SOLVED - A word puzzle

[Elethiomel]

Plucked (8) / Barren (8)
Congenital (8) / Facetiously (8)
Mollified (8) / Peacefully (8)
Practice (8) / Horse keepers (8)

Lawyer (8) / Needles (8)
Tenant (8) / Collectors (8)
Makes over (8) / Drafted (8)
Overblown (8) / Charlatan (8)

The answer is a three-letter word.

[Suspence]

Since I've made no progress, I'll just post what I've thought of:

1) I've tried to find words within words. For example, CONGENITAL / FACETIOUSLY gives two body parts. I haven't found anything similar in the other pairings, so I abandoned that.

2) I've looked at the sets as clues, trying to find synonyms for each phrase and see if the pairings have any synonyms that are closely related. I didn't find anything promising. Given that we have no word lengths and no immediately obvious answers if these are indeed clues to other words, this approach would be pretty difficult.
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[jesternl]

I have nothing here..

[Elethiomel]

Maybe I made it too hard to get started. Start by interpreting these as regular crossword clues.

[Suspence]

Without word lengths or knowing the connection we're looking for, that will probably be a tough ask. There are multiple solutions that would work for each.
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[Elethiomel]

Alright, I've added word lengths. I probably was asking too much there.

[Suspence]

Plucked (8) / Barren (8)
gathered, snatched, strummed / desolate, impotent, deserted

Congenital (8) / Facetiously (8)
inherent / absurdly, jokingly

Mollified (8) / Peacefully (8)
assuaged, pacified / amicably, placidly

Practice (8) / Horse keepers (8)
rehearse, training / breeders, ranchers, trainers

Lawyer (8) / Needles (8)
attorney, defender / syringes, agitates, provokes

Tenant (8) / Collectors (8)
occupant, resident / packrats, hoarders

Makes over (8) / Drafted (8)
rebuilds, remodels, restores / sketched, outlined, selected

Overblown (8) / Charlatan (8)
inflated / swindler, impostor

Still coming up with plenty of possibles. I feel best about INHERENT for "Congenital", as I can't come up with anything else that works in 8 letters, but I don't see a connection yet.

REHEARSE and RANCHERS is a bit promising since they contain a lot of the same letters. That said, I don't see anything similar developing in any of the other pairs yet.
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[referee]

Ah, I see. Maybe the 8 could be hinted with a title or a short flavor...
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[Suspence]

Referee, is that a subtle hint indicating you've made progress/solved? Or is it just a comment on how the word lengths could have been clued more effectively? If it's the former, I'm jealous.
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[referee]

No, no need to be jealous. Don't fear me, I am non-native English speaker.
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Jan 21st, 2008: The pillaging continues.
Mar 4th, 2008: Rest in Peace, Gary Gygax. May your dice always roll a natural 20 wherever you are.

Be the Ultimate Ninja! Play Billy Vs. SNAKEMAN today!

[novice]

So how do you reduce eight pairs of eight letter words to a three letter word?

[Suspence]

[Suspence]

Just a thought, but many of the 8 letter words pairs I have offered have 4 letter words in the middle, and I can come up with a few more that would work, so that almost every clue leads to at least one word that fits that pattern

Congenital (8) / Facetiously (8)
inherent / absurdly, jokingly

Mollified (8) / Peacefully (8)
assuaged, pacified, appeased / amicably, placidly

Practice (8) / Horse keepers (8)
rehearse, training / breeders, ranchers, trainers, stablers

Lawyer (8) / Needles (8)
attorney, defender / syringes, agitates, provokes

Tenant (8) / Collectors (8)
occupant, resident / packrats, hoarders

Makes over (8) / Drafted (8)
rebuilds, remodels, restores / sketched, outlined, selected

Overblown (8) / Charlatan (8)
inflated / swindler, impostor

Not sure if that is coincidental, as nothing stands our for me looking at the list of 4 letter words either.
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[Elethiomel]

[Suspence]

So then, narrowing it down to focus on just the possible right answers:

Congenital (8) / Facetiously (8)
inherent / jokingly

Mollified (8) / Peacefully (8)
appeased / placidly

Practice (8) / Horse keepers (8)
rehearse / stablers

Lawyer (8) / Needles (8)
attorney, defender / syringes

Tenant (8) / Collectors (8)
resident / ????????

