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Sunday, October 18, 2009

Solution to Puzzle Number 9

Sorry, I had intended to release these solutions earlier this weekend (along with a couple other posts that are partially finished), but then I came down with some sort of flu or cold. Right now I am coasting on the awesome powers of NeoCitran, but I think it might wear off soon.

Here are the solutions to Puzzle Number 9: Epic Word Scramble. I only received solutions for the puzzle from one person this time (Sarah), but she was quite impressive with her output and sent in two sets of solutions (one before any of the hints and one after both sets of hints). As a reminder, each set of letters came from an original message (thereby ensuring that a whole sentence could be formed with them), and hints were released to ideally lead someone to those original messages if unscrambling all the letters into an unplanned sentence proved too difficult.

1.) A A C G G H H H I I I L M N N N O O R S T T U W Y
Six words, one is a contraction.
(3'1) (4) (8) (2) (2) (5)?

The original sentence was: Who's that lounging in my chair?

Before the hints, Sarah did not actually have a sentence (it was rather a collection of disjointed words). I was debating whether or not to include that as a partial solution, but I currently cannot find the email, so that is making my decision for me.

Edit: Sarah re-sent me her set of words:
In naughty math showgirl icon

After the hints, Sarah sent in this partially sensible sentence (you have to imagine some extra punctuation, I think, around the 'ah'... and even then I'm not so sure about its meaning):
Him's grit wantonly in ah cough?

2.) A A A E E E E E E E E E F G H H H H I I N O O P P R R R R S S S S S T T T T T V Y
Eight words, none are contractions.
(5) (3) (3) (7) (2) (3) (8) (10).

The original sentence was: These are the voyages of the starship Enterprise.

Sarah had much more luck with the second set of letters, sending this message before any hints were released:
Hie Ho! Here a gritty vet pets sheep ass for earnest.

Following the hints, she submitted this (with the caveat that one must assume Aeehi is a name):
Aeehi try the passage to the freshest perversion.

As Sarah pointed out, I'm not sure the hints actually made the puzzle any easier. I will try to make the next puzzle a mathematically oriented one to make up for this one.

2 comments:

Anonymous said...

I'm really disappointed no one commented on how awesome my solutions were.

S.C. Kavassalis said...

Ah, it doesn't show my name when I comment from that account! Damn it.