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00:13
@msh210 Thank you :)
Re the CCCC, an apostrophe suggests omission of a letter, but can it imply subtraction of an 'S' from a 12-letter 'play' somehow??
 
3 hours later…
02:51
juicifer's question is difficult... if you play a card then you discard it from your hand, and if you lay something down you remove it from your clutch, but 1) I see both of these as unlikely and 2) with the clue being short, the remaining parts will be even shorter
could the ? indicate letter removal? like "hey where"s the principal letter from the word play gone"
03:46
0
Q: What is the probability that your life will have lasted for 100 years once you die?

Anders GustafsonYou are in a world where exactly 90% of all people live for exactly 3 years, and exactly 10% of all people live for exactly 100 years. Aside from what I mention here there is no information that can indicate whether you are someone who will have lived for 3 years by the end of your life or wheth...

 
2 hours later…
06:05
@msh210 "itself" is meant to refer to the clue rather than the answer
in hindsight there might be one too many steps in this clue, but I think y'all can still figure it out
 
9 hours later…
14:39
@juicifer you have a lot of faith in us… :-)
@oAlt I don't think the question is difficult. "what part of the clue itself would indicate letter removal?" The apostrophe. No? I mean, that's what an apostrophe's (often) for, like twice in this sentence.
But maybe I'm being too simplistic.
@Stiv that'd mean the apostrophe means "minus", which is not its standard meaning; usually it stands for removed letter(s)
15:13
@msh210 haha true
@msh210 yup understood, I guess what I wanted to say was that the question makes me scratch my head since at first glance there are no obvious letter removal indicators in the clue
 
2 hours later…
17:09
CCCC hint 3: to be explicit, there are no letter removal indicators in the clue. you're looking for a reverse wordplay for a word synonymous with "principal"
the apostrophe-s is just a connector and has no bearing on the wordplay at all
 
1 hour later…
18:11
Oct 22 at 6:52, by msh210
@Mithical good to see you're able to pop in to chat
 
5 hours later…
23:13
so if i understand correctly then we're looking for either the name of a play or a phrase meaning "play" where one word is a letter removal indicator and the second word is a term for "principal" with one extra letter

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