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Why is "win" often implicitly considered a conditional verb?

wackybrit — Mon, 05 Oct 2009 06:46:01 -0800

Grammarians: Is it OK to take liberties with the word "win" when publicizing a contest or draw? I see a lot of competitions that use phrases like these to get people's attention:

- Leave a comment on our blog and win an Amazon gift voucher.
- Design a logo and win $500
- Tell your friends about [store name] and win $100 in store credit

This "and win" wording bugs me because the "win" is speculative or conditional, but no words are stating this (for example, "Design a logo to be in with a chance to win $500" or "Leave a comment on our blog, you could win an Amazon gift voucher" make the speculation pretty clear). If you changed "and win" to "and get" in the above examples, people would be rightly peeved if they didn't get X for doing Y - so why is "win" implicitly considered conditional where "get" would not be?

I understand why in something like "Win $100" it's conditional because "win" is imperative, but when you say "do X and win Y," there's a "do X" and then "win Y" cause and effect (in my mind).

My interest in this is two fold. First, I'd like to run some contests and use this sort of snappy wording, but I'm worried about the ethics of it. Is this sort of wording ethical/legal? Second, I love the English language and am intrigued if this sort of implied conditionality is actually popular with other verbs (or has a name) and I'm just being obtuse! :-)

How do we legally run an online contest for non-US participants?

oaklandj — Thu, 27 Mar 2008 15:50:53 -0800

How do you run an online contest for contestants from any country in the world with real-world prizes (i.e. with $ value) and not spend tens of thousands of dollars on legal fees for compliance with each country's arcane rules? We had talked to lawyers before and they said you should limit to US participants only. The problem is half of our userbase is non-US and we don't want to exclude them. Any experience from anyone? We saw that Crestock's contest was open to anyone in any country. We have no idea if they just bit the bullet and took the risk, or they decided to find a way to comply with any winners' home country rules, or there is a way to say something like "Void where prohibited; participants are responsible for making sure their entry complies with their local laws" and have that actually work. Lawyers have told us that doesn't really hold up.

Start judging me -- I need a free/cheap online photo-multimedia contest judging software

jkl345 — Tue, 04 Dec 2007 13:40:41 -0800

Is there any decent free or cheap online contest judging software out there? I'm looking for a tool to help people submit and judge media contests (specifically photo and multimedia contests) for a non-profit organization. The closest thing I've seen for this is this Omni Contest site: http://www.omnicontests3.com/ (But it costs money, is hosted elsewhere, isn't as flexible as I'd like, etc.)

Ideally, it'd be able to:
- Allow entrants to upload their entry directly online
- Allow judges to view, comment on and rate entries directly online
- Allow user classes (so judges and entrants have different permissions)

Would be cool stuff:
- Free or cheap cost
- Allow integration with Wordpress blog software

I know this might be kind of a pie in the sky fantasy because I've never heard of anything like this for free/cheap, but if there's anything that might be hackable or modified to work with this, I'd love to hear about it. Perhaps some sort of photo gallery system that allows multiple media formats and raitings? I'd like to hear all ideas. :)

Thanks in advance for any advice you can offer!

Is there a list of all active sweepstakes and contests?

damn dirty ape — Mon, 21 May 2007 12:31:17 -0800

Is there a list of all active sweepstakes and contests? I thought it might be fun to enter into every contest and sweepstakes I possibly can for a week or so. Is there a centralized list of these things? If not can someone give me pointers on how find contests especially ones that are off the beaten path. Perhaps if the hive mind works in unison this thread can make for a nice list of contests to apply to. Thanks.

Video contests, where are you?

nitsuj — Tue, 07 Mar 2006 09:43:14 -0800

Is there a good resource for currently running video contests? I got a new video camera, and I'd like to start working on various projects to improve my shooting and editing skills. What better way than enter some contests and try and win some stuff?

I'm thinking of something along the lines of the YouTube and Pretty Girls Make Graves music video contest.

Searching Google for 'video contest[s]' comes up with some, but many are expired. Ideally, I'd like to find a website that keeps track of currently running video contests, or maybe just a better way to search for them.

Thanks for your help!

Win Fabulous Prizes!

ontic — Fri, 17 Dec 2004 18:59:15 -0800

Has anyone here ever won either the grand prize or a major prize from one of those "instant win" games on cereal boxes, candy bars, fast food promotions, or soda cans? Has anyone ever known someone who has won or known someone who knows someone? [More inside] I'm interested mostly in the big prizes, notably cars, trips, or more than $1,000US in cash, not free Big Macs or cans of soda. Of course, the deeper question is whether these prizes really do go out to real people.

For every contest, there used to be a list of winners one could send away for. Has anyone here ever sent away for it or know any write up about someone who did and tracked the people down?

Anyone know of a website that will handle a pick em' contest?

brent — Sat, 04 Sep 2004 19:25:45 -0800

Anyone know of a website that will handle a pick em' contest, with the spread, for NFL games on a weekly basis for 20+ people?