RASH Puzzles Rules: The clues are mixtures of components (words or syllables) that, when verbally replaced with appropriate counterparts, will integrate into answers that correspond to the puzzle’s theme.
- Relatives are like things. Apples and oranges are relatives in the fruit family; Cupid and Blitzen are relatives in Santa’s reindeer; Mars and Jupiter are relatives in the family of planets.
- Antonyms are opposites: black and white, will and won’t, now and then.
- Synonyms are different words with similar meanings: yellow and amber, cold and brisk, trash and rubbish, near and close.
- Homophones/homonyms. Homophones are pronounced the same, have different meanings, and may or may not have the same spelling: merry, marry and Mary. Homonyms have the same spelling and pronunciation but different meanings: bank (edge of a river, carom, or depository).
Here are a few explanatory notes to help you solve:
- If you can get a part of a clue, you can usually reason through the twisted combination of “nyms” to get the whole answer.
- Some of the homonyms are not exact. For example, “day” may be as close as we could get to “Dave.” Such rough homonyms are denoted in italics to alert the solver to beware.
- Hyphens separate single-syllable clues. For example, Gas-yuk could translate to Air (synonym for gas) – ick (synonym for yuk). This results in Eric (translating the appropriate homophones).
- Multiple words with no space constitute a single syllable or word. (For example, foursidedfigure could be replaced by square, rhombus, rectangle, etc.)
- Underlined words or letters are not replaced; they are left as-is. (For example, the stays as 'the'.)
In this RASH puzzle, the elements correspond to seven different sub-themes that are all related to one overall theme. The ???s are used as placeholders for the seven different keywords of the sub-themes. In other words, when you know the sub-theme keywords, use them in place of the ??? and the element will be complete.
Determine the coordinates from the following observations about the correct answers to the 50 RASH elements.
First, alphabetize the keywords.
A = the number of elements associated with the first key word.
B = the number of elements associated with the second key word.
C = the number of elements associated with the third key word.
D = the number of elements associated with the fourth key word.
E = the number of elements associated with the fifth key word.
F = the number of elements associated with the sixth key word.
G = the number of elements associated with the seventh key word.
North:
42
(B+C+F+G)
(B*E*E*C) + (F*G) – B
West:
071
(A+D+B+B+E)
(A*B*B*E) + (C*G)
You can check your answers for this puzzle on GeoChecker.com.
In the field you should be able to find each of the 7 subthemes with one being in the final cache. Each is winter friendly, and they are all within about 10 yards of GZ.