Ulog No. 56: "Frustrated at Hidden Game but All's Well that Ends Well"

In my post, The HIDDEN Word Game, I explained the rules of the game and why this has been one of my favourite games on Eager Zebra site. Though it can be monotonous and just tests my rote memory, I still find it challenging because my competitive nature drives me to play this game every day that I will still remain in my Top 20 spot.

Back in September 2018, I finished Top #5 on the leaderboard and won the Hidden Game "Word Champion" T-Shirt. As of this post, I am currently on Top #18. That's all right. I still continue to play even though I lost my Top 10 spot. I got my T-shirt anyway. The game is still fun and the moderators have added new words into the game.

Moving on to the frustrated part

Like everything else, the game itself is not perfect. I've encountered glitches, typographical and spelling errors, and I'd submit tickets to Support Team so that they would be able to rectify the error as soon as possible so that I, as well as the other members, won't encounter the same problem again. It can be frustrating because, with this game, you are given 30 clues each time you start. Each clue is deducted every time you answer correctly, or each time you use hints to reveal letters and more clues.

Imagine the frustration I felt when I encountered a word again, that even though the ANSWER was correctly spelled out, it didn't relate to or was not even remotely associated with the given hints.

The image on the right is what I'm talking about.

I used a lot of clues because my initial answer was PRINCIPAL for the following hints:

• school
• teacher
• vice

So instead of submitting a ticket to the Support Team, like I'd usually do, I opened a new thread on the forum to show my example.

Now I don't think the word Principle relates to any of those clues. Please rectify this as it frustrates a lot of SFI affliates and EZ members who don't want to waste the Tcredits as well as the clues. With the change in the rules of Hidden, we can't afford to lose clues just because the correct answer is spelled out wrong. To get Tcredits, if we don't win this, we have to buy this.

I hope you understand. I usually just submit tickets for wrong spellings but whoever is behind Hidden games, please ensure that what you submit is correct. Not everybody can afford to buy Tcredits to exchange for clues.

After I posted this, a lot of members have replied to my thread and gave their own opinion or feedback to my complaint. Some thanked me and submitted a ticket on my behalf. They agreed that the word "PRINCIPAL" should have been the correct answer. However, a lot of people actually were in a disagreement concerning the topic at hand. That is expected, of course.

One lady from Australia said:

That answer is not totally incorrect as a Principle can be the head of a school, there is also a Vice principle and often these are also teachers, who all work in schools..... so I would have to say not incorrect. The spelling can vary between English speaking countries.

Obviously she got it wrong, because no matter where you are, either in English-speaking or non-English speaking countries, and since the game is in English, the word that refers to the head of a school is not the principle but PRINCIPAL. A guy from the United States, said in response to her post:

The principal is head of school, a principle is a moral standard like being pro-life on the principle of your faith.

And I totally agree.

Another member said that he had long given up making complaints regarding this game because some of the words had only the remotest connections and sometimes didn't have any connection to the clues at all. He gave some examples such as:

"take" - "contain"; "doctorate" - "bachelor"; "earth" - "geyser" ; "green" - "pepper"; "keen" - "groovy".

I disagreed, and replied to his post:

The examples that you gave are actually connected to the hidden word. For example, doctorate is to bachelor. Doctorate degree relates to the bachelor degree in education. How much sand can this bucket take? How much sand can this box contain? Earth has geysers. Green pepper, red pepper. I'm keen, which means I'm groovy!!!

Other members even went to all the trouble in researching "Principle Vs Principal". Some agreed that the word Principal should be the correct answer (as I mentioned earlier) and others said that "Principle" was still connected to the given clues.

Other responses include:

Principle is a moral rule or an aspect where schools operate on rules or principles. Teachers have to follow rules or they make those rules that are guided by principles. A vice (and probably she's referring to the Vice-Principal) exists to ensure that school principles are not violated. In other words, she concurs with the others that Principle is almost similar or related to the given clues.

"Principal" is associated with SCHOOL, TEACHER, etc. However, the word PRINCIPLE is also associated with the words as in PROTOCOL or RULES & REGULATIONS of the School or other organisations. He concluded though that either of the two words may be the correct answer provided that all the hints should be revealed.

And yes, I totally agree. Had I spent all the hints to reveal all the letters except one, I would have had all the clues revealed and therefore would find out whether the clues lead to the word "Principle" or "Principal".

Elizabeth, sorry! The word 'principle' is CORRECT. The hints are also correct. The word principal means head of school/college. On the other hand, word 'principle' is a QUALITY of a person. The word principle is VERY much related to teacher. Because teachers maintain this quality (principle) the most. The hints may confuse someone, but principle is the correct answer.

The answer to any given clue should not be ambiguous. How is "Vice" related to the word "Principle" anyway? I did not bother replying because I did not want to antagonise anybody, and I didn't even mean for my forum thread to be a hotspot of hostility, just because we all disagree on one thing: Principle vs Principal.

All's Well that Ends Well

I woke up this morning and checked my mail and saw that the Corporate Leader Gery Carson replied to the thread. I immediately opened my SFI page to check my forum thread. Yes, Sir Gery replied and gave a resolution to the main issue!!!

And with regard to the issue of Hidden Game having clues that are misleading and confusing, this was Sir Gery's reply:

So I replied to the forum, thanking Sir Gery for taking the time to reply and clarifying the issue or concern, as well as to everyone for their educational and friendly interaction. I said that it was really what I was trying to point out from the beginning.

Reference:

My forum thread is found on my SFI page and the Hidden Game is found on the Eager Zebra page.

Do you have Spelling Pet Peeves? Mine are "Principle and Principal", "Their, there, and they're" among many others.

What is your favourite Word Game? Please leave a reply for any feedback or comment in general. Thank you for reading and bye for now!

Acknowledgment to @surpassinggoogle for his #ulogs concept.

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