Thursday 3 January 2013

NG 35

New game 35 is now up, as are details for the previous game.


Round 1: N U O I F N N G H

I had NOUN, UNION, wrote down FUNION as a joke, similarly with NOUNING although it's a concept that linguists can relate to, then FUNNING (FUN as a verb: "to act in a joking way", colloquial as expected), and HONING.  It was hard to imagineUNHONING being valid (it isn't), so it was just a question of whether I thought FUNNING was likely to be listed.  I decided to chance it, and that was the right decision.

FUNNING is the only seven, and HONING is the only six.


Round 2: T O S A A S L U T

I had OATS, SLATS, ASSAULT, and rather late in the piece my investigation of OUT- bore fruit with OUTLASTS.

That turns out to be the only eight, and the only other seven is OUTLAST.


Round 3: Target 330 from 25 75 100 2 2 9

I was interested in making this as 325 + 5, but the only obvious 5 was 9 - 2 - 2 which had no tweaking potential.  While messing around with the large-divided-by-small option I saw how to get close, and nearly missed the tweak but then spotted it: 330 = (75/25)*(100 + 9 + 2/2).  Then I realised that 9 - 2*2 was another way to get to 5 that allowed some tweaking, and found the alternative 330 = 2*(100 + 75 - 2) + 9 - 25.

Just as writing this up I noticed that the use of 100/25 instead might have been simpler than my first approach, giving 330 = (100/25)*(75 + 9 - 2) + 2.


Round 4: N A F U R C E P R

I had FAUN, FURNACE, and PRANCER.

There is one other seven: FARCEUR ("a writer or player of farces").


Round 5: R R D T E E O C D

A final C instead for CORRECTED would have been nice.  As it was, I had ERRED, CORDED, and RECORDED.

The sevens are ORDERED, ERECTOR, and DECODER.


Round 6: Target 951 from 75 4 6 8 1 9

The target is 24 away from 13*75, which seems promising but I was not able to get to work.  Switching tacks to work up from 900, I realised that I could tweak my way there and solved it with 951 = (75 + 6 - 1)*(8 + 4) - 9.  After I had finished, I realised that it might have been simpler to think of my approach as 960 - 9.


Round 7: E I I L K M M W T

This started out not great, but OK, and I was prepared to do something with the -LIKE ending.  Then the rest turned out pretty nasty, and although I noted TWI'LEK I could not find anything longer than LIKE.

The next morning I belatedly thought of LIMIT, but Jan meanwhile had done rather well to find the New Zealand colloquial term of MILKIE for a milkman.

The other six here is KILTIE, colloquial for "someone who wears a kilt, especially a member of a Scottish Highland regiment").  The other fives are KILIM ("a type of Middle Eastern rug or other covering without a pile which is not knotted but tapestry-woven") and KELIM (variant spelling of KILIM).


Round 8: Target 182 from 75 5 1 4 2 3

The target is 2*91, which is also 2*7*13.  I used the first version to get the solution 182 = (4*(5 - 1) + 75)*2, then played around with variations of the factorisation until I found the alternative solution 182 = (75/3 + 1)*(5 + 2).


Round 9: NAME BINGO

I was tempted to use ONE BIG MAN as the mix, but I'm not yet at the point of adopting more than two words to make it.  The -ING fragment was clear but it still took me 3.0s to untangle the rest to get BEMOANING.

(In comments, Victor made a good observation that it feels harder to solve a -ING conundrum when there are four vowels than it does when there are three.  It certainly seems plausible to me.)

9 comments:

Jan said...

I know you, and Sam and Victor will have the conundrum quicker than I have got it, but I am happy just to get it in under 30 secs! Had a fairly good game, so happy about that.

And Sam, I don't mind you being distracted while playing, it will be the only chance I have to beat you. Hehe

FUNNING
OUTLAST
9*25 + 100 + 2 + 2 = 329 1 off
FURNACE, PRANCER
RECORDED
(8+4)*75 + 9*6 - 1 = 953. 2 off
MILKIE (risked an alternate spelling and it paid off)
2*75 + (3+5)*4 = 182
BEMOANING - 16.1 secs

Geoff Bailey said...

Nice letters rounds again, Jan, particularly that gamble with MILKIE -- I was not able to better LIKE. Well done!

But... how did you miss OUTLASTS? (Or was that just a transcription error?)

Jan said...

Thanks Geoff - how did I miss OUTLASTS - I don't know! I think I just got OUTLAST in the time, and didn't get a chance to see how I could better it.

Mike Backhouse said...

Missed some words that I should have got.

HONING (wrote down FUNNING in time but was not sure)
TOASTS (would have been happy with OUTLAST!)
75/25*(100+9)+2=329 (1 off)
FURNACE (not confident with FURNACER)
CORDED (missed on the RE-, grrr)
x (and only got 9 away after time)
LIKE (glad to hear this was hard Geoff as I dislike getting 4s-well done Jan)
2*(75+(4*(3+1))=182
BEMOANING 50s (bemoaning that even looking for the -ING I still went over time!)

Victor said...

I had a few poor letters rounds this time, but made ground on the numbers.

1. HUNG (saw FUNNING but dismissed it as nonsense, will know better next time)
2. TOTALS (looked at OUT- fragment during time...sigh)
3. 330 = 75/25*(100 + 9 + 2/2)
4. FURNACE
5. RECORDED
6. 951 = (4 + 8)*(75 + 6 - 1) - 9
7. LIMIT
8. 182 = 2*75 + 4*(5 + 3)
9. BEMOANING - 10.7s

Thanks for the vote of confidence on the conundrum, Jan. I couldn't get this one very fast - I find (and I think maybe Geoff has said before?) that -ING with 4 vowels are harder to solve than with 3 vowels. I covered up the ING with my fingers to make solving quicker.

Mike Backhouse said...

FUNNING is not in my second edition, but maybe it is in the 5th?

Jan said...

Mike - FUNNING is in the online version. Geoff will tell us if it's not in his big book I guess.

Victor, you still got it 6 secs before me, so my confidence in you was not misplaced!

Geoff Bailey said...

Jan: It happens! And yes, FUNNING is fine -- I had to check it to be sure, but thought that it should be colloquial usage if nothing else.

Mike: Yes, it was very hard. The next day I saw LIMIT (well done, Victor), but that's really the only common word longer than four. You did well to find HONING -- the only six -- and avoiding FURNACER was the right move.

Victor: Hmm... I guess they might be harder to solve, also, but what you are probably thinking of as far as my comments go is my complaints that -ING is much less likely to produce a full monty with four vowels than with three.

Sam Gaffney said...

I find the hardest -ING words to unscramble are the ones with any of I/N/G repeated.

1. HONING (nearly went with FUNNING)
2. OUTLASTS
3. 330 = (75-25-2)*9 -100 -2 and (75-9)*(100/25 + 2/2)
4. FURNACE/PRANCER
5. RECORDED
6. one off: 950 = (9+4)*(75-8+6) +1
7. x WILKIE (wishful - didn't spot a five, or know about a MILKIE)
8. 182 = 2*(75 + 4*(3+1))
9. BEMOANING - 1.1s