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I remember organising the colours of the rainbow in columns. In the way that I did, I could create the word RAINBOW from certain letters in each word, indicated by the columns they were each placed in. However, I forgot how it worked, and I can only remember four colours in each of their position — I don't know which position each of the other three colours belong to. I have marked those remaining positions that the colours need to go in, with hyphens of a quantity matching to the number of letters in its neighbouring colour of the same column.

                        Red        ------       Green
                        Indigo     Orange       -----
                        ------

Which colour of the remaining three goes in which position to achieve the word RAINBOW in the way previously described?

No hints! You have been given more than one ;)

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  • $\begingroup$ Already an upvote? Jeez, how fast do you guys read?! $\endgroup$
    – Mr Pie
    Mar 29, 2019 at 16:49
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    $\begingroup$ This is a bit more difficult for us non-native English speakers, who haven't been indoctrinated into believing that there are only a small integer number of distinct colours in the continuous spectrum of visible light. :-) $\endgroup$
    – Bass
    Mar 29, 2019 at 17:13
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    $\begingroup$ @Bass Oh, sorry! I meant the seven main clearly-clear-and-visible colours of the rainbow (ROYGBIV, as I've been taught). I don't mean to indoctrinate... I think that might be a strong word... but I guess this riddle can be externally misleading, I would say, hence I apologise to the non-native English speakers. $\endgroup$
    – Mr Pie
    Mar 29, 2019 at 17:17

2 Answers 2

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This feels a bit underdetermined to me, probably meaning that I'm missing some hidden hints that nail things down further. But here's one thing we can do, which meets the explicitly given requirements:

Red    viOlet greeN
Indigo orAnge yelloW
Blue

where we take

the first letter of things in the left column, the third letter of things in the middle column, and the last letter of things in the right column, yielding RIB/OA/NW which anagrams to RAINBOW.

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  • $\begingroup$ Superb answer, Gareth! Once again, you become the fox of all riddles — quick, clever and sneaky, too, having ninjaed someone else's answer! Hahah, I will give the tick to you, but also some credit to @DqwertyC. If you get many more upvotes than their answer, I'll probably award them a $50$ rep bounty. You are the moderator, so I ask you first if that seems fair :) $\endgroup$
    – Mr Pie
    Mar 29, 2019 at 17:03
  • $\begingroup$ Yeah, there is another hint you missed, but you'll probably figure it out. I can vote again in at least $6$ hours from now, incidentally. $\endgroup$
    – Mr Pie
    Mar 29, 2019 at 17:13
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    $\begingroup$ In my capacity as moderator, I hereby declare that you should feel free to vote, accept, offer bounties, and accept bounties in whatever way seems most reasonable to you. $\endgroup$
    – Gareth McCaughan ♦
    Mar 29, 2019 at 17:22
  • $\begingroup$ Congratulations, Gareth! $(+1)\,\color{green}{\checkmark}$ $\endgroup$
    – Mr Pie
    Mar 31, 2019 at 5:41
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The colors are

Red Violet Green
Indigo Orange Yellow
Blue

The rules are

First letter from colors in the first column, third letter from colors in the middle column, and last letter from colors in the last column.

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    $\begingroup$ Ha! Ninjaed you by 22 seconds. $\endgroup$
    – Gareth McCaughan ♦
    Mar 29, 2019 at 16:55
  • $\begingroup$ (The fact that we ended up with the same answer makes me think maybe it's less underdetermined than I feared.) $\endgroup$
    – Gareth McCaughan ♦
    Mar 29, 2019 at 16:55
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    $\begingroup$ And you ninjaed me to making the inverse comment on your own answer! $\endgroup$
    – DqwertyC
    Mar 29, 2019 at 16:55
  • $\begingroup$ I'm just too quick for you. Sorry! $\endgroup$
    – Gareth McCaughan ♦
    Mar 29, 2019 at 16:56
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    $\begingroup$ You and @GarethMcCaughan I swear how do you find these so quickly?! I spent about $40$ minutes trying to come up with a reasonably difficult puzzle which I thought was this, and then you guys solve it in what, $40$ seconds??? xD $\endgroup$
    – Mr Pie
    Mar 29, 2019 at 16:56

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