The Sphinx's Lair

North

12:14 AM

@Avi That's how I have so much rep

I was like I swear I had only 2.5 k

@Avi "That's annoying" Tom declared, irritated

@Randal'Thor When you said I missed a pun on my post what pun were you thinking of

Avi

1:48 AM

@North Not really getting the wordplay here, mind explaining?

North

@Avi annoy ---> irritate

Gareth McCaughan

2:18 AM

That's not really punny enough to be a proper Tom Swifty. The fun in a swifty comes from having the manner of Tom's speaking be non-standardly appropriate for what he's saying, in a way that involves some wordplay. E.g., the one Avi quoted from Scott Alexander's page earlier: “My karate instructor died,” Tom said, desensitized. To make it appropriate you have to read that last word as de-sensei-tized.

With annoying/irritated there's no wordplay. It's perfectly reasonable descriptive prose but it's not a Tom Swifty.

North

hm ic

more examples?

there needs to be more wordplay, you're saying?

Gareth McCaughan

Yes. I gave a couple of hopefully-useful links earlier, one to the Wikipedia article about swifties and one to a few posts on the Slate Star Codex blog that are full of (mostly excellent) swifties.

North

aight i'll look at them

Gareth McCaughan

Explanations of some of mine above (not because I think they're especially excellent but because it's my own that I most clearly have the right to ruin by explaining them :-)): aspiringly = [grade] A spire (-ingly); aspirationally = aspie rational (-ly); slowly = slow [Robert E] Lee; pathetically = Pathé-tic (-ally); reprovingly = re-proving (-ly); articulately = Art-ICU-late (-ly); eirenically = Eire nickel (-ly).

msh210

5:22 AM

@msh210 "for two it is, Li"

@North

@GarethMcCaughan And then the best ones also work "straight". I mean, that it makes perfectly good sense without being a pun. Like

@GarethMcCaughan this one.

jafe

6:06 AM

@hexomino no, sorry, this isn't it

Rand al'Thor

7:46 AM

@North Something about "post" in the sense of a wooden post, similar to a tree. You used "tree" and "post" almost together in your question; it seemed like a glorious missed opportunity.

Gareth McCaughan

8:01 AM

@msh210 Yup. But the wordplay is the requirement.

msh210

9:20 AM

Yeah.

Gareth McCaughan

10:58 AM

(and, to be clear, the fact that the "ungratefully" one works "straight" as well was entirely deliberate. "Reprovingly" too, but that one is less satisfactory because the straight and wordplay-y meanings are too closely related.)

msh210

1:24 PM

Or in other words, @jafe, I think it's a+Gr.+A_

jafe

@msh210 that's correct

and i only got the pun now

msh210

heheh

CCCC: Only feeble rhythms constituting a Pete Seeger song (3,5,2,7)

Gareth McCaughan

Nice find!

@msh210 CCCC solution is THE BELLS OF RHYMNEY (anag., of course).

msh210

1:42 PM

yes, indeed

msh210

1:56 PM

and it wasn't such a nice find. I stuck the song title into an anagrammer just to see what popped out, and that was the first result. :-)

But thanks.

John Dvorak

3:26 PM

"They just cancelled the meeting I had scheduled" said Tom disappointedly

Avi

3:42 PM

D:

nicely done, now I am responsible for coming up with one

"It would've been nice if you hadn't stirred up that nest," Tom said, waspishly

msh210

@Avi nice

Avi

Thanks :)

Avi

4:16 PM

So I was browsing a thread on Reddit and found this nice wordplay

I'm mildly offended as a Texan, but ehhhhh who cares

The wordplay was: y'all Qaeda

but now that I look it up it's apparently a meme so I'm not going to have anything to do with this x.x

"I downloaded Minecraft when my parents weren't home," Tom said, craftily

Avi

4:31 PM

"I had a Catalan architect decorate my home," Tom said, gaudily

"Every Sunday, I have difficulty walking," Tom said, weakly

"Furrows are in fashion," Tom said, groovily

"I've been monitoring the effects of exercise on my stomach muscles," Tom said, abstractly

"My teammates are toxic," Tom said, acidically

Gareth McCaughan

The "abstractly" one is the best of those.

