HDTenEightyP/NetNews huggingface dataset:
From: jimhsu@athena.mit.edu (Jimmy M.D. Hsu)
Subject: Oxymoron-->New Thread
Organization: Massachusetts Institute of Technology
Date: Sun, 13 Sep 1992 15:13:54 GMT

I was thinking about recent oxymoron postings,
when I happened to consider the phrase:

Iambic Pentameter.

I guess with the laws of probability,
it's no surprise that it doesn't have the
correct number of syllables!

But notice how the word 'prefix'
has a prefix with it!

*******************************************
My question is:  What are some other words
that are self-descriptive like this?  That
is, the word contains its definition or has
an implicit concept which is its meaning?
*******************************************

The word prefix isn't a very good solution,
since "pre" is the prefix, not "prefix."

Onomatopoeia does not count!!!
(simply because it's too easy)

P.S.  I noticed that my use of the word
implicit appears to be an oxymoron!  Yet,
in the context of the question, it is
not an oxymoron.  Strange.

Explanation:  implicit is defined as
"understood from something else though
unexpressed" but it is expressed
simply by the presence of the word itself!
In the context of the question, though, I
am looking for a concept that is understood
without the obvious meaning of the word.

This probably makes no sense, but I understand
it now.  It makes more sense if you think of
implicit as being capable of being understood.
(doesn't help much, does it?)

--
James Amdee

Standard Disclaimer
My opinions do not reflect those of MIT :^>  (smirk, smirk)
Standard Disclaimer 2 (for posting to rec.puzzles)
I have not read the FAQ!!!
Note:  I have not read the FAQ.
I must reiterate, I have...
Oh, you get the idea.    etc, etc, etc, etc...
Newsgroups: rec.puzzles
From: shimoff@umbc4.umbc.edu (Eliot Shimoff)
Subject: Re: redundancy
Organization: Univ. of MD, Baltimore County
Date: Fri, 11 Sep 1992 17:11:24 GMT

Or, if nobody's said it yet (I jumped right into the middle of this),
the classic DOS Operating System.

But the most outrageous redundancy of all is the single-word
redundancy "relationship."  The suffix "-ship" means "relation of"
(kinship is relation of kin, friendship is relation of friend, etc.).
So "relationship" is relation of relation?




-- 
Eliot Shimoff                  |    n   n   n
   shimoff@umbc3.umbc.edu      |   X + Y = Z .  Easy to prove no solutions
Ashamnu, bagadnu, gazalnu ...  |   for n greater than 2.  Darn.  Can't fit
Better luck next year!         |   it into this little .sig file.  Oh well.
From: gjm11@cus.cam.ac.uk (G.J. McCaughan)
Newsgroups: rec.puzzles
Subject: Re: 4 color atlas
Date: 11 Sep 92 16:53:17 GMT
Organization: U of Cambridge, England

In article <1992Sep11.133849.16820@cs.cornell.edu>, karr@cs.cornell.edu (David Karr) writes:

>                                 (The argument goes that a simple proof
> that assigns an extremely high probability to some proposition is
> better than a long, complicated proof--by a human hand--that purports
> to show the same result with certainty, because the latter actually
> has a higher likelihood of being wrong.)

Ah, but if there is a mistake in the "proper" proof we can (in theory) find it;
if the probabilistic argument turns out to have hit an improbable exception we
may have no way of knowing that.

-- 
Gareth McCaughan     Dept. of Pure Mathematics & Mathematical Statistics,
gjm11@cus.cam.ac.uk  Cambridge University, England.    [Research student]
From: clong@remus.rutgers.edu (Chris Long)
Newsgroups: rec.puzzles
Subject: Re: Cliff Puzzle 4 (SPOILER)
Date: 15 Sep 92 23:03:52 GMT
Organization: Rutgers Univ., New Brunswick, N.J.

In article <1992Sep15.205532.4172@watson.ibm.com>, Cliff Pickover writes:

> 1.  In how many hours will you expect to get the marble out of bottle 10
> after placing the marble in bottle 1?

