bonanova

scuttill has [4] itachi-san has [6]. Kudos.

I said a word is defined as a character string. I found some authorities that disagree with that. If a character string "bark" for example has multiple meanings [dog, tree] you can say those are different words, called homographs. Since they are pronounced the same, they are also homophones. They could therefore be called homophonic homographs, but they're usually just called homonyms. OK, so what are your words -- to, too, two? Certainly they are homophones - they sound identical. But since they are spelled differently - are different character strings - they are heterographs. Homophonic heterographs, to be precise. I'm not sure why they would not be called heterographic homophones, but then I'm also not sure who cares. But wait, there's more. What if they are spelled the same [homographs] but pronounced differently [heterophones]? For example row [meaning an argument or fight] and row [as opposed to a column] -- what do we call them? You might think they'd be called homographic heterophones. Or heterophonic homographs. But no, thankfully. They're called heteronyms. The two persons with really strange interests who are still reading this post should now get on with your lives.

Or, what is black and white - and re[a]d all over? Idienasty - keep posting your puzzles. I have a son who is very quick-witted, and therefore it is difficult for me to stump him with puzzles. Or get him to laugh at my jokes, but that's a different story. Anyway, there's a riddle that says: A father stood behind his son, and the son stood behind his father. How can this be? The answer is they stood back to back. I thought I'd spring this one on my son. But I was a little hasty. Before thinking very much I blurted out: A son and his father stand back to back. How is this possible? Mercifully, he just walked away.

itachi-san has [5] [7] and [8]. Not to mention a pretty good alternative to [3]. Semi-clue -- no spoiler needed: Don't overlook the hyphen in [6].

Not to repeat my answer, but ... A false premise permits a false conclusion. "If A then B" is logically equivalent to "^A or B". If A is false, ^A is true, and the conjunction is true. Thus, "If 2+2=5, then New York is a small city" Since I'm not Harry, and the premise is "if you are Harry," I choose the Mona Lisa. Well, she is intriguing, if not actually "hot".

Do you know the verse that is a memory aid for these initial letters? [Rated PG-13]

itachi-san has [1] and [2] grey cells also has [1] and [2] The others are still up for grabs. If you want clues, I'll post the initial letters of the missing words. [i'll check tomorrow.] I can give you this ... they all end in LY except for one [of them].

It's been a while since this low literary form was en vogue. Here are my three favs followed by a potpourri of the genre for a blast from the past. [1] "But you don't deserve an A," said Tom, _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ his student. [2] "Oh, I've dropped my toothpaste," said Tom, _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ . [3] "OK, I'll send the code again," said Tom, _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ . ----- [4] "Yeah, I forgot to pay the electric bill again," said Tom, _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ . [5] "Look! This chicken has no beak!" pronounced Tom, _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ . [6] "Never, never, never force-feed this a lion," declared Tom, _ _ _ - _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ . [7] "I'll have the chicken soup with matzo balls and gefilte fish," said Tom, _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ . [8] "Alright! You can borrow it again, _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ Tom. Use the spoiler, Luke.

Good advice! Being retired, I could say that I've already HAD a life, but that's not close to being true. I still have one [can you spell grandchildren?] and the fun of this site is part of it. Thanks ... !

A verbal form of storm's equation is to note that the Nth cut will add N new pieces if it crosses all the previous cuts. Note in the previous sketch that gave an answer of 10, the final cut failed to cross exactly one of the previous cuts.

Interesting idea. I'm not sure you can go anywhere interesting [with 9's at least] from sums of transposed numbers. The difference [which is interesting] and the sum differ by twice one of the numbers [which can be anything]. a propos, you might be interested to revisit this puzzle [even tho it's cover is now blown].

My 1000th post. Maybe I should give my keyboard a rest. Anyway Happy Easter, and here's a little gem for you. Take a number N, reverse its digits and add it to N. Repeat if necessary. Eventually you will get a palindrome. For example, starting with 39, we have 39 + 93 = 132. Then 132 + 231 = 363 = palindrome. After a moment's thought, this is not surprising. But sometimes you do have to be patient. Consider the starting number 89: 89 ------> 159487405 187 | 664272356 968 | 1317544822 1837 | 3602001953 9218 | 7193004016 17347 | 13297007933 91718 | 47267087164 173437 | 93445163438 907808 | 176881317877 1716517 | 955594506548 8872688 | 1801200002107 17735476 | 8813200023188 = palindrome! 85189247 --->[/code]

More Latin: Vox populi vox Dei. The voice of the people is the voice of God. Reason for democracies.

The problem with the question is in the assumption. There are not three versions of a single word. There are three words which sound alike. If two and too are the same word, just different versions, and we say that solely because they sound identical, then sight, cite and site are versions of a word, for the same reason. How would you say "there are three sights in the English language?" Generally, a word is taken to mean a character string. A given character string "bill" might have several meanings: something you pay, part of a cap, a law before it becomes a law ... etc. But "bill" nevertheless is one word, and its sentence would be "There is one bill in the English language." Does that help?

I heard it once this way - back in school. Translation is left as an exercise for the student. vidi vici veni.

I see your point, after giving a clue about hex. But the original numbers [in decimal] work ok, right? C[hex] and 12[dec] are both 1100[bin].

Storm, totally agree. Gray cells, great puzzle.

Brown is dark orange. Grey is dark white.

I've seen this product expanded and I suppose I could search for it. Too lazy. But clearly it has a x26 term and a abcdefghijklmnopqrstuvwxyz term. What the other terms must look like can be seen by expanding the first four terms: (x - a) (x - b)(x - c) (x - d) = x4 [1] + x3 [-a -b -c -d] + x2 [ab + ac + ad + bc + bd + cd] + x1 [-abc -abd -acd -bcd] + x0 [abcd]

If I had to share the pancake, I'd want to do the cutting. The OP does not requre them to be equal size.