c4countdown

A good friend of mine and also Australia's leading con man (http://www.conman.com.au/) came up with this puzzle/game over on one of the magic forums I visit. I thought it would be just the kind of thing that might go down well over here. So here it is in his own words:

Tricky Nick wrote:

What is the next word in the line?
STOP
STAIN
GLOSS
SLAVES
SOOTHS
FIRES
ROMAN
..........

There are a few correct answers..

After you get the puzzle you can carry on and find the subsequent words in the chain.

George

Are there any hints you could give us?

Is the next word COUNTERREVOLUTIONARIES?

I'll explain why if I'm right.

Would MEALS work? It definitely has a property that the other words have, the only thing that bothers me is that my answer doesn't depend on the order of the list, so if order is important we're obviously thinking along different lines.

I was thinking it maybe has something to do with anagrams, but don't think its right.

My answer does, in a sense.

Looking at it again, I could use completely different logic to justify an answer like STAR. I think there are many ways this sequence can be continued sensibly (i.e. without using really contrived logic, as you can continue pretty much any sequence if you try hard enough), hopefully the final answer will be a particularly nice way of doing it.

I have a long history of not really thinking about these puzzles and diving in with an erroneous answer so I thought why not dive in and reveal my idiocy anyway.

I was looking at anagrams and it seems that each word has an anagram that is a synonym of the proceeding word, am I on the right lines?

STOP (SPOT) STAIN (SATIN? this one is a bit loose but I was thinking that satin is glossy at least ) GLOSS (SLOGS) SLAVES (SALVES) SOOTHS (I came a bit unstuck here but it's a problem posed by an Aussie so I suspect this is really SOOTHES hence I could make the jump which gives us SHOOTS) FIRES (SERIF) ROMAN and to continue the chain we need a synonym of an anagram of ROMAN. Am I right in thinking that you could have CITADEL, CASTLE or MANSION etc because MANOR is an anagram of ROMAN? Or, it does seem that the next link in the chain must share at least one letter with the preceding one so probably I would go for MANSION.

David O'Donnell wrote:
I was looking at anagrams and it seems
that each word has an anagram that is a synonym of the proceeding word,
am I on the right lines?

If that isn't the answer, then it bloody well should be!

And MANSION is definitely the best answer if you look at its anagrams

Paul Howe wrote:

David O'Donnell wrote:
I was looking at anagrams and it seems
that each word has an anagram that is a synonym of the proceeding word,
am I on the right lines?

If that isn't the answer, then it bloody well should be!


And MANSION is definitely the best answer if you look at its anagrams

LOL! I hadn't even noticed that Paul! Nice one. I was thinking though that it must by synonymous (rather than a synonym otherwise how do I really get from SERIF to ROMAN?) with the proceeding word so ....

MANSION

CORBY

David O'Donnell wrote:MANSION

CORBY

lol

But CORBY has no anagram. You broke the chain!

I think the challenge should now be to make the chain repeating, so somehow carry on from the bottom and arrive back at STOP...

But who cares what I think.

ROMAN
DEN
STOP

David Williams wrote:ROMAN
DEN
STOP

Oh.

I've been offline for a couple of days so I've just seen your progress. David has it pretty much spot on. We went for mansion, too. I think the sharing of a letter was just a coincidence.

Here's the game on the other forum:
http://www.themagiccafe.com/forums/view ... rum=101&25

I assumed satin/gloss was kind of the same if you think of them as adjectives for paint.

George

I think the only way to continue this challenge is to decide upon a word and see if we can get to it via a chain. Anybody have a word in mind? Please don't make it ridiculously difficult as I am an idiot.

Corby wrote:

David O'Donnell wrote:MANSION

CORBY

But CORBY has no anagram. You broke the chain!

Oh REALLY! According to your logic on the infamous "GERANIUMS" conundrum issue wouldn't CORBY be an anagram of itself?

David O'Donnell wrote:Oh REALLY! According to your logic on the infamous "GERANIUMS" conundrum issue wouldn't CORBY be an anagram of itself?

This is entirely different and you know it

If proper nouns are allowed then you do have an anagram.

CORBY
BUILDERS