Friday, 21 January 2011

Fun with ditloids

First of all what are ditloids?

Some of you may be familiar with them others in the dark. 

Ditloids are puzzles for quizzes, icebreakers, team building activities and can be great  fun.

They provide an easy source of materials for organizational development and team building exercises, team building games and quizzes of all sorts.

Ditloids work because the format is very quick and simple, and they combine aspects of maths, logic, lateral thinking and general knowledge.

Ditloids are very quick and easy to create, so you need never be at a loss for some light relief at any gathering. For example, as an exercise ask teams to create their own ditloids puzzles for the opposing teams - using terms from their own organizational context. Creating ditloids puzzles in workgroups enables all sorts of otherwise dry materials to be brought to life in an interesting way.

Ditloids are also fun in training coffee-breaks, or as ice-breakers, especially if created for a relevant or topical theme.
The ditloids below generally include connecting words like 'in' and 'to', which is not always the case in ditloid puzzles.

The origin of the word ditloid is apparently from a cryptic crossword clue which appeared several years ago in the UK Daily Express newspaper: 1 = DitLoID, whose answer was One Day in the Life of Ivan Denisovich, which incidentally is a novel written by Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn.

Many ditloids adhere to the structure of the original crossword clue, that is, a number followed by the equals sign (=) then the abbreviation. Others have a more flexible format, which enables a wider variety of information and facts to be used in their creation, like the ditloids below.

Here's an example of the format used in the ditloids puzzles below: 12 M I T Y - (Answer, 12 months in the year)

How many of the following ditloids can you answer?

Easy ones first...
Answers at the bottom of the post

Here are some easy-ditloids for the weekend



7 B F 7 B  
101 D
3 B M
T 10 C
366 D I A L Y
T 39 S
6 W O H T E
A B A T 40 T
T 7 W O T W
50 W T L Y L
N 10 D S
12 S O T Z
16 O I A P
T 3 W M
13 I A BD
26 L I T A
10 G B H O T W
4 L O A H
A T W I 80 D
2 W O A B
52 C I A D
2 P I A Q
Let me know if you enjoyed this

Oh Here are the answers



Seven Brides for Seven Brothers
 101 Dalmations
 3 Blind Mice
 The 10 Commandments
 366 days in a leap year
 The 39 Steps
 6 wives of Henry the Eighth
 Ali Baba And The 40 Thieves
 The 7 Wonders Of The World
 50 Ways To Leave Your Lover
 Number 10 Downing Street
 12 signs of the zodiac
 16 ounces in a pound
 the 3 wise men
 13 in a baker's dozen
 26 letters in the alphabet
 10 green bottles hanging on the wall
 4 legs on a horse
 Around The World In 80 Days
 2 wheels on a bike
 52 cards in a deck
 2 pints in a quart
 20,000 Leagues Under The Sea


Helping Real People do Real Business Through Real Networking

©Paul Johnstone

Please Comment on this or any of my earlier Blogs 

2 comments:

  1. My small company of 10 employees will be having a team building schedule this weekend, I will let them play with this game created by Will Shortz. Thanks.

    ReplyDelete
  2. Thhanks for the feedback
    I hope they enjoy the game

    Paul

    ReplyDelete