Hi everyone,

You are probably all acquainted with word ladders, where one word can be changed into another completely different word by changing one letter at a time, with all intervening words being words as well. This quiz is nothing like that, though!

In this quiz, you start with a word, and that word is to be accommodated into a phrase of two words. The phrase will usually be an adjective or an adverb combined with a noun or verb. That phrase must be well known in idiomatic or everyday form as a complete phrase, but not only in a routine descriptive meaning such as ‘hot soup’, nor just made up for the purpose of the quiz. The next line is constructed by changing one of the words to another, but the new phrase must also be well-known in idiomatic or everyday form.

As an example, I will connect the two words ‘Five’ and ‘Moon’.

Thus starting with the noun	Five
the next line might be	High Five
followed by	Sky High
then	Sky Blue
and	Blue Moon
giving	Moon

In this way, I have made the connection using 4 phrases, and it’s not difficult. What you are being asked to do is to connect 8 pairs of words in this manner. The idea is to use as few phrases as possible over the whole 8 pairs. I’ve done them all, so you know they can be done.

The special scoring system has been carefully prepared, allowing for short cuts (at a cost). You may have questions about bending the rules, so I have given you a list of what you may or may not do. Please read these carefully. The last rule is most important!

The pairs of words are:

(1) old to dead
(2) live to short
(3) open to game
(4) double to quarters
(5) run to track
(6) white to black (black and white is not allowed)
(7) cat to mouse, via ‘word’ (i.e. cat and mouse is not allowed)
(8) turn to old

As is my normal practice, the more difficult ones are towards the end, so start at number 1, and then when you can finish it, try the next! Thinking like this is good for the digestion.

Please send me your answers with your total score (as calculated by the rules, described on a separate page) at the top of your answer sheet, with the scores of each list separately. They should arrive by Tuesday, January 3rd. If Christine agrees, there’s a bonus point for the best entry.

Best wishes for the festive season, everyone!

- Olaf

SCORING RULES FOR ALPHA CHRISTMAS QUIZ 2011

Scoring in most puzzles relates to the accumulation of a maximum number of points, marks, units and so on. Because one gets tired of points, marks and units, I have devised a new scoring word, which can relate to scoring the lowest number.

So I have defined the word ‘Stix’ to replace those ordinary terms.

[stix , noun, s or pl, meaning points, marks or units used for accumulating negative values only. Origin (1) fr sticks, primitive indicators for counting anything; (2) possibly slovenly corruption of mis-ticks suggesting negative faults, as opposed to ticks, used for positive virtues; (3) connection with Styx, a river of darker (or negative) values of the hereafter, which Alpha needs to minimise]

1. We are essentially concerned with phrases which are made up from two words, which may be nouns, verbs, adjectives or adverbs. Every phrase must contain two (but no more) such words – and I will refer to them as ‘link-words’. It may be that the two words are both nouns or both verbs, although I think it unlikely that they’ll both be adjectives or adverbs.
2. The idealised version introduces one word in each line, which is then transferred to the next line: such a link-word exists for two lines only. In transferring it, one it may assume a different part of speech e.g. a noun may become an adjective – and it may occur as either the first word or the second word in the next phrase.
3. Every phrase must be a recognised phrase1, perhaps an idiom or threatening to become an idiom, perhaps a film or book title (but do not include titles of books you plan to write in the future!). If you include a title (and it must be the full title, not selected parts) please identify it on that line of your answer sheet with the name of the author. Such phrases will only qualify if the author is well-known2.
4. Every acceptable phrase (i.e. every line in the ladder) counts one stix. You do not count the given words at the beginning and the end
5. If you cannot progress directly, you can use an approved3 ‘bending’ of the rules.
(a) you may change a link-word from singular to plural – or vice versa – which will cost you 1 extra stix. If necessary, you can change one letter other than an ‘s’ but that will cost you 2 extra stix.
(b) you may change the punctutation from one line to the next: this will incur for you 1 extra stix for each change you make.
(c) Some words in the English language are created from two words e.g. jackpot. These may be separated into two words by introducing a hyphen jack-pot. This will cost you 1 extra stix.
(d) You may introduce articles (the, a, an), prepositions (in, on, etc.), conjunctions/disjunctions (and, but, or, etc.) but each extra word will cost you 2 extra stix. So Fish and Chips would be acceptable, but you’ll have to pay an extra 2 stix for the ‘and’..
6. An incorrect spelling or use of a phrase4 will render the submission for that particular pairs of words ineligible, as will faulty arithmetic (see rule 8).
7. Names of people are not allowed unless they are fictitious (eg Jack Frost) or titles of books, plays or films.
8. Any pairs you don’t attempt – or where you have violated the above rules - will count as 25 (for pairs 1-6), and 50 (for pairs 7-8). If you don’t attempt the quiz at all, you therefore score 250 stix.
9. Questioning the rules (as opposed to clarification) will attract 50 extra stix to the overall total. Clarification will attract only 10 stix. It will probably be worth your while to try your luck rather than risking a question or clarification, which might cost you more.
10. When submitting your achievement, please let me know what you think your score is. I will then ask the lowest entrant to send ‘his’ (or possibly even ‘her’) answers in for me to check. This is because it’s a lot of work for me in checking all the answers (I assume that there will be more than one!). If there is no entrant, I will claim the bonus point.
11. If you wish, you can boast about the low score (in total – or for each word pair) you’ve achieved so far to everyone via email. It doesn’t need to be true, but it could discourage your rivals from entering their totals!. If anyone claims an overall total lower than 100, don’t believe him/her.
12. The winner will be the entry accumulating the lowest total number of stix for all 8 pairs of words. The Quizmaster’s decision is final (in case you hadn’t guessed!).

