Wednesday, July 21, 2010

Monster Puzzle

I saw this puzzle in Friday’s paper, and thought it was worth reproducing here:

If a Mermaid is a Woman plus a Fish (M = W + F) which mythological creatures are represented by the following equations?

C = M + H
M = M + B
S = W + L
G = E + L
F = M + G
H = W + B
C = R + S
C = L + G + S
M = M + L + D

A site like theoi or even this previous post might help you find some of the answers (or then again, they might not). I'll post the answers in the comments in a few days time. Bonus points if you can also identify the mythological creature in the picture at the top of this post.

3 comments:

lilian.thigh said...

Gah...I'm forced to ask for hints about C=R+S and M=M+L+D because I have no idea and it frustrates me that I'm so close... I can't think of any 'M-' monster that involves a dragon (?), and well, 'rabbit' sounds pretty pathetic so that's out of the question.

Anonymous said...

Here are the answers:

Centaur = Man + Horse
Minotaur = Man + Bull
Sphinx = Woman + Lion
Griffin = Eagle + Lion
Faun = Man + Goat
Harpy = Woman + Bird
Cockatrice = Rooster + Snake
Chimera = Lion + Goat + Snake
Manticore = Man + Lion + Dragon

The picture is the fearsome hippalectryon - half horse, half chicken. Don't ask me where that one came from...

Anonymous said...

yo mr mo.

its margaret from your '08 latin class. not too sure if you can stretch you mind to all the way back then.

anywho, I was cleaning up my last semester notes and as usually happens when I spring clean, little trivial things catch my eye. In this case, it was a note to self i had written in a lecture note transcribing what my lecturer had jsut said to us in our first lecture in real property: "so you'll be looking at the slide and thinking here goes another pointless latin phrase. does anyone in the room do latin? I didn't think so. even as a practitioner I dont understand why they use those phrases today. its very pompous really" or words to that effect. long story short it got me thinking about latin in year 12.

well the point of this email really was just to say hi! not to have the comment published or anything.

your blog is the only thing i remember about latin 08.

I hope all is well and its great to hear (from my trusty sources) that latin is alive and thriving at st george. it sure doesnt look like a dead language to me and i'm pretty sure your passion for the language and ridiculous patience with the st george girls has a little something to do with that.

so as i said. I was just swinging by to say hi, hope you are well and to inform you that (im sure you'll be happy to hear) latin is definitely going to haunt me for the duration of my life.

Mr Morrison, your blogs are as nerdy as ever! haha :)

regards,

margaret