SYNTEX SOLUTIONS
HeadlinesCode / Original text / Collapsed text / Difficulty rating / Help Text
HL1 / Designer babies to wipe out diseases approved / approved babies designer diseases out to wipe / 3 / Once you've worked out the basic order, the real issue is where to put the word 'approved'.
Try it in every possible position.
What works?
HL2 / Graduate too tall for air control job / air control for graduate job tall too / 1 / Is there only one possible word order? Can you find another that makes good sense?
What words naturally fitted together?
Did you find that decision interesting? Is the collocation special to newspaper headlines?
What are the rules? Can you invent some other phrases on the same model, using the same rules?
HL3 / I strangled my wife says body in the boot Briton / body boot Briton I in my says strangled the wife / 3 / Where does the word 'Briton' go?
Why aren't there any quotation marks, despite the word 'says' which usually introduces speech?
There is a feature very typical of headlines: an adjective consisting of four words, none of them joined by hyphens. What are the four words?
Is the construction special to newspaper headlines? Do you find it anywhere else?
What are the rules? Can you invent some other phrases on the same model, using the same rules?
HL4 / Restaurant shut over ‘tiger meat’ / meat over restaurant shut tiger ’ ‘ / 2 / Where do the single quotation marks go?
What do they imply? Try to explain the job they're doing?
There is a feature very typical of headlines. Can you find other examples in newspapers?
Is it special to newspaper headlines? Do you find quotation marks used like this anywhere else?
What are the rules? Can you invent some other phrases on the same model, using the same rules?
HL5 / Young mother among victims as 10 die in two car crashes / 10 among as car crashes die in mother two victims young / 2 / Watch what you join up in this one!
Which word does the word 'young' go with? What about 'car'? And what do you make of 'among'?
How can you decide where the numbers go? Why has the editor chosen to use numbers for one and spelt the other one out?
What role is the little word 'as' playing?
HL6 / Footballer faces jail over cocaine / cocaine faces footballer jail over / 1 / Is there only one possible order here? If 'over-faces' is used as a verb could we make another, or would the meaning be too weird?
Why do headlines use present tense so frequently?
HL7 / Zoo grass too rich for zebras / for grass rich too zebras zoo / 2 / If the word 'zoo' is treated as a noun, it's hard to put these words together sensibly.
But if you make it work like an adjective, suddenly everything comes clear.
Do you find that the final result sounds exactly like a newspaper headline? Why? What is it that makes you recognise the form so definitely? Analyse the features that tell you this is a headline, not an advert, poem, or any other text.
HL8 / Fossils show flying reptiles were ‘ size of a small aeroplane ‘ / ‘ ‘ a aeroplane flying fossils of reptiles show size small were / 2 / Be systematic. Link up all the words that you think go together.
What word is 'small' qualifying?
Where do the single quotation marks go?
Why are they used? What do they imply?
HL9 / Kestrel decimates colony of rare seabirds / colony decimates kestrel of rare seabirds / 1 / What word does 'rare' go with? Try attaching it to other nouns and see what happens to the sense.
Who's doing what to whom? What is the active verb?
What does 'decimates' actually mean? Look it up if you don't know.
HL10 / Einstein’s theory holds up - even at 621,000mph / - 621,000mph at Einstein’s even holds theory up / 3 / What word does 'up' go with?
Where are you going to put the hyphen or dash?
What does it do to the sense to have the meaning split by the dash?
Adverts and notices
Original text / Collapsed text / Difficulty rating / Help Text
AD1 / Along with its striking looks comes an unbelievable figure. / . along an comes figure its looks striking unbelievable with / 3 / There's some word play going on here. Can you spot it?
How did you manage to fit in "along"?
Which word can "an" go before? What was the rule you used?
AD2 / Create innovate discover imagine explore. Professional development in Science teaching. / . . teaching create development science discover explore imagine in innovate professional / 4 / This poster in a teacher's centre exploits a string of verbs. What order should the verbs go in, for maximum impact?