The expected amount of time to go from state n-1 to n (state 11 is an
absorbing state) is

E(n-1,n) = 1 + E(1,n)/2 for 1<n<11;

also

E(n-1,n+1) = E(n-1,n) + E(n,n+1) for 1<n<11.

If n=2 then E(1,2) = 1 + E(1,2)/2 ==> E(1,2) = 2 (it should be clear
that no E is infinite for this problem).

E(2,3) = 1 + E(1,3)/2 = 1 + E(1,2)/2 + E(2,3)/2 ==> E(2,3)/2 = 2
==> E(1,3) = 6.

I claim that in general E(1,n) = 2^n - 2 and E(n-1,n) = 2^(n-1).
Assume true for n, then E(n,n+1) = 1 + E(1,n+1)/2 = 1 + E(1,n)/2 +
E(n,n+1)/2 ==> E(n,n+1)/2 = 1 + E(1,n)/2 ==> E(n,n+1) = 2 + E(1,n)
==> E(n,n+1) = 2 + 2^n - 2 = 2^n.  Furthermore E(1,n+1) = E(1,n) +
E(n,n+1) = 2^n - 2 + 2^n = 2^(n+1) - 2.  Therefore by induction the
result is established.

Now E(1,11) = E(1,10) + 1 (ball can't go back to bottle 1 after
leaving bottle 10) = 2^10 - 1.

> 2. Is there a general formula for the amount of time
> required to get the ball out of bottle N into bottle N+1 given
> a probability P of backwards motion (given as 50% in this problem)?

I'd have to check my work, but I get E(n,n+1) = q^n, where q = 1/(1-p).

> 3.  In how many hours will you expect to get the marble out of bottle 10
> after placing the marble in bottle 1 given two backward tubes for each
> bottle instead of one backward tube?

I get E(1,n) = (q^n - q)/(q-1), so E(1,11) = E(1,10) + 1 =
(3^10 - 3)/2 + 1.
-- 
Chris Long, 265 Old York Rd., Bridgewater, NJ  08807-2618
From: roger@quantime.co.uk (Roger Phillips)
Newsgroups: rec.puzzles.crosswords
Subject: ACC 9
Date: 15 Sep 92 23:52:18 GMT
Reply-To: roger@quantime.co.uk (Roger Phillips)
Organization: Quantime Ltd, London (software for market research)

Araucaria Clueing Competition no. 9

To enter, write a cryptic clue for the word given below
(only one clue per person, please).
Email it to me by 23:59 GMT, 25 Sep 92.
I'll post my choice of winning clue soon after that,
and a list of all the clues I receive.
The winner will be invited to judge the next ACC.

The word to clue (disguised in rot13 mode) is:

        FHAONGURE

[As a guide, I'm interested in neatly worded clues.]
-- 
Roger Phillips                            roger@quantime.co.uk
"*tick* n. crib-biting: a whimsy" -- Chambers English Dictionary (1988)
From: tomd@bali.amd.com (Tom Deneau)
Newsgroups: rec.puzzles.crosswords
Subject: CWC16 winning clues
Date: 4 Sep 92 21:16:11 GMT
Organization: Advanced Micro Devices, Austin TX

Here are the winning clues for CWC16 :

The winning clue for the first word is

    Storm beaten, we dare the wind. (9)

which was submitted by msm@src.dec.com.  (The entry
did not include the full name).


The winning clue for the second word is

    Former temp worked for free.  (6)

which was submitted by Matt Hudelson
(ghod@milton.u.washington.edu).


I liked both these clues about equally and I did
what some previous judges have done and chose
the clue for the more difficult word as the
overall winner.  Thus, I have invited Matt to
judge CWC17.  Congratulations, Matt.

Thanks to all the entrants.
There were a number of very good clues, particularly
for the first word.  I did notice a drop off in the
number of clues from what I have seen in some of the 
previous contests.  There were 17 entries for word 1,
18 for word 2.  I imagine the summer holidays have some effect.

I will try to post the complete list of clues with some
comments either later today or over the weekend.


