giveaway. It tells the experienced solver that these two words are the first to be tackled.
So eventually we have Game = RU (Rugby Union) ; Boy = Son ; I would = I’d.
Flipping them , I will have DINOSUR . (secure a) would give me DINOS A UR .
And the definition is Type unable to adapt.
So , the setter did fulfill the 2nd part of the Golden Rule.It is logical and he did say what he meant.
Nowhere in the explanation is there any need to explain about the Game Boy video game.
That purpose was for the 1st part of the Rule.
So with regard to the clue about the “Village” and “One”, I would recognize that 2 movies are invoked. I would immediately have concentrated on Village which in short in Malaysia is KG as shown on many road signs. That would break the clue and in fact is faster to solve. Anything starting with K is suspect.
Let me illustrate the usage of commas in another clue from the Straits Times crossword recently.
Cheat, swindle, and rook, as vulture (6)
There are three commas adding value to the deception.
Without the commas, the sentence is meaningless. But the 1st part of the Golden Rule insists that some meaning be imposed even if that is not the correct one. With the commas , it reads beautifully. Three words which mean “defraud” are used. And notice a comma before “and”. Very rarely do you see this. In this context, however, it is correct.
Why? Because it further enhances the image of a conman triply condemned as a vulture.
So punctuations enhance the reading of the clue and the setter “cons” the solver in pursuing another meaning.
The solution: cheat = Con ; swindle = Do ; rook = R
We have CONDOR which is a vulture.
So looking at Harry, a wacky local, just now, giving chase –
The surface reading is tight. We do get an image of some local guy named Harry who’s a bit off and chasing somebody.A definite meaning has been suggested by the setter using the 1st part of the Golden Rule.
The virtue of commas in the sentence is appreciated since it gives a meaning to the sentence. At the same time, as I mentioned earlier, it is a giveaway.
In using the commas, the setter is in fact giving a hint as to how to break it.
The first comma will immediately place suspicion on Harry and checking it would yield it as an angram indicator. The second comma also points a finger that local applies to “just” or “just now”.
So here we see how wonderful is Ximenes’ formulation. Grammar is essential in giving coherence to a sentence so as to provide a false meaning. Strip the grammar during solving and you will get the true meaning!
Many, many clues in hunts are without apparent meaning and this a is a shortcoming.
Nestor Fields
Thank you, Mr Fields.
You have again given a valuable lesson in this blog—at least it's a valuable lesson to me. For I have no indepth knowledge of the Ximenes Golden Rule. If anything, I must say that I'm somewhat surprised that you found all those capital letters and commas actually led you to the right direction. They had quite the opposite effect on me. But of course that is probably due to the fact that I'm still very green to the cryptic world.
I am also an advocate for clues which have meaningful "storylines" as opposed to just meaningless sentences, even if the latter can lead to perfectly tight answers. It is a fact that many hunt setters pay little attention to the significance of meaningful surface reading; and that is a shame, because in many cases I've found that it wouldn't have taken very much more efforts to improve those sentences so as to incorporate good surface reading.
Now that you've given an endorsement to the usage of capital letters and commas in hunt clues on the strength of the Ximenes Golden Rule, I will have a serious rethink on this matter. Judging from your experience in cryptic clueing, I will take your word for it. I had the impression that it's rather a "cheap trick" to use the capital letters and commas to mislead the solvers. But if they are indeed an established style in cryptic clueing, then I should also embrace it in my own hunt clues!
I'd like to repeat here that Jay's questions have been the most accurate—at least to me—on technical and grammatical grounds. I have in fact written to him via emails expressing my appreciation on such a good job. In my email to him entitled Pepsi, I said inter alia:
"Yes, my friend, I am asking for more. I loved the challenge of your hunt and will try to join any future ones."
And Jay replied (I hope you don't mind my sharing this with my readers, Jay):
"Thanks for your kind words. It is wonderful when I come across someone who loves my challenges and wants more of them!
In clueing , I try my best to be as accurate and precise as possible - and, importantly, as poetic as I can."
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