Behave (solution)
by Jordan Bennett Louis Smith
ALMOST Nearly (6) ANNIE PROULX Brokeback scribe (5, 6) ANNOTATION Marginal comment in a copy of Hamlet, maybe (10) ARTIFICIAL Like some intelligence (10) BALKED Gave up a base without pitching, maybe (6) BAR SPOON Elongated drink-stirring utensil (3, 5) BIOPSY It's taken before an important test (6) CHIMP Caesar or Bonzo, for example (5) COMMUTATIVE Unlike the cross product (11) ENGINE ROOM Montgomery Scott's workplace (6, 4) FILMS The answers to the next two clues, for example (5) GHOST Word before story or writer (5) HIGH NOON Time for a Western showdown (4, 4) HUGO WEAVING Smith and V portrayer (4, 7) INDIVIDUAL Part of IRA (10) KLUTZY Like a maladroit fellow (6) MOUNTAIN DEW Pepsi relative (8, 3) MOZAMBIQUE Y-shaped African country (10) OMNIVOROUS Like pigs, crows, and bears (10) ON LOCATION Where Woody Allen usually shoots (2, 8) ONYX Leo's birthstone (4) POSTED Displayed, like a cast list (6) SEQUOIA Huge tree or vehicle (7) TUX Informal word for formal wear (3)
The answers are supposed to be sorted into 4 categories. The four categories are for words/phrases that have:
- All five vowels
ANNIE PROULX, COMMUTATIVE, HUGO WEAVING, MOUNTAIN DEW, MOZAMBIQUE, SEQUOIA
- Same vowel/consonant pattern (VCCVCVCVVC)
ANNOTATION, ARTIFICIAL, ENGINE ROOM, INDIVIDUAL, OMNIVOROUS, ON LOCATION
- Letters in alphabetical order
ALMOST, BIOPSY, CHIMP, FILMS, GHOST, TUX
- Every pair of letters is a bigram in the alphabet
BALKED, BAR SPOON, HIGH NOON, KLUTZY, ONYX, POSTED
There is a single 10-letter string that obeys all 4 properties: ABDEHINOUV. Using this as the keyword of a Playfair square, we obtain:
ABDEH INOUV CFGKL MPQRS TWXYZ
The cipher text now can be decoded:
GI MP VQ DY RO VT CO SM OS EX QU IZ
Giving the answer, COSMO SEX QUIZ.