Once upon a time... A Puzzle

Jim

Sang was hiking through some very dense forest when he came upon the remains of an old house. The trees and vegetation had grown up and consumed much of the structure and surrounding landscape.

As he explored the area, he came across a strange carved stone sitting on the ground. The stone had a rusty iron ring fixed on its top. The stone was fairly heavy and had settled slightly into the earth from its weight.

Scratching his head, Sang was baffled. He pondered a moment, and walked around the stone. Around the other side he discovered something even more baffling - the stone was engraved with writing; but in a language he didn't recognize.

Sang thought and thought but he could not figure out the meaning of the text, nor the purpose of the stone. Can you?

jeff hammond

that's where the house's driveway was at.. or whatever they called it back then..

jenujacob

TO
TIE
HORSES
TO ?

Ecuadorian

I feel so stupid now...
I was looking for some kind of sequence, anagram, letter replacement method... Why are we humans so adept at looking for answers the hard way?

pilou

Agatha Christic!

Jim

@jenujacob said:

TO
TIE
HORSES
TO ?

Of course! I had expected it to take a little longer though.

Here's another quickie:

What comes next in the following sequence?

O T T F F S S E ?

solo

N nine.

Jim

@solo said:

N nine.

Nine is right. I need some new material.

Tobobo

i have one

S M T W T F

Whats the next letter?

Jim

@tobobo said:

i have one

S M T W T F

Whats the next letter?

Alright, now you're just mocking me.

TIG

@tobobo said:

i have one

S M T W T F

Whats the next letter?

Assuming tomorrow comes it's Saturday...

remus

W L C ?

Ecuadorian

World Liberty Center?
Isn't that what they're building now in NY?

jeff hammond

WiLe Coyote

remus

No and no, youll have to try harder than that.

jeff hammond

i almost thought it was going to be no 'E's in there but the last sentence has one.

boofredlay

Jeff I think you got it. That paragraph is usually posed without the last sentence and the answer is that the most common letter in the English language "E" is not present. So I guess the answer to Tig's puzzle above is that there is only one "E".

solo

Three people check into a hotel. They pay $30 to the manager and go to their room. The manager suddenly remembers that the room rate is $25 and gives $5 to the bellboy to return to the people. On the way to the room the bellboy reasons that $5 would be difficult to share among three people so he pockets $2 and gives $1 to each person. Now each person paid $10 and got back $1. So they paid $9 each, totalling $27. The bellboy has $2, totalling $29. Where is the missing $1?

Ecuadorian

That sounds like the way governments use numbers... Adding when they should be subtracting, and viceversa.

This reminds me of a company that said they were giving a 60% discount... when in reality they gave you a 40% discount and then an additional 20% discount. This equals 52% discount, not 60%.

jeff hammond

there's isn't a missing dollar.. the bellboy has an extra $2.. each person should have paid $8.33 -- instead, they all gave the bellboy an extra $0.66