Raymond Joseph covers the second event in the Litsoc calendar.
“It was popular in the 40s and 50s, but, like many other things, was obliterated by the 60s. It probably goes back to the “Word” in the biblical sense, but today it is usually used to mean wisdom. It is a greeting which lets the listener know that the greeter is willing to listen and be enlightened.”
The phrase in question is of course, “What’s the good word?” which was also the second event of this year’s LitSoc. WTGW was held at the PhLT on 27th September with the final and the preliminary rounds lasting for an hour. The preliminary witnessed enthusiastic participation from freshers and seniors alike. It saw participation from about 75 teams – a small build-up to last year’s agglomerate, yet laudable given Shaastra’s proximity.
The hosts, Saurabh and Kurian stood and watched as teams cracked cryptic clues, thought their way through etymological enigmas and ardently cracked anagrams in the race for dominance. It was indeed a fitting challenge to all those who had embraced the literary culture.
One particularly engaging round was the ‘Sheila’ round. It involved writing a sentence beginning with ‘Sheila’, in which every word would begin with the last letter of the previous one. The challenge was to make the sentence as long as possible. There was some confusion among participants as to who or what Sheila was, and what Sheila’s gender was, if it indeed was a person. This prompted the coordinators to clarify that Sheila was indeed human and feminine. The etymology round, in which participants had to guess a word given its etymology, was a hit with the audience. The solutions session which followed shortly after was very lively though the original strength had dwindled.
Finals held after the preliminary round had 8 teams. All of them fought tooth and nail for the hotspot. The ‘Usual Suspects’, ‘Friend, Foe and Turncoat’ sections were held in the final round. The ‘Friend, Foe and Turn-coat’ section saw a few variations – add or subtract one letter to the turncoat and anagram it to find the word you wanted. Also, there was another round titled ‘What’s the Good Word’, where one of the team-mates had to guess the word based on the synonyms given by the other. Most of the Final round had buzzer based sections, which ensured that it finished quickly. Although the audience were small in number, they were out with the answers – almost always when the teams were at wit’s ends.
The Results:
1st place
Keshri Nandan – Mandak – 7.5 points
Vishwas Katti – Mandak – 7.5 points
2nd place
Rounak – Tapti – 6 points
Prashant S – Tapti – 6 points
3rd place
Suraj Nair – Tapti – 4.5 points
Milind Rao – Ganga – 4.5 points
4th place
Jayadev B – Mandak – 3 points
Keerthan R – Mandak – 3 points
5th place
Swarun Krishna – Saras – 1.5 points
PK Adithya – Narmad – 1.5 points
6th place
Akshay (freshie) – Jam – 3 points
Nirmal (freshie) – Jam – 3 points
7th place
Sai Mali – Saras – 1.5 points
Nitin M – Saras – 1.5 points
8th place
Mardava – Tapti – 1.5 points
Arun – Saras – 1.5points
Points Tally
Mandak – 21 points
Tapti – 18 points
Saras – 6 points
Ganga – 4.5 points
Jam – 6 points
Narmad – 1.5 points