   -- Tom

 Tom Deneau                    {uunet, cs.utexas.edu!ames}!amdcad!cayman!tomd
 Advanced Micro Devices, Austin TX     +1 512 462 4952     tom.deneau@AMD.COM
From: croson@husc15.harvard.edu
Newsgroups: rec.puzzles.crosswords
Subject: Xword-writing Software?
Date: 9 Sep 92 16:21:57 GMT
Article-I.D.: husc15.1992Sep9.122157.15495
Organization: Harvard University Science Center

Does anyone have any experience with crossword construction software?  I'd like
to write some average-quality "theme" crosswords where I could specify some
portion of the word list.  The program just needs to accept my words and throw
in other words to make the grid; I'll do my own clue-writing.

I saw an ad in GAMES for one of these, but I really have no idea whether it's
worth the money or what its capabilities are.  Does anyone have experience with
these?  PC or Mac are both OK.

Thanks a lot!

Dave Croson
dcroson@hbs.harvard.edu
From: clong@remus.rutgers.edu (Chris Long)
Newsgroups: rec.puzzles.crosswords
Subject: Re: OSPD and Other On-line Word Lists
Date: 6 Sep 92 00:13:06 GMT
Organization: Rutgers Univ., New Brunswick, N.J.

In article <1992Sep3.142440.13742@newshost.lanl.gov>, John Hutchinson writes:

> These word lists are great, Chris.  But do you have them on disk or in some
> other electronic media format?  That was the original question in this
> thread.

I have them on a hard drive on a PC.  I've gotten numerous requests
for them, and I simply don't have the time.  Some of the word lists
are available via anonymous ftp (the foreign lists, the two random
English lists, the name lists, and the smaller specific lists).  I'll
dig up the ftp information I have and post here.

I've already promised NI2 to one person, and that's about all I can
handle right now.  I got burned the first time I sent someone my
lists (8 HDDS diskettes, plus my time, plus postage, and I never heard
from him again; a well-known NPL member, too), and I'm probably
going to be burned by another person I just mailed 8 disks of lists
to (but perhaps I'm being cynical).

If anyone really wants the lists that you can't get by ftp, send me 
your name and address and what you want.  I'll eventually get to it at
some point, but don't hold your breath.  I don't want any money or
even the disks back, but I would appreciate something interesting in
return (puzzles, word lists you have that I didn't list, etc.).
-- 
Chris Long, 265 Old York Rd., Bridgewater, NJ  08807-2618

"In a study of schoolboys, an educator discovered a correlation between size
 of feet and quality of handwriting.  The boys with the larger feet were,
 on the average, older."        Wallis & Roberts, _The Nature of Statistics_
Newsgroups: rec.puzzles.crosswords
From: richard@ssd.intel.com (Richard Chamberlain)
Subject: ACC8 Winner
Organization: Supercomputer Systems Division, Intel Corp.
Date: Tue, 15 Sep 1992 16:33:21 GMT

ACC8   Winner
=============

From a strong and imaginitive entry, I have chosen the clue:

 Whip with a strip of leather, hard, heading for erotic climax (11)

sent in by Roger Philips (roger@quantime.co.uk) to be the winner.
Congratulations, Roger. Roger has volunteered to run ACC9. I will
publish a list of all the clues tomorrow.

*****************************************************************
Richard Chamberlain     richard@ssd.intel.com
From: steiner@andy.bgsu.edu (Ray Steiner)
Subject: Clue explanation wanted
Organization: Bowling Green State University B.G., Oh.
Date: Tue, 15 Sep 1992 16:34:49 GMT

Here is a clue from a puzzle from the latest issue of
CROSSWORD:
See: More applicable to a saint than a bishop?(8)
The answer(deduced from the grid) is ENVISION.
Could someone please explain the part after "See:"?
Many tas in advance.
Ray Steiner
-- 
steiner@andy.bgsu.edu
From: roger@quantime.co.uk (Roger Phillips)
Newsgroups: rec.puzzles.crosswords
Subject: Re: Clue explanation wanted
Date: 15 Sep 92 23:45:55 GMT
Reply-To: roger@quantime.co.uk (Roger Phillips)
Organization: Quantime Ltd, London (software for market research)

