Adverbly Adjectivous Gerundings

I had the pleasure of hosting What's The Good Word this Saarang along with NDK. And I took particular delight in setting these questions for the preliminaries (Answers are at the end):


Paraphrase
Look at the statements and clauses below. A few idioms and quotes have been paraphrased. Get the exact wording.

(1) A noble with a healthy number of photons bouncing off his defensive gear.

(2) The appellation of a reproductive organ of a species of the flora, when replaced, hardly has an effect on the modality of olfaction.

(3) Swayed and rocked, perhaps, while negative to moving through the medium with an implement.

(4) The atmosphere and outer space holding a baked item of nourishment.

(5) It is hoped that the momentum rate finds domicile in your system.

(6) Make a scan of the location surrounded by circles of infinite radii.

(7) Effect progress and construct an interval of solar illumination for yours truly.

(8) Permit the beast to make a getaway from the receptacle.

(9) The most proximal sphere of extreme fusion goes to sea level in the realm of the European islanders at t = ∞

(10) The male of the mammal species achieves the culmination of its deceleration at the present co-ordinates in spacetime.


Hardcore WTGW
There's something common to the five phrases given below. One of (a), (b), (c), (d) shares this too. Which one? Justify.

(1) Squids overproduce liquors

(2) Blameable. Exculpate!

(3) Aminic phytotoxin

(4) Ancestor allays Soviets

(5) Juvenile lividity: larvicide

(a) Unintelligent design (b) Blacksmith brings cotton (c) Debonair confidence (d) Bridge golden city

[Hint: Use not the brain, but the heart]


Jumble
Unscramble each word and write the letters in the boxes. Use the underlined letters to make a phrase.

C E N O T H = |_| | |_| | |

R U F L A T = | |_| | |_| |

F R O G L E = | | |_| |_| |

O F T U S E = |_| | | |_| |

R O B B A S = | | | |_| |_|

B A L D A M = | | |_| | | |

Clue for the phrase:

In the kingdom of digits, the administration was simple and intuitive because it was a ____________


Eye rhymes
An eye rhyme is a similarity in spelling between words that are pronounced differently and hence, not an auditory rhyme. Standard pairs: Height and weight; slaughter and laughter; womb and bomb. Now guess these eye rhyme triplets from the context:

1. When Hayden _____, nobody was seen to _____, but the ball didn’t reach the boundary since it hit a _____. (5, 4, 4)

2. She finally ____ words to her feelings, saying she knew him inside ____ and wouldn’t marry a _____. (3, 3, 3)

3. When the rancher gifted me a ____, his kindness filled me with ____; I now ____ him so much. (3, 3, 3)

4. _____ stayed back, leaving him the _____ man in town. Soon, he was also ______. (4, 4,4)

And here's a quadruplet:

5. ‘Show me the _____,’ said the first guard. When I did, he took some and said ‘OK, You are _____’. When I was about to enter, another fellow appeared. ‘We need more,’ he said, with a polite _____. ‘The times are _____’. (5, 7, 5, 5)


Answers

Paraphrase
(1) A knight in shining armour
(2) A rose by any other name would smell as sweet
(3) Shaken, not stirred.
(4) Pie in the sky.
(5) May the Force be with you.
(6) Read between the lines.
(7) Go ahead, make my day.
(8) Let the cat out of the bag.
(9) The sun never sets on the British Empire.
(10) The buck stops here.

Hardcore WTGW
Look at the core/heart of each word (ie., the central letters) in every phrase. Doing so would yield
(1) Quid pro quo
(2) Mea culpa
(3) In toto
(4) Cest la vie
(5) Veni vidi vici
The answer is hence (c), for the cores of the words in 'Debonair confidence' give 'bona fide'.

Jumble
TECHNO
ARTFUL
GOLFER
FOETUS
ABSORB
LAMBDA
The phrase:
In the kingdom of digits, the administration was simple and intuitive because it was a rule of thumb [here digits = fingers]

Eye rhymes
(1) drove, move, dove
(2) put, out, nut
(3) ewe, awe, owe
(4) None/One, lone, gone
(5) dough, through, cough, tough/rough.

