A few weeks ago, after procrastinating for a long time, I finally embarked on setting the questions for the KK Challenge 15. Setting hunt questions wasn't very difficult for me, but the laziness to do it was something to be reckoned with. But one weekend, I finally made it a point to go around to select suitable signboards and I spent perhaps half a day to set the 35 questions for the hunt. Since about 10 years ago, I had the reputation of setting what is commonly known as the red herring in treasure hunts. These are the type of questions where they seem to point to a specific answer on the board, but actually there is another answer which is the intended one!
In the Lintas Square sector, there was this board:
And just beside this board there was this sign:
And then I set this question:
Q9) Without union is without effect!
The reason why that word "union" was in the question was of course because of that neighbouring sign that had the "UNION" on it.
So that was that, and I proceeded to prepare the question paper and the answer presentation slides. Then last Friday, 2 days before the hunt, I decided to make one last visit to all the hunt sectors. I was horrified to find that the UNISET board was missing! At first, I wanted to just cancel that question and just proceed with the remaining questions. But then I felt dissatisfied to have a cancelled question in my hunt. So I spent an extra few minutes in that sector to decide which board to take as the replacement. 10 minutes later, I decided on this board, which was located almost immediately after the former UNISET board:
When I arrived home, I made the amendments in the question paper, the answer slides, and set this replacement question:
Q9) Its answer is the same with the answer for without label
And it proved to be a very challenging question to the hunters. When I was explaining the answer for this question, I bet it must have felt like it was such a complicated riddle which involved too many steps to get to the answer. But actually it's quite brief. Now in order to solve any problem at all, there is always a need to know where to start. In this case, one needs to read the question and appreciate its structure and then logically deduce what this riddle is all about.
The first 3 words of the question, i.e. "Its answer is..." are significant. What do they tell the solver? Well, "It's" must be referring to that something that is found on the signboard. And "Its answer is..." is an indirect way for the setter to tell the solver that that something that we're looking for on the board must be the question, because only if it's a question can we then say "Its answer is...". Therefore, logically speaking, if that something on the signboard is the question for the riddle, then it follows that what we have on the paper must be the answer! You follow the logic so far? Fine, we progress!
So what is the answer? Well, unfortunately, the answer is given indirectly, and it is here that the real challenge lies! In order to find that something that is on the signboard, i.e. the question, we need to know what is the answer on the paper first. And since that answer is given indirectly, we must therefore solve that first. So the real challenge is to discover what is "without label"?
Now "without" is commonly employed as the deletion indicator in cryptic clues, because of its meaning "in absence of". However, "without" has a very uncommon meaning which is the opposite meaning for the word "within", i.e. "on the outside"; and taking that uncommon definition, I used it here to point to the outside letters of the fodder.
Therefore,
"without" LABEL = LL (taking the outside letters of LABEL)
Once the answer has been discovered, the original question can be simplified to become:
Its answer is LL
Because that answer is the same with the answer for "without label", which is LL.
We also know that this riddle is the Double Jeopardy, which means we need to find the question on the signboard, because what we have on paper is the answer.
That is why that something that we need to find on the signboard is:
CENTRE OF EXCELLENCE
Because the CENTRE of that word EXCELLENCE are the LL.
So now, you can appreciate why the answer for the cancelled question is UNISET. It's because of the same explanation, that is to say I'm employing the word "without" to point to the flanks of the fodder.
"without" UNION = UN
"without" EFFECT = ET
Theerefore,
Without UNION is without EFFECT = UN is ET
This is a very peculiar use of the word "without" as the flanks indicator, but I'm introducing it in this hunt, because on account of its definition - on the outside, I see no reason why it can't be employed for such purpose! Perhaps it has never been done this way before? But that, to me does not mean that it can't be done!
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