Answer to my last post

[JackDanielsU]

http://www.theanswerbank.co.uk/Quizzes-and-Puzzles/Question137388.html

 

The answer that was accepted was 14,012

How they got that I cant see.

[gen2]

Just a couple of weeks ago I read an explanation given by someone on a different forum.  They too were of the opinion that it was a ripoff and even doubted the integrity of the phone-in system.  Incidentally, they reckoned that the rules were not being applied the same from one day to the next and didn't think it was worth participating even when the (approximate) method was known.

I shall attempt to apply this guy's explanation to the first statement in the question:

Number of men in a mixed doubles tennis match

First there is the obvious answer:  =  2
Then there is the TEN in tennis.   = 10
Then there are all the Roman numerals:
nuMber of Men In a MIXeD DoubLes tennIs MatCh
which could = 5163
Giving a total (just for this part) of 5175

BUT there are ambiguities.  The word MIXed contains the Roman MIX.  Is this to be treated as individual digits (M + I + X = 1011), or as a whole number (MIX = 1009) or as all adjacent combinations (M + I + X + MI + IX + MIX = 3030)?
Then there is the word DOUBLEs.  Does that mean some or all of the calculation must be doubled? There is also a TWICE in another statement.
How about the 'take away' in statement 4 and the dash in statement 5? Do these mean subtract something?

So you see, they can make the total come to more or less whatever they want it to.