Hatrack River Writers Workshop: Riddle me This!

This is topic Riddle me This! in forum Writing Class at Hatrack River Writers Workshop.

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Posted by Survivor (Member # 213) on :

What do the following words all have in common?

Jabberwocky
Word
English
Affirmative
Gallicism
Noun

Can you add any to the list?

Posted by Brinestone (Member # 747) on :

Just a guess:

Sideways?

Posted by Falken224 on :

How about:

Writing
Letters

That's all I can come up with . . . if I'm right. Shall I print what I think it is . . . or should I not, just in case I guessed right?

Posted by Survivor (Member # 213) on :

I would probably say dextrotropic sooner than sideways, if that's even a word....

Written...perhaps. Alphanumerical would be better than letters. But I think that you have the point

Posted by Brinestone (Member # 747) on :

Okay, now I think I don't. You've stumped me, Survivor. Are you going to tell us?

Posted by Falken224 on :

Hmm . . . let's see if I have this.

Conjugated
Concoctified <--okay that's stretching :-)
Abbr. <--That might be too.
Fourth <--Hmm. . .

Still on the right track if I'm not EXACTLY right?

Posted by Brinestone (Member # 747) on :

I think I'm getting this, but I wouldn't use 'dextrotropic.'

Can we have a new master-list? I think it is:

Jabberwocky
Word
English
Affirmative
Gallicism
Noun
Dextrotropic
Letters
Alphanumerical
Conjugated? etc.

I add:
process
marriage
delicate

Posted by Survivor (Member # 213) on :

Shoot, my reply didn't arrive.

Okay, to sum up:
Dextrotropic, written, and alphanumeric don't actually belong on the list, but they are very close...as are Abbr. and Fourth as used by Falken.

Process, marriage, and delicate are not on the list, and I am very curious as to what rule Brinestone followed to come up with them.

Conjugated and Concoctified both belong on the list, bringing the list to:
Jabberwocky
Word
English
Affirmative
Gallicism
Noun
Conjugated
Concoctified

I could add "Erotic", just to be naughty. Terse also belongs on the list. There is another word that I could put on the list that is a dead giveaway, so I don't mention it, but you'll boo and hiss when I do.

I think that if I find Brinestone's rule interesting enough, I'll go ahead and lay out the rule for this list.

Posted by Brinestone (Member # 747) on :

Oh, duh! I know what it is!! Sheesh, I should have gotten it...Jabberwocky was the one that confused me. Didn't know it could be used that way.

My rule was really stretching. RREEEEAAAAALLLYYYY stretching.

I noticed that "Jabberwocky" is an English word first. The words come in groups of two nouns to an adjective, so I applied it. For every group of three, one is subject, one subject complement, and one modifying the subject complement. It doesn't really work for any of them (i.e. I didn't know whether English was an Affirmative Gallicism, but I guessed, because Affirmative can't be an English Gallicism--that's an oxymoron. By my rule, Marriage is a Conjugated Process (using conjugated to mean "joining together), Marriage is a delicate process. It really makes no sense to me now, but I wanted something to work.

Here's some to add to your list that I'm sure about now:

Something
Black

Posted by Survivor (Member # 213) on :

That's Great!

Unfortunatly, your still haven't quite got the rule. "Something" might just make it on the list, but "Black" does not. Just as "Abbr." and "Fourth" had the common quality only in the particular sense used, I could list them along with other terms so as to disqualify them from the list, i.e.:

Abbreviation
Fourth
Last
Black
Blue
Underlined
Bold
Italic

Listed this way, none of them have the common quality of all the words on the list, therefore even when they do have that quality, 'tis not inherent.

I think that it would be fun to make a list that would be really hard to figure out, composed of words that are synonomous with words that belong on the list, but do not themselves belong on the list. Or maybe words that cannot even be circumstancially attached to the list.

Posted by epiquette (Member # 1272) on :

All right, Survivor, I give up.

What's the answer?

Erk

Posted by Survivor (Member # 213) on :

The words on the list can be plugged into the sentence "The word "_______" is [a] ______.

The word "Jabberwocky" is Jabberwocky.
The word "Word" is a word.
The word "English" is English.
The word "Affirmative" is [an] affirmative.
The word "Gallicism" is a gallicism.
The word "Noun" is a Noun.
The word "Conjugated" is conjugated.
The word "Concoctified" is concoctified.
The word "Erotic" is erotic.
The word "Terse" is terse.

And just to give the whole game away,

The word "Pentesyllabic" is Pentesyllabic.

Okay, someone else come up with something.

Posted by Falken224 on :

Almost had it. I figured it was words that described themselves. :-) Close enough, but didn't QUITE fit in all of them.

Posted by epiquette (Member # 1272) on :

Oh, I get it...

Uh, verbing?
Thanks,
Erk

Posted by Survivor (Member # 213) on :

No, not more words for the list (verbing?). I mean some other riddle.

Posted by Kathleen Dalton Woodbury (Member # 59) on :

How about this for another riddle?

What do all these riddles have to do with a writing class?

Posted by Falken224 on :

*raises hand excitedly*

Oooh! oooh! I know!

They're all in the 'Writing Class' forum!

:-)

*pauses nervously at an evil sideways glare from Kathleen*

Which . . . is . . . NOT . . . where they're supposed to be?

Woohoo! I got it right!

*pauses*
*smacks head*

DOH!

My apologies. Please feel free to move these threads wherever they need to be. Didn't even pay attention to the forum name.

-Nate

Posted by PrincessOlea (Member # 2839) on :

If you want a riddle, start here:

www.people.ex.ac.uk/rbd201/riddle/ame.htm

it's got at least 60 levels! Good Luck.

Posted by dpatridge (Member # 2208) on :

No, it fits in Writing Class because we are learning about words and their creative use.

(Okay, that was stretching, but it works, doesn't it?)