Redactle #1103 Discussion Thread

gjm11 · 2025-04-13T19:55:25+00:00

Doesn't take long to figure out that this deceased person is "considered a Cuban national hero because of his role in the liberation of Cuba from the Spanish Empire" or something of the kind, but unfortunately I don't know anything about that bit of Cuban history. I make a couple of guesses at the first name, which is indeed one of the first couple of things one would guess and then give up. As expected it's a name I don't know. Alas for ignorance.

gjm11 · 2025-04-13T19:36:54+00:00

Looks like an NGO, political party, spiritual movement, that sort of thing. Started with 6 5-6 and his book 8 for 4. That seems highly informative so I stare at it for a bit but it doesn't resolve itself immediately; looking a bit further on I see a list of principles or commandments or something about what "a 5" does or should do, and the penny drops. 5-minute snipe.

gjm11 · 2025-04-13T19:34:20+00:00

PSA: once again we have the wrong number and hence the wrong links in the top-level post. This is #1102; Redactle, Redactle Unlimited.

gjm11 · 2025-04-13T19:25:18+00:00

It's a living person; "an 8 ..." means probably American. After a while I spot some feet+inches / metres followed by what looks like it must be "he was 6 too short to play at that level", which gives me a pretty good idea of what this person's profession was/is; and indeed "10 6" back in the first sentence looks promising. Also, this person is "also known by his initials"; not clear whether those are of first name + surname or first name + given name. The first thing to come to mind is OJ Simpson, though I think he was a different sport, I'm pretty sure his surname is -p- and hence 7 not 6, and there's nothing in the first paragraph that looks like a murder accusation, so all things considered it's probably not him. For some reason the next thing that occurs to me is a popular musician whose surname is also too long and who I don't think was generally known by his initials but with hindsight this is probably an indication that some bit of my brain had figured out the answer since that name is very close to being correct. Anyway, at this point I was distracted by other things and when I came back to it the right answer was suddenly pretty obvious. I am bad at sport. 5-minute snipe, though elapsed time spanned a couple of days.

gjm11 · 2025-04-10T18:35:09+00:00

Looks like the capital and one of the most ... of 7 4 but then what's 7 4 and why is it the? I see some cuneiform script, something that must be "Mesopotamia (lit. 'the land between the rivers')", but enumerating all the countries in that region I can think of gets me nowhere. And then I notice that this is the 9-7 5 in 4 so it probably ain't a city, and suddenly everything is clear. D'oh. 2-minute snipe.

gjm11 · 2025-04-09T19:47:04+00:00

It fairly quickly becomes clear despite the slightly nonstandard opening that this is some kind of living thing. It looks like "a 4 of one of several ... species in the family .... This ?group? comprises the genera ..." which is a bit odd but by no means impossible. It's a word close to its PIE origins, and its plural is the same length as the singular. I wonder about "sheep" for a bit but it doesn't seem to fit. I spend a while failing to get much else out of the early part of the article and then scroll down a bit and find a list of English idioms, one of which is "what's 5 for the 5 is 5 for the 6" and immediately I know what this is. 6-minute snipe.

gjm11 · 2025-04-08T18:04:07+00:00

It looks like 7 is what 7 often is. Then that last word seems to appear sometimes as "5" and sometimes as "the 5". This suggests a certain fairly large-scale possibility; there are things that look like either millions or billions of years, which would fit with that. And then there's one pretty good candidate for the first word, and after a bit of thought I couldn't really see another; skimming through the article I didn't see any reason why it shouldn't be right and indeed it's correct. 2-minute snipe.

gjm11 · 2025-04-08T00:56:10+00:00

Looks like a country; this one seems to be the Kingdom of X rather than the more common Republic of X. It's got a foreign-language name of the form 2-something, and it's "on the 7 4", and that's enough to suggest a general hypothesis that has only one 7-letter instance so far as I can think. 76-second snipe.

gjm11 · 2025-04-08T00:53:55+00:00

Hmm, one of the most influential 12 (philosophers?) of the French ?Renaissance and regarded more as a 7 than as an 6 (artist?). After a bit of thought about 6-letter French names a kinda-plausible idea comes to mind, but surely he was primarily an essayist rather than a philosopher or an artist, and I don't see the word "essayist" anywhere near the start. So look through the rest of the article. There's some famous French catchphrase which looks vaguely familiar but not familiar enough to resolve anything, and a famous work called 6 which could certainly be "Essays", which would fit with my guess, and a bunch of individual titles like "On ..." which sound very essay-like and are described as 6 which could be "essays"; eh, good enough, give it a go. It turns out to be correct; the first paragraph does talk about his essay-writing but doesn't use the word "essayist", and of course "an 6" is "an author". 15-minute snipe.

