I was unable to attend the hunt briefing for the Kiwanis Hunt 2008 and am therefore unable to report what exactly was said by the CoC, Grandmaster Chong on that day. However, I was there during the answer presentation at Damai Laut on Sunday night. The CoC repeated several times to the audience to "always answer all the words found in the clues".
And that was a valuable advice. Essentially, it means that whenever you see additional words which apparently play no role in the clue, you must ask yourself if those words are there for other reasons, especially if you find two equally promising answers for the same clue.
For example, consider the following clue which was one of those given in this hunt:
Q22) Either Ashley or Mary Olsen, with locks, having good looks here.
The first part of the clue, "Either Ashley or Mary Olsen", refers to the word "twin". Note the word "Either" at the beginning of the sentence, meaning that we are looking for a singular noun, i.e. "twin", not "twins".
The second part of the clue, "with locks", is a play on words, referring to hair (as in locks of hair).
Now within that questions sector, there was a signboard bearing: Twin Hair Saloon. This board appears to fit the clue perfectly. But upon further investigation, the experience hunter would realise that Twin Hair Saloon does not deal with the remaining words, "having good looks".
It turned out that there was another signboard bearing Twin Hair & Beauty Saloon within that sector. This other board is a better fit because of the word "beauty" which answers "having good looks".
What really happened to my team was that we were fortunate enough to have spotted the intended answer, saw its perfect fit, and left the sector in a jiffy. We were therefore spared the mental torture of having to choose between the 2 signboards. However, I'd like to think that even if we had to choose, we would have been able to make the correct choice anyway.
Q10) Can you find a nightmare opposite put together for a restful place?
A moderately confusing clue, but not exactly a frightfully tough one. An average team will quickly realise that the word "opposite" refers to the opposite meaning of "nightmare". Therefore, when I saw Sweetdream on the signboard, Teck Koon was quick to point out that that word agrees with the "opposite of a nightmare". And of course I was also quick to give my vote for that answer.
How about the words "put together"? Well, that is also easily explained because the words "sweet" and "dream" are joined (put) together to form a single word on this particular signboard.
But now we come to a stumbling block. There is nothing on the signboard that would deal with the words "restful place". If the word "bedroom" or "mattress" or even "bed" were there on the signboard, then it would have been perfect. But not on this particular signboard.
We have therefore come to a situation where we have a potential answer, but with some words in the clue unaccounted for. We have seen in the above example about the "twin", that disregarding some words in the clue does not accord well with GM Chong's style. If we ignore the words "restful place", we might be severely punished when the CoC later reveals that there is another signboard containing Sweetdream Mattress, for example.
And so, although that signboard Sweetdream was glaringly clear from the car, we had to turn back and make another thorough scan of the sector. After spending a few minutes, we found nothing better and had to be contented with the Sweetdream board. But we marked that answer as "50-50" becasue as far as we were concerned, it did not address "restful place", eventhough we were aware that Sweetdream was the brandname for mattresses.
During the presentation of the answers, it turned out that the required answer was indeed Sweetdream, and nothing was mentioned about those extra words, "restful place".
Sometimes it is not easy to be consistent, even if you are a Grandmaster.
2 comments:
I knew about the 2 twin boards before we got there cus I have used them as "red hearing" before in a close hunt . But I can't remember which is which and was surprised that he used the 1st TWIN, the more obvious one compared the 2nd TWIN further down that sector, seen at the lane between 2 rows of shops, off the main road.
See, that's the trouble with so many CoCs in the field. Most of them can more or less memorize the prominent signboards because they themselves at one time or another have used those boards for their hunt questions!
I was chatting with Soo Khian about the "X-Ray" board. He said he did not really consider other boards within that sector because he was aware of the "Bass Attack" board even before reaching that sector. Later, I was told that Damai Laut is one of TOS' favourite hunt destinations!
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