The Sphinx's Lair

it's not!

Sorry, SE error

When I realised the message was posted twice I deleted one

for the second, "Spirit in a glass" has two different interpretations.

"Spirit in a glass" → Ghost in a mirror → BLOODY MARY ( https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bloody_Mary_(folklore) )
"Spirit in a glass" → Liquor in a drinking glass → BLOODY MARY ( https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bloody_Mary_(cocktail) )

once again: ddef because wordplay is a different definition for the same word, &lit because wordplay portion is the same as definition portion but reinterpreted

12:09 AM

Wow, so STANDOUT is not an answer? (Though I am not sure how TakingNotes is heading for the clue to be solved. If the enumeration is a ddef in itself, then we might be onto something)

I'm throw by the zero, if the clue were say "(8, 1)?" then I could understand that feasible path may exist to a solution which is enumerated and wp and def using all that, but does a zero have valid meaning? or will the solution simply been a single 8-letter word?

@Anonymus25-ReinstateMonica STANDOUT seems very unlikely to me to be right, because your justification could work for any 8-letter word that means "unusual". It's possible that the enumeration is a double definition in itself, but I'm not 100% sure how this is to be interpreted.

...

0 does not normally mean anything in enumerations, no - there's something really weird going on here

it's possible that this is to be interpreted as a clue that happens to be its own enumeration??? and the 0 should be dropped, giving an enumeration of (8). but i'm not 100% sure of that

The question mark needs to be explained too, why is it after the enumeration?

Usually it is before

12:13 AM

well, if (8,0) is the clue, which seems likely to me, then the question mark goes after the clue as it normally does

is it possible that there is no clue, or no enumeration? (just spit-balling ideas)

it's possible that the enumeration was withheld for whatever reason, though i would've put (enumeration withheld) if that was the case

Hmmmm

Could this be another old saw?

it's also possible that the clue is the empty string, though if so it will probably not be a good clue (or a valid one)

As in, a very hard and bad 2 week clue?

12:16 AM

i don't see any reason to believe that just yet, or reason to make fun of an old clue that has already been discussed to death

"To death" I must agree with that

is something like " (7)"? valid (=NOTHING), it seems to be missing the wp element though

it wouldn't be out of the question, but i agree that there would need to be wordplay as well

if it's a word that means "nothing", and can also be wordplayed by "(8,0)?", that would be an answer

could also be a word that somehow synonymizes to (, and can be wordplayed by 8,0)?, or any similar breakdown

ooooh that's clever

we're still working on the assumption it has to be an 8-letter word though, right?

i would be very surprised if it wasn't

12:21 AM

Are there any 0 letter words?

arguably, there are also infinitely-many 0-letter words :)

@Dmihawk If not then it's definetely an 8 letter word, what is the example of a zero letter word?

@Dmihawk no, there's exactly one (if you count that as a word)

oh, unless you're counting numbers, written out with digits

@Deusovi That would be clever if that was it

in set notation, it would read as "all values above eight and below zero"

12:28 AM

one very unlikely but technically possible explanation of the (0) is that it's something to that effect - like, the Japanese title of the anime "Laid-Back Camp" is officially ゆるキャン △, or "Yuru Camp △". i wouldn't be sure how to enumerate that △, and i could see a reasonable argument that it would get a 0 (though i would prefer 1)

TRIANGLE is an 8 letter word

...yes, it is, and i see no way that that is relevant

nothing in the clue suggests that a triangle is in any way involved - i was just giving an example of something that might give you a 0 in an enumeration

Deus, I had the same idea, although I tend to think that any character which can be represented using UTF-8 (or a text encoding scheme of your choice) would count as "1"

Hmmm...

be it a number, symbol etc.

12:30 AM

@Dmihawk i would consider saying the same thing, but... what about the movie Face/Off and the TV show M∗A∗S∗H? i wouldn't feel comfortable enumerating those as (8) and (7) unless they somehow went into the grid that way

I feel like either the answer would have to be "MASH (4)" or "M * A * S * H (7) and include the asterixis in the wp"

well, typically punctuation is ignored when entering, say, hyphenated words

isn't something like "take-off attempt" (4-3, 7)?

in terms of wordplay i mean

M∗A∗S∗H would probably be most fairly enumerated (1∗1∗1∗1), though at that point you don't need to write the actual clue