Wednesday, July 30, 2008

Wednesday Wordplay - Anonymous strikes again!

My surreptitious new wordplay friend Anonymous has been sending me a steady supply of my own torture devices (read: more Middle Riddle puzzles). We've continued our play via the comment forms ever since I posted the first puzzle, here. I got no end of delight out of this. Probably the first sign of a sick mind.

I had just prepared two new puzzles to post, but I decided to post one from her (?) as well. This time, in order to win, you must solve my puzzle AND beat ME at Anonymous's puzzle (I will not start solving it until I publish this post.)

Here goes: (Remember the rules? Add three letters to the middle of one answer to form the other.) This first one is from Anonymous:

1. father/small projecting bodily part
2. to join or fit together/ morning
3. sun/ brownish orange
4. a going out or away / to parade
5. inquisitive / small bunch of flowers


Letters to add:
1. ILL 2. INE 3. RRE 4. HIB 5. EGA

And now here's mine:

1. poultry portion / important meal
2. remove / convention representative
3. brotherhood or house / loaded
4. nurturing noise / annoying alarm
5. to father / earnest or genuine


Letters to add:
1. KFA 2. EGA 3. UGH 4. UCK 5. NCE

Congratulations to the sharp-witted Kimberly at Temporary? Insanity who rattled off the answers to my previous challenge in record time!

Feel free to respond (like Anonymous did) with a puzzle of your own. I always love a good challenge! Or comment with a question, complaint or headache. It's all good.


Also, for you fellow wordlovers everywhere, Merriam-Webster has just published a list of their favorite Mondegreens. My favorite so far is this one:

Mondegreen: The girl with colitis goes by
Correct lyric: The girl with kaleidoscope eyes
Artist: The Beatles
Song title: Lucy in the Sky with Diamonds

Be sure to stop by next time for a completely DIFFERENT wordplay challenge!

14 comments:

Anonymous said...

I'm stuck on the nurturing noise and annoying alarm...got the others...I will keep thinking.

charrette said...

Anonymous-

You'll laugh when it hits you. It's the easiest one of the bunch. I almost didn't include it because I thought it was too obvious!

Kazzy said...

OK, sorry but I am not getting the directions here and I want to play! Can I get the kindergarten version of the rules? If anyone wants to go head-to-head on Sudoku I am all in, btw!

charrette said...

Kazzy, I know. I invented these, and they're a little tricky. I'm sure if Will Shortz wrote the rules they'd be completely clear! :)

Here's the deal. The pair of clues is for a pair of otherwise unrelated words. But if you add three letters to the middle of the first word, you get the answer for the second word. (It also works backwards. If you can decipher the clue for the second word, you can easily drop the three letters and come up with the answer to the first word.) The letters to be added are listed at the bottom of the clues for an additional help.

I posted a simple example on the earlier post (http://divergentpathways.blogspot.com/2008/07/wednesdays-word-nerd-middle-riddle.html): Picnic pest/Quantity ANT and AMOUNT. The three additional letters (MOU) formed the answer to the second word.

I hope that makes sense now.

p.s. Sudoku makes my head hurt! I'll concede defeat right now and save myself a couple of Advil. :)

charrette said...

The first link didn't work. Try this:here.

charrette said...

Anonymous,

Now you've stumped me (sort of).
I have figured out everything but to join or fit and morning.

Anonymous said...

Charrette-The only thing I can come up with is coos and cuckoos. Is that it?
As for the one your stuck on...it too is easy...look for foreign origins which mean morning but may be used differently now....
Anon.

charrette said...

Anon, You got it -- just remove the s.

Well done!

As for the morning one, I'm still thinking...

Brillig said...

The mondegreen is hilarious!!!! I just told it to Brian, who loved it as much as I did.

As for the rest? Ouch... my head hurts... Hope the rest of you got it all figured out!

charrette said...

Dear Anon,

I have to confess, you've stumped me on that last one. I'm stuck in some kind of mental rut. Even with your "foreign" hint.

But (in the spirit of play) I have a couple of fun-and-easy ones for you in the meantime:

1. answer an invitation / mix or harvester

2. solid or difficult / wild and unkempt

Anonymous said...

So you don't go crazy trying to come up with that last one...I'll tell you. It is mate and matinee.
Thanks for the easy ones....I didn't have to spend days trying to figure it out...
come/combine
hard/haggard
Here are some different ones:
1.either of two opposing groups within an organization or society / caution, alert
2.foremost / corny
3. female horse / ghastly

charrette said...

Aw, shoot! That's a GREAT one! Can't believe I couldn't figure it out. I think I was being too literal.

1. wing/warning

2. main/maudlin

3. mare/?

gotta run or i know i could get this last one too...

you know, we seem to be the only ones playing. maybe we should take it offline. you can email me at janaparkin(at)gmail(dot)com. if you want.

Anonymous said...

You will laugh...anonymous is your crazy sister who lives in the fiery furnace. I couldn't remember my password that first day, so I just put in my puzzle as anonymous, but I thought it was too funny that you had no idea who I was, so I just kept being anonymous...we can play offline if you want...or we can think of a new game that everyone would play.

charrette said...

HA! Macabre! Got it!

Game over.

I'm starting a new one soon, themed around fruit.