In article <BuMoq2.8u5@andy.bgsu.edu>,
steiner@andy.bgsu.edu (Ray Steiner) writes:
> Here is a clue from a puzzle from the latest issue of
> CROSSWORD:
> See: More applicable to a saint than a bishop?(8)

This is a clue from a competition crossword,
and the closing date is September 28th,
so discussion of it here might be premature.
-- 
Roger Phillips                            roger@quantime.co.uk
"*pooter* n. an entomological collecting bottle
into which small arthropods are introduced by suction"
-- Chambers English Dictionary (1988)
Newsgroups: rec.puzzles.crosswords
From: ghod@milton.u.washington.edu (Matthew Hudelson)
Subject: CWC17 - Give me your clues yearning to be free....
Summary: CWC17 announcement
Organization: University of Washington
Date: Sat, 5 Sep 1992 18:03:44 GMT


Tom Deneau has asked me to set round 17, so ...

     CLUE WRITING COMPETITION NUMBER 17

Welcome to Clue Writing Competition No. 17 (devised by Ian Gent).  The
rules, and this article, are much the same as used in earlier rounds.

The dates for CWC 17 are:

  Monday    14 September 23:59 PDT   Deadline for CWC17 entries
  Tuesday   15 September             I'll post the CWC17 winners
  Wednesday 16 September             I'll post an annotated list of entries.

The rules:

Later on in this posting you'll find two words.  The first word is
chosen to be fairly easy to write a clue for; the second is intended to
be more awkward.

You may submit clues for either or both words.  I will accept only one
clue per person for each word; If you send more than one for a word, I
will accept the first one I receive.  E-mail the clues, along with your
name and e-mail address, explanations of how your clues work, and
whether or not you could run the next contest, to me at the following
address:

     ghod@milton.u.washington.edu

After the deadline, I'll pick my favorite clue for each word.  Thus
there will be two winning clues.  I'll pick my favorite of these two as
the overall winner, inviting its writer to set the next round of this
competition.  I'll post separately a list of runner-up clues, and all
the remaining clues, with as much commentary as I see fit.

IMPORTANT: Please DO NOT post your own clues, or anything else that
might give away the answer words!  Some readers of this group want to
try solving the winning clues; please don't spoil it for them.

The words for CWC17 follow, "rot13" encoded for extra security,
after a ^L and 35 blank lines




































FGENGNTRZ

FDHRRMR

-- 
_________________________________________________________________

My taste in clues tends to run in favor of short clues which 
don't require esoteric knowledge (e.g. "Kit Kat") to solve.
Of course, the more cleanly they read, the better.

Matt Hudelson
ghod@milton.u.washington.edu

This message has been made possible by a grant from the National 
Endowment for the Idiocies in conjunction with the Council for
American Slovenliness, your local public delousing station and
viewers like you who support public nuisances.
Newsgroups: rec.puzzles.crosswords
From: eric@Turing.ORG (Eric Prestemon)
Subject: CCCCN-C 1
Reply-To: ecprest@pocorvares.er.usgs.gov
Organization: The Turing Project, Charlottesville Virginia.
Date: Fri, 11 Sep 1992 00:56:15 GMT


I have been watching the cryptic clue writing contests on this group,
and I was struck by the waste of writing 20 clues for one word. Nobody
can solve all 20, because they know the word after one.
   So I came up with CCCCN-C, The Cooperative Cryptic Crossword Clue
Non-Competition. 
   Just send me email (to ecprest@pocorvares.er.usgs.gov preferably,
or this address) and I will send you the length of word for you to clue,
and any letters that are pre-determined from previous words. 
   I don't know what to do if crummy clues are written, or if we get
to a point where no word will fit. We'll jump those hurdles when we 
come to them.
   As of now, the only rules are:
1) All words must fit in their assigned spots in the grid.
2) I, Eric Prestemon, must be able to understand the solution (after
   further explanation, if need be)

I have a 13x13 grid on hand for this, but if response is huge, we could 
go for larger puzzles. The final puzzle grid and clues will be posted
in text (and a really nice postscript) format if it is ever completed.

