Apr 18, 2008 One Word Wonder Puzzle

got through the third step, but that fourth one...
:-(

edit: Tried many variations on the third step too...

Picking the letters though...

whoa, i got it! (i did all the work, except for the last step, and then i guessed. it was my first thought _before_ doing all the work...)

[1] i guessed what it is i usually "red triangle" to what's in the background picture. i didn't actually get to picking the letters.

how do you pick the letters?

I have no idea how to pick the letters either. Tried a couple of obvious things, but didn't get anything.

well
I'm brain dead
will look for a sign in the morning.

According to the solution, I was wrong-- I didn't do the third step right. Had I done it right, the fourth would've been easy. The third step depends on what "they" are.

I know the answer to the question based on the picture, but that is three words. I've tried different orders for the names of the signs....
I can't see what order is needed.

[3] & [7] tg sent :-)

Thanks...more likely for me to get it on a guess than get the third step right.

Yeah, that third step was a purposeful departure from the "normal" way of doing things here... so I'm not surprised this one got relegated to the unfeatured bucket. Looks to be pretty frustrating too, based on the comments here and the high difficulty rating.

*shrug* Oh well... sometimes you try and do things a little different to make it more challenging, but miss the mark.

I also got lost on the third step, but managed to guess. Perhaps if it had said, "Sort each one" instead of "sort them," I might have tried that. Nonetheless, another interesting and fun puzzle from the master!

I have sorted:
signs alphabetically
signs reverse alphabetically
signs alphabetically by the last letter
signs by the number of letters in their names
numbers numerically
numbers alphabetically
numbers by the number of letters in their names
And probably some other sort methods I can't remember

I have taken the first,second, third, fourth letters
I have taken the last, second-to-last,third-to last, fourth to last letters
I have taken the middle letters and worked out from there
I have taken the first,second, third.... letters
And probably some other permutations I can't remember

I have run all of the above through an anagrammer (in case my sort method of the moment was wrong)

the only word i have yielded is "oiliest" - not right

If any of this is salty - please let me know

I've sorted in almost as many ways as [12], and am still having trouble. I can't seem to put together a good guess, either....

I think I'll go read all the spam in my in-box now

-
EDIT
--------nope ------------- there was no help to be found there....

Has anyone (of the 14 solvers to this time) solved this using the clues "properly" or has everyone guessed the answer?

edit
well, you can add me to the guessers - finally!

whew finally
this was kind of tough, but i liked it

Yay! I guessed too. But I got it, so that's what counts. Never would have gotten 3rd step right from the way the instructions are written. I agree with [11], would have made much more sense to say "sort each".

I've reached the point where [12] was. Ugh!

ALL: You want the LAST word of the phrase. That's the answer.

Sheesh.

I give up.
Loading Solution...(never a good sign)
Something new indeed.

Ouch, three days in and I still got in the top 100, 73rd.

I didn't get it initially, completely forgot about it, browsed the unfeatured, saw it again, and got it in about 10 seconds! Nice puzzle, Doc.

[21] Well, I'm a year and a few months in, and I'm 108th.

[19] was what did it for me. However I have to admit that from a couple of other posts, I was getting ready to do the sorting the proper way, and I think I would have solved it properly from there.