To the Very Good Wife of that Great Briton, B B Roy

Below are two case studies.

The first one is about a citizen of a military-ruled nation called Genghistan. He is a coup-designer, someone you could hire for a contract to mastermind a coup.

[Note: The word 'junta' is not to be taken in the sense of the IIT lingo.]

(1) Mahroof spurned democratic ideas for he knew that his fellow men would always elect wrong ones. He also deemed it his duty to rid the despots. "To my people peace shall I return," vowed he, and made coup-design his very vocation. He orchestrated elegant and swift takeovers, often with just one machine gun and two automatics. He was easily on top of logical problems involved in the matter of putsches. He'd first make amphibious* trips (*via road and river) to the Army HQ for a recce or two. And then he would incline bottles of petrol against, and blast, the compound walls, and even before the alarm bells had rung their last note, the junta would flee in dilemma, rendering the anarch hirers of Mahroof the new leaders and himself their follower. It'd be a year before he'd come down upon the new regime and its aftermath, modelling a perfect coup in his mind to the very last straw.

And the second one is about a nerdy student from IIT Madras:

(2) Her perennial dream of discovering something new pinned Cinderella hours on end to electron guns, spectrometers, bubble chambers, radioscopes, even tea pots! Encounters of failure at every turn ultimately led to the revocation of her funds, and that is when her universe and portfolio changed to Mathematics. She was always seen working on topological problems, involved in the Math. Her specialization in Mobius strips later turned out to be the primary key to her research in Klein bottles. And hence, while her peers became Vols for free grub's sake and binged at Saarang, jotting down ideas alone occupied Cindy -- lemma, theorem, corollary, converse and proof furiously scribbled and scored off all over the back sides of every food coupon she had earned for a Math Modelling Co-ordinatorship the previous Shaastra!

{Thanks to AJ for suggesting spectrometers.}

Now then, the Saarang Online Creative Writing Contest, having given 'Klein Bottles, Guns, Food Coupons' as a topic, demands this: 'Connect these three not-so-obvious ideas/themes into one single piece'. So let us rewrite the two passages above without changing a word, except that we will intersperse one into another, and maintain a colour code to keep track of either person. Also, let's make it a poem. Although we are not going to read it one line after another (in other words, the brown lines and the pink lines are independent of each other and are not be read sequentially), let us pretend it is verse for structure's sake. And voila! What do we see? Their life stories sound the same! Since Mahroof resists his government and Cindy resists peer pressure, we shall name our twin ode a

Diode to a Couple of Resistors... In Parallel

Mahroof spurned democratic ideas fo' he knew
Her perennial dream of discovering something new
That his fello' men would always elect wrong 'uns
Pinned Cinderella hours on end to electron guns,
He also deemed it his duty to rid the despots:
Spectrometers, bubble chambers, radioscopes, even tea pots!
"To my people peace shall I return,"
Encounters of failure at every turn
Vowed he, and made coup-design his very vocation.
Ultimately led to the revocation
He orchestrated elegant and swift takeovers,
Of her funds, and that is when her universe
Often with just one machine gun and two automatics.
And portfolio changed to Mathematics.
He was easily on top o' logical
She was always seen working on topological
Problems involved in the matter
Problems, involved in the Math. Her
O' putsches. He'd first make amphibious* trips
Specialization in Mobius strips
(*via road and river) to the Army HQ fo' a recce
Later turned out to be the primary key
Or two. And then he would incline bottles
To her research in Klein bottles.
O' petrol against, and blast, the compound walls,
And hence, while her peers became Vols
And even before the alarm bells had rung
For free grub's sake and binged at Saarang,
Their last note, the junta would flee in dilemma,
Jotting down ideas alone occupied Cindy -- lemma,
Rendering the anarch hirers of Mahroof
Theorem, corollary, converse and proof
The new leaders and himself their follower.
Furiously scribbled and scored off all over
It'd be a year before he'd come down upon
The back sides of every food coupon
The current regime and its aftermath, modelling
She had earned for a Math Modelling
A perfect coup in his mind to the very last straw.
Co-ordinatorship the previous Shaastra!