Footnotes.
1. Recognised by me
2. I’ve heard of the author
3. My definition of ‘approved’.
4. Does not agree with my spelling.

Example

Word Pair: Richard to Kill

Score	Phrase	Comment
	Richard	Starting word
3	Richard the Third	(Shakespeare play: I have to include ‘the’)
3	The Third Man	(Film Title: I have to count ‘The’)
5	Man in the Street	saying (2 words added)
2	Streets ahead	idiom (an s added)
3	Ahead of Time	saying (one word added)
1	Kill Time	idiom
	Kill	end word

Total 17 stix

Remember:

Send what you think is your overall total to me by January 3rd, and have your phrase ladders ready to follow if I ask for them. I will send out the ladders I made when I composed this quiz, but only after you’ve torn your hair out first.

- Olaf

There were 5 entries, and all were good, much, much better than I expected. The count of stix on entry was Zena 22, Christine, Rosemary and Margie on 34 with Chris on 35. I felt I had to scrutinise carefully, but I had to bear in mind the rules I set.

The first one which caused a problem was:
The phrase must be well known in idiomatic or everyday form as a complete phrase, but not only in a routine descriptive meaning such as ‘hot soup’, nor just made up for the purpose of the quiz.

A good example of this was the phrase ‘Fuse Wire’. I have never heard of the phrase ‘fuse wire’ used anywhere other than to describe wire. As such it should have invalidated that entry, incurring a cost of 25 stix. However, I have decided that a suitable penalty is really more like 10 stix added. Similarly, is ‘wine barrel’ used for anything other than what it literally means? And does ‘double room’ have another meaning?

and the second one was:
We are essentially concerned with phrases which are made up from two words, which may be nouns, verbs, adjectives or adverbs. Every phrase must contain two (but no more) such words – and I will refer to them as ‘link-words’. It may be that the two words are both nouns or both verbs, although I think it unlikely that they’ll both be adjectives or adverbs.

Four entrants used ‘down’, ‘up, ‘out’, ‘in’, ‘off’, ‘for, or ‘with’, none of which are adverbs in normal usage, although they can be.: but they were outside the spirit of the examples I used. I didn’t penalise any of the entries except where they seemed obviously violating the rule – e.g. ‘rat on’, and ‘turn in’ (and then only by 1 stix). ‘Long on’ is a cricket term, and I don’t think ‘on’ is even a preposition then. ‘Come up with’ and ‘come close to’ were pushing the boundaries a bit.

There were other things which concerned me as ‘unfortunate’ although not infringing the rules: this involved using the same link word in more than one of the lists.

There were one or two words which needed adjustment ‘Top Hole’ should be ‘top-hole’, which costs another stix, while ‘Clap eyes on’ could have been reduced to ‘clap eyes’ which would have reduced the score by 2 stix.

But it was the cat to mouse via ‘word’ which caused the big violations: only Chris managed to take the route to include ‘word’. Thus all the others revert to the maximum of 50 stix for that exercise.

The final ranking is this Chris first, with Christine and Zena next, followed by Margie then Rosemary.

The best of the entries:

Old – old duck – dead duck – dead (Margie) (2 stix)
Old – old bat – dead bat – dead (Chris) (2 stix)

Live – short-lived – short (Christine) (4 stix)
Live – live wire – hot wire – hot dog – straw dogs – short straw – short (Chris) (6 stix)

Open – open end – end game – game (Christine) (2 stix)
Open – wide open – Wide game – game (Rosemary) (2 stix)

Double – double-up – close-up – close quarters – quarters (Chris) (4 stix)
Double – double room – living room – living quarters (Zena) (3 stix)

Run – run down – track down – down (Zena and Margie) (2 stix)

White – White Christmas – Christmas Pudding – Black pudding – black (Zena) (3 stix)
White – White water – ice water – black ice – black (Rosemary) (3 stix)

Cat – cat call – last call – (the) last word – buzz-word – buzz off – take off – mickey take – Mickey mouse – Mouse (Chris) (11 stix)

Turn – turn out – hand out – old hand – old (Margie) (3 stix)
Turn =- good turn – good as new – New World – Old World – Old (Rosemary) (6 stix)

Based on the best of the above, a winning score could have been 30 (or possibly lower)

Anyway, I seem to think you enjoyed it, and that's what matters!

Best wishes

-- Olaf