UKLO 2012

Companion versus tool

HintTwo ideas hide inside English 'with' — separate them.

The whyBeing accompanied by someone and using something as an instrument are different ideas that English happens to squash into one 'with'. Many languages separate them, so a puzzle may translate 'with my brother' and 'with a spoon' using different markers. When one English word maps to two puzzle words, ask what distinguishes the contexts — and expect a test phrase such as 'with my horse' that could be either.

20

HintHow many is 'a score'?

The whyEnglish counts in tens but keeps a trace of twenties in 'three score and ten'; French switches to twenties above sixty; Danish builds 50, 70 and 90 on half-steps of twenty. In a number puzzle, decompose the words: find 'and', find the units, then work out what the big pieces are multiples of.

first

HintWhich part of the number is said before the other?

The whyGerman still says 'vierundzwanzig'. In a puzzle number word, find the piece meaning 'and' and check which side the units sit on — never assume the English order.

A grammatical prefix

Hint'-ed' does this job in English — but not at this end.

The whyA prefix can carry grammar rather than meaning: German puts 'ge-' on the front of most past participles ('gemacht', made). Yet if the verb already has a prefix of its own, the grammar prefix may be dropped — so check the exceptions before you write the rule. The full recipe for a form is often prefix + stem change + suffix, all three at once.

A voiceless consonant

HintWhisper it — 'sss' not 'zzz'.

The whyVoiceless consonants (p, t, k, f, s, sh, ch, 'th' in thin) each have a voiced partner made in the same place. Many languages, German among them, refuse a voiced consonant at the very end of a word: German 'Hund' is said 'hunt'. So a puzzle stem may change its final letter — 'v' to 'f', 'z' to 's' — before an ending goes on, and the ending's own spelling may follow the old sound or the new one; check which.

The following sound

Hint'an hour' but 'a university' — spelling is not the trigger.

The whyThe shape of a little grammar word can depend on the SOUND beside it, not on the noun's meaning. 'A' / 'an' is English's version; in some languages the word for 'the' can have several spellings chosen by the noun's final sound. Sort the nouns by that sound and the pattern falls out; then check whether the plural follows the same rule or has a form of its own.

A nasal consonant

HintHold your nose while saying it and it stops working.

The whym, n and the 'ng' of 'sing' are nasal: the mouth is blocked and air escapes through the nose. Vowels can be nasal too — in French 'bon' the vowel itself is nasal. Nasals matter in puzzles because sounds next to them often change to match: an article may take a nasal form after a nasal noun, and English 'in-' becomes 'im-' before 'p' ('impossible').

Initial mutation

HintThe Celtic languages are famous for it.

The whyIn Celtic languages such as Irish and Breton the first consonant of a word changes depending on the word before it — a possessive, a preposition, a number. So one word appears in two or three spellings that differ only at the front. In a puzzle, treat the spellings as one word, work out which preceding words trigger the change, and then apply it: 'every' + 'cat' may need the mutated form.

Another word plus an extra part

Hint'bookshop' works the same way.

The whyCompounds glue two words together: 'bookshop', 'sunlight', 'toothbrush'. When a long puzzle word swallows a shorter one you already know, split it: the extra part is another word or a suffix, and it will carry its own meaning wherever else it turns up.

passive

HintThe cake did nothing — it had something done to it.

The whyActive: the subject does the action ('The dog ate the cake'). Passive: the subject has the action done to it ('The cake was eaten'). Some languages mark the passive inside the verb with one small piece, and can combine it with future and perfect markers, so a single puzzle verb may translate as 'will have been chased'. Unpick it piece by piece: tense, then 'have' or 'going to', then active or passive.

case

HintLatin nouns have six of these; English pronouns keep three.

The whyCase is the noun changing form for its role: Latin and German nouns do it, and English keeps it only in pronouns ('he' subject, 'him' object). An invented language might add '-um' to every object noun, so 'dog chased cat-um' and 'cat-um chased dog' mean the same thing. When word order seems loose, look for the ending that marks the object.

prefix; suffix; mutation

HintCompare a puzzle word's start, its end and its very first letter across the sentences.

The whyGrammar can be added to the front of a stem, to its end, or — in Celtic languages — expressed by changing the stem's first consonant. When two forms of one word differ, note WHERE they differ before you ask what the difference means; that tells you which of the three you are dealing with.