Morgan Worthy published his first “Word Equations” in 1975 in a small volume called “AHA!: a Puzzle Approach to Creative Thinking”.
Typical examples from this book and their solutions are:
The word “ditloid” was later coined by the Daily Express newspaper in the United Kingdom after the equation “1=DitLoID” with the solution “One Day in the Life of Ivan Denisovitch”, the novel by Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn. Ditloid quizzes are often to be seen pinned to noticeboards in offices, found in pubs as an alternative to the evening pub quiz, or spreading out via email at Christmas time. The format of ditloids has changed over the years with the “=” becoming optional as they became ever more bizarre. Typical examples of ones that appear today are:
Worthy recently commented on his inspiration for the puzzle and his take on its continuing popularity:
"I got the idea for linguistic equations from graffiti someone had written in the form of an obscene formula on a restroom wall at the University of Florida. When the answer suddenly came to me, I realized the format was a good one for eliciting the "aha effect". After that I used such items as exercise material when teaching workshops on creative thinking."
"My guess is that one reason a person enjoys linguistic equations is that the answer hits him or her all at once rather than being solved in an incremental fashion. It is similar to what happens when we suddenly see an embedded figure pop into focus; the satisfaction is visceral rather than just intellectual. My experience was that people often had the answer to an item come to them when they were not consciously thinking about the puzzles, but relaxed, such as in the shower or about to fall asleep."
"Another factor is that with well-written items, success does not hinge on obscure information. Ideally, a person should never have to feel, "I could never have gotten that one no matter how long I worked on it." There is something ego enhancing about knowing you have the answer inside and just need to find it."
With the explosion of Ditloids onto the internet in the past decade, solutions are commonly found using search engines and the creation of original quizzes is becoming more difficult. Click the "Play now" link and you will find the latest SymiGreece Ditloid quiz with questions that I have devised myself, trying to ensure that most of them, at least, are fresh and original and not to be found on the internet. Please feel free to print the quiz and try and get as many of them as you can. When you are ready, you can type in your answers and submit them to me for marking.
If, after you've submitted your answers, you want to add or change answers, then you can just submit only the changes (so there's no need to type it all in from scratch). There's no need to wait until you've got answers to all of them as some are very tough indeed, and you can always go back and update your answers.
A list of the present top scorers will be regularly updated, and the quiz will run until someone gets full marks, or until I think it's time to reveal the answers. To avoid people trawling for answers (submitting them one at a time etc.) I'm only going to update your personal score in the top scorers list once every few days at most, though you can submit extra answers as often as you like.
Please don't discuss answers on the chat page, as this will just spoil it for others! You're more than welcome to do team submissions or trade answers (if you must!) via private messages or email.
Enjoy!
Lakis
Typical examples from this book and their solutions are:
1 B in the H = 2 in the B |
one bird in the hand equals two in the bush |
8P=1G |
eight pints is one gallon |
NN=GN |
no news is good news |
The word “ditloid” was later coined by the Daily Express newspaper in the United Kingdom after the equation “1=DitLoID” with the solution “One Day in the Life of Ivan Denisovitch”, the novel by Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn. Ditloid quizzes are often to be seen pinned to noticeboards in offices, found in pubs as an alternative to the evening pub quiz, or spreading out via email at Christmas time. The format of ditloids has changed over the years with the “=” becoming optional as they became ever more bizarre. Typical examples of ones that appear today are:
8 L on a S |
8 legs on a spider |
52 W in a Y |
52 weeks in a year |
1 F O T C N |
One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest |
6 P on a P T |
Six pockets on a pool table |
9 Z in a B (UK) |
Zeroes in a billion (United Kingdom) |
19-19-19 O O V S |
Olive Oyl’s vital statistics |
52 C in a P (N C J) |
52 cards in a pack (not counting jokers) |
50 W to L Y L (P S) |
Fifty Ways to Leave Your Lover (Paul Simon) |
1000000 M for O of Y S |
A million miles for one of your smiles |
Worthy recently commented on his inspiration for the puzzle and his take on its continuing popularity:
"I got the idea for linguistic equations from graffiti someone had written in the form of an obscene formula on a restroom wall at the University of Florida. When the answer suddenly came to me, I realized the format was a good one for eliciting the "aha effect". After that I used such items as exercise material when teaching workshops on creative thinking."
"My guess is that one reason a person enjoys linguistic equations is that the answer hits him or her all at once rather than being solved in an incremental fashion. It is similar to what happens when we suddenly see an embedded figure pop into focus; the satisfaction is visceral rather than just intellectual. My experience was that people often had the answer to an item come to them when they were not consciously thinking about the puzzles, but relaxed, such as in the shower or about to fall asleep."
"Another factor is that with well-written items, success does not hinge on obscure information. Ideally, a person should never have to feel, "I could never have gotten that one no matter how long I worked on it." There is something ego enhancing about knowing you have the answer inside and just need to find it."
With the explosion of Ditloids onto the internet in the past decade, solutions are commonly found using search engines and the creation of original quizzes is becoming more difficult. Click the "Play now" link and you will find the latest SymiGreece Ditloid quiz with questions that I have devised myself, trying to ensure that most of them, at least, are fresh and original and not to be found on the internet. Please feel free to print the quiz and try and get as many of them as you can. When you are ready, you can type in your answers and submit them to me for marking.
If, after you've submitted your answers, you want to add or change answers, then you can just submit only the changes (so there's no need to type it all in from scratch). There's no need to wait until you've got answers to all of them as some are very tough indeed, and you can always go back and update your answers.
A list of the present top scorers will be regularly updated, and the quiz will run until someone gets full marks, or until I think it's time to reveal the answers. To avoid people trawling for answers (submitting them one at a time etc.) I'm only going to update your personal score in the top scorers list once every few days at most, though you can submit extra answers as often as you like.
Please don't discuss answers on the chat page, as this will just spoil it for others! You're more than welcome to do team submissions or trade answers (if you must!) via private messages or email.
Enjoy!
Lakis
Updated 05/08/2007, 03:10 // 692 hits