The Star Word Puzzle Is Back Again

I noticed the Star is doing that Word Puzzle thing again. I think this is the third time they are doing this. The first two years were in a form of a Crossword puzzle, this time round they’ve simplified it to a linear puzzle. All to achieve the sole purpose of selling more newspapers (as if they have any REAL competitiors).

I remember the last time they had this contest. Man, some people were really CRAZY about it. Some of my colleagues bought a bundle (yes, one BUNDLE) of the Star newspaper every morning. And they used like 5 different dictionaries and thesaurus (real and electronic) just to do one puzzle.

Then in some areas of the city, there were literally traffic jams in front of the roadside newspaper stall. Yep, all those ah peks and Indian boys sure did brisk business during those months.

The problem with the contest was that it was a set in such a way that every answer was a possibility between two or more choices. The clues given always vague and debatable. So the only way to have a better chance of winning would be – send in multiple entries. And to do that, you need… to… buy… more… newspapers.

Anyway, like I said the clues were really vague and iffy. If you’re expecting clues like these:

******

Clue:
“It’s the thorny, local king of the fruits”

Puzzle:
D U R I A __

Answer:
Only a moron would answer DURIAK.

******

Or if you were thinking something like this:

Clue:
“Lassie and Fido are examples of this faithful animal. Also, in Malay it’s called an anjing.”

Puzzle:
D __ G

Answer:
I’ll give you a clue. It’s not “DAG”.

******

What you’ll REALLY get is something like this:

Clue:
A strong emotion.

Puzzle:
__ __ __ E

Answer:
HATE? LOVE? DOTE? OGRE? MICE? PETE? Yeah, send 200 entries a week and you’ll cover all the possibilities.

*******

And they say these puzzles are to ‘reward’ the readers? Ingenious, aren’t these marketing people?



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