Matthew Daly (![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png)
matthewdaly) wrote2009-08-23 12:27 am
matthewdaly) wrote2009-08-23 12:27 am
Entry tags:
I've been robbed!!1! Or maybe libeled!!1!
I've been spending the past month getting interested in abstract logic puzzles again. I've been trying to arrange my thoughts on the matter to avoid a complete core dump of geeky squee. This will happen someday. In the mean time, know that I've been a tricksy little spider traversing the web for puzzle sites.
Which is where I came across this:
Think of words ending in -GRY. Angry and hungry are two of them. There are only three words in the English language. What is the third word? The word is something that everyone uses every day. If you have listened carefully, I have already told you what it is.
[...]
There are only two: angry and hungry. The rec.puzzles archive offers a large collection of words that end in -GRY, but none of them could be considered even remotely common. There are many generally unsatisfying "trick" answers to the problem, which depend on a specific wording of the question or that the question be spoken instead of written. There seems to be no agreement among puzzle historians about which form is the original, or even the age of the problem. In any event, it is apparent that the frequent mutations of the puzzle statement over the years have erased whatever answer was intended by the original author. The usual trick is to play on the expression "the English Language", you are then asked for the third word - which is of course Language! QED.
As you can no doubt tell by the sterling prose and sparkling wit, the first five sentences of the answer were written by me and copied verbatim without permission (AFAIK) or attribution from the rec.puzzles FAQ. This doesn't bother me so much. It's not like I'm directly harmed by it, and I suppose that FAQs are in a murky area where they are written to be freely distributed but arguably not so much to disassembled and repackaged in such a way that the author becomes anonymous. The FAQ itself doesn't (or at least didn't in 2001, which is the latest version that Google seems able to offer -- did my successor totally fall off the web or something?) have a distribution guidelines paragraph that would clarify the sorts of abilities and rights that were expected, although it was clearly written in the modern era and does not explicitly declare itself to be in the public domain. And, while it wouldn't have been difficult for a puzzlemaster to figure out, it's not immediately evident that I am the one of the three editors over the lifespan of the FAQ to write that particular piece of text.
What really chaps my hide is that Kevin Stone somehow managed to plagiarize my words without reading them, because the final sentence jumps over to the LOL NOOB you didn't see the invisible quotation marks when I wrote that there were three words in "the English language" dumbassery. What part of "generally unsatisfying 'trick' answers" and "depend on ... the question being spoken and not written" wasn't clear? He seems like a fine fellow who respects attribution and WOULD credit me if I asked for it, but it's not like I want to be associated with the answer as written. *sigh* I feel like tracking down Karen Lingel and sending her over to Kevin Stone's house with a ball peen hammer to elucidate him, which is not as unpleasant as other criticisms of his solution.
Which is where I came across this:
Think of words ending in -GRY. Angry and hungry are two of them. There are only three words in the English language. What is the third word? The word is something that everyone uses every day. If you have listened carefully, I have already told you what it is.
[...]
There are only two: angry and hungry. The rec.puzzles archive offers a large collection of words that end in -GRY, but none of them could be considered even remotely common. There are many generally unsatisfying "trick" answers to the problem, which depend on a specific wording of the question or that the question be spoken instead of written. There seems to be no agreement among puzzle historians about which form is the original, or even the age of the problem. In any event, it is apparent that the frequent mutations of the puzzle statement over the years have erased whatever answer was intended by the original author. The usual trick is to play on the expression "the English Language", you are then asked for the third word - which is of course Language! QED.
As you can no doubt tell by the sterling prose and sparkling wit, the first five sentences of the answer were written by me and copied verbatim without permission (AFAIK) or attribution from the rec.puzzles FAQ. This doesn't bother me so much. It's not like I'm directly harmed by it, and I suppose that FAQs are in a murky area where they are written to be freely distributed but arguably not so much to disassembled and repackaged in such a way that the author becomes anonymous. The FAQ itself doesn't (or at least didn't in 2001, which is the latest version that Google seems able to offer -- did my successor totally fall off the web or something?) have a distribution guidelines paragraph that would clarify the sorts of abilities and rights that were expected, although it was clearly written in the modern era and does not explicitly declare itself to be in the public domain. And, while it wouldn't have been difficult for a puzzlemaster to figure out, it's not immediately evident that I am the one of the three editors over the lifespan of the FAQ to write that particular piece of text.
What really chaps my hide is that Kevin Stone somehow managed to plagiarize my words without reading them, because the final sentence jumps over to the LOL NOOB you didn't see the invisible quotation marks when I wrote that there were three words in "the English language" dumbassery. What part of "generally unsatisfying 'trick' answers" and "depend on ... the question being spoken and not written" wasn't clear? He seems like a fine fellow who respects attribution and WOULD credit me if I asked for it, but it's not like I want to be associated with the answer as written. *sigh* I feel like tracking down Karen Lingel and sending her over to Kevin Stone's house with a ball peen hammer to elucidate him, which is not as unpleasant as other criticisms of his solution.
no subject
Which kinda leaves me wondering:
What are they? and
In what language are the thousands of other words that I've always believed were English?
no subject
Great, now part of my brain is trying to craft a sentence like "There are three words in 'the Queen's English' (if you know what I mean)" that would give a true surface reading in both casually spoken and formally written English that would permit the reference trick, and the rest of my brain is trying to stop.
no subject
If you like, I can try to point you to more of same, although, given that I think I happened upon you at the LiveJournal of Motris, I suspect you don't need any of my help. :-)
no subject
I've got to imagine that you're a lot more wired in than I am. Let's see, for the hardcore puzzles I've found the USPC, PQRST, OAPC, and Forsmarts. I've also got the ninth 24HPC and the instruction book for the eighth. Oh, and I found the first round of this year's German championship. There's got to be so much more than that passed around behind the scenes. No sign of the JPC, much less the WPC. I'm sure they're trafficked, just not where Google can see it.
Also, if you know where folks discuss the art of construction, I'd love to pick that up. It is much closer to my skills and interest than speed solving, and would give me ways to give back to the community.