[kian]

For what it's worth, here's my best theory for this card...

Spoiler (Rollover to View):

Here is my list of the names of countries on the card, given in the "mother tongue" of each country: Shqiperia, Angola, Osterreich, Brasil, Tchad, Ecuador, Misr, Guinea Ecuatorial, Ertra, Guyane, Sakartvelo, Guatemala, Eire, Yisra'el, Nihon, Al-'Urdunn, Lao, Liberia, Al-Muritaniyah, Nederland, Nouvelle-Caledonie, Uman, Rossiya, Soomaaliya, Hanguk, Espana, United Kingdom, United States, O'zbekistan The first letters of the above names are: SAOBTEMGEGSGEYNALLANNURSHEUUO This anagrams to: ETHNOLOGUE SAYS LANGUAGES NUMBER...

[aliendial]

No worries, it was a hard slog at the time, and kind of a letdown when it was figured out. You got to miss all that, anyway!

[Big_Cal]

Hah, Sigh, I apologise for this momentary lapse in concentration, I read most of the thread but completely missed the answer....oh well. Thanks

[aliendial]

Welcome to the forums, Cal. We like to be pretty organized around here, and that means catching up on what has come before so you don't spend your time on avenues that have already been tried. We have a nice and robust [search] function too, to help you search for relevant information in the forums. However, in this case all you needed to do was read a few posts up to get the basic news. I'm sorry that the thread is so long. But you really should read it before you do all that work and post something that is not needed. This is solved.

[Big_Cal]

Mountains?

[Hunting4Treasure]

domroberts wrote:

Wouldn't worry about it Bendover. (sounds odd typing that lol)

Thanks! I needed that!

[domroberts]

Wouldn't worry about it Bendover. (sounds odd typing that lol)

I tried a guess for 13th Labour today, and now realise that all the database actually does is check if your guess has already been entered into its own list. Its not meant for checking if a solve is correct or not.

Useful tool, just as long as we understand how it does what it does!!

YAY! SOLVED IT AT LAST! *dreams of that elusive first solve*

[Bendover]

Hello all. I am the one who inadvertantly added the number to the mentioned data base. I was testing the data base and thought it took its list from actual attempts on the perplex city site. As best as I could I suggested the number's use as a solve, but as the site was so inaccurate I did not know people thought it was infallible. So I apologise. I however got my punishment in that as I was locked out I could not enter the solve and therefore could not taste the joy of being number 1 if only for a little while last night.

[domroberts]

Good idea, but that would mean Mind Candy has to explain the rules to "petals around the rose", which according to the rules, you aren't allowed to do!

EDIT - and with Mornington Crescent, there would be little point, as the rules are already so well known to everybody. hehe

[beglee]

Is anybody else here with me in hoping that at some point MC will release descriptions of certain (or all) card puzzles, so that we can see how we were actually meant to solve the puzzles (as long as weve already solved em). I wouldnt mind getting a full explanation of this card, Mosaically Challenged and Polar (only ones i can think of right now), to see if we were fully right in how we got to each answer, or to see if we missed anything.

[domroberts]

ramsfan wrote:

I can get sum the number of single languages if uzbek = u, great britain = g, and french guyana/france = f.

That sounds like the way to go. Not perfect perhaps, but I'm bought.

Now, has anyone got a time machine so we can travel into the future and reverse engineer Shuffled?

Dom

[ramsfan]

I've been working back too. I can get sum the number of single languages if uzbek = u, great britain = g, and french guyana/france = f. Otherwise same as beglee. I can't do one tongue numberless languages because of y/israel. Nice if you got the right answer for the wrong reason. Somehow more satisfying.

[Rand0m]

Here's the piece of trivia that sent us barking up the wrong tree for the better part of a fortnight:

If you take the internet top level domains for all the countries and run a check on the 58/60 letters, you'll find they almost exactly match the frequency you'd expect from written English. Too many Gs, but I think we all worked out the word 'language' was in there somewhere. The Z from Uzbekistan is a problem, until you realise that all sorts of phrases about 'Berlitz foreign language users' are possible. And if you look at the international Berlitz website you'll see the map on the front page is very similar to the card, but with the addition of little flags and the countries' TLDs. God, we were so convinced...

[miamo_tutti]

Further conjecturing about the answer:

Spoiler (Rollover to View):

So which anagram are we saying is THE one that points to the solution? Because doublecross' ONE TONGUE, NUMBERLESS LANGUAGES was the one that got me to the answer. I guess SUM THE NUMBER OF SINGLE LANGUAGES is too specific to be a coincidence, though.

[domroberts]

As far as I know, someone typed it in to check if it was on the database, which accidentally ended up marking it as tried and failed. And before anyone asks, no it wasn't me! Instead, I spent ages Googling to see if it really was that number or not...

4 hours and I get on the solved list. Yay! (through gritted teeth)