I like it. Can anyone think of a a foursome wherein each one could be odd man out?

I also remember a mock IQ test question with four of those annoying little diagrams you're supposed to pick the one that was least like the others? Everyone except one was unlike all the others in some respect, so the one that wasn't unlike all the others was unlike all the others in that it wasn't unlike all the others.

tree balloon file pants

k

(I daresay if we played a literal game of Odd Man Out there wouldn't be one single guy left on this board).

Now back to your regularly scheduled programming....

Ah ... I misunderstood the puzzle.
Should have read your answers before responding.

k

re:I misunderstood the puzzle.

good! i was having real problems finding any set of 3 in that group, let alone 2!

think of cars, or sports teams, place names.. there are more set(s) to be found..

misunderstood the puzzle

You mean I've been wasting my time trying to figure any connection between even any pair of your words, FF?

worse than that (probably), I had balloon as "odd man out". <g>

so did I. It's the only one with 2 syllables

Bingley

This brings to mind another possibility: how about picking four random words (from a dictionary or something) and then finding something, anything, that three of them have in common?

Vauxhall, Bedford, Auburn, Ford

Vauxhall, Bedford, Auburn, Ford

I don't think Bedford is a car.

Ford isn't a place name?

Ford is the only one that was an American president. Let's not go there!

I think you are right about Bedford. Never heard of a car maker named Auburn though, but it is a colour - the others are not, but they do all make vehicles.

Ford is a village in Shropshire, UK.

Auburn Automobile:

http://www.clearlake.com/autozine/timeline.htm

OK, thanks. I *have heard of the Duesenberg!

This one is like of troy’s original. Seven sets of four, all mixed up between different lines, and each with an odd one out.


split-tin, gold, toe, silver

White, carbon, Siamese, narrow

mulberry, Coburg, Red, diamond

Rhine, Vienna, finger, Persian

fishing, tabby, cotton, platinum

sailing, Green, foot, sandwich

rice, Manx, flying, hand

Bedford made vans and trucks. The Bedford J3 truck was an icon in New Zealand right through the 1950s and 1960s. Close enough, but.

I'm still not sure I understand what we're trying to produce. Something like "a collection of four words, such that any subset of three has something in common not shared by the fourth" ?

Along the lines of

"red, orange, bell, conquerer"
-- conquerer is not a kind of pepper
-- bell is not the appellation of a figure in Middle Ages European history (Eric the Red, William of Orange, William the Conquerer)
-- orange is not... (but red, bell, and conquerer are - racehorces, maybe?)
-- red is not ...

(Wits and time fail me at this moment.)

Is that what we're looking for?

>Is that what we're looking for?

I thought so, but I was thrown for a loop by dxb's "all mixed up between different lines" (I thought of troy presented a "set" which were independent of each other)...

Is that what we're looking for?

Helen started us off with, I believe, a fousome that could have either of two odd balls, I challenged us to come up with a foursome any one of which could be considered an odd ball. So, yes, that's what we're looking for, although twos and threes should still be welcome. I'd suggest that any list posted explicitly state the number of odd balls desired.

tree, etc.

Sorry, kinduva tongue-in-cheek question.




Everything with the exception of a balloon can be zipped up -
in different meanings of the word zip, of course.

One of my college profs (now deceased) used to administer IQ tests and he related this story to us in class: A little, black girl (I think he said she was nine) had the highest IQ he'd ever personally measured - except she missed a question the answer to which he thought was obvious. He asked her about it. I don't remember the whole story or the particular set of items, but I remember how her response started - "Well, you can zip up a tree..."


k

kinda trivial, but 3 sets

cravat bat ski hat


k

Saturn______Dodge______Earth______Mercury

Dodge is not a planet, earth is not a car

I thought so, but I was thrown for a loop by dxb's "all mixed up between different lines" (I thought of troy presented a "set" which were independent of each other)... ~ tsuwm

Yeah, now I look more closely, you're right. I jumped to the wrong conclusion. Still, mixing up the lines adds to the interest...perhaps.

And they're not difficult.

Edit:

After a PM from WW, I realise that it is evidently more difficult than I thought it would be. What I’ve done is what I thought she had done.

