Straight TALK

concerning the longest words in English which when written in block capitals use only letters made entirely of straight lines

I've spent so much time inventing puzzles, that you might think I would now have a reasonable idea of what people like. Thank goodness I can still be surprised.

Pyrgic No. 5 for April 7th 2012 had quite humble and unpretentious beginnings. I wrote:

5 What is the longest word you can make using only block capitals requiring 3 straight lines?

I then gave KAYAK as a tentative knowing this was a fairish answer (and palindromic, too) but one which left room for reader participation.

Le mieux, say the French, est l'ennemi du bien. (In English we might render this: leave well alone!) At the proof-reading stage I decided this wording was a bit loose and rewrote it to read:

5 What is the longest word you can make using only block capital letters each made up of straight lines only?

INATTENTIVELY

Admittedly this does make the wording a lot tighter. But— spot the difference!— I had inadvertently omitted the vital '3'. Curiously neither I nor any of the proofreaders spotted the omission. After you've been through the same text so many times you stop seeing what you are reading... Well, that's how I see it (or not, as the case might be).

What followed was an avalanche of letters from readers. Did I really consider that KAYAK was the longest word makeable with straight-lines only? How feeble! Why even moderate INITIATIVE would have got me as far as WEAKLY or TEATIME.

I MAKE A MIFTAKE

Well, that is all very embarrassing for me and a field day for the readers. But it is useful to learn something from mistakes; so why did a fairly straight-forward lapse in a make-weight of a puzzle prompt more letters from readers than all the ingenious pyrgicacity of all the other puzzles accompanying it?

I put it down to the Pratfall effect. This was a technique I often used to good effect when teaching bright but disaffected pupils physics and maths . You set a problem and solve it but you make a deliberate mess of the procedure. If you made this clumsy enough and make yourself look as if you need metaphorically helping across the road some pupils will leap up and put you out of your misery (metaphorically) and unwittingly help themselves in the process.

MANY E-MAILZ

Readers, unaware that I had missed a '3' out, saw my feeble answer to Pyrgic number 5 and thought, 'I can do better'. And of course they could! Much better. And the same thing often applies to questions where I haven't made a mistake. Hence all those clamorous e-mails crammed with creative observations and ideas for further puzzles.

  The best answers to the Puzzle I didn't intend to set are as follows:

GOLD MEDAL: 13 letters

INATTENTIVELY

Professor Colin Ratledge, Phil Holland of Thornbury, Janet Whitehouse, Caljo Holon, Bill Eckerslyke, Brian Fleetwood, David Price, Chris Robins.

SILVER MEDAL: 11 letters

ELEMENTALITY, ATTAINMENT, TENTATIVELY,

ENTITLEMENT, ALLEVIATE, ANTENATALLY, FLANNELETTE

Ian Stokes (St Neots), Sue McCabe, Kevin Smith, Richard Saunders (Dagenham), Paul Hagan, Phil Allaker, Andrew Rolph, Donal Walsh (London), Nigel Brook, Rolf Meyer

BRONZE MEDAL: 10 letters

MILLENNIAL, FEMININITY, INFINITELY, IMMINENTLY, VEHEMENTLY, INITIATIVE

Nancy Lawson, Geoff Brambles, Becca Atkey and Mark, Will Dodwell (Taunton), Keith Albans (Sheffield), Shane Wood (Hackney)

UNOBTAINIUM MEDAL:

for longest word that beats them all if we hadn't (reluctantly) disallowed chemical names

David Wilson for HEXAMETHYLAMINE (15)

Special Mention

Rod Searle lamented MY LAXITY and suggested LAXATIVE (I fear that might have the opposite effect)

Dick Quibell embodied the idea of the task with MAXIMIZE and FILAMENT suggested illumination

David Price had TWINKLE and MANHATTAN

Stefan Kucharczyk (Leeds) let in some fresh air VENTILATE

F McLelland put forward, given 'Chris Maslanka's liking for trick questions' (really!) INFINITY (what could be longer?)

Nigel Campbell who worked with hyphens to give TWENTY-TWELVE

Rolf Meyer of Totnes had ANTE-HIMALAYAN

Nigel Brook's [KAYAK?] ANTENATALLY - A MAXIMAL ELEVEN I THINK was the longest bit of continuous prose in straight letters only.

Will Dodwell (Taunton) had: EVEN MY MILKMAN whom I MET on a HILLWALK, was struck WITH AMAZEMENT THAT THE best you could come up WITH was KAYAK.

Nigel Tasker of Bristol deserves special praise for using the the word PYRGING:, as in "I always enjoy Pyrging on Saturday."

Honourable Menschen

Tony Miles, Sarah Rutson, Alison Readman, Dave Were, Bob Costa, Alan Evans, David Cheetham, Louise Brown, Ed Williams (Cambridge), John Riddell, Eleanor Nesbitt, John Rostron, Will Jones

Nobody wrote to say that FIFTEEN is larger than 13.

In conclusion INATTENTIVELY has it, which is apt as it was the manner in which this unintended puzzle was created.

I think we can draw a line under this...