The Sphinx's Lair

4:29 AM

Feb 9 at 11:26, by msh210

C4 hint: Knowledge of American sports may prove helpful.

4:44 AM

@msh210 Is this one for this cc too?

Q: A math sequence, but also a English sequence!

What are the numbers in the question marks? 0, 1, 2, ?, 5, 6, 8, ?, 40, 46, 60, ?, 84

5:26 AM

I made a cc, leaving it here for anyone to test it: Bob's big lover's initials, for example, with Sam's head are shiny yellow crowns (8)

It's pretty obvious ;)

Jafe

5:53 AM

for example is e.g., not i.e.

6:10 AM

Oops

Is there a way to clue ie?

@Anonymus25-ReinstateMonica Yes. Sorry for not making that clear.

@Anonymus25-ReinstateMonica "that is"

@Anonymus25-ReinstateMonica I think "Bob's" should be "Bob".

@msh210 This is juat for surface :(

Deusovi

6:32 AM

@Anonymus25-ReinstateMonica That's not allowed in cryptics. You can't add anything "just for surface" - everything must be parseable as part of the wordplay.

1 hour later…

7:52 AM

Q: Checkmate in Last Move

What is the maximum number of black and white pieces which are relevant or involved in a checkmate position? That is if any piece was removed from the board checkmate would not be possible.

chess

Q: This ᴀɴᴅ That musical act from the past

8:18 AM

Below is a fill-in-the-blanks three-part list of variously-venerable musical acts of the form “________ ᴀɴᴅ ʜɪs/ᴏᴜʀ/ᴛʜᴇ _________.” The example of “Paul Revere ᴀɴᴅ ᴛʜᴇ Raiders” has been filled in for starters. Completion of blanks is meant to rely purely on knowledge, clues, intuition and luck— p...

no-computers music

Q: What is the date displayed for the question mark?

Someone sent me these images. Its about the Moon for some reason. Anyways, here are the images: And also that someone gave me a bonus:

rebus time outer-space

3 hours later…

11:40 AM

Q: My prefix has wild animals

Can you find out a word that has these following rules: -My prefix has alot of wild animals, -My infix has a heavy demand, -My suffix always questions themself, -My whole has a word in the meaning that means a classification of something.

riddle word affix-riddle

1 hour later…

Jafe

1:01 PM

the previous "knowledge of american sports" c4 was about a commissioner of baseball... apparently there's also a title of king of baseball

Sid

1:27 PM

King could be a nickname for some athlete as well.

Jafe

1:45 PM

there's also sacramento kings and LA kings

as well as minnesota vi-kings... which is actually some premium &lit material

like "[vi] pro sports team from the US", where [vi] is anything that clues the letters VI and describes the minnesota vikings on the surface

left as an exercise for the reader

Q: Were the Decipher II and Decipher III puzzles solved, and if so when and by whom?

The Decipher jigsaw was a relatively famous puzzle released in the early 80s, promising a $100,000 dollar prize to those that could solve it. After two years with no winners, the creator, Warren Holland Jr., released more and more hints until ultimately it was solved in 1985. You can read more ab...

cipher jigsaw-puzzle puzzle-history unsolved-mysteries

2:13 PM

Q: Building "build"

I want to try and build the word "build" using a special puzzle, and I came up with one. The mission? Find words in the sentences associated with "build" and pick letters from each chosen word, then create the chosen syllable of "build". The amount of sentences doesn't amount to the amount of let...

wordplay

2 hours later…

Q: AnaCross: A crossword made of anagrams

4:20 PM

This is a new type of puzzle I've devised: the AnaCross. Nothing new under the sun and all, I'm sure someone has made one before, but I've never seen it. The rules are pretty simple. At the end of each row is a pool of letters; those letters are the letters that go in that row of the crossword. N...

word no-computers english anagram crosswords

Gareth McCaughan

@msh210 Solution to your CCCC is STRIKING OUT which means (1) starting a trek and (2) something that happens in baseball, which is denoted when recording the match by writing a K, so K-ing is striking out.

(When I said I had a quarter-baked idea earlier, STRIKING OUT was in fact it, but I never thought of baseball. Which is unsurprising because in fact I never think about baseball :-).)

I don't know whether people actually refer to striking out (i.e., the thing the batter does, not the thing the person recording the match does when they write down a K) as "K-ing" or "K'ing" or whatever.

Mithical

I've... never heard the term and I have some baseball-obsessed relatives, so I don't think it's exactly common.

@GarethMcCaughan @Mithical Before posting this C4 I did Google «"he ked the" baseball» and confirmed it's a verb, albeit rare.

@GarethMcCaughan Something the pitcher does, at least, and I think also something the batter does.

@GarethMcCaughan And yes of course your answer does match my intent.

Gareth McCaughan

The pitcher? Really?

I thought it was specifically what the batter does when they swing and miss three times, or something like that.

cf. the inexplicably famous poets.org/poem/casey-bat

4:52 PM

It's transitive and intransitive. The batter strikes out; the pitcher strikes him out.