Was hoping that this would lead me to a breakthrough. Sadly, it did not.

Makes over (8) / Drafted (8)
remodels/ sketched

Overblown (8) / Charlatan (8)
inflated / impostor
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[novice]

Plucked (8) / Barren (8)
deplumed, extorted / unfilled

[Zag]

Collectors: hoarders, packrats, revenuer (but plural is too long)

These don't support your middle-4-letters theory, which, by the way, has never been confirmed. He only said that many of those words were correct, which still could be a coincidence.

[Suspence]

PACKRATS and HOARDERS have been ruled out. AMASSERS and GROUPERS sorta fit, but don't have a middle 4 letter word. I've gotta think that is important if only such words were the correct ones.
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[Elethiomel]

Confirming all correct answers so far, to help you along:

Plucked (8) / Barren (8)
deplumed / ????????

Congenital (8) / Facetiously (8)
inherent / jokingly

Mollified (8) / Peacefully (8)
appeased / placidly

Practice (8) / Horse keepers (8)
rehearse / stablers

Lawyer (8) / Needles (8)
attorney / syringes

Tenant (8) / Collectors (8)
resident / ????????

Makes over (8) / Drafted (8)
remodels / enlisted

Overblown (8) / Charlatan (8)
inflated / impostor

[novice]

Drafted: enlisted, enrolled

[Suspence]

More options for BARREN:

LIFELESS
CONSUMED
DEPLETED
DESOLATE
DROUGHTY
EXPENDED
RAINLESS
NEUTERED
ABORTIVE
BANKRUPT

Only EXPENDED has a 4-letter word in the middle.
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[Oscar]

It might be coincidence but I can see 3 letter words which append the first words and prefix the second for each of the known correct answers:

here(TIC)king
peas(ANT)acid
hear(SAY)able
torn(ADO)ring
mode(STY)list
flat(BED)post

Words which might be added to the others:
plum AGE,ATE,BAR,BED,BOB,BUM,COT,MET
side ARM,BAR,BOY,CAR,CUT,LAP,LAY,MAN,MEN,TIC,WAY

[Zag]

Brilliant Oscar!

According to a2z Wordfinder:

plumage, plumate, plumbed, plumber, plumbic, plumbum, plumier, pluming, plummer, plummet, plumose, plumped, plumpen, plumper, plumply, plumule

Assuming EXPENDED is correct, a2z offers
compend, dispend, perpend, propend, stipend, suspend

Giving the combination:

plum PER pend

[Zag]

Collecting it all in one place:

Plucked (8) / Barren (8)
deplumed / expended ------ plum(PER)pend

Congenital (8) / Facetiously (8)
inherent / jokingly ----------- here(TIC)king

Mollified (8) / Peacefully (8)
appeased / placidly ---------- peas(ANT)acid

Practice (8) / Horse keepers (8)
rehearse / stablers ---------- hear(SAY)able

Lawyer (8) / Needles (8)
attorney / syringes ----------- torn(ADO)ring

Tenant (8) / Collectors (8)
resident / ????????

Makes over (8) / Drafted (8)
remodels / enlisted ------------ mode(STY)list

Overblown (8) / Charlatan (8)
inflated / impostor -------------- flat(BED)post

PER TIC ANT SAY ADO ??? STY BED

[Elethiomel]

Plucked (8) / Barren (8)
deplumed / expended ------ plum(PER)pend

Congenital (8) / Facetiously (8)
inherent / jokingly ----------- here(TIC)king

Mollified (8) / Peacefully (8)
appeased / placidly ---------- peas(ANT)acid

Practice (8) / Horse keepers (8)
rehearse / stablers ---------- hear(SAY)able

Lawyer (8) / Needles (8)
attorney / syringes ----------- torn(ADO)ring

Tenant (8) / Collectors (8)
resident / ????????

Makes over (8) / Drafted (8)
remodels / enlisted ------------ mode(STY)list

Overblown (8) / Charlatan (8)
inflated / impostor -------------- flat(BED)post

PER TIC ANT SAY ADO ??? STY BED

[groza528]

how about hear(TEN)able?

