Clergyman's wife tells story of picking up a muscle.
Solution: $\require{color}\definecolor{hint}{RGB}{1,124,233} \small\color{hint}{\textsf{5 words}}$
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$\begingroup$ Are you sure you mean muscle and not mussel? $\endgroup$– benzeneAug 6, 2017 at 6:23
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$\begingroup$ @benzene Quite sure. $\endgroup$– Rubio ♦Aug 6, 2017 at 6:24
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2$\begingroup$ Making me think of she sells sea shells along the sea shore $\endgroup$– Beastly GerbilAug 6, 2017 at 15:19
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1$\begingroup$ Is it about Socrates's wife called Xanthappe's quarrelsome attitude leading to heated vocal conversation @Rubio ?! $\endgroup$– Mea Culpa NayAug 6, 2017 at 17:10
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1$\begingroup$ I think I've seen all the components of solving this, other than the actual 5 words themselves, correctly guessed at by people contemplating this puzzle in The Sphinx's Lair. Of course I won't say which guesses were right and which were wrong, but given that the right guesses have been made, how the puzzle works is within potential solvers' grasp. Without further comment, I'll note that most (all?) the commentary in TSL about this puzzle can be found at/near the relevant looking hits on this search. $\endgroup$– Rubio ♦Aug 10, 2017 at 19:27
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4 Answers
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From the title:
The word that jumps out the most is "shells". My first thought was that this might mean that we need to find synonyms and only take the outer/inner letters, but this didn't lead me anywhere. Later in The Sphinx's Lair @Alconja suggested that maybe "shells" means the words could be arranged in a matryoshka doll-like pattern, i.e. A(B(C(D)E)F)G, which I thought was a really good idea.
From the hint:
The color of "5 words" is 0x17ce9 = 97513, which I think gives the length of each of our 5 words in order.
Putting this together:
Clergyman's wife tells story of picking up a muscle.
a
Clergyman's wife tells story of picking up a muscle.
lat
Clergyman's wife tells story of picking up a muscle.
elate
Clergyman's wife tells story of picking up a muscle.
relates
Clergyman's wife tells story of picking up a muscle.
prelatess
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1$\begingroup$ Good job! What was the relevance of picking? $\endgroup$ Aug 10, 2017 at 20:56
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1$\begingroup$ @DavidFoong it's there to indicate that the verb tense doesn't match with the answer. $\endgroup$– ffaoAug 10, 2017 at 20:57
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Is it
A Story of Two Lives,
a chapter in the book Miss Margaret's Stories, By A Clergyman's Wife, Author Of 'katie's Counsel'? It talks about an orphan boy who works with a spade in the garden, who told the stories about Miss Margaret, a clergyman's wife.
I'm not so sure if this is the intended solution though, since I didn't get the shell reference in the title and I don't understand how fifth word may escape me. Also I don't understand why 'ing' in 'picking' is italicized.
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$\begingroup$ Sorry, but that is not the solution. The title is an important clue to solving this. $\endgroup$– Rubio ♦Aug 7, 2017 at 21:16
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Partial answer:
I decided to
Take the sentence and look for alternate meanings.
To start off,
I took Clergeyman's wife and turned it into Presbytera (I know, technically that's a preacher's wife). Then, I took "tells story" and changed it to "preach(es/ed)" in order to keep with the religious theme. Next, I gave up because I couldn't fit the rest of it. That leaves us with Presbytera preaches [word] [word] [word]
Thoughts:
I'm hoping this is along the right track. It seems to me like this is the right way to solve it, especially with the wordplay tag attached to the puzzle. Picking makes no sense to me. Maybe it's supposed to separate the word?
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It's just a guess, but it seems
"pickING up a muscle" might tell us to literally pick ING up MUSCLE (...which leads us to MUSING-CLE)???
answered Aug 10, 2017 at 17:51
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$\begingroup$ To quote from the puzzle: "Solution: 5 words" $\endgroup$– M OehmAug 10, 2017 at 17:57