SOLVED - Get Better At Solving Puzzles #7

[Suspence]

Hopefully this will work as planned. I'll hint as needed, for now you get just the three lists below. Post your thoughts and ideas in addition to any solutions to show the solving process:

Active
Ad nauseum
Appliance
Cab
Fish
Friend
High priest
Hurt
More
More certain
Nobleman
Wild pig
Widen

America
Android
College official
Doctor
Doesn't matter
For example
Morning
Prosecutor
Recovery program
Type of toy car
Where you'd find injured players
Where you'd find Niagara Falls
Withdrawal symptom

On
Green colors
Souvenir
Initials
Almost
Clumsiness
Right
Virtue
Making happy
Prayer
Imagined
Lenders
Mutilated
_________________
I hate people who try to write interesting things in their signature.

[novice]

Nobleman
Wild pig
Widen

Could be Baron, Boar and Broaden. So maybe the answers form groups involving shared letters.

[Elethiomel]

Second group - I see a lot of two-letter abbreviations as possible answers.
America = US
Doctor = MD
Doesn't matter = NM (never mind)
For example = EG
Morning = AM
Prosecutor = DA
Recovery program = AA
Where you'd find Niagara Falls = NY or ON
Where you'd find injured players = DL (disabled list)

Third group - They are not alphabetically ordered, so the order matters. Probably need to extract letters from these answers to form the final answer.

[Thok]

Three groups of thirteen. Probably not going to give us letters, could give us something involving cards eventually.

[ralphmerridew]

Toy Car = RC
Withdrawal Symptom = DT

[Scurra]

Well I'm expecting the second group to be added to the first group in some way (in the middle or around the outside) to produce the third group. Answer extraction not yet obvious...
_________________
_{still Quiz Olympiad champion. Must get a life.
New definitions: COFFEE - someone who is coughed upon}

[jesternl]

Injured players could also be = Injury reserve, IR
Android = R2-D2 ==> giving RD?

[Jack_Ian]

android OS?

[Scurra]

To follow up my previous speculation:

More certain = SURER
America = US
makes U SURER S (lenders)

Cab = TAXI
Recovery Program = AA
A TAXI A (clumsiness)

Ad Nauseaum = LATIN
For example = EG
E LATIN G (making happy)
(I solved this backwards by wondering what words could be E-G since that was clearly the two-letter answer.)

More = EXTRA
Where you'd find injured players = DL (disabled list)
D EXTRA L (right)
(and this one I solved by figuring out RIGHT was probably dextr-, spotting EXTRA and then searching for the acronym!)

Which shows how much information a puzzle can give providing you remember to go back and forth between all parts of it. I know some people don't like to do that, but I think that certain types of puzzle ought to require it as part of the process. It's hard to quantify what it is, because it's not quite "backsolving".
_________________
_{still Quiz Olympiad champion. Must get a life.
New definitions: COFFEE - someone who is coughed upon}

[Suspence]

Impressive work so far from all of you. This is the point where I'd usually gather everyone else's work and summarize, but since I'm the setter in this case, I'll leave that to someone else.

[Lepton*]

List 1: clues
Active
Ad nauseum LATIN
Appliance
Cab TAXI
Fish ANGLE
Friend
High priest
Hurt
More MORE
More certain SURER
Nobleman EARL
Wild pig BOAR
Widen BROADEN

List 2: Two-letter answers
America US
Android RD OS
College official
Doctor MD
Doesn't matter NM
For example EG
Morning AM
Prosecutor DA
Recovery program AA
Type of toy car RC
Where you'd find injured players DL
Where you'd find Niagara Falls NY
Withdrawal symptom OD

List 3: List 1 answer sandwiched between the two letters from List 2
On ABOARD
Green colors
Souvenir
Initials
Almost NEARLY
Clumsiness ATAXIA
Right DEXTRAL
Virtue
Making happy ELATING
Prayer
Imagined
Lenders USURERS
Mutilated MANGLED

[Lepton*]

Possibly:
O PAL S

[Suspence]

Lepton, check your bolded ones. There's an error that might lead to some confusion if people rely on your summary.
_________________
I hate people who try to write interesting things in their signature.