I'm hoping for plumMET but haven't figured out barren yet.

[groza528]

What about barren = unWOODed and plum(PLY)wood?

[novice]

PLY TIC ANT TEN ADO ??? STY BED

Going forward, maybe combine these 8 words to 4 xxxYYYY / YYYYzzz combinations? Then combine the resulting four words to get two connecting words, and find the final answer as a word connecting those?

I don't see any obvious pairings to start with, though. Do we have to make another intuitive leap?

[Thok]

Given that the previous two steps were four letter and three letter chunks, I'd suggest trying to find something involving two letters.

[Elethiomel]

Plucked (8) / Barren (8)
deplumed / unwooded ------ plum(PLY)wood

Congenital (8) / Facetiously (8)
inherent / jokingly ----------- here(TIC)king

Mollified (8) / Peacefully (8)
appeased / placidly ---------- peas(ANT)acid

Practice (8) / Horse keepers (8)
rehearse / stablers ---------- hear(TEN)able

Lawyer (8) / Needles (8)
attorney / syringes ----------- torn(ADO)ring

Tenant (8) / Collectors (8)
resident / ????????

Makes over (8) / Drafted (8)
remodels / enlisted ------------ mode(STY)list

Overblown (8) / Charlatan (8)
inflated / impostor -------------- flat(BED)post

PLY TIC ANT TEN ADO ??? STY BED

I actually intended to leave a blank line between the first four and the last four pairs of clues, but I forgot. I have edited that in now.

[novice]

Central letter of the three-letter words spell L I N E D ? T E

[novice]

Is the answer line MAN date ?

[Elethiomel]

Yup, that's it.

The missing words related to the "collectors" clue are foragers and side(BAR)rage.

[Zag]

Nice puzzle, Elethiomel! Even if it did seem a little unapproachable by us regular folk.

The brilliant leaps by Suspence and Oscar seem to me to be too hard for a puzzle-maker to expect anyone to make. Of course, here we are, with a solution, so I guess those leaps were not too difficult, but just difficult enough. I am constantly amazed at the brilliant leaps that are made (by others) here on GL.

I will suggest, from a puzzle-crafting point of view, that if you are going to expect your solvers to make a leap like either of those, that you use cryptics or something that give definitive words to work with. That is, not only were we expected to notice that all the correct words were of the format xxYYYYxx, where the YYYY was also a word, we had to do it from words that we weren't confident of (because each one-word clue suggested several equally-good answers). Sure, Suspence caught on, but regular humans can hardly be expected to.

The general rule that I'm trying to espouse is that the more imaginative the leap you are expecting of your solvers, the more stable a base you should give them to work with. If the next step had been fairly straightforward, then one-word clues (for which there are several choices) would be plenty.

[Scurra]

Yes, I'd agree with Zag there.
I don't think the step from internal four letter word to missing three letter word was signalled at all, although I do think that the internal four letter word step was quite neat once it had been made.
(I had been trying to match the four letter words up directly and getting nowhere, although I hadn't really looked at this puzzle much.)
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[Suspence]

Agree with everything Zag said, and I appreciate his compliments (which I assume him saying that I'm not a "regular human" was ) . This was a great puzzle, and with a few tweaks, I think it could be considered excellent, GLP-worthy even. The GL is an impressive place.
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[Elethiomel]

[Suspence]

Didn't want my praise for Elethiomel to get lost in the constructive criticism. This was a really nice puzzle idea, it's great to see such a quality puzzle coming from a new GLer.

Looking forward to more of your puzzles, Elethiomel.
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[Zag]

[Vagrant]

I never would have solved this puzzle but I thought it was excellent and greatly enjoyed watching it get solved by others.

I can only suggest that it needed a better title or some flavortext. A title such as 'Heart Attach' would have been more than enough hint/instruction once the discussion about whether it was a typo concluded.

For what it's worth, if this puzzle had appeared in a hunt I think it would have been presented the way you originally presented it (no clue lengths and grouping clues where the answers needed to go together) albeit with a title or flavor or both. Sooner or later someone would have recognised 4 letter words in the exact center of possible 8 letter answers.