Suggestions and assignment requests to ecprest@pocorvares.er.usgs.gov
-Eric
(Note: I do not know about legal issues, but I believe authors can
keep claim to their clues. In other words, I am not going to sell the
resulting puzzle)
-- 
Eric Prestemon (ecp2z@virginia.edu) 
"Jesus saves! Gretzky steals! Gretzky scores!"
Newsgroups: rec.puzzles.crosswords
From: ghod@milton.u.washington.edu (Matthew Hudelson)
Subject: CWC17 Winners
Organization: University of Washington
Date: Tue, 15 Sep 1992 21:50:54 GMT

CWC17 is concluded and I'm pleased to introduce the winning clues,
so here they are:

Word 1 (submitted by msm@src.dec.com):

     A million low women turn a trick.  (9)

Word 2 (submitted by Paul Asente):

     Risque frieze ends in an embrace.  (7)

From these, I'm following tradition and choosing Paul Asente's clue for
the harder word as the overall winner.  The judging for this contest was
brutal;  different judges with different tastes might very well have
chosen other clues to win this contest.  I chose these since they read
very nicely, they were short, and they didn't use straight anagrams.

Anyway, I'll post all of the clues submitted in a later post.

                      -- Yours in Obralgnrax,

                         Matt Hudelson

P.S.  Congratulations to Paul.  I'm looking forward to CWC18.
From: dsbb@ns1.cc.lehigh.edu (D. SPENCER BEECHER)
Newsgroups: rec.puzzles
Subject: Re: oxymorons
Date: 8 Sep 92 23:02:52 GMT
Organization: Lehigh University

Ever look up "oxymoron" in the dictionary?
-- 
                   _ _     _ _     _ _
  -Spence         [O.O]   )x.x(   )O.O(
                    O       O      -*-
Newsgroups: rec.puzzles
From: sb102760@ntuvax.ntu.ac.sg
Subject: Re: 20 question stories
Organization: Nanyang Technological University - Singapore
Date: Tue, 8 Sep 1992 01:18:52 GMT

 
> I enjoy doing this type of puzzle quite a lot.  The best
> ones tend to be those with very short, cryptic situations, and
> you have to spend a few minutes just figuring what's going on.
 
> 2. "He pushed his car to the hotel, and knew he was bankrupt"
	Kinda hard to answer without asking more, few possibilities, one of
which
	a)	He was rushing to the hotel to close a deal/sign a contract
		etc to avoid bankruptcy but the car broke down. He arrived
		and saw i) his rival leaving, just clinching the deal,
			ii) his hotel (his) foreclosed,
			iii) his 'clients' leaving.

		Which brings to question if his car was somehow part of the
		deal. If it was not (like he did not need it present), why
		the heck didn't he leave it where it was and get there earlier?
		In most cases, it's the assessors who come to see the car and
		even if he promised to bring it down, he could have done better
		than trying to push it to the hotel on time. Granted leaving
		your car around is asking for trouble but well, the
		possibilities are endless.

 
> 3. There is a small group of stones and a carrot in the
> middle of an untouched wheat field.  How did they get there?
	More hints ?
 
> 5. A man is lying dead in the middle of a field clutching a
> twig in his hand.  How come?

	The man fell from a balloon. The balloon was in trouble and needed
	to get rid of some weight or else they'll crash into sea or cliff
	or somewhere unpleasant to crash from a balloon. The man is probably
 	naked if he tried to remove all unnecessary articles. Finally, he
	and his partner (yep, a basic assumption if this explanation is to
	be convincing) drew straws to see which one gets off at am earlier
	stop. I guess he lost. (not necessarily, in all probability, he
	did not get off willingly, so he was probably the slower one.)
 
> 6. A person goes into the desert, cuts off one arm and
> buries it.
	He cut off an arm of a cactus plant and planted it.
	Any other solution ? Another plant maybe ?
	