John Dvorak

"The genetic experiments at my workplace have been giving me a lot of white hair lately," said Tom sheepishly.

Avi

@GarethMcCaughan Huh, I thought it was the acidically one

maybe I should change it to "My friends play League of Legends," Tom said, acidically

although that would probably be offensive to non-toxic LoL players

"I run every day, which makes me happy," Tom said, dashingly

resolutely -> re solute

"I regret not inviting any women to this dinner," Tom said, lamentably

although I don't believe that lamentably is a good way to describe the way you speak - it should be "lamented"

..." Tom lamented.

and, that destroys the meaning

"I've been kicked out!" Tom exclaimed excitedly

"My pieces control the open file," Tom said, crookedly

"I bought God at an auction," Tom said, rabidly

"I cleaned my crockery until it vanished," Tom said, spotlessly

@GarethMcCaughan do the adjectives at the end have to end with 'ly'?

Gareth McCaughan

5:01 PM

No, I don't think they need to end -ly.

Avi

"I learned a lesson from Tangled," Tom said, deadpan.

"I get all the details backwards," Tom said, elated

"I lost my job as a magician," Tom said, disillusioned

"My compiler groans at me when I give it input," Tom said, parsimoniously

rot13(cnefr(l)-zbna(rl))

"My fortune-teller quit her job to go work for the Devil," Tom said, sincerely

can somebody do a tom swiftie out of "Electrified"?

Rand al'Thor

10

Q: How do I solve this logic puzzle?

I am trying to improve my logical thinking and I came across this puzzle problem. I need some help solving the puzzle below. Two weeks ago, four enthusiasts made sightings of objects in the sky in their neighborhood. Each of the four reported his or her sightings on a different day. The FBI c...

@Brandon_J Is this your sock? :-P

Avi

uhhhh who are you asking

that user doesn't seem to have been very active w.r.t that question

John Dvorak

"It was I who put the wiring wrong way around. So what," said Tom, shocking everyone.

Rand al'Thor

@Avi Look at the OP's name.

Avi

5:12 PM

They were last seen Mar 12 '17 at 2:27

Where can I find medium level sudokus that involve the xwing technique

such that I can be confused and ask a question about sudoku, because I don't know the xwing technique

Rand al'Thor

Seems like you're putting the cart before the horse.

Avi

seems like 11 more questions are necessary for sudoku to reach 200 questions :P

Rand al'Thor

"I suffer from wind," said Tom airily.

Avi

"I enjoy this site," said Tom, puzzlingly

"I jump a lot," said Tom, aboundingly

Rand al'Thor

"We just got married in the registry office," Tom announced unceremoniously.

Avi

5:17 PM

I like that one :)

John Dvorak

nice

Rand al'Thor

Aboundingly? Is that even a word?

Avi

don't know, probably

abounding = plentiful though

so plentifully

Rand al'Thor

See, the challenge is to find a word (or phrase) that can naturally describe either the verb "said" or the thing he's saying.

Mithical

"I don't like trees," Tom opined. "Only dunces don't like trees," needled his friend.

Rand al'Thor

5:18 PM

You don't say something plentifully - that makes no sense. And there's no connection in meaning between jumping and abounding - it's just a bad pun.

Compare with John Dvorak's example: "shocking everyone" could naturally refer either to what he said or to the electric shock he gave them.

Avi

"bounding' = jumping

Rand al'Thor

@Avi Yes, but not abounding.

Avi

aren't we allowed to extract subparts

Rand al'Thor

Allowed? I dunno if there are strict rules governing this. I'm just opining (thanks Mith) what makes a good one.

Avi

maybe the first parts of the word are needed to fit well, and the latter parts may be elided?

Mithical

5:20 PM

I'm just in it for the bad puns.

Avi

@Mithical this is really good though

Mithical

:]

Rand al'Thor

"This cushion is now shaped like my bottom," said Tom comfidently.

comfy dent

I'll be here all week.

Mithical

(And by the way... dunce caps are in the shape of cones.)

