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  • Move three of me west, and you get something that can hold text on a computer, or something that turns.
  • Move one of me west, and one of me south-east, and you get something that can hold text on paper, or something that prevents turning, at least if you are picky.
  • Move one of me west, and you get a troublemaker.
  • Move one of me north-west, and you meet someone who might help you end up in the grave.
  • Move one of me north-west, and you meet someone from Sweden's past.
  • Move one of me north-west, and one of me south-east, and you might get a hunch that this is someone from France.
  • Move one of me west, and one of me north-west, and you get something you may want to avoid eating, unless you want to become me.
  • Move three of me, east, south-east, and south-west, respectively, to get something that's essential for making the previous thing.

What am I?

Hint:

QWERTY

Correction: One of the hints used to say "Move one of me south-west, and you meet someone from Sweden's past." which was a typo that has now been fixed in the text above.

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  • 2
    $\begingroup$ Suggestion for next hint: number of letters in the word. $\endgroup$
    – Rand al'Thor
    Commented Sep 15, 2017 at 19:09
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    $\begingroup$ The first hint was already very well clued by the absence of straight north and south moves. I just couldn't figure out the words. $\endgroup$
    – humn
    Commented Sep 15, 2017 at 19:15
  • $\begingroup$ @humn Hmm, yeah, I was unsure whether people were confused by the mechanics of the riddle, which is why I dropped that hint. Would you suggest dropping another hint now or wait another week or so? $\endgroup$
    – nitro2k01
    Commented Sep 15, 2017 at 19:34
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    $\begingroup$ No rush in my opinion for the next hint, @nitro2k01, I'm continually amazed by others' word association abilities and trust the first hint to help reduce their search spaces $\endgroup$
    – humn
    Commented Sep 15, 2017 at 19:38
  • $\begingroup$ Sweden clue should be north-west, shouldn't it? $\endgroup$
    – shoover
    Commented Sep 16, 2017 at 2:01

1 Answer 1

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Hint

The thing that helped me the most was

realizing that the moves do not have to be to a contiguous key, but can skip several keys and merely indicate the general direction.

Complete answer

I am

                                       q  w [E][R] t  y  u [I] o  p
             BIGGER                     a  s  d  f [G] h  j  k  l
                                         z  x  c  v [B] n  m

Move three of me west

 Move IGG to UFF to get BUFFER,        q  w [E][R] t  y [U](i) o  p
 a programming term or a device         a  s  d [F](g) h  j  k  l
 to clean/strip floors.                  z  x  c  v [B] n  m

something that can hold text on a computer, or something that turns.

Move one of me west, and one of me south-east

 Move G to D, AND G to N               q  w [E][R] t  y  u [I] o  p
 to get BINDER                          a  s [D] f (g) h  j  k  l
                                         z  x  c  v [B][N] m

something that can hold text on paper, or something that prevents turning, at least if you are picky.

Move one of me west

                                       q  w [E][R] t  y [U](i) o  p
 Move I to U to get BUGGER              a  s  d  f [G] h  j  k  l
                                         z  x  c  v [B] n  m

a troublemaker.

Move one of me north-west

                                       q  w [E][R] t  y  u [I] o  p
 Move B to D to get DIGGER              a  s [D] f [G] h  j  k  l
                                         z  x  c  v (b) n  m

someone who might help you end up in the grave.

Move one of me south-west

 Move G to R to get BIRGER,            q  w [E][R] t  y  u [I] o  p
 if this should be north-west           a  s  d  f [G] h  j  k  l
 instead of south-west!                  z  x  c  v [B] n  m

someone from Sweden's past.

Move one of me north-west, and one of me south-east

 Move B to R and G to N                q  w [E][R] t  y  u [I] o  p
 to get RINGER, as in                   a  s  d  f [G] h  j  k  l
 Quasimodo the hunchback                 z  x  c  v (b)[N] m

someone from France.

Move one of me west, and one of me north-west

 Move I to U and G to R to get         q  w [E][R] t  y [U](i) o  p
 BURGER to avoid becoming BIGGER.       a  s  d  f [G] h  j  k  l
                                         z  x  c  v [B] n  m

something you may want to avoid eating.

Move three of me, east, south-east, and south-west

 Move B to M, G to N,                  q  w [E][R] t  y  u [I] o  p
 and G to C to get MINCER.              a  s  d  f (g) h  j  k  l
                                         z  x [C] v (b)[N][M]

something that's essential for making the previous thing.

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  • $\begingroup$ Hurray! Which clues got you started? Also, mind if I add text-picture summaries of the moves? (I was working on a worksheet text file that was only missing the correct words.) You can rollback or adjust them to your liking. $\endgroup$
    – humn
    Commented Sep 16, 2017 at 3:32
  • $\begingroup$ The thing holding text in a computer, I actually came up with first, but discarded it because of (hint that I'm about to add to the top of my answer). Likewise the ending up in a grave clue. The French person I knew where to go but had to pick around the various possibilities since at the time I didn't know how many letters were in the answer. I was actually quite puzzled until I realized (hint). $\endgroup$
    – shoover
    Commented Sep 16, 2017 at 3:44
  • $\begingroup$ Please feel free to add the pictures! $\endgroup$
    – shoover
    Commented Sep 16, 2017 at 3:47
  • $\begingroup$ Pictures added, shoover, allways rollback-able. I was really looking forward to seeing this solved. $\endgroup$
    – humn
    Commented Sep 16, 2017 at 4:36
  • $\begingroup$ Almost a perfect answer. :) The one little part of a clue you didn't fully explain was "at least if you are picky". That word is lock-picking terminology for a pin that prevents the core from turning because the pin is stuck, thus "if you are picky". $\endgroup$
    – nitro2k01
    Commented Sep 16, 2017 at 11:25

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