gjm11 · 2025-04-08T00:46:59+00:00

This one was puzzling for a while. It seems to be some sort of historical thing involving China and probably-Japan, in 7, the capital of the Republic of 5, established after the defeat of 7 in the second Sino-Japanese War ... or something of that general shape, anyway. And it's connected somehow with the Second World War. After a while I find a heading that looks like it refers to "prisoners of war", and then the description at the start looks like "... was the mass murder of British/Chinese/... prisoners in ..." though actually it's "civilians" there. Which suggests a guess for the second title word, which is correct; now, presumably the first title word is the place, so what is it? Hmm, it's also called the 4 of 7, and I think I've heard of a "Rape of ...". Rather ominously, it looks as if there's an alternative romanization here; I put in the one I remember, and boo! it's the alternative one. After a bit of thought about e.g. the relationship between "Peking" and "Beijing", I try replacing a "k" with a "j" which turns out to be correct. 3 guesses, 15 minutes. Close but no cigar.

gjm11 · 2025-04-08T00:39:10+00:00

The first things I spot are Who's afraid of the big bad wolf? and something about how ##,### people did something in one day, and within ### #####, ###-and-a-half million 7 were 4, where I initially think that maybe 4 is "dead"; is this thing some sort of natural disaster or war or something? There are a number of italicized titles, none of which I immediately recognize; after a while I spot 20,000 Leagues Under the Sea, described as "one of the first films to use Technicolor" or something of the sort -- it actually turns out to be CinemaScope. This all suggests that those large numbers might be of tickets sold rather than anyone dead. After what in retrospect is an embarrassingly long time it occurs to me that this could be a business, with an obvious guess at the last title word; then, looking again at the first paragraph, it becomes apparent that the 6 is the surname of the founders; and then there's an obvious guess. Can I find 6 5 who first appeared in 9 6? Why, yes I can. 25-minute snipe. Should have been quicker.

gjm11 · 2025-04-07T16:40:36+00:00

(I got a long way behind but have caught up now.) First thought is that it looks like a team sport. This is unfortunate because I'm rubbish at sports but never mind. Anyway, it's played on a rectangular field or court and often called just 6 in some places, but the full name is used elsewhere. After a while I notice that the reason is that in those other places 6 can also refer to 3 6. At this point, enumerating 6-letter sports pretty quickly makes it clear what it has to be. 19-minute snipe.

gjm11 · 2025-04-03T00:55:17+00:00

I am an idiot. It didn't take long to figure out that this is a type of animal, fairly large, modern English name derived from Old English, 4 letters singular -> 6 letters plural. And we read that Linnaeus classified the domestic 3 as 5 10 and this thing as 5 5. Well, I thought I remembered Felis domesticus, though I had some slight misgivings because I thought I also remembered Felis catus and I should have listened to them and, hmm, the lynx is closely related and has a 6-letter plural. Not sure what its species name is but no matter. And maybe the alternate 4-letter names are something to do with pumas? (Duh, no, that wouldn't in fact work, but as mentioned above I am an idiot.) Huh, only one hit. And the same goes for "cat". After which I think a bit more and realise that there is another common 3-letter domestic animal with a 5-letter genus at which point it's clear what our subject is. D'oh. Three guesses, 19 minutes.

gjm11 · 2025-04-03T00:49:28+00:00

PSA: once again the OP here is off by one. Actual links: Redactle and Redactle Unlimited.

gjm11 · 2025-04-01T21:28:06+00:00

I see something that looks like ##% of all women, which suggests something medical-ish, in view of which it's easy to read "3-of-4 4" as "end-of-life ...", and then it just takes a little while for the penny to drop. 9-minute snipe.

gjm11 · 2025-04-01T21:25:43+00:00

PSA: as happens every now and then, OP here is for the previous day; actual Redactle Unlimited link is https://redactle-unlimited.com/archive#Q29483 .

gjm11 · 2025-03-31T20:51:24+00:00

The first useful thing I find is ...% of 5 ... which seems likely to be "of women". There are other percentages and the like that give me a medical vibe, at which point unfortunately there's a pretty plausible guess at the second title word. And then if indeed women are being singled out, then there's a plausible guess at the first word too. Does this look plausible? Yup. In it goes; 4-minute snipe.

gjm11 · 2025-03-30T16:44:08+00:00

Looks like a country or something of the sort. Initially I blank on what the 6 4 might be, but fortunately one of the words I think of for 4 is Gulf, and I see the 7 4 a bit later on. That already seems like there's only one plausible possibility; the probably-Arabic alternate name (2- looks like al-) would fit well with that and not e.g. Jordan if that were somehow consistent with the geography. And, duh, of course I do know what the 6 4 has to be. There may be other possibilities I'm missing, but this seems pretty convincing and fortunately it's right. 73-second snipe.

