THE RANSOM NOTE
In response to last week's puzzle, "The Ransom Note," six people submitted (unadjusted) answers with scores of more than 200 points, an impressive tally (the average entry was around 175). The judges were liberal in allowing borderline words, and even abbreviations if the entrant made a good case that a kidnapper might find it useful (arguing that a kidnapper might require the chemical symbol for Bismuth will get you nowhere; suggesting that he might want the money wired to the British Isles, on the other hand, is a winner). After the scores were adjusted, the top six looked like this: Brooke Saucie — 220
Brooke Saucie is the winner of this week's McSweeney's book. - - - - Nick Einhorn attempted to assemble his words into an actual note. It was a valiant, if incoherent effort which required an additional page-and-a-half of explanation, part of which is excerpted below: "…on the way to the sconce, according to the writer, Omar will pass Eric and Ira, who will be meditating. Neither Bing Crosby, a Greek statue, a snake, or a Greek vase will insult him; of course, this is obvious because vases and statues are inanimate objects, snakes cannot speak, and Bing Crosby is dead. At this point, the note goes off on a tangent…" - - - - Christine H. included this addendum to her entry: "We have no cultural tradition of 'cut and paste' in England (except during the punk music era when the Sex Pistols used it as a design for their T-shirts). Most of our criminals seem to use the tidier option of writing their notes on a typewriter (no messy glue, print marks, or clippings everywhere), which is maybe why they get caught so often — they forget that lurking around every corner is a Sherlock Holmes/detective who is so highly trained he can tell the difference between a Remington typewriter and an Olivetti blindfolded just by the sound the keys make, and that there's a whole specialist force at Scotland Yard that can track down the individual quirks of a typewriter (such as the way a letter 'e' is slightly bent or the way an 'o' is out of alignment) to the very house where it was used." - - - - And Mandy Miner argued in favor of an abbreviation for "Franc": "…(it was) the currency of France before the European Monetary Union established the Euro. I don't know if abbreviations are kosher for this game… but this one seems necessary, as a proper ransom note ought to refer to some sort of currency. I feel very strongly about this." As you should. Request granted.
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