What tense are the verbs in?
What did the poster designers seek to achieve?
Why did they write like this?
Write the text for another poster using the same idea, but this time for nurses, firemen, doctors, street cleaners - any class of workers that occur to you.
Copy the structure exactly but change all the words.
AD3 / In accordance with Warwickshire’s health regulations it is forbidden to smoke anywhere in this building / accordance anywhere building forbidden health in in is it regulations smoke this to Warwickshire’s with / 4 / What words go with "accordance" like inseparable friends?
Why is the passive tense used?
There are three main parts to this notice - what order did you put them in?
AD4 / Vie helps you on your way to 5 a day / 5 a day helps on to vie way you your / 3 / Why does the ad writer use a number 5 instead of spelling it 'five'?
What is being referred to, do you think? What 5?
What other pattern did you use to make this come right?
AD5 / Cool in summer, warm in winter / , warm cool summer winter in in / 1 / This simple slogan splits into two parts. How does it work? Which order would you put the parts in? Where would you place the comma?
What word-patterns did you use to decide your order? List them.
AD6 / If comfort is what you care about then sleeping in pure jersey is a dream come true. / . a about care come comfort dream if in is is jersey pure sleeping then true what you / 4 / A tricky puzzle!
Where does the 'if' ... 'then' fit in?
What about 'pure'? Where does that go?
Did the word 'dream' and its collocations help you?
AD7 / You don’t just visit Britain’s greatest medieval experience. You live it. / . . Britain’s don’t experience greatest it just live medieval visit you you / 4 / The key is where you put the word 'just'. That sets up the argument between the two sentences. How does it do it?
Two verbs are contrasted. Which ones?
Why has the copy writer included the pronoun you? Pull both instances of 'you' onto the scratch pad. Can you make sense of the advert now? Does it work better?
Now try to go through the thinking process that led the writer to decide to use 'you'. Can you explain it?
AD8 / With the New polo’s snazzier, deeper grille, more stylishly sculptured bonnet, one-piece headlights and body-coloured bumpers, seeing is believing. / , , . , and believing body-coloured bonnet, bumpers deeper grille headlights is more new one-piece polo’s sculptured seeing snazzier stylishly the with / 6 / This is hard. First try to sort out the nouns and the adjectives that go with each one. Secondly, work out where the word 'with' should go. It has to do a lot of work to hold everything together.
Use clues like alliteration to quess which adjectives work together.
What popular phrase does the advert work with? How did the ad writers come up with all those words? What sort of audience might it appeal to?
AD9 / Freshly baked all day every day. / all baked day day. every freshly / 2 / Which word does the adverb go with?
How does the ad writer try to make the most of repetition?
AD10 / Somewhere between the onboard ice rink, the jeep safari, the climbing wall and the horse riding, it hits you; this is way more than a cruise. / , , , . ; a and between climbing cruise hits horse ice is it jeep more onboard riding rink safari somewhere than the the the the this wall way you / 7 / The way to solve this puzzle is to be systematic. Assemble friendly collections of words and join them (eg ice+rink).
Next, look at the punctuation. A semi-colon tells us that there are two units almost up to sentence-status joined by the semi-colon.
What word should you start with?
What idea does the writer want to end on (remember this writing is trying to sell something)?
Now, where does that punctuation go? And where does the semi-colon fit in, to break the whole thing into two semi-sentences?
AD11 / Shoes designed to move you / designed move shoes to you / 2 / Nice and easy does it! But there are several possibilities. Try them all out. Which one is likely to be correct? Why?
Start by joining anyhting that can be joined (only one possibility?).
Next, shuffle everything else around until you've tried all the alternatives.
AD12 / Fashionable feminine style – for serious business or social occasions. / - . business fashionable feminine for occasions or serious social style / 4 / Alliteration plays a big part in this advert. Can you see how it works?