[Zag]

A crony M (friend, morning, initials)

[ralphmerridew]

OD is bolded, when it hasn't been used. (Has OD been confirmed? I still think that DT makes more sense.)

[Suspence]

I haven't confirmed anything (outside of ELATING), so the only confirmation available is matching to all three lists.

There's also a bold word on the third list which doesn't tie out to one of the bold letter pairs on the second.
_________________
I hate people who try to write interesting things in their signature.

[Zag]

I think the OD turned into the AD from ABOARD, since that doesn't exist. But I agree that DT is the obvious choice for Withdrawal symptom.

[Zag]

Widen, withdrawal symptom, imagined: D ream T
High Priest, Type of toy car, souvenir: R eli C
Active, Android, Green colors: O live S

(From above)
friend, morning, initials: A crony M

[Zag]

List 1: clues
Active LIVE
Ad nauseum LATIN
Appliance OVEN
Cab TAXI
Fish ANGLE
Friend CRONY
High priest ELI
Hurt
More EXTRA
More certain SURER
Nobleman EARL
Wild pig BOAR
Widen REAM

List 2: Two-letter answers
America US
Android OS
College official AD
Doctor MD
Doesn't matter N/A
For example EG
Morning AM
Prosecutor DA
Recovery program AA
Type of toy car RC
Where you'd find injured players DL
Where you'd find Niagara Falls NY
Withdrawal symptom DT

List 3: List 1 answer sandwiched between the two letters from List 2
On ABOARD
Green colors OLIVES
Souvenir RELIC
Initials ACRONYM
Almost NEARLY
Clumsiness ATAXIA
Right DEXTRAL
Virtue
Making happy ELATING
Prayer NOVENA
Imagined DREAMT
Lenders USURERS
Mutilated MANGLED

Since the last set of clues is not alphabetized, I assume that they are the ones for which order matters.

AD ABOARD
OS OLIVES
RC RELIC
AM ACRONYM
NY NEARLY
AA ATAXIA
DL DEXTRAL
DA (Virtue)
EG ELATING
NA NOVENA
DT DREAMT
US USURERS
MD MANGLED

First letters of the two-letter answers spell out:

A OR AN / ADDENDUM

Article / PS = Particles

[Zag]

I suppose a college official could be Athletic Director to go with BOAR and make ABOARD.

[Zag]

Found this by looking for words that match ?OVEN?

appliance, NA?, prayer N oven A

I guess NA could be N/A (Not Applicable) for Doesn't matter

[Suspence]

Wow, a quintuple post! Nice work so far, almost there...
_________________
I hate people who try to write interesting things in their signature.

[Zag]

Final answer (worked out above): Particles

[Suspence]

PARTICLES is the intended answer. Nice work Zag, and everyone else. Hope you all enjoyed this one.

By the way, the missing one is HARM, DA, DHARMA.

[Lepton*]

^ This. That's a pretty impressive bit of clairvoyance, if it was as off-the-cuff as it seemed!

Sorry for the confusion on AD/OD.

[Scurra]

It was based off lots of experience at writing and solving.
Plus prior puzzles in this sequence as well (and others in the Quickies thread.)

But when one set of answers was clearly coming out as two-letter initials, then it seemed "obvious" to me that those letters would go either in the middle or around the outside of other answers. Given another alphabetical list and a non-alphabetical list, the next step again seemed "obvious".

I realise that this may not seem at all "obvious" to other people.

(As has been observed before, in some ways it's like learning a foreign language. You start picking up on bits of vocabulary, then some basic rules come into focus and suddenly you find you can understand things. You will miss the extreme subtleties and special cases but that won't matter for a long time. Although having said that, those people looking at the MIT Hunt puzzles may wish to be aware that they are frequently constructed at that slightly higher level because teams are working on them in an intense way.)
_________________
_{still Quiz Olympiad champion. Must get a life.
New definitions: COFFEE - someone who is coughed upon}