Avi

x.x what is this word even

"I aspire to upload my brain to the Internet," Tom said, ambitiously

eh

Rand al'Thor

5:26 PM

Two Ronnies - Name droppers

►

@Mithical ^ enjoy

Avi

oh my god

I can't really understand the accent sometimes, but these are hilarious

Rand al'Thor

If you want brilliant wordplay comedy, the Two Ronnies is where it's at.

The Two Ronnies Ponting Punting

►

^ I can quote most of this by heart

Avi

I think my brain stopped computing

Rand al'Thor

When your computing's in need of booting, you could try routing to scooting, or even shooting for fluting.

Avi

Who's Boo Tingyu?

Gareth McCaughan

6:25 PM

CCCC: It's right, if not accompanied by sweetheart, to beat back evil (10)

Rand al'Thor

I want "sweetheart" to be wordplay for "e" or "wee".

Brandon_J

6:51 PM

@Randal'Thor wait what sock?

oh lol that's not me

XD

Rand al'Thor

:-D

Hi btw, long time no see.

Brandon_J

same to you

I poke around occasionally, but all the good ones have been solved/are too time consuming

Rand al'Thor

Everything going OK?

Brandon_J

yes and no

lost my scholarship first semester of college, but things are moving forward again

will be on a conference call with work in about 7 mins

Rand al'Thor

Damn.

Brandon_J

6:54 PM

hbu?

Rand al'Thor

Good luck!

@Brandon_J Same old, busy busy.

Also popping in when I can.

I think I managed to solve a few-weeks-old open riddle today, which was nice.

It's rare that I can crack something if nobody else has for weeks. I'm no McMagister.

Brandon_J

as in Gareth?

Rand al'Thor

As in McMagister, an absolutely brilliant user who developed a reputation for breezing in to solve riddles that had stumped the community for weeks or months.

It should be noted that even though this answer was posted almost 3 months after I posted the puzzle, McMagister had been inactive and hadn't seen the puzzle until I contacted him on another forum on August 12. It took him only one hour to solve this puzzle! — pacoverflow May 11 '16 at 22:44

Brandon_J

lol

wow

cya around

have a great day!

Rand al'Thor

God how damn frustrating that puzzle was, and how neat it looked when everything slotted into place with the correct answer.

@Brandon_J You too! Good to catch up.

Gareth McCaughan

7:50 PM

"Look! A sunbeam!" said Tom, racily.

Rubio

8:06 PM

"I'm going sightseeing in St. Louis!" said Tom, archly.

Omega Krypton

8:54 PM

@GarethMcCaughan how do these actually work?

msh210

9:18 PM

yesterday, by Gareth McCaughan

Tom Swifty

A Tom Swifty (or Tom Swiftie) is a phrase in which a quoted sentence is linked by a pun to the manner in which it is attributed. Tom Swifties may be considered a type of wellerism. The standard syntax is for the quoted sentence to be first, followed by the description of the act of speaking. The hypothetical speaker is usually, by convention, called "Tom" (or "he" or "she"). == Origins == The name comes from the Tom Swift series of books (1910–present), similar in many ways to the better-known Hardy Boys and Nancy Drew series, and, like them, produced by the Stratemeyer Syndicate. In this series...

Omega Krypton

then how are they CCs? @msh210

jafe

9:35 PM

most aren't, but msh210's posted two that work as cryptic clues as well

North

10:56 PM

@Randal'Thor ah I see

@Brandon_J Hi!!!!

Long time no see!

@Rubio That's a good one :P

Rubio

hehe

North

But did GPR like the view from up there? ;)

If I write

"Stop howling!" Rubio barked

Does that work?

msh210

I think the two meanings of "bark" are too close to one another to make that a good pun. Just mho.

North

@msh210 ic

idk Rubio being a dog might've also made it a pun?

msh210

But I'm no expert or anything

North

11:07 PM

"I'm on fire!" Tom said, lightly

msh210

"'You have such rough skin, North!' Tom barked." works, I think.

North

I was trying to do something with like lit, but I went with light

"I'm on fire!" Tom said, on fire

msh210

@North lol

North

idk I think things are funnier when you don't have to think so much

"I'm on a roll," said Tom, tumbling over sushi

How's that?

Rubio

6 hours ago, by Rand al'Thor

See, the challenge is to find a word (or phrase) that can naturally describe either the verb "said" or the thing he's saying.