> 7. Two people order vennison.  One rushes outside and
> commits suicide.
	How about the seagull sandwich variation of this ?

ET.
From: steppe@ccwf.cc.utexas.edu (Top Changwatchai)
Newsgroups: rec.puzzles
Subject: Re: Logic Problem: Be Prepared (SOLUTION)
Date: 8 Sep 92 04:03:44 GMT

In article <BtyrxB.H56@usenet.ucs.indiana.edu> bodom@silver.ucs.indiana.edu (Brian Odom) writes:
>Yet another logic problem:
>Difficulty: medium
>
>"You always bring more stuff than anyone else," Justin's friends grumbled as
>...
>Brian T Odom

Solution follows (q to skip):

1  Carl Reddy   - shovel
2  Hal North    - first aid kit
3  Jim Forrest  - sewing kit
4  Don Summers  - a rope
5  Abe Lake     - tape

Top

-- 
steppe@ccwf.cc.utexas.edu
"I'm gonna live forever or die trying."
From: M.Willis@ee.surrey.ac.uk (Mike Willis)
Newsgroups: rec.puzzles
Subject: Re: oxymorons
Date: 8 Sep 92 12:01:06 GMT
Organization: University of Surrey, Guildford, Surrey, UK. GU2 5XH


also I forgot

Political:

Caring Conservatism.
Parlimentary Honour.
One party democracy.
From: dant@techbook.com (Dan Tilque)
Newsgroups: rec.puzzles
Subject: Re: Visual Puns [was: Audible Puzzles ...]
Keywords: puzzle
Date: 5 Sep 92 08:09:50 GMT
Article-I.D.: techbook.1992Sep5.080950.15632
Organization: Pseudopolis Yard

ncramer@labs-n.bbn.com (Nichael Cramer) writes:
>
>I've always been intrigued by the converse problem: i.e. puns that work
>purely on a visual level and that make no sense at all aurally.

Science News had an interesting article on this kind of thing not too
long ago (May 9).  Psychologists have been studying this for a number
of years.

What they do is have a column of color words written in a different
color.  That is, RED would be written in blue, GREEN in red, and so on.
Then they have their victim  er... subject try to name the colors.  Few
people can do so quickly.  However, reading the words is easy.

---
Dan Tilque    --     dant@techbook.com
From: gt6192a@prism.gatech.EDU (Scott Turney)
Newsgroups: rec.puzzles
Subject: Re: Puzzle 1
Date: 16 Sep 92 04:04:33 GMT
Organization: Georgia Institute of Technology

In article <136345@lll-winken.LLNL.GOV> moon@haydn.llnl.gov (Steven Moon) writes
>|>     0123456789
>|>     6210001000
>|>     no solutions found
>|>
>       I found the solution for the third row
>
>       2061116111
 
 
If I understand the puzzle correctly, your 2 in the third row means that

there are 2 sixes in the third row, which there are. The next digit (0)

means that there are 0 twos in the third row, but the very first number

is a two! Am I confused? Are you? :)
-- 
TURNEY,STEPHEN SCOTT
Georgia Institute of Technology, Atlanta Georgia, 30332
uucp:	  ...!{decvax,hplabs,ncar,purdue,rutgers}!gatech!prism!gt6192a
Internet: gt6192a@prism.gatech.edu
Newsgroups: rec.puzzles
From: jkenton@world.std.com (Jeff Kenton)
Subject: Re: Another words game
Organization: Kenton Systems Corporation, Weston MA
Date: Wed, 9 Sep 1992 13:55:43 GMT

In article <1992Sep8.203253.8750@vax.oxford.ac.uk> peake@vax.oxford.ac.uk writes:
>I came across this puzzle a few years ago.  We called it the 
>LastLestListLostLust game, and the idea was to find new names for it.
>The best answer we found had seven-letter words.  (Adding -ing etc. to
>words doesn't count.)


	Blander-Blender-Blinder-Blonder-Blunder

Can anyone take it to 8 letters?


-- 
-------------------------------------------------------------------------
=			Jeff Kenton	(617) 894-4508			=
=			    jkenton@world.std.com			=
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