CISRA Puzzle Competition 2012 - Solutions

5C. Cloorsu

This puzzle has four groups of sixteen alphabetically sorted lines. Within each line, each "word"'s letters are also alphabetically sorted. Clues such as several instances of "eht" may bring anagramming to mind.

Some of the longer sentences like "ehnw eht der der inorr cemos bbo bbo bbbino aglno" readily anagram, but imperfectly: "when the red red rorin comes bob bob bobbin along" appears to have one typo: an "r" instead of the "b" in "robin". Within the same group, "bdegooy ellowy bcikr dory" goes to "goodbye yellow brick royd" with a "y" instead of an "a", and "eegnr eegnr agrss fo egmo" goes to "green green grass of gome" with a "g" instead of an "h". The presence of colour words in the answers, as well as the fact that the title of the puzzle "Cloorsu" anagrams to "Colours", help to clue that anagrams of colours including "ellowy", "der", "eegnr", and "belu" can be found.

Other properties start emerging as more anagrams are solved. First, the substitute letter is always "r", "g", "b", or "y", (initials of "red", "green", "blue", and "yellow"), and it is always the initial of the colour being hinted at. This information can help solve some of the other anagrams: for example, "belu deginr bcopstu" becomes "blue deginr ?copstu", and an anagram "ringed" leads naturally to "blue ringed octopus".

Theming between lines will also emerge. For example, there's a set of songs ("electric blue", "when the red red robin comes bob bob bobbin along", "goodbye yellow brick road", "green green grass of home"), and a set of animals ("blue ringed octopus", "red panda", "grasshopper", "hyena") with one member of each colour. Sometimes (e.g. "y" in "hyena"), the substituted letter is the same as the colour letter that's swapped in (this is a hint for the next step).

A further emergent property is that the letters that have been replaced by colour letters in each group anagram to a meaningful four-letter word. For example, the letters removed from the songs are "abch", which anagram to "bach". Some of the anagrams are ambiguous (for example, "gird"/"grid") - while the sets hint at the correct anagram, the letter ordering is not actually important.

The full set of answers (some of the more difficult ones may be easier to "back fill" as the next set of patterns emerge) is:

Flag colours on flags containing crosses = "crux"
r=r switzerland
x=g saxony
c=b greece
u=y niue

Negative emotions = "flaw"
f=r fury
l=g jealousy
w=b sorrow
a=y cowardice

Comedy movies = "jest"
j=r red sonja
t=g the green hornet
s=b mickey blue eyes
e=y yellow submarine

Disasters = "nigh"
n=r volcano
h=g the greenhouse effect
g=b iceberg
i=y quicksand

Superhero costume colours = "bulk"
b=r hellboy
l=g the hulk
k=b the tick
u=y rogue

Car logo colours = "romp"
r=r citroen
p=g aston martin rapide
o=b ford
m=y lamborghini

Flag colors = "vast"
v=r latvia
t=g pakistan
s=b somalia
a=y vatican city

Birds = "wind"
n=r crimson rosella
d=g green woodpecker
w=b hyacinth macaw
i=y goldfinch

Songs = "bach"
b=r when the red, red robin comes bob, bob, bobbin' along
h=g green, green grass of home
c=b electric blue
a=y goodbye yellow brick road

Airline logo colours = "flew"
f=r feel air
l=g aer lingus
w=b air new zealand
e=y singapore airlines

Technology logos = "grid"
r=r xerox
d=g android
g=b samsung
i=y sprint

Animals = "pony"
n=r red panda
p=g grasshopper
o=b blue ringed octopus
y=y hyena

Muppets = "body"
b=r abby cadabby
d=g yoda
o=b grover
y=y bunsen honeydew

Land features = "gulf"
f=r fissure
l=g jungle
g=b lagoon
u=y dune

Gems = "rich"
r=r ruby
h=g malachite
c=b peacock topaz
i=y tigers eye

English Premier League Football team colours = "vest"
v=r liverpool
t=g aston villa (away vest)
s=b chelsea
e=y swansea city

Phew! So, we have four sets of four four-letter words:

crux flaw jest nigh
bulk romp vast wind
bach flew grid pony
body gulf rich vest

Each letter has a colour red, green, blue or yellow associated with it. What next? Of note is that the vowels "a", "e", "i" and "u" are always yellow and, as already noted, sometimes a letter substitutes for itself (in the case of "r" and "y"). If we map the colour of each letter onto the alphabet, we see a simple pattern:

abcdefghijklmnopqrstuvwxyz
yrbgyrbgyrbgyrbgyrbgyrbgy?

y = aeimquy
r = bfjnrvz
b = cgkosw
g = dhlptx

Another interesting feature is that each set of four words has no repeated letters - sixteen letters of the alphabet are used in each group. (These patterns may help with back-filling missing words.)

The next step is to imagine a full alphabet, and note that sixteen of the letters are "used up" on the given four words in each set, where each word has one letter of each colour. Of the remaining ten letters, it happens that in each case, it is possible to create a *fifth word* with the same property.

Removing the letters "crux flaw jest nigh" from our alphabet set:

y = mqy
r = bvz
b = ko
g = dp

Using the likely "o", and eliminating "q", "body" emerges as a word that uses one letter of each colour.

Repeating the process for each set:

bulk romp vast wind
y = eqy
r = fjz
b = cg
g = hx

gives "chef"

bach flew grid pony
y = mqu
r = jvz
b = ks
g = tx

gives "just"

body gulf rich vest
y = amq
r = jnz
b = kw
g = px

gives "pawn"

So, now we have a new word set. It has the same property as our previous word sets - no repeated letters - so we need to perform one last iteration:

body chef just pawn
y = imq
r = rvz
b = gk
g = lx

gives GIRL, which is the answer.

Puzzle Design Notes:

This puzzle was inspired by a set of children's alphabet blocks that had the colour ordering as specified. I initially tried to make sets of six words using one letter of each colour, and realised that the constraining factor is number of vowels - requiring use of the "y" was too much: there are very few words that take one letter from each colour and for which the only vowel is "y".

I wrote a python program to parse through word lists for four-letter words that took one letter from each set, another that generated compatible sets of five words, and a further one that hunted for a "meta" set that reused words as little as possible. It was quite surprising how the number of choices collapsed down. In the end, the set "body chef just pawn" + "girl" was the only one that produced a word that didn't have multiple anagrams.