Redactle, the daily ████████-█████ ████████ puzzle

[RT-55J]

Got it in 59.

My first guess, just from the structure of the opening sentence, was Latin. From there, I tried a bunch of guesses related to religion, science, literature, and the arts and got basically nothing. After that I guessed pronouns such as "his" and "her", which led me to getting words like husband, wife, and children, which led directly to the answer.

 

[lincolnic]

Got it in 59.

My first guess, just from the structure of the opening sentence, was Latin. From there, I tried a bunch of guesses related to religion, science, literature, and the arts and got basically nothing. After that I guessed pronouns such as "his" and "her", which led me to getting words like husband, wife, and children, which led directly to the answer.

54 here, my path to the answer was pretty much the same as yours.

 

[MrBlarney]

I was well behind the curve on today's Redactle (#45, 2022-05-21) with a 71/91, 78.02% score.

Spoiler

I got completely off track after uncovering section headings of "size" (guess 15) and "types" (g.33), which made me think it was something concrete or tangible in nature. I spent a lot of guesses trying to figure out geographical aspects and getting confused about the article subject being a worldwide thing, and couldn't figure out why common actions like "drink" (g.17), "grows" (g.34), "lives" (g.35) and "eaten" (g.54) weren't present, or why there weren't materials like "wood" (g.64) or "stone" (g.65).

I was rescued by finding "well-being", which led me to get "medicine" in a section heading. I guessed "herbal" first, then went to "blood". That was what made me realize that the article wasn't a tangible thing, and I got the correct answer on the next try. A nice, surprising puzzle, even though it took me quite a bit more guesses than the global averages.

 

[Yimothy]

76 for me, 52%

Spoiler

I also started with Latin, and got group early on - opening sentences with “is a blank of” will get a group guess from me if the blank is five letters, form or type of it’s four letters. Didn’t manage to expand it to “group of people” until somewhere in the 40s, which really should have gotten me there sooner, especially since I knew man, woman, men, and women were common words. Instead, I was guessing “union” in the low 70s. Then I put sex, getting “sex outside blank”, from which I guessed marriage and then family was obvious.

 

[Violentvixen]

May 22nd -I got thrown off by Wikipedia's structure, forgot about plurals and was too stubborn, 152. I forgot this didn't include the sidebar with all the taxonomy stuff, so wasted at least 30 guesses trying various kingdoms, phylum, genus, etc.

Reptile had zero hits and I didn't think to search for reptiles so didn't I knew it started with the letter A since it started with "An (blank)", laid eggs and lived in swamps but just couldn't connect the dots.

Best words were adult (7), species (12). Oh well, lessons learned.

 

[lincolnic]

Got this one in 30 and I'm pretty proud of myself. I knew it started with a vowel since the first word was "an", and I knew it would be some kind of animal (which was my third guess), so after a few mostly nothing guesses I counted the letters in the title and 360-no-scoped Alligator.

 

[Torzelbaum]

• You solved it in 25 guesses
• Your accuracy was 64.00%

I had thrown a guess out thinking it was related to the answer but it turned out to be the answer.

My highest non-answer match (which hasn't been mentioned and I don't think is too much of a spoiler) was only at 10.

 

[pudik]

Reptile had zero hits and I didn't think to search for reptiles so didn't I knew it started with the letter A since it started with "An (blank)", laid eggs and lived in swamps but just couldn't connect the dots.

yea this one got me a little confused, but i still got it in 38 because i stumbled on "Spanish for 'the lizard'"

 

[MrBlarney]

Redactle #46 (2022-05-22): 13/19, 68.42%.

Spoiler

I knew from the start it was an animal starting with the letter "A", but I wasted some guesses going through a few standard words before getting smarter about things. In retrospect, I should have expected "genus" instead of "class" or "order" (guesses 4, 5) from the italicized "A." for the two species' names in that opening paragraph.

I got my big break at guess 15, with "years". It wasn't "(XX) hundred years (ago)" at guess 16, and got "(XX) million years (ago)" at guess 17 (probably didn't need to guess "million" either). Not a "dinosaur" (guess 18), so I guess it must be an "alligator"? Nice.

 

[Yimothy]

I got it in 41, which I was pretty pleased with until I saw you all doing better. I knew there were two species with names starting with A fairly early, but spent a lot of guesses trying to narrow between animals, plants, bacteria and so on. Then the episode of In Our Time with Melvyn Bragg about crocodiles popped into my mind and I remembered there are two kinds of alligators and there we go.

 

[Olli]

131 guesses needed for #46, accuracy 39%. I was way off in the beginning, and when I realized it was a type of creature, I still needed a LOT of guesses because I didn't hit any good words for narrowing it down. Oh well.

 

[Dark Medusa]

98 guesses, 48.98%.

oh come the fuck on now THIS is something I should have gotten much faster. maybe I should revoke my own physicist card.

 

[Torzelbaum]

• 21 guesses
• Your accuracy was 57.14%

So does that mean that I get your physicist card, Dark Medusa?

 

[Dark Medusa]

yep

 

[Mogri]

I'm lost on this one. Nearly 200 words in, and I've only revealed three relevant words in the opener.

 

[muteKi]

Spoiler: phrase that I revealed that made the answer possible

"free" in the sense of

60 guesses, 30%

Spoiler: More revealing information

I suspected something to do with electronics or math which was close enough to progress. Managed to get "frequency" and guessed lots of math words. Had already guessed stuff like "frequency", "range", "tone", and "mean" before I got "sense" which was enough to get me the win per the spoiler above. With 5 occurrences, my best non-title word was "frequency".

