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I've been itching to try and make one of these for a while since JLee started posting them. I feel like this one might not be challenging enough, but I'll see what you guys make of it.

The following table contains two columns. Each of the phrases in the left column has a property for which I call it an Endless Phrase™, that the phrases in the right column lack.

a list of endless and non-endless phrases

  • The appearance of letters, including capitalization, has no bearing on the rule.

Can you figure out what the pattern is?

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    $\begingroup$ -1 for not telling us who JLee is and expecting us to look it up for ourselves. $\endgroup$
    – chasly - supports Monica
    Commented Aug 11, 2015 at 11:59
  • $\begingroup$ @chaslyfromUK I put a link in; is that better? $\endgroup$
    – user88
    Commented Aug 11, 2015 at 12:12
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    $\begingroup$ +1 nice puzzle! one thing I learned from feedback: although the pictures look better, some users like to have a copyable list in text form (some because they cannot view images online at work, and some for other reasons), so if you add that at the end, it will make them happy and you'll reach more people. $\endgroup$
    – JLee
    Commented Aug 11, 2015 at 12:13
  • $\begingroup$ en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rho Your last example for "not endless phrases" has a mistake. :) $\endgroup$
    – Kingrames
    Commented Aug 11, 2015 at 12:14
  • $\begingroup$ And I spent like two hours checking for errors. >_> Thanks for catching. $\endgroup$
    – user88
    Commented Aug 11, 2015 at 12:32

1 Answer 1

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An endless phrase is one in which:

Taking the last letter(s) of a phrase and applying it to the beginning allows you to create (at least) one new word. I suspect it allows you to continue for longer than that, but I'm struggling to do that

Examples:

listen to the painting -> glisten
A cleated shoe in a barn -> barnacle
terrible crowbar -> barter

As ever, this doesn't work with the non-endless phrases

End results from each line:

1)cob
2)glisten (though glis is an animal genus, apparently)
3)leader
4)wad
5)agog
6)erase
7)local
8)cat
9)best
10)black
11)eon
12)llama
13)barnacle
14)net
15)source
16)least
17)whelp
18)shear (or even she)
19)men
20)art

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  • $\begingroup$ You've got the right idea, but the words are shorter than that (sometimes only three letters). :\ $\endgroup$
    – user88
    Commented Aug 11, 2015 at 11:09
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    $\begingroup$ Er, the words are usually shorter than that, but "barnacle" is correct. $\endgroup$
    – user88
    Commented Aug 11, 2015 at 11:53

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