Friday, September 16, 2005

The Jumble

One of the earliest word games I was exposed to(and soon became addicted to) was the Jumble. It appeared in the Sunday magazine of Indian Express and was the primary reason that our Hindu-addicted household bought the Sunday edition of IE. Imagine my joy when I subscribed to the San Jose Mercury News here and found that they carry a Jumble puzzle everyday! With all news now available online, that is the only aspect of the print edition that I miss since I stopped the subscription.

The rules of the game are pretty simple. You get 4 jumbled words(2 5-letter and 2 6-letter) that you first have to unscramble and enter in the boxes below each word. Particular letters in each of the 4 words are circled. Once you have unscrambled all 4 words, you select only the circled letters and unscramble them to answer the riddle(usually some kind of a pun) at the bottom.

This puzzle is one I created for a get-together at our house a few years back. Wanna take a stab at it?



PS1: If you do find this interesting enough to play, could you jot down a quick comment saying so? Thanks.

PS2: No answers in comments maybe until Monday so as not to spoil the fun for others? Email bbalaji [at] sbcglobal [dot] net for hints/solution confirmation :-)

19 Comments:

At 2:39 PM, Anonymous Anonymous said...

good lunch-break fun...! thanks...hv mailed my soln to bbthots...

 
At 2:57 PM, Blogger mitr_bayarea said...

great blog, i do the Word jumble from SJ Mercury news everyday and its so refreshing and addictive..my answers have been sent to your email..do we get a reward or sthng for the top 5 winners :)

 
At 3:35 PM, Anonymous Anonymous said...

hmm....bb..i'm not sure if this is a bug or a feature of the game.....looks like you forgot to mention that the sub-puzzles do not necessarily have a unique solution. I came up with 2 (legal!) words for the last but one subpuzzle only 1 of which lead me to the overall puzzle's correct answer

 
At 3:37 PM, Anonymous Anonymous said...

Balaji,
I love word puzzles. Although I did not remember the answers from that night, once I started unscrambling, it all came back to me. Hence, I did not send my answers to you.

You should do more of these puzzles.
Sreela.

 
At 3:47 PM, Blogger Balaji said...

ram, that was fast! got it...

mitr, where did u send your soln? didnt get your email.
the reason for asking for feedback was to c if i could make something like this a regular(weekly) feature. if yes, then i'll start thinking of contests :-)

anon, good catch. i'm guessing the other word u found is AVAILS. that is a bug. will make sure that doesn't happen in future posts.

SK, wanted to chk if there were enuf readers interested before posting more. hope there are since i like making up such puzzles too :-)

 
At 4:37 PM, Blogger Kaps said...

i used to enjoy this stuff a lot. thanks for reminding us of such stuff.

 
At 4:49 PM, Blogger Narayanan Venkitu said...

I like it , it is interesting, I remember, I used to play it in the IE in India.! Didn't know that Mercury news carried it.!

 
At 5:58 PM, Anonymous Anonymous said...

yes...it was avails .....maybe u shd let it be tht way to keep things interesting:)

 
At 7:29 PM, Anonymous Anonymous said...

Balaji,
That was fun - I think I got the solution (just too lazy to mail it you). Yeah, you should make this a regular feature and come up with other word games too. Some ideas:

1. Cryptic clues for city/personality/movie etc. names
2. Etymology trivia
3. can't think of any now....

Faffer

 
At 8:54 PM, Blogger Me too said...

Sunday Express magazine used to be a great favourite with us too. Esp. the Jumble and crossword(easier than Hindu's and hence a 'feel better'!)

 
At 10:42 PM, Blogger Balaji said...

anon, Aparna found that the 1st word could be COULD also! guess i need to be real careful with future puzzles :-)

faffer, no prob. just hope u had fun solving it.
will try to think of diff. kinds of games for future game posts.

 
At 8:15 AM, Blogger Revo's nuggets said...

oh - that was an excellent one -especially the pun at the end.

 
At 9:26 AM, Blogger Balaji said...

me too, u're right about the easier part. i used to be obsessed with 'the hindu' xword too though i didn't finish it most of the days!

priya, thanx! based on responses so far, it is gonna be a regular feature(atleast till interest wanes :-)

revo's, thanx! glad u enjoyed it :-)

 
At 8:24 AM, Anonymous Anonymous said...

good entertainer and nice way to relax in the midst of work

 
At 1:49 PM, Anonymous Anonymous said...

It was fun solving it.

 
At 12:42 PM, Blogger Balaji said...

TVS, thanx :-)

 
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At 4:25 AM, Blogger Funtabulous said...

i like word puzzles but my mom is crazy abt them....is there anyway i cud have them all printed out and give to her to do them...she will be coming down in 2 weeks and she will love them

 

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