The Sphinx's Lair

12:45 AM

hah, that was a helpful hint earlier about verdi

1 hour later…

1:54 AM

Oh I just remembered, I think Gotterdammerung has been clued before :00

Oct 1, 2020 at 11:45, by jafe

CCCC: Only the finale of Flying Dutchman performed with vocals, leaving out introductory parts to Wagner's opera (15)

Interesting

1 hour later…

Q: New York Minute (Jane Street Puzzle)

3:03 AM

I want to solve the Jane Street Puzzle that I found recently: Title: New York Minute The Jane Street Puzzle Master has twenty-three errands (don’t worry, almost all of them are tiny!) that she needs to cross off her to-do list (above) on her day off. If she can manage that small task, she plans ...

Q: How to confirm the reader has the right answer without showing the answer?

3:53 AM

I'm writing a puzzle book for young readers where there are a lot of simple riddles and puzzles. For instance: "It belongs to you, but your friends use it more. What is it?", and the answer is of course: But in a book I don't have spoiler tags. I would also like to avoid convoluted solutions, li...

puzzle-creation

4:20 AM

@juicifer Yes, of course.

(Sorry about the late reply, but I went to bed after posting it, even if I knew this one wouldn't take long to solve.)

@Jafe Perhaps more of a hint to myself for setting it.

4:52 AM

@MOehm all good

sleep is arguably just as (if not more) important than c4's

speaking of which, I'm probably going to sleep pretty soon myself but I'll post a new clue first

CCCC: Sequence of notes written by composer of the Italian extraction is something many will carry with them (7)

5:17 AM

BAGGAGE is something people carry with them and it is a series of notes, but that ignores the composer part completely.

clearly an italian composer, pronounced /ba'ga:dʒe/

(no it's not)

The BA could come from BACH with CH extracted, but that isn't an Italian article.

(But I think we're looking for the extraction of "of the" in Italian, so DEI, DELLA, DEGLI etc.)

Or, of course just DI, which brings us full circle to Verdi.

1 hour later…

msh210

6:52 AM

@MOehm … unless that particular sequence of notes happens to have been written by a composer from Italy. :-)

BACH is a series of notes too, one i believe used by bach himself somewhere

(or Bb A C B, if you prefer)

Nah, composers from Italy write notes like Do Re Mi Fa So ... (Not that you would be able to tell from musical notation alone.)

7:48 AM

@juicifer But in the end, I think it's HAN(-del) + D + B + A + G.

hah, i was looking at the same thing

i thought it would be H+A (two notes) plus N (abbreviation for note) and was wondering whether there was an italian composer who was some kind of d-bag

Well, I fed *DEL* (and the other "of the" variants) to Onelook. I do know about Handel, but didn't think about him. I also missed Vivaldi when considering composer minus DI.

so really, the result was händbag

The problem with H is that it isn't a note in English, as you already pointed out with your alternative notation for BACH. (But Do Re Mi can also be clued as note. Perhaps we can extend it to Fis, Gis, Es and so on for extra, er, variety.)

That's how it's pronounced, anyway. (Well, händbäg, really.)

thoughts on "x next to y" to clue y+x? i think i've been told that it's unfair at some point

or "written by" as here

to me it seems ok since a word like "next to" is valid regardless of the order of the components, but i see how doing it in the wrong order makes solving a bit more difficult

7:58 AM

No, I think it's okay. On 15², there's the occasional discussion whether "X on Y" can clue y + X, and consensus seems to be that it's okay. I find "X next to Y" even less ambiguous as to alowing both orders than "X on Y".

(There may be a reservation about "X on Y" meaning Y + Y in a down clue, though.)

what's the argument for x on y? i can see the "on top of" reading but that must refer to some other meaning of "on"

no wait i see it, chambers has eg. 4. "very near to or along the side of something • a house on the shore"

i agree that "next to" is definitely okay if "on" is

The "house on the shore" is a good explanation here, I think.

8:35 AM

@Jafe same; I wouldn't hesitate to use it

2 hours later…

11:00 AM

Jan 27, 2021 at 5:42, by oAlt

@Jafe @Ankoganit only nitpick i have (because the clue itself is great anyway) is that "bread" and "bad" may not have the same vowel sound for all people (which applies to me: i do roughly [ɛ] for the "bread" and [æ] for "bad")

At this point, no one would really care, but the [ɛ] there should be [e].

11:19 AM

i think aussies tend to say closer to [e] too in bread... for bad i'd say [æ:] though so there's a length difference as well as quality

i guess we also found out where the c4 archiving is currently going hehe

@Jafe ehehe

2 hours later…

12:59 PM

@MOehm that's it!

@Jafe I did think d-bag was very funny but sequence of notes made for a more fun clue imo

I'm sure there's a clue about han solo in there

knowledge enigmatic-puzzle visual

Q: A puzzle of balance

What's the seven-letter answer I'm looking for?

1 hour later…

2:08 PM

@juicifer yeah but it doesn't scale well

lol

@AncientSwordRage As the old saying goes, "ba dum tss"

@oAlt thats my second this week!

major success

2:25 PM

@AncientSwordRage quite note worthy I should say

I should compose more puns

msh210

2:39 PM

@AncientSwordRage I think you should give it a rest.

3:01 PM

Apologies for causing treble

These puns are ALTOgether terrible.

what are you bassing that claim on?

Not much. Puns really aren't my aria.

CCCC: Composer of Ring unveiled half note in Royal Albert Hall? (7)

3:41 PM

(Don't mind my intrusion with the C4 so much and do go on with the puns, please.)

Ankoganit

@ChrisCudmore they're not my forte either

4:01 PM

The clue has so many different ways it can be parsed... I think I'll go and build up my stockpile of CCCC's first lol

Also, these puns are music to my ears

1 hour later…

5:12 PM

Just got a call from "The Credit Card Fraud Department". Then got an email at my work address saying they have video of me doing unworklike things. (Work computer has no camera, so even if...)

msh210

5:30 PM

@ChrisCudmore Probably the unworklike thing you did was take a call from The CCFD.

They mentioned "Adult" sites. Must be PSE.

Deleted the email. But they wanted $1800 in bitcoin.

4 hours later…