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奇异之旅

A Weird Tour

专题
Game Theory / 博弈论
难度
L7

题目详情

这是一个填字与排列谜题。题面描述一次穿越 120 个地区的奇异旅行，只访问其中 11 个地区；各地区语言逐步变化。需要根据线索答案、交通工具与元音排列变化，推出缺失的国家或地区答案。

英文原题

My journey across this bizarre planet is complete, even though I only visited 11 of the 120 regions with their strange gradually shifting dialects. Over the trip I swapped ends of the planet using a variety of methods of transport between each destination. Below are some clues to the names of the regions I visited for all but the fifth… maybe you can help me fill in my itinerary with the name of that strange fifth country?

    I started in

1. Unserious

    Then I took a plane to

2. Social (1,6,8)

    I took a tour to get to

3. Learning about (3 words) (8,9)

    Then switched to a big bus to make it to

4. Weakness

    Then a subway got me to

5. ???

    From there I walked through a tunnel to arrive at

6. Game series (2 words) (4)

    A long train ride got me to

7. Superstar artist (2 words) (1)

    Then I hopped on a boat to

8. Sign of doubt (2 words) (3)

    I rode a bike to

9. Exec (11)

    Then a friendly horse carried me on to

10. Suddenly emote (3 words) (11)

    Finally, a limo drove me to my ultimate stop:

11. South Asian (9,12)

解析

核心是五个元音 A,E,I,O,U 的排列。每个填字答案都恰好包含五个元音各一次，交通工具名称指出相邻两个元音的交换，从 AEIOU 一路变到 UOIEA。已有答案末尾数字抽字得到 GROUP ELEMENT，提示缺失国家应是一个群元素；在目标元音顺序 EUAIO 下得到答案为 EQUATION，完整解释了第五个国家位置。

英文解析

October’s puzzle was presented without instruction on how to solve it and what all these clues meant. Observant solvers could gather hints from the title, the flavor text describing 120 (= 5!) countries with gradually changing dialects, the bolded names of the means of transport, and some of the crossword clue answers to notice that this puzzle was all about the five vowels on the English language (sorry Y, we need committed always-vowels for this puzzle).

The crossword clues are more easily solved when one discovers that every answer has exactly one of each of the five vowels, and the order of these vowels is determined by the position the clue is along the journey and the names of the methods of transport: when traveling between two country destinations, the method of transport contains exactly the two consecutive vowels whose orderings are swapped in the names of the two countries. Furthermore, the journey begins with the natural ordering AEIOU and ends with the exactly opposite ordering UOIEA, as hinted by the flavor text.

This extra constraint helps narrow down the answers of the clues:

  1. Unserious - FACETIOUS (AEIOU) plane swaps AE
  2. Social - GREGARIOUS (EAIOU) tour swaps OU
  3. Learning about (3 words) - READING UP ON (EAIUO) big bus swaps IU
  4. Weakness - EXHAUSTION (EAUIO) subway swaps AU
  5. ??? (EUAIO) tunnel swaps EU
  6. Game series (2 words) - SUPER MARIO (UEAIO) train swaps AI
  7. Superstar artist (2 words) - LUPE FIASCO (UEIAO) boat swaps AO
  8. Sign of doubt (2 words) - QUESTION MARK (UEIOA) bike swaps EI
  9. Exec - BUSINESSWOMAN (UIEOA) horse swaps EO
  10. Suddenly emote (3 words) - BURST INTO TEARS (UIOEA) limo swaps IO
  11. South Asian - SUBCONTINENTAL (UOIEA)

We are asked to fill in the fifth country in the tour, which we expect to have vowel ordering EUAIO, but we don’t have a crossword clue for it! Now we use the extra numbers at the ends of the existing clues, and if we read off the letters from the answers we’ve found so far we get GROUP ELEMENT. This can serve as the crossword clue for the fifth country, which appropriately can be found to be PERMUTATION.

Congrats to this month’s solvers who successfully sleuthed out the name of the fifth country!