'December Ain't a Cruise,' said Tom Narcissistically

And so, after a gruelling fortnight of checking signal stabilities, outputting C fragments, spotting unpainted surfaces on broken cubes, pointing out the liar among Amit, Balu and Chandru, measuring angles between clock hands, witnessing pairs of trains meet and counting the ones who played hockey AND football but NOT cricket, they bundled me off with an offer to work for the last place I wanted, a bank. Relief was the chief emotion as I packed my bags. For with every passing day I was feeling more and more like the nubile maiden who gets rejected by prospective groom after prospective groom visiting the house for 'girl-looking'. My interview was a smooth speed-dating session except for two moments of alarm -- one, when the two-membered panel asked me if I would like to have a cup of tea and I froze in indecision, and two, when I stretched my legs under the table and touched one of theirs. Even now I haven't the foggiest idea why both of them looked down.

Time at home was a ten day-long siesta ending in a school chums' reunion at Satyam in the course of which I was handed three back-to-back embarrassments. It is a habit of mine to pretend to open elevator doors using my bare strength (picture feet spread, face contorted, etc). I did the same at Satyam from outside the lift, only that at the exact moment I put my hands in the middle of the metal doors and simulated pulling them apart, the lift opened. Eight people inside stared at me in blank astonishment, the words 'Are you OK, son?' written all over their eyebrows. I turned and laughed with my pals, and walked toward the lift with my back to it, only to bump into the doors which had closed by then. And when I finally managed to enter, I asked a man, 'Is it going up?' His reply: 'This is the top floor'.

I began Semester Eight on the wrong foot, contracting as I did a conflicting combination of ailments -- fever and dysentery. [And why should the two be conflicting? 1) When the fever was on the rise and I had coffee to counter it, my stomach was raked and the diarrhoea peaked. 2) I couldn't suppress the latter with juices or lassi or curd rice thanks to the fever. 3) Since I frequented the loo round the clock, I was in constant touch with tap water, which didn't help my temperature.] It was an expected outcome of my deed the night before re-opening day, namely, ordering everything that perfect strangers munched in front of my eyes at a restaurant and packing my tum to twice its capacity. Hence my twin resolution for 2009: (i) Drive away when the tank gets full. (ii) Chew each bite 32 times before swallowing. (ii) leads to (i).

Some Tom Swifties [Examples from Net: “I’ve been waiting to see the doctor,” said Tom patiently; “Damn it, look at the camera!” Tom snapped; “I’m going window shopping,” said Tom listlessly; “Absolutely, totally, completely,” Tom uttered; "Who discovered radium?" asked Marie curiously] that I came up with today:

~ 'There's a li'l bulb in my pacemaker, you know,' Tom said lightheartedly.

~ 'WHAT. COMES. BET. WEEN. KAY. AND. EM?' Tom yelled.

~ 'I'll fix a quick coffee for you,' Tom replied instantly.

~ 'I was brought up like a guy,' she told Tom boyishly. (tomboyishly)

~ 'I'm tired of travelling back and forth,' Tom replied. [courtesy: Sriram, EP]

~ 'Our bid was rejected,' they said tenderly.

~ 'This time the taxes are gonna be heavy,' we were told.

~ 'I'll do the grading myself,' said an irate Tom.

~ 'I shall now announce every word thrice,' Tom tom-tommed.

~ 'Let's put them into bat now and bowl them out,' Tom declared.

~ 'I ought to make a new friend,' said Tom formally.

~ 'You mean, Harper Lee can't kill a bird?' said Tom mockingly.

~ 'I had taken pi as 3.14,' Tom rationalised. 'That is how I got a round total,' he added.

~ 'It's that time of the month,' she whispered.