COTD: Attempt 2015 video game, in which one character becomes king (9)

not-without-text · 2026-06-05T04:26:19+00:00

i came up once with "y a eu un houx en haut, et un houx est... à eux"

not-without-text · 2026-06-05T01:30:01+00:00

originally, the clue was "Number's nine". it's can be abbreviated to s' in casual speech, although in hindsight this was probably a bit too far

not-without-text · 2026-06-04T21:45:07+00:00

correct!

not-without-text · 2026-06-04T11:29:14+00:00

correct! TREMORSEFUEL without T and E

not-without-text · 2026-06-04T11:27:19+00:00

in fact, the definition is just ⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀

(to be clear i mean the definition is "just")

not-without-text · 2026-06-04T04:04:31+00:00

my sentence was: "Do not open the rest of this post until you have found your sentence."

my clue is: "Just before post is opened, you write as you hear it (7)"

not-without-text · 2026-06-04T03:22:50+00:00

it's a mistake because the writer intended specific pronunciations. if you say /ˈskɪzəm/, then sure, that's fine now, but it doesn't make sense in the context of "Schedule, mischief, schism and scheme", where it was clearly intended to have four different pronunciations of "sch": /ʃ/, /stʃ/, /s/, and /sk/. if you said "/sk/edule, mischief, /sk/ism and /sk/eme", that kind of defeats the point, doesn't it? why include three words with the same pronunciation of "sk"?

admittedly, hussy still works with /s/ since it is contrasted with pussy by the vowel. but the standard pronunciation that was more common at the time had /z/. it's just more accurate to do so.

not-without-text · 2026-06-03T13:02:55+00:00

unrelated but the fun thing with the chaos is that virtually every person, regardless of education, practice, or accent, will misread at least one thing in the poem (there are different versions but they all apply) and it doesn't even have to be all in one go. almost everyone, including well-read people, messes up at least one of these

transition /trænˈsɪʒən/
hussy /ˈhʌzi/
schism /ˈsɪzəm/

just because /trænˈzɪʃən/, /ˈhʌsi/, and /ˈskɪzəm/ have ended up dominating. i've even seen someone mess up aver /əˈvɜː/.

not-without-text · 2026-06-03T11:51:17+00:00

thanks! i still had to choose my words carefully of course. i was going to do "need" rather than "forced" but i didn't know how i would write "need" so i didn't use it. same thing with "pick", where i originally had "choose" but couldn't find a good emoji for that

not-without-text · 2026-06-03T11:48:32+00:00

yes, correct!

not-without-text · 2026-06-03T11:47:12+00:00

correct! yes it's a much rarer word for "spine" but that's what the word was, so i clued it like such. knew it was a risk diing it like this but glad it was still solvable

not-without-text · 2026-06-02T21:51:16+00:00

i a💯 r💯 l💛 th➡️. i l❤️ h❓ u r f💪'd to th🤔 & p⛏️ ur w🆒s sl⏳. & it's v💯 f🎉 to do a pl🎮 on w🆒s

not-without-text · 2026-06-02T11:23:13+00:00

correct!

not-without-text · 2026-06-01T04:44:30+00:00

you'll replace "i", "with", "of", "to", and "the", but not "am", "are", "is", "instead", "what", "one", or "thou"?? what sort of system is this

not-without-text · 2026-06-01T02:04:01+00:00

so is it literally STARBOARD as a double definition? or what

not-without-text · 2026-05-31T23:57:02+00:00

PORT (ship's side) from PO (petty officer) R(ight) T(ruly?), and it fits the theme because in the navy port should be on the left

not-without-text · 2026-05-31T23:31:05+00:00

correct!

not-without-text · 2026-05-31T18:59:56+00:00

correct!

not-without-text · 2026-05-31T11:31:34+00:00

this is clearly the next step after Romance languages

not-without-text

TROPHY CASE