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I saw two neighbors between my eyes. Then I lost my right eye, but I was still the same. Then one neighbour left, but I was still no different. Finally, I lost my left eye and now I no longer belong to any culture.

Who was I?

Edit: Changed the wording a bit to make some points clearer

Hint 1:

I come in many forms, where one form is hard to find, while a more common one might hurt you.

Hint 2:

\ ( o . o ) /

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    $\begingroup$ Would this person say "Yarr, matey!" ? $\endgroup$
    – Oak
    Feb 18 '16 at 20:39
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    $\begingroup$ I'm thinking it's a word of the pattern *i??i* but I can't find one that fits. $\endgroup$
    – Engineer Toast
    Feb 19 '16 at 7:22
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    $\begingroup$ Agree - I'm guessing the culture reference is a UK/US difference in spelling. i.e "tranquillity/tranquility" (one neighbour can leave) or "speciality/specialty" (can remove the right 'i', not the left) $\endgroup$
    – Easy Tiger
    Feb 19 '16 at 10:29
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    $\begingroup$ I searched for a word *i??i* where ?? would be 2 neighbors in the alphabet (forward and backward) but couldn't find an answer $\endgroup$
    – phenxd
    Feb 19 '16 at 21:08
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    $\begingroup$ Is there any confirmation if it's wordplay though? $\endgroup$
    – Takeshi
    Feb 23 '16 at 4:28
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You are

yoghourt

and your 'eyes'

are letters 'o' rather than 'i', which commenters (including myself) tended to think

If you lose your right eye you become:

yoghurt, the American spelling

If you lose a neighbour, you become:

yogurt, a different spelling

However, losing your other eye makes you gibberish.

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2
  • $\begingroup$ I must say I enjoyed the puzzle very much! $\endgroup$
    – Block
    Feb 24 '16 at 14:54
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    $\begingroup$ I never see anyone use this spelling, but the "culture" bit suddenly seems like a dead giveaway. $\endgroup$
    – question_asker
    Feb 24 '16 at 15:18
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Are you the word

djinni?

It has two i's with two neighbors (letters) between then. If you remove the right i you have

the singular, djinn,

which makes sense since one "neighbor" (different than above use) left. If you remove the left i you have

djnni,

which isn't a word at all.

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    $\begingroup$ oh, this is a very good answer (I'm out of votes or I'd vote it up right now) $\endgroup$
    – question_asker
    Feb 19 '16 at 15:18
  • $\begingroup$ Nice suggestion, but this was not what I was thinking about. Also, I changed the wording of the riddle a bit. $\endgroup$
    – Improve
    Feb 19 '16 at 15:28
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I saw two neighbors between my eyes.

billiard , English word. "2 I" are eyes, "2 L" are neighbours

Then I lost my right eye, but I was still the same.

billard - French for billiard

Then one neighbour left, but I was still no different.

bilard - Polish for billiard

Finally, I lost my left eye and now I no longer belong to any culture.

blard - lost the meaning and no meaining at all in any language

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  • $\begingroup$ This is the best answer so far. $\endgroup$
    – M.Y. Babt
    Feb 24 '16 at 10:07
  • $\begingroup$ Your last one doesn't lose the right letter, but otherwise this seems to work $\endgroup$
    – question_asker
    Feb 24 '16 at 10:08
  • $\begingroup$ thanks @question_asker i fixed it, and like you said, still this is the answer for me that fits $\endgroup$
    – canova
    Feb 24 '16 at 10:15
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Are you:

A Jack? enter image description here The jack has two eyes with two neighboring bodies in between. If you remove one of the eyes, there is still a complete body on the other side of the card. Ditto for removing the body that lost it's eye. However, when you remove the second eye, then it is no longer a complete body.

I'm not sure how this relates to the word culture though.

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My only thought that seems to kind of fit so far is:

Glasses/monocle.

Fitting the riddle:

Without one lens (eye), glasses become a monocle, which is still a vision aid. Remove the other lens, and you don't have a monocle, so you aren't cultured anymore. As far as neighbors, I'm not sure. The nose pads?

As for the hints:

There are many types of glasses. Monocles are hard to find. Magnifying glasses can be dangerous... ?     :)

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