Why the dash - what work is it doing?
Join up the friendly words to make small units, then move them around until you have the best order.
The advertising agency was trying to include some key product descriptions here. Can you list them?
What do you think was being advertised?
Extras
Original text / Collapsed text / Difficulty rating / Help Text
EX1 / Discovering this made me feel – as teenagers sometimes do – immensely wise and a step ahead of my parents. / - - . a ahead and as discovering do feel immensely made me my of parents sometimes step teenagers this wise / 6 / A difficult one, so if it got you stumped, don't despair. This is a sentence from an opinion column. It has two dashes, which gives us a clear clue that there is a phrase injected into the middle of the sentence, with a dash before it and a dash after it.
What might the starting word be? Are there any stock phrases that you can spot? If so, join them up.
Keep working on it, and the sense will gradually emerge.
Now, when you've solved it to your best ability, what do you think of the style? Why the phrase in parenthesis, separated from the rest by dashes? Why end on that idea? Does it work?
Could it have been arranged another way?
EX2 / No one who had ever seen Catherine Morland in her infancy, would have supposed her born to be an heroine . / , . an be born Catherine ever had have her her heroine in infancy Morland no one seen supposed to who would / 7 / Another difficult one.
You've got virtually nothing to help you, no cliches or set expressions, no easy clues. The language could be old-fashioned, so watch out for that. For instance, what word could the little word 'an' go with?
What sentiment might the writer want to end on? What's the climax of the thought, the idea?
EX3 / It is a truth universally acknowledged, that a single man in possession of a good fortune must be in want of a wife. / , . a a a a acknowledged be fortune good in in is It man must of of possession single that truth universally want wife / 7 / Another difficult one.
More old-fashioned language and word-order. Have a good go at it and see how far you can get.
What might the writer be trying to say with the word 'single'?
What word does 'good' go with?
EX4 / In the land of ICT, children are the natural inhabitants; adults are refugees. / . , ; adults are are children ICT in inhabitants land natural of refugees the the / 4
Haiku
Original text / Collapsed text / Difficulty rating / Help Text
HK1 / Cherry blossoms are quiet unlike frogs leaping to every raindrop / are blossoms cherry every frogs leaping quiet raindrop to unlike / 4 / They key word here is ‘unlike’. What job is it doing? Is there something strange about the way the words go together? Where would you put the line breaks?
HK2 / Butterfly hovers on my open diary / butterfly diary hovers my on open / 3 / What do you make of the finished work? Does it capture a moment effectively?
GMH1 / I have desired to go where springs not fail to field where flies no sharp and sided hail and a few lilies blow . , / , . a and and blow desired fail few field flies go hail have I lilies no not sharp sided springs to to where where / 8 / This is complicated stuff, and there’s rhyme words to fit in too.
Because the original was carefully put together, this is one of the most difficult puzzles to solve. Have a go, but don’t be too disheartened if you can’t make it work.
GMH2 / And I have asked to be where no storms come where the green swell is in the havens dumb and out of the swing of the sea . , , / , , . and and asked be come dumb green have havens I in is no of of out sea storms swell swing the the the the to where where / 8 / This is complicated stuff, and there’s rhyme words to fit in too.
Because the original was carefully put together, this is one of the most difficult puzzles to solve. Have a go, but don’t be too disheartened if you can’t make it work.
HK3 / Dragonfly on a rock – absorbed in a daydream / – a a absorbed daydream dragonfly in on rock / 3 / Another clearly observed moment in time. How are you going to use the dash?
HK4 / Perfect summer sky – one blue crayon missing from the box / – blue box crayon from missing one perfect sky summer the / 4 / Another clearly observed moment in time. How are you going to use the dash?
HK5 / She has put the child to sleep , and now washes the clothes ; the summer moon / , ; and child clothes has moon now put she sleep summer the the the to washes / 5 / Two distinct parts to this. They don’t exactly match, but the poem works because they contrast with each other.