So, I randomly stumbled across this cipher/code and I am pretty stuck and wondering if anyone had any input:
65706377 736D 797367 676B72687A67 74636D64 7161 B8B 78863B1F56468 767A796B 71 6C6E79657A 657771 73766C 6466 62676E676271 64717364 7770712E 1CE01966 6369696D 7769677077 7572 7069676D2E 6E6...
(By the way, I'm familiar with the Samuel story, but would never have remembered where the witch was from -- and, if I had, I'd have remembered it as En Dor, the Hebrew name, not Endor. Of course, for our (cryptic clue) purposes it's the same thing. Just sayin'.)
@msh210 That sort of thing is unavoidable, no? E.g., you can have some bit of a clue produce HERCULES even though some people might think of him as HERCULES, or (getting Biblical again) ABRAHAM even though I guess you call him AVRAM, etc.
Actually the second was meant to be HERAKLES. And duh, yes, I also meant Avraham (or Abram/Avram, but oddly I think his old name might be too obscure for a cryptic clue).
(I expect more people could tell you the story of Abram->Abraham than could tell you the story of Samuel and the witch of Endor. But words and phrases can stick in the mind without context, and I'm guessing that more people have the words "witch of Endor" in their brains than the name Abram.)
I have, of course, precisely zero evidence for any of that.
@Mithical I tried, but the coffee burned my head really badly and I had trouble drinking the whole bucket.
If you want my perspective of that: I've seen Endor as home of the witch in a newspaper crossword recently and could solve it, because somehow I was aware that there was a "witch of Endor". When I looked it up, I was suprised that it was a biblical story. (I'm not exactly "bibelfest".)
As an illustration of how not-awake I am, I wondered about using another example rather than Abraham. You might think that then I'd not have made that dumb mistake, but I'm pretty sure I remember thinking "I could use Isaac/Yaakov". (Of course it's actually Isaac/Yitzhak and Jacob/Yaakov. I guess the repeated "a"s were just too distracting.)
@MOehm Nice to have my guesses corroborated a little.
I wish languages didn't naturalize foreign names so much. As a pedant it always bugs me to have to say "Cologne" and "Moses" and so on, but of course the alternative is to sound incredibly pretentious.
(Actually, I think naming place names correctly has become more common. It probably doesn't sound too weird in English to say "Köln". But e.g. pronouncing "Paris" as the French do would get you some very strange looks.)
Oh, yeah, there's the "gay Paree" thing. Maybe there are some others. I guess if you referred to the magazine Paris Match you'd be more likely to say it the French way.
Incidentally, I think I'd also expect "gay Paree" to be spelt that way, ridiculous though it obviously is.
It's true that naturalization helps fit things in. But we would never e.g. do it to the name of a living person. (I think.) If Angela Merkel is in the news they don't pronounce "Angela" with a soft "g". (I'm not sure whether they get the first vowel in "Merkel" right, offhand; I guess so.)
@GarethMcCaughan I think of the sound (combination) exists (or is pretty common) in English, they get it right. Otherwise, not so much. Thus Angela has a hard g, but the vowels are American. That's my experience in the States,I think
Angela Merkel pronounces her first name with a hard g, but there are also Angelas who pronounce it the French way with a soft g. Usually the stress is on the first syllable but there are also an-GEH-las.
But I'm sure most English speakers don't get the first vowel of Ms Merkel's last name right. (I don't know about BBC people, though. Most evidence I have is from Americans.) To me, it sounds often like MURR-kle, but it really is MARE-kle.
That argument goes the other way round, too, of course. To the day, I don't know whether the last syllable in john Bercow's name rhymes with low or with cow. I've only ever heard the nme pronounced by Germans and I've heard both variants.
MONO doesn't mean "nothing more than a", though I admire your chutzpah. OONA is rather clever and perhaps if I'd noticed it I'd have decided I needed a different clue. The intended solution is simpler than that.
First 25 Prime Numbers are
2,3,5,7,11,13,17,19,23,29,31,37,41,43,47,53,59,61,67,71,73,79,83,89,97
Using up to 4 prime numbers and the following Math operations get all
the 25 primes
+ - x / ^ Sq.Root, !
No others like !!
Other rules
Cannot use same Prime Number Twice or more than...
Here's a set of puzzles related to 1337.
The first one goes here:
One digit for each question mark.
$1337=1?×3×37+?$
This is pretty easy.
Solve it.
If,
7∆ + 11□ - 2□ + 1∆ = 36
12∆ - 8∆ + 8□ + 2∆ = 25
3□ + 17∆ + 5□ + 2∆= 289
then,
1□ + 7□ + 2□ + 3∆ + 17∆ = ?
First 25 Prime Numbers are
2,3,5,7,11,13,17,19,23,29,31,37,41,43,47,53,59,61,67,71,73,79,83,89,97
Using up to 4 prime numbers and the following Math operations get all
the 25 primes
+ - x / ^ Sq.Root, !
No others like !!
Other rules
Cannot use same Prime Number Twice or more than...
I'm really confused
I sound like subtraction
But really I've refused
A positive action
Who am I?
