Here it is, before any of you explode with curiosity and frustration...
The answers post!
Don't read the comments unless you want to know the answers to all these word games that have been going on.
I think it's best only the person who set the riddle gives the answer, so we're certain it's correct, and so it's easy to tell which solution is for which problem.
You're all very very clever, by the way. I think I got...two solutions? Three, maybe? I'm still lost on the rest. Give me a murder to solve any day...
12 comments:
Lancs. Anon here,
It's a game of to and fro but not hither or thither
It's a game of tan but not color
It's a game of join but not meet
It's a game of roo not kanga
It's a game of iron and tin but not gold
The first word in each pair can be made into another substantially different word by the addition of another letter.
tan --> tang
join --> joint
roo --> root
iron --> irony
tin --> tiny
Hope I was consistent,
Lancs. Anon
Here's my first game -- the one I started for Sherlock as the boys were on the way up to Scotland.
It's a game of red, but not yellow.
It's a game of knock, but not door.
It's a game of crunch and smash, but not destroy...
It's a game of storms but not thunder.
It's a game of push but not shove.
It's a game of smart but not intelligent.
In this case, all of the words in the game have only one vowel.
(And captcha is "easeplay"?!?!)
And this is the second one, started on the trip home.
It's a game of toad but not frog.
It's a game of two but not seven.
It's a game of red but not yellow.
It's a game of pain but not hurt.
It's a game of shoe but not slipper.
It's a game of straight but not narrow.
In this game, you're looking for homophones - words with the same sound, but different spellings and meanings. I think everyone got this one, and the first one too.
Here's my game...
It's a game of net but not racket
It's a game of saw but not hammer
It's a game of deified but not glorified
It's a game of golf but not tennis
It's a game of abut but not adjoin
It's a game of reward but not medal
All of the words in the game can be reversed to get a new word -- net reverses to ten, saw reverses to was, etc.
ryo
I was getting there on the first one, rsf, but didn't quite make it. The second I didn't have a lot of time to study so I may or may not have gotten it. And I'd never have got Lancs anons game, probably ever. Thanks for doing them, though! It was fun!
Here's mine:
It's a game of goose, but not duck.
It's a game of fungus, but not mushroom.
It's a game of crisis, but not disaster.
It's words that have irregular plurals, such as geese, parentheses, moose, and so on.
Mycroft, I wanted to post this when I figured out your game, but I didn't want to give it away. It's a poem I learned when I was very young.
Many gooses are called geese
And many mouses are called mice
But never call two mooses meese
And never call two houses hice.
I must've heard that when I was very young, too, I think. It sounds familiar. Maybe it was my father. I remember seeing geese with him somewhere and talking about that.
That sounds like a nice memory, Mycroft.
I never learned that poem, but I like it. I'll have to use it on the kids.
Speaking of which, the game the kids played on me, and then I've played here with these clues:
It's a game of bird but not monkey
It's a game of guard but not soldier
It's a game of board but not plank
It's a game of berry but not orange
It's a game of fly but not swim
It's a game of head and a game of foot but not a game of elbow.
The answer is that all of those can be added to "black" to get a word or common phrase.
The kids had just done an assignment about color words, and the dictionary, so they kept me stumped for an hour.
rsf
Lancs. Anon here
So, it's a game of rats and arse but not of mouse and bottom for instance
If you type rats and arse, you only use the fingers of your left hand whereas mouse and bottom use fingers of both hands.
Similarly
It's a game of join not joiner
If you type join you just use the fingers of your right hand but joiner needs both
I worried about this but if you don't touch type, then just think of it as using just one half of the keyboard rather than using both!
I'm officially stopping doing this now :)
Lancs. Anon
Nooo, you can't stop! That is UTTERLY BRILLIANT. I might even have got it if you'd stuck to only one side of the keyboard. Or if I'd typed up my list of clues instead of writing them on a napkin.
rsf *bowing to your genius*
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