Big If’s No. 1

Here's a new kind of word puzzle, exclusive to Magellan's Log. It's fascinating because it mixes up and combines both right- and left-brain skills. You have to use logic, but you also have to be able to step back and view words as objects, free of meaning.

Answer each of the 25 questions above. Follow the instructions for each question. For example, if a question said, "If cats generally have four legs, circle the 19th word in the list above," you would circle the word "one" in the list above. Or, for another example, if a question said, "If 8 - 6 = 1, circle the fourth word in the list." Since 8 - 6 does not equal one, you do not circle the fourth word.

When you finish, you should have seven circled words in the list above. You can then arrange those seven words to make a quotation by Oscar Wilde.

You may find it easier to print the puzzle and do it on paper.

1. If 3 is the tenth root of 59,049, circle the second word beginning with "e" in the list above.

2. If some dogs are white, and if all stars always twinkle, circle the twenty-seventh word in the list above.

3. If some music is unpleasant and never popular, circle the fifteenth word from the beginning of the list above.

4. If there are more than 1800 yards in one mile, circle the fourth word beginning with "a" in the list above.

5. If objects made of aluminum cannot generally be recycled, circle both words beginning with "b" in the list above.

6. If the sentence in brackets is an example of alliteration ["Plump, pretty pigs play the piano perfectly"], circle the only word containing both "m" and "r" in the list above.

7. If all highways have at least three lanes, circle the only word containing both "f" and "v" in the list above.

8. If when you mix red and blue you get green, circle the only word in the list above that is the past tense of a verb.

9. If water is a universal solvent, circle the third article in the list above.

10. If it is possible to trisect an angle using only a straight-edge and a compass, circle the first transitive verb in the list above.

11. If the existence of God can be proved using the scientific method, circle the only word beginning with "n" in the list above.

12. If this exercise is a kind of linguistic gymnastics, circle the last word in column 4 above.

13. If it rains every day in a rain forest, circle the most negative word in the list above.

14. If television news reports are truly impartial and objective, circle the second word containing "x" in the list above.

15. If travel has the potential to make one less provincial, circle the only word beginning with "I" in the list above.

16. If the winner of the Kentucky Derby always has four legs and the winner of the Indianapolis 500 always has four wheels, circle the second word from the end of the list of words above.

17. If "rose" is a color, a flower, a woman’s name, and a fruit, circle the word in the list above that means "desires."

18. If a gigabyte is ten times as large as a megabyte, circle the last word containing four vowels in the list above.

19. If soccer is more popular than baseball in America, write the word in the list above that is a synonym for "treachery."

20. If Darwin, Shakespeare, Newton, and the Beatles all spoke English as their native language, circle the fifth word after "found" in the list above.

21. If it takes the same amount of time to boil one liter of water in New York City as it does in Lhasa, circle the word in the list above that is the noun formed from "perceive."

22. If the Sphinx is in Egypt, and if Macchu Picchu is in Brazil, circle the word in the list above that means "perfect society."

23. If Abraham Lincoln’s picture is on a five-dollar bill, circle the ninth word on the list above.

24. If some Eskimos live in Antarctica, circle the first preposition in the list above.

25. If matter exists in only three states (solid, liquid, gas), circle the word in the list above that means "not all."

You should now have seven circled words. Arrange those words to form a funny, but true quotation:

__________  __________  __________   __________   __________ 

__________  __________
                                                                           —Oscar Wilde.

 Answer

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