North

11:15 PM

hm

"I'm on a roll" said a tumbleweed

"I farted," excreted Tom

msh210

@North messy. And I wouldn't want to eat the sushi after that.

North

I'm not sure anyone would

Rubio

" 'This is my handle, and ...' Oh, I can't remember what comes next!" spouted Tom.

Avi

@North probably your best attempt so far, though more in terms of hilarity

sp outed?

Rubio

They needn't be cryptic-ish wordplay, they can just be punny

Avi

11:20 PM

but what's the pun? spout?

OH

HANDLE

North

"Crap," Tom farted

@Avi Mozart couldn't Handel that one either

See, it was Hadyn in plain sight

Sphinx

3

Q: An army marches

This is my first riddle - I think it is probably quite an easy one. I'm interested to see how quickly it gets solved. There is an overall theme with four elements to be identified. The Red Army marches All throughout the land Distributing their supplies So that their lord may stand ...

riddle rhyme

North

wut

okay then

Did msh just leave after he saw my mozart comment

I mean, it's quite the Lizst if you ask me

By the way, I heard Beethoven is Chopin over at Walmart

Avi

I think your jokes just fall flat

Perhaps they're not as sharp as you think they are

North

I'd say I'm in tune with my surroundings

VIOLA

What did the C say to the D?

Will you be my second?

"I heard nothing," Beethoven deftly replied

Avi

11:27 PM

okay that one's good

I think

yeah it's good

North

"At least you have money," Schubert broke down

Avi

now time to go look in the dictionary for riley riddle time

@North Don't fret, your riddles don't treble me

North

@Avi I'd say you're pretty bassic then

Tremolo and fear me

Bow down on the up beat

Rubio

You can't keep this up, @north. this kind of wordplay fun doesn't scale.

North

@Rubio My arsenal of music theory in paired with my terrible humor makes me infinitely more powerful

It's quite my forte

Though not quite my tempo

Avi

11:32 PM

I raid the high C's - the only one scaring me is yo-yo ma

2

North

Okay I like that one

Why did the violin kick the viola?

Because they were a viola

Avi

LOL

i feel that

North

I'm sad, because they told me I was a minor

Avi

What's a genius? Just A# minor

North

ahh that took a while

Avi

11:35 PM

xD

North

Is that music? No it's just twentieth century music

Avi

oh my god you didn't

but I understand

How do you play a fugue? Grow another hand

North

ahahaha

Avi

cry, I'm learning a fugue right now

North

Well I'm missing a branch, so I can't play most songs on piano

Avi

11:37 PM

inspired by this video

What happens if you don't play wooden instruments? You miss out on an entire branch of music

North

That's quite brassy

Like actually though :P

What happens when you don't have wooden instruments? Then it's John Williams music

Avi

does he only use triangles or something

North

Steven Spielberg: So what instruments do you want for this next movie, John?"
John Williams: "Yes"

@Avi No he's like the most iconic score composer ever

Avi

well yes he did star wars

North

Known for his grand brass fanfares

Avi

11:41 PM

but what about wooden instruments

ahhh

maybe I can't hear the difference

I can tell piano/drums/guitar apart from most other instruments, but beyond that it's a little bit blurry

North

Though he usually juxtaposes his fanfares with quiet string/woodwind sections, reminiscent of Romantic music

@Avi Ahh. Being in a band helps with that

Along with listening to bunch of music

Avi

fair enough

LMAO found this joke online: "How do you keep your violin from being stolen?
Put it in a viola case."

I don't understand the hate on violas but I'll bandwagon anyways

North

That sounds like a TwoSet joke

Avi

I can see that

North

@Avi It's because they're not violins :P. Violas have a reputatiation of being out of tune and bad, especially in lower levels

Avi

11:52 PM

Sounds like me on the violin

I prefer to brute force my way through piano songs over violin

mostly because vibrato is impossible

North

Piano: Insanely easy to play, insanely hard to play (TM)

Avi

lmao

it gets easier with more practice

the hard part is finding interesting sheets

North

@Avi Cries in Chopin

Avi

seeing as I don't have perfect pitch nor the time to use relative pitch to transcribe

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