With eight, I'm quite heady.
With three, my claws ready.
With thirteen, I'm downtrodden.
With eighteen, said to be sodden.Alone, I'm quite new here,
Yet ubiquitous everywhere.
What am I?
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asked Jun 22, 2015 at 17:48
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$\begingroup$ A scenester teen werewolf from another town. $\endgroup$– Tobia TesanCommented Jun 22, 2015 at 20:50
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$\begingroup$ Quite devilishly clever and elegant! $\endgroup$– dennisdeemsCommented Jun 24, 2015 at 19:04
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2 Answers
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The numbers are referring to
Letters of the alphabet!
You are
The word 'at'
With eight, I'm quite heady,
Hats are worn on the head [citation needed].
With three, my claws are ready,
Cats are known to have sharp claws.
With thirteen, I'm downtrodden,
Mats, like doormats and floor mats, are walked on.
With eighteen, said to be sodden.
This one could be a reference to the phrase "wet as a drowned rat".
Alone, I'm quite new here,
yet ubiquitous everywhere.
Thanks to Ryan, I now know that it refers to the @ symbol! It's new to the common keyboard (relatively), yet is in common usage on pretty much all keyboards, websites, etc. these days.
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3$\begingroup$ Perhaps the line you're not sure of is AT (the chemical Astatine) which was discovered "recently" in 1940 ? lol, a bit of a stretch but it's the only thing I could find $\endgroup$– zfrischCommented Jun 22, 2015 at 18:53
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$\begingroup$ Maybe the "Alone, I'm quite new here" is because "at" is the last word in the title, making it the "newest here"? Just a thought. $\endgroup$ Commented Jun 22, 2015 at 19:33
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$\begingroup$ Good job! The only bits you haven't got are the last two lines. $\endgroup$ Commented Jun 22, 2015 at 19:38
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$\begingroup$ By the way, did you notice the last word of the title? ;-) $\endgroup$ Commented Jun 25, 2015 at 19:50
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I'm quite new on the site, so I can't comment, but I wanted to help @Bailey M with their answer. Specifically, the last two clues.
I think "Alone, I'm quite new here, Yet ubiquitous everywhere" refers simply to:
the @ symbol. It's new on the Stack network (I think?) and it's everywhere (emails, Twitter, etc)
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2$\begingroup$ @mmking well, I hate to be that guy, but "new" is relative :) $\endgroup$– zfrischCommented Jun 22, 2015 at 20:26
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2$\begingroup$ Yes - well done! See here for a history of the symbol. It's only become widely used since the '70s (new compared to most of the other symbols on the keyboard, wouldn't you say @mmking?) but now it's used all over the place - there's even one in this comment! $\endgroup$ Commented Jun 22, 2015 at 21:15
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$\begingroup$ That Smithsonian article is interesting and I hadn't heard the each at theory before (memorable and nice regardless of whether it's accurate), but it's mistaken to imply that @ wasn't used a lot on keyboards until the 1970s. By then it had been used as standard on many typewriter models for decades, and anyone who did accounting was familiar with it. It was included for the same reason as £ or $: for use when typing stuff to do with items' monetary values. I have a manual typewriter from the 1970s or late 1960s which has no 1 (just use lower-case l) but still has @, on the same key as 4. $\endgroup$– h34Commented Jun 23, 2015 at 14:07