- I have made 7 sets of 4.

- In each of the 7 sets there is one item which, if removed, leaves a different set of 3, call it a sub-set, that the fourth (removed one) would not fit into.

- Then I’ve mixed them all up.

Hope that helps – I seem to have been too obscure for my own good – anyway, I didn’t explain it well enough. I don’t think I mentioned the sub-sets. Oh dear, I’m sorry about that.

The sets and sub-sets (with the sub-sets in brackets) are:

jewellery materials, (precious metals)

loaves, (towns)

body parts, (measures)

rivers, (colours)

papers, (vegetable products)

cats, (countries – sort of)

boats, (activities)

Everyone except one was unlike all the others in some respect, so the one that wasn't unlike all the others was unlike all the others in that it wasn't unlike all the others.

Or, for those who prefer the Readers' Digest explanation, it was least like the others because it was the only one that was like all the others.

I'd be interested in seeing a concrete example, Faldage.

How can a number of things, each of which are different from each other, be the same as one other single thing?

A shopper with 3 different purchases in her arms could be the same shopper earlier in the day with 1 or 2 purchases in her arms, but with 3 purchases she is not the same as herself with one or two or none.

I wish I could find it. I have tried unsuccesfully to reconstruct it. There were four features and I can't even remember how they related to each other. It was in a Scientific American from the '60s. The Mathematical Games section.

one toe not ten

Love it.

Me, too.

very cute.

k

But surely among us we can find a more sophisticated example?

GAMES Magazine has an occasional Tic-Tac-Toe grid of pictures with the common theme of each line to be determined. I suspect it's easier with pictures.

Surely we can "find a more sophisticated example"--either through knowing which venues to search for created examples or through spending time to do so. But would it be worth the time spent creating such a puzzle?

It'd keep our synapses lubricated, I guess.

...would it be worth the time spent creating such a puzzle?

I s'pose you're right. After all, this is supposed to be a word board, not a puzzle board.

On the other hand,...

I guess it's just a matter of how you want to lubricate your synapses. Sitting around and making lists of distinctive features shared by four items in four cases with elimination of one of the four in each of the four cases might be fun if one was so inclined to spend time that way. And how gratifying would be the quest, once realized and achieved. And it sure seems that some kind of computer program could do the job easily--maybe.

But my own synpases are making the request that I oil them with some other kind of oil...maybe some oil that will produce more practical results.

However, kudos to anybody who comes up with the happy result, no matter how trivial.

As an IQ author, I can't let you deride my trade so lightly! Of course an unlimited number of logics can be applied to any set. And the same can be said about science and the physical world. See how many "explanations" were offered for the courses of the planets before Kepler. But the goal is to find the most simple and the most likely logic. That's where intelligence intervenes...

a puzzle a day keeps the hassle away

Oh, crealude, how good of you to come here and express your opinion about your trade. IQ tests are fun to take! And it's good that people like you sit around and create test items.

As far as my own comment went, I was simply suggesting that for some of us--certainly not for all of us--we might choose diversions other than the creation of such items to lubricate those synapses AnnaS mentioned, such as perhaps writing a song, a poem, a short story, sculpting, painting, memorizing a moving passage of literature, and so on.

I certainly respect the way you yourself would choose to oil your synapses, be it puzzle-making, creating IQ test items, or some other equally interesting mental operation. What a fascinating career you have! And welcome aboard!

Best regards,
WW

a puzzle a day keeps the hassle away

I'm (I suspect it's fairly evident) on your side!

riddle me this, find the odd one out, the theme, the combinations and any other theory you can scrape together


he man she ra

elizabeth mary josephine anne

elizabeth mary josephine anne

All but josephine were relatives of Jesus.

>he man she ra

she's no he.

All but josephine were relatives of Jesus.

it's good but it's not the one

say what you see

Josephine's still the odd man out.

She didn't rule in her own right.

Mary is the only one with all of its letters different.

Elizabeth has two e's, as does Josephine. Anne has two n's.

Bingley

Anne, Mary, and Josephine have, arguably, a prime number of syllables; Elizabeth has a composite number.

Why are you *guy's whispering???