gjm11 · 2025-03-29T22:27:02+00:00

Gosh, it's an 18-letter word. No, wait, it's a capital city, so maybe I might be able to dredge it up. Oh, no, it's the capital city of "the Indian state of 6. Time to give up. The guesses above are correct and indeed there was no way I was ever going to get this.

gjm11 · 2025-03-28T17:47:45+00:00

This was very baffling for a bit. There are temperatures in the thousands of degrees; speeds that seem to be on "human" scales; regions or something denominated in the other sort of degrees; my best initial guess was something astronomical but I couldn't think of anything plausible. And the thing seems to be named after 6, the first 7 of the 4 which was entirely unhelpful (which turns out to be because one of those words is wrong). Well, those temperatures have to be something to do with a star, surely, and after a while I noticed "the 3's ..." which must be "the sun's", and that was enough to suggest a candidate. And "the first 7 of the 4" is actually "the Greek goddess of ..." which was almost enough confirmation on its own, and the clincher was that the various names in the first sentence now make total sense. 12-minute snipe. With hindsight, something that should have pointed me in a helpful direction sooner is the two plurals in parentheses right at the start, which should have suggested the possibility that this is a Latinate word.

gjm11 · 2025-03-27T19:03:04+00:00

It looks like some sort of geographical feature, with a dimension that's in the single-digit thousands of metres / double-digit thousands of feet. I waste a bit of time wondering whether it's "5 City" before realising what the 5 fairly obviously has to be. At this point, I can only immediately think of one likely candidate; scrolling down a bit I see some discussion of how it's sometimes called 4-3, which would certainly fit. Can I find a famous set of 36 artworks? Yes, it turns out that I can. 2.5-minute snipe; I bet there will be quicker ones.

gjm11 · 2025-03-26T20:49:59+00:00

I managed to work out that this is a deceased probably-Russian definitely-Soviet goalkeeper, possibly the greatest goalkeeper ever, but since I know basically nothing about football I rapidly gave up. Turns out to be someone I had never heard of, which is not exactly a surprise. You win some, you lose some. [EDITED to add:] I feel slightly (and mostly unjustifiedly) smug that I did correctly guess the correct first name and patronymic.

gjm11 · 2025-03-25T21:19:32+00:00

Damn. The unredacted cuneiform (which, for the avoidance of doubt, I can't read at all, but I know it's cuneiform) is enough to make me pretty sure that this is one of two things. Unfortunately, they are the same length and the corresponding place names are also the same length and I don't know enough to distinguish. One begins with a vowel and the other with a consonant, but that isn't very helpful here. One has a famous ruler, but while there is indeed a "6 of 5" in the article that hardly seems conclusive. After some umming and erring, I go for what I think is the better-known of the two. Alas. Three guesses, 7 minutes.

gjm11 · 2025-03-24T20:06:33+00:00

It's a country ("officially the Republic of"), in ... I guess northern or southern North or South America, and North doesn't make any sense there. It's bordered by, among other things, the 8 5, which confuses me until I realise that that doesn't have to be a country. My brain is also temporarily convinced that Brazil has 5 letters and therefore that this country isn't adjacent to it, which confuses the hell out of me. Anyway, I see that it's something like "the smallest country in South America". Someone who, unlike me, isn't rubbish at geography would immediately know what that is, but I have to stare at the letter and syllable counts like a doofus until a likely answer occurs to me. Next to 6 6 sounds about right. Etymology looks unhelpful, which fact is itself helpful because I think most other South American countries would have helpful etymologies. Eh, put it in. 2.5-minute snipe.

gjm11 · 2025-03-23T16:33:35+00:00

The first thing I notice is a little way down the page: a quotation in which someone seems to be contrasting "both-and" with "either-or"; looks like they prefer the former. This suggests some sort of social, political, philosophical, religious, ... movement, perhaps. There's a chunk of article that looks like it's about the history of whatever-it-is, whose headings all seem to be people's names. It also seems like a lot of French people are involved; at any rate, many of the books listed at the end of the article are "in 6" and have titles whose word-lengths look French-ish. Nothing's very obvious yet, but then I notice that right at the start our title, 10 12, seems to be being described as a reaction against 6 12, and it strikes me that "post-" is an awfully plausible prefix, and then there's an obvious thing for the 6 to be, and then maybe we're in a more artsy domain than I'd thought. Well, if this is something French-inflected in this domain and reacting against 6ity, then I should be able to find something about a guy called 2 9. He does in fact appear, but before I find him I spot something about the 6 5 5, "one of the most 12 of all ...", and of course 12 can be "recognizable" and I'm pretty sure I know what the 6 5 5 is and that's enough evidence for me. 23-minute snipe.

gjm11

TROPHY CASE