unforum

[mikeyj|work]

I love it when exciting things like this happen...I think I've got the answer from all the hints, but can't do anything about it until I get home...AARRGH!

[Hunting4Treasure]

Re: OK, got it now

[cthrag yaska]

Another nudge for those still struggling:

[ramsfan]

That's frustrating. I'd deliberately only wasted 2 guesses last night, knowing there'd be a flood of hints in the morning, but it's still locked me out. I think they've transposed GF, but they could have called it France, as in DOMTOM. However they should have then called NC the same thing.

[Rand0m]

Federation of Micronesia?

That turned out to be a red herring, didn't it?

[sirichj]

congratulations

[cthrag yaska]

The answer, no clues, no hints is:

[beglee]

i finally got the answer a while ago thanks to all the hints being dropped. So i tried to work backwards from the answer to the anagram that led to the answer and to construct the list of country names, but i couldnt quite get all the way there:

[kniteli]

heh, this sucks,

[Nerd]

WOT!!!!!?!!!?!?!?!!? that damn numer is the bloody answer!!?!?!?! omg i knew about that ages ago!!!! but it thought someone had already entered it and found it incorrect. i was driven crazy looking around this thread at the anagrams

[kalisco]

So come on; who are you ?
Don't be afraid; we won't hurt you (much).
Who put the answer in the database as tried and failed ?
A shoal of trouts are heading your way.

[domroberts]

As far as I know, someone typed it in to check if it was on the database, which accidentally ended up marking it as tried and failed. And before anyone asks, no it wasn't me! Instead, I spent ages Googling to see if it really was that number or not...

4 hours and I get on the solved list. Yay! (through gritted teeth)

[miamo_tutti]

Further conjecturing about the answer:

[Rand0m]

Here's the piece of trivia that sent us barking up the wrong tree for the better part of a fortnight:

If you take the internet top level domains for all the countries and run a check on the 58/60 letters, you'll find they almost exactly match the frequency you'd expect from written English. Too many Gs, but I think we all worked out the word 'language' was in there somewhere. The Z from Uzbekistan is a problem, until you realise that all sorts of phrases about 'Berlitz foreign language users' are possible. And if you look at the international Berlitz website you'll see the map on the front page is very similar to the card, but with the addition of little flags and the countries' TLDs. God, we were so convinced...

[ramsfan]

I've been working back too. I can get sum the number of single languages if uzbek = u, great britain = g, and french guyana/france = f. Otherwise same as beglee. I can't do one tongue numberless languages because of y/israel. Nice if you got the right answer for the wrong reason. Somehow more satisfying.