[Adventurik]

I liked it, too, even if it was a long jump to get to the phrase. Couldn't have got it without help on this forum. Gotta admit the author is kinda cute.

[Gorgo]

Thank you, Baffled King and Emato; I was starting get rankled by all the negativity in the prior posts. This one took me about 90 minutes, and during that time, I admit I wasn't very impressed. Then I had the ah-HA moment, solved it and went to bed. The next day, the more I thought about it, the more I liked this puzzle. All the clues are there, requiring a bare minimum of internet searching (in fact, as mentioned previously, Google's spelling corrector did most of that work for me), and a couple of decent red herrings to make the challenge fun (for me at least).

Contrary to the complaints of several above, it's not a random guessing game, you need be fluent only in common English, and all the hints you need are right there. Especially, the clue that give it away for me:

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I was thinking there has to be some significance to the fact that the title is "Mystery Ongoing", and not "Ongoing Mystery", as it might be more commonly phrased. Keeping in mind the progress I'd made, once I focused on the title, the solution came to me within a minute.

Another tip:

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The path to the solution is quite similar to those in the "Ancient-est Crossword" and "Get Your Kicks" Theorems where you must first derive a phrase, then treat it as a crossword-style clue. In this case, the first phrase is (disregarding the word "we") synonymous with the literal translation of the solution phrase.

As for the fact that the author gets to solve it and earn points, why shouldn't the lucky puzzlesmith get 350 points for having her Theorem selected? As long as the Theorem Champ seal is left for a solver, of course.

Yeah, I liked this one a lot. If we're rating these, I'd give it 8 out of 10.

[b0b]

Re: fcr solves her own puzzle?

[The Baffled King]

fcr solves her own puzzle?

[SoItBegins]

I fiiiinally got it, just by random chance. It is something you'd hear on a detective show.

Hint: The phrase is two words, and it starts with

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M.

[emato]

Now see, I really enjoyed this one! Didn't have any trouble with it at all. I just wish I would have looked at it right away instead of today - it's one of the few I could actually have gotten in short order!

Unlike that &%@# Antisocial Media seal I *still* haven't been able to get! I don't know the elegant way, don't know JS and have an antique laptop.

But this one, I totally loved. Go figure?!

I do think it would be interesting to have a rate it box accompanying each theorem and seal. Maybe a rating for difficulty and enjoyment. Would be fun to see how others feel about each and would maybe be useful for creators and potential puzzle creators.

[Noanymous]

I agree that the first part of the puzzle was super-trivial. I don't get why people googled the paintings while everything was available in the file linked in the puzzle description.

As for the "guessing game" - i'm still "thinking". And being foreigner, i'm not sure i know this

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"latin crime stories related phrase that is widely used in English"

as some said above.

[Jynxer]

This had me going until I

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looked closely at the titles of the artwork on TMT, and compared those with the actual spellings. That gave me the clue that everyone is already talking about; which I kept interpreting as 'by the book' (which is wrong!) Think of that clue from the thieves point of view, the way they work. Then consider it from a detectives point of view

[homerow]

The Baffled King wrote:

I think it's awfully petty to complain about the technology necessary to solve, when the technology was: being able to open a pdf! Yeesh.

Agreed. It wasn't even necessary to open the PDF.

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Google's query spelling corrector works in Image Search, too.

[The Baffled King]

It's not necessary to be "fluent" in any other language; you don't really have to know the other language at all.

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The phrase is classical Latin, but don't get all involved in that. As someone else said, it's a Latin phrase that has become a part of English -- like 'habeas corpus', that was a good example.

I actually thought this was an excellent puzzle. I think it's awfully petty to complain about the technology necessary to solve, when the technology was: being able to open a pdf! Yeesh.

[MelissaJames]

scooter22 wrote:

Thanks for the genre hints. Guessed and got it knowing it was a Spoiler (Rollover to View): two-word phrase . But geez... I could print the solution given and it still wouldn't help most of us (solving the riddle). The "title" hint is completely random. In fact, the solution just points out the "random" hint without linking that the random hint is also a commonly used *shortcut* for this "famous non-English phrase".

So it is the phrase actual Latin or religious Latin? Those are two very different languages at this point. And any hints as to what it is. I only took a year of Latin, and it's not anything I'm putting in. I'm wondering if it was misspelled at some point, or my text books have a different/more obscure spelling or phrasing.

[scooter22]

Thanks for the genre hints. Guessed and got it knowing it was a

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two-word phrase

. But geez... I could print the solution given and it still wouldn't help most of us (solving the riddle). The "title" hint is completely random. In fact, the solution just points out the "random" hint without linking that the random hint is also a commonly used *shortcut* for this "famous non-English phrase".

[SoItBegins]

Hmm. The only piece that seems semi-appropriate is "habeas corpus", and that's not it. Hmm.

[caf]

I groaned when I saw non-English, too. But it's "non-English" in the sense that Rondezvous is non-English - it's used all the time by normal English speakers. Think cop shows or old detective movies. Pretty sure it's used on Law and Order or Castle although

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usually when it's used today people just use the acronym of the phrase.

[Gramps]

Sorry for the double this got chopped from my 1st post some how...

My bad with the less than signs apparently
Mods feel free to concatinate

@Ace who posted as I wrote:
Hardly fluent, you just need to be familiar with a foreign phrase that's pretty commonly known in English even outside of

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law.

No graphic program necessary just a 1024x768 screen (haven't tried this at 800x600) but the font looks like it should be OK.
You're right that last week's ("GeoCaching")should have been caught by the QA department, but have a gander at the archives -- most of them are pretty good. ("Difference", "Birds, Bees, and Strange Amalgams" & "An Attempt to document My Brain III" excepted, though much of the problem with these was ambiguity rather than actual errors.)