 

[MrBlarney]

Redactle #47 (2022-05-23): 47/60, 78.33%.

Spoiler

I went a bit too esoteric on my journey and probably could have gotten the answer more quickly. I was pretty sure from the start that it was a chemistry or physics topic, having recognized the 'mTorr" and "Pa" units of pressure that ended up being unspoiled. And after 10 guesses, I had "(title) is... on of the four (11) (6) of (6)." for the opening sentence. Well, that's gotta be "four fundamental forces of nature", right? And the only 6-letter one of those is "strong". Four hits, but not the title.

I spend the next few guesses confirming that yes, it's "fundamental", but not one of the "forces" of "nature". It takes me a while to get back on track, with "particle" at g.41, "charge" at g.46, and "electric" at g.49. I finally get "universe" at g.58 to get me to try "matter" at g.59, which finally got me to the solution. I had completely blanked on "states of matter" also fitting the opening sentence.

 

[Yimothy]

29 guesses, 68.97%. My first guess was one, getting me “is one of the” in the opening sentence. Somewhere further in (can’t find it now) I saw what looked like a chemical formula: box, box, subscript box, box, subscript box, so I tried chemical, then chemistry, then physics, which really opened the door to the answer. Then I just went through all the physics concepts I could think of until I got the answer.

 

[lincolnic]

34 guesses, which I feel pretty good about! Like yesterday, I had a whole bunch of nothing guesses until I hit state and matter back-to-back. Then it was pretty clear to me.

 

[Violentvixen]

May 23rd- Whoof that table about halfway down is screwed up. Didn't affect me but a bummer.

66 guesses because I uncovered physics early but then spent too many guesses thinking it had to do with water after seeing that mTorr and Pa were uncovered by default. Then I wasted a few on electron valence shells/orbitals. Same as yesterday, being too stubborn. My problem with science terms I have too many potential synonyms and waste a lot of guesses just in case it's not the one I first thought of.

What finally got me there was noticing that the article included pressure, electricity and blood. I could only think of plasma as an intersection across those. Top words were gas (20), used (16), electron (11), charge (10)

Anyway, I made some of this at work today! Maybe I will tomorrow too. It's purple and glows as all science should.

 

[RT-55J]

Got this in 111 guesses. Felt like I was stumbling around blindly until I made the guess of electric 95 guesses in, after which the answer fell into place pretty quickly.

 

[lincolnic]

Got it in 13 guesses today! Starting to feel a lot better about how to play this game in general.

 

[muteKi]

18 and 61.11%

Spoiler: the phrases

"between africa and asia" and "after the second world war, the"

Spoiler: more info

My best non-solution word was 'world' with 7 hits, from which "second world war" was not hard to deduce based on capitalization. After that I guessed a few continents to get the other phase. Apparently trying to guess "red sea" as one word removes the space rather than treat them as separate words. I won't do that again.

 

[Torzelbaum]

You solved it in 34 guesses
Your accuracy was 88.24%

My second highest accuracy result.

 

[Paul le Fou]

I got today's in 71! Where does it tell you your accuracy? I've never seen that readout after finishing. Anyway, I was fumbling around the topics of nations, ancient history, then geology and geography, until I finally hit upon Sea after which it was just a few ten seconds of finding another three-letter word to finish the title with.

What was yesterday's? I was having a hell of a time and then got distracted by work and wasn't able to finish it. From reading your clues, was it plasma? (Wait, I guess that doesn't need to be a spoiler anymore...)

 

[Torzelbaum]

Yes, that was the one from yesterday.

Where does it tell you your accuracy? I've never seen that readout after finishing.

It appears at the very top of the page but seems to be pretty stubborn about appearing after you've finished. If you're on your phone try dragging the screen / page down when you're at the top.

You can also choose the Stats option from the drop-down in the upper right but that doesn't show you the daily global stats.

 

[Paul le Fou]

Found it, thanks!

48	red sea (Today's!)	71	52.11%
44	william the conqueror	13	84.62%
43	roald dahl	135	71.11%
42	world trade organization	301	43.85%

That's... quite a spread!

 

[Violentvixen]

24 guesses, my new best!

Fumbled around for a bit until I guessed water (25) then re-read the whole article taking a close look at things, there was clearly something about the sea or shore but since it was pretty obvious where sea (123, yeesh) was in the text I didn't guess it. Did canal (8) then Suez (14) which again helped fill in more grammar and structure. Then I did bother to guess sea and wracked my brain for something that would fit. Weirdly my brain went to the Aral Sea first, but then guessed the correct answer.

I liked this one!

Also I checked the Patreon again and a feature that's being requested is a "hard mode" where you can't tell the length of the blanks. Oof.

 

[Torzelbaum]

Also I checked the Patreon again and a feature that's being requested is a "hard mode" where you can't tell the length of the blanks. Oof.

Or as I like to call it - playing on a phone.

 

[RT-55J]

Solved this in 49 guesses (61.22%).

I dithered around for 45 guesses without any progress, until guess 46 when I decided to put in a cardinal direction (north) as a guess. After that I guessed "south", noticed that neither of their occurrences in the first paragraph were capitalized. This led me to start guessing geographic features, and by my luck the first guess I made there was part of the answer. From there I immediately knew the answer.