response 101 of 388:

Nov 28 03:43 UTC 2001

hmmm... good point.

well, if you've got a guess, go for it

response 103 of 388:

Nov 28 04:00 UTC 2001

was there a scoring error on dubious? as far as I can tell, there's no string
of letters that satisfies all the clues, let alone a word.

response 105 of 388:

Nov 28 08:21 UTC 2001

So I tried again. :)


 netizen 1,0 (brighn)    --tiz--         ---i---
 nothing 1,2 (gelinas)   -othi-g         -o-hi-- i is right, so o or g placed*
 haggard 1,2 (gelinas)   haggard         ha--ar- ha + a|r
 created 0,2 (brighn)    cr-at-d         cr-a--- one of ra, so c
 noggins 1,1 (gelinas)   -oggi--         -o--i-- i is right, so o or g placed*
 dubious 1,1 (brighn)    dubiou-         ---io-- i, if g not b
 naughty 1,2 (gelinas)   -aughty         -au-h-y a|u
 nemeses 0,0 (brighn)
 ravings 1,1 (gelinas)   ravi-g-         ravi---
 ravines 1,1 (brighn)    ravi---         ravi--- if one rav, not g.

The two lines marked by * put the "correctly placed" /g/ in _different_
places, but both have /o/ in the same place.

Given the elimination of /s/ by "nemeses", and the elimination of /d/
by "dubious", we are left with:

 solidly 5,0 (gelinas)   -oli-ly

Note that the scores for "haggard" and "created" result in four letters,
/h/, /a/, /c/, and either /r/ or a second /a/, to fit in two spots.

response 107 of 388:

Nov 28 15:17 UTC 2001

Here's my own analysis. From "solidly", we know:
_olidly = 5,0
giving us one of these frames:
1.__lidly
2._o_idly
3._ol_dly
4._oli_ly
5._olid_y
6._olidl_

From "netizen" and "nemeses", we know:
__tiz__ = 1,0
This rules out 3 (because _olidly would be worth 6).
Further, we know that three of the letters must be in "haggard", which rules
out 4.
This leaves us:
1.__lidly
2._o_idly
5._olid_y
6._olidl_
where the two blanks must be filled with two of (h,a,g,g,a,r). Also, we know
that exactly one of the two letters from haggar_ must be in the right place:
1a. hglidly
1b. hrlidly
1c. galidly
1d. aalidly
1e. ralidly
2a. hoaidly
2b. horidly
2c. aogidly
2d. gogidly
2e. rogidly
5a. holiday
5b. holidgy
5c. aolidry
5d. golidry
6a. holidla
6b. holidlg
6c. holidlr

Exactly two of the letters are from rad (created, no c, e, t in the remaining
strings), which rules out 1a, 1e, 2d, 5b, 5c, 6b.
Exactly two of the letters are from oggi (noggins, no n, s [nemeses]), which
also rules out 1b, 1d, 2c, 2e, 5d.
Since there's no e, there's no g (ravines/ravings), ruling out 1c.

This leaves us with:
2a. hoaidly
2b. horidly
5a. holiday
6a. holidla
6c. holidlr

No n, u, g, or t, so naughty tells us there is an a, h, and y, and that the
y is in the final position (since h and a are different in all cases from
naughty). That rules out all but 2a. and 5a:

2a. hoiadly
5a. holiday

created rules out 2a ("a" in the same position), so "holiday" is the only
string of seven letters that satisfies all the scorings but dubious. Which
means that at least one of the words is scored wrong (or the solution word
has more than 7 letters). =}

Hey, at least we got to see how two different people approached the same
problem. ;} And since Joe and I came to the same conclusion, I'll take the
next round.

Ironic that dubious's scoring would be dubious.

Since we appear to be slowly losing our group on sanity, I'm thinking of an
eight latter word (fewer options, I think, but increasingly obscure ones).

response 109 of 388:

Nov 28 20:44 UTC 2001

To get us going:

starting

response 111 of 388:

Nov 28 21:02 UTC 2001

starting 2,2 (gelinas) (good first guess ;} )
software 2,1 (blaise)

response 113 of 388:

Nov 29 03:00 UTC 2001

struggle 1,2 (gelinas) (hopefully not too much of a struggle...)

response 115 of 388:

Nov 29 04:40 UTC 2001

sandwich 1,1 (blaise)

response 117 of 388:

Nov 29 13:29 UTC 2001

shysters

response 119 of 388:

Nov 30 04:26 UTC 2001

Looks like we are getting nowhere fast.

manatees

response 121 of 388:

Nov 30 16:03 UTC 2001

solution

response 123 of 388:

Nov 30 17:26 UTC 2001

Thank you, Jim.  I, at least, will, in due course, crib from you. :)