Dan’s Dingbats Challenge II – Results

Great turnout for Dan’s Dingbats Challenge II. Thanks for playing, all of you who did! Here’s the scoreboard:

Position	Player	Time Taken	Right Answers	Total Time
1	The Amazing Wonko Best score, great time to boot… beat Jimmy by just three seconds.	3mins, 42secs	13.5	4mins, 2secs
2	Jimmy Fastest overall time and a very good score. So very close to winning…	3 mins, 25secs	13	4mins, 5secs
3	Dimmer	3 mins, 51secs	13	4mins, 31secs
4	Claire	4mins, 36secs	12.5	5mins, 36secs
5	Paul	4mins, 41secs	12	6mins, 1sec
6	Gareth @ SD	5mins, 32secs	13	6mins, 12secs
7	JTA	5mins, 57secs	13	6mins, 37secs
8	Ruth Unfortunatley for her, her second attempt [total time 3mins, 1sec] doesn’t count)	3mins, 46secs	9.5	6mins, 46secs
9	Andy K	5mins, 6secs	10 (two half-marks)	7mins, 46secs
10	“scatman” (not me!)	4mins, 10secs	8	8mins, 10secs
11	Jen W	5mins, 52secs	8.5	9mins, 32secs
12	Matt @ SD	6mins, 24secs	8.5	10mins, 4secs
13	Hagen @ SD	10mins, 28secs	11	12mins, 28secs
14	Hayley	10mins, 51secs	9	14mins, 11secs
14	John K	9mins, 50secs	7	14mins, 30secs

Here are the answers. Click on any of the dingbat thumbnails to see the full-size versions:

A bird in the hand is worth two in the bush.
Just like the previous challenge, this one began with a particularly difficult puzzle. The words “bird” and “two” appear inside the words “hand” and “bush”, respectively, and the equals sign states that they have equal worth. Devillishly difficult, but an impressive number of people got it. Half-marks for “a bird in the hand beats two in the bush”, because it was so very nearly there.

Three cheers.
Finally, a dingbat that everybody can get.

Rock around the clock.
It’s a clock, with the word “rock” repeated around it. Well?

Drinkin’ to forget.
The word “drink” appears in the phrase “24get” (“to forget”), so “drink in 24get”. Anything vaugely close got the marks, but “some kind of low fat drink” didn’t, and neither did “24 hour drinking”. Difficult.

Head over heels in love.
The word “head” over two (different, just to be confusing) kinds of “heels”, inside a heart (love). Most people got this one, but “feel it head to heel” and “grr argh” remain the two most spectacularly wrong answers.

History repeats.
I thought this one was really easy, but apparently it isn’t. “History follows history”, “history is history”, “two versions of history” and “past” are all wrong answers.

Mixed vegetables / tossed vegetables.
Everybody saw the word “vegetables” in here, it seems, and even “chopped vegetables” is worth a half-mark. I thought it would be tougher to put the word back together than it obviously was.

Once in a blue moon.
Easy, again: the word “once” on a blue-tinted moon. I’ve had complaints from two colourblind participants, but they both got it right anyway.

Green with envy.
More complaints from colourblind participants, one of whom had to hold up something that they knew to be green and squint at them both together to be sure they were actually looking at something that was green.

Capital punishment.
The word punishment written, quite clearly, in capital letters. “Punishment takes a lifetime” is very, very wrong.

Backseat driver.
My favourite from this set. It’s the words “seat driver” written backwards. Many participants hunted for inner words, anagrams, and all sorts, not bothering to try to read it from right to left. My favourite wrong answer was “Argh! It looks like revision! Help!”

Tickled pink.
Unpopular again with the colourblind participants. Nonetheless, everybody got it right.

Big Trouble In Little China
The correct answer, which only a few people got, was “Big Trouble In Little China”: it’s the name of a film. “Big Trouble In China” and “Trouble In Little China” miss the bigger (or littler) picture, and only get half-marks, while “Trouble In China” gets none. Get over it.

No harm in trying.
My second-favourite in this set; one which many people got wrong. The word “harm” is being crossed out from the middle of the phrase “tryharming”, which of course leaves the word “trying”, with no “harm” in it: therefore, “no harm in trying”. Wrong answers included “self harming”, “out of harms’ way”, and “trying to disarm”.

So, thanks again to everybody who participated, and big congratulations to The Amazing Wonko! Congratulations also due to Jimmy (great fast time – if only you could have shaved three seconds off it or got one more half-mark you’d have one) and Dimmer. Also well done to all those who participated in this and the last one, and got better as a result of the practice.

I’ll leave things there for awhile, but I think that Andy may be working on his very own “Dingbats Challenge” (or something like it) in the near future. Watch this space.

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