Daily Tease too home > backlash

More moaning from me about the daily tease - produced by the shagmail mailing list group.

Here is where Janie's misunderstanding of what constitutes a solution causes me sooo much happiness! The puzzle was:

If you write down the names of the numbers, starting at one, what is the first number which has an "a" in it?

The daily tease answer:

One thousand

This caused consternation, especially since I spell 101 as "one hundred and one". An email came from Janie to explain:

Next, many of you wrote in to me questioning the answers to the past two teases. The correct way to spell 101 is one hund-red one. Therefore, you would need to count to one thousand before using the letter "A."

I couldn't let that go. So I wrote back:

Dear Janie,

Michele [the previous and most excellent editor]soon discovered that there is life beyond the USA. Indeed, some of your readers come from further afield. In England, the CORRECT way to spell "101" is "one hundred and one".

Perhaps, like Michele used to do on these occasions, you could concede that there were two answers, depending on which side of the Atlantic you come from. May I assure you, as a speaker of English from England, that you will not get very far if you force the issue that your way is solely "correct".

More recently, came the following tease, which has been copied from the Mind Trap game:

A beauty shop has a glass door with a sign on it. The sign reads the correct way round when viewed from the street. How would the sign appear if you were looking at it from inside the shop through a mirror, that reflects another mirror, that reflects another mirror that shows the sign?

The daily tease solution:

The correct way around. Since a mirror that reflects another mirror cancels out the reversal etc.

The solution is correct, the reasoning ain't! Here is my letter to Janie:

Subject: your solution is wrong

The mind-trap tease. There are three mirrors, not two.

In fact, the lettering on the glass door would appear in reverse to someone looking at the door inside the shop. The first mirror corrects it, the second reverses it again and the third corrects it again. So, the letters would appear correct.

Can you cut out the banalities at the start of the tease? And can you also cut out teases which require you to be american to understand (yesterday's dollars tease needed one to know exactly which denominations of coin you guys use)? And finally, how about cutting out using teases from some game - surely you can't republish these without getting the rights anyway?

The daily tease used to be so good... under your editorship, it seems to be slipping. I notice that you've not replied to either of my previous two emails - is this an indication that your concern for your subscribers is as acute as your ability to write incisive editorials?

Come on - put your back into it.

Written: September to November 2000
Posted here: 04 December 2000)
Ashley Frieze