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I took the name of a XYZ.
It starts with a XYZ.
I picked even letters only.
The result contains only letters which are in XYZ
and is the name of a XYZ.

What is XYZ? What did I start with?

XYZ is one word, but not necessarily three letters long.

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The answer is that XYZ is:

"capital"

You started with the name of a XYZ.

NAYPYIDAW, the capital city of Myanmar

It starts with a XYZ.

It starts with a capital letter, as proper nouns do in English.

I picked even letters only.

Taking the 2nd, 4th, 6th, and 8th letters gives APIA.

The result contains only letters which are in XYZ

The letters of APIA are all in the word "capital".

and is the name of a XYZ.

APIA is the capital city of Samoa.

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  • $\begingroup$ This is the intended answer. Nice work. $\endgroup$
    – Jafe
    Commented Nov 23, 2018 at 6:31
  • $\begingroup$ @jafe That's a really nifty find. How did you come across this? $\endgroup$
    – ManyPinkHats
    Commented Nov 23, 2018 at 12:18
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    $\begingroup$ I was just looking for an XYZ which contains all the letters in the answer. The fact that it was every second letter, and in the same order, was just lucky :) $\endgroup$
    – Jafe
    Commented Nov 26, 2018 at 5:20
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It’s kind of a stretch, but until I find a better answer, here goes my guess:

XYZ is

Chemical

I took the name of a XYZ

I choose Tin, a chemical in the periodic table

It starts with a XYZ

Ti = Titanium

I picked even letter only

Only one letter in my case, so “i”

The result matches \b[XYZ]+\b

A regular expression that searches for whole words that is composed only by any amount of the characters in “chemical”. So in this case, “i” is composed by a character in “chemical” so the result matches.

And is the name of a XYZ

“i” is also the name of a chemical, Iodine

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  • $\begingroup$ Pretty good! The only part that's a bit of a stretch is the last step. $\endgroup$
    – Jafe
    Commented Nov 23, 2018 at 6:30

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