Solution to All for One and One for All

by Aaron Dinkin

This is the same as one of those "26 L. in the A." puzzles, but instead of sentences with numbers, it's a bunch of sentences translated into first-order logic notation. So, the first step is to expand the sentences (see below). At the bottom of the page, each subscripted letter refers to the word beginning with that letter in the sentence indexed with the subscript. Each pair of words being "intersected" has exactly one letter in common, so each "intersection" denotes a single letter.

The sentences are as follows (words that are referred to by subscripted letters are given in CAPS):

  1. All DOGS go to heaven.
  2. All's FAIR in love and WAR.
  3. Everybody ought to have a MAID.
  4. Every CLOUD has a silver LINING.
  5. Every time you MASTURBATE, GOD kills a kitten.
  6. I get no kick from CHAMPAGNE.
  7. Nobody doesn't like SARA Lee.
  8. Nobody knows the trouble I've SEEN.
  9. No MAN is an ISLAND.
  10. Something is ROTTEN in the state of DENMARK.
  11. There ain't no such thing as a FREE LUNCH.
  12. There is no JOY in Mudville. (Mighty Casey has STRUCK out!)
  13. There is nothing like a DAME.
  14. There's a SUCKER born every MINUTE.
  15. There's a time and a PLACE for everything.
  16. There's no business like SHOW business.
  17. There's no place like HOME.
  18. You can FOOL some of the people all of the time, and you can FOOL all of the people some of the time, but you can't FOOL all of the people all of the time.
  19. You can get anything you WANT at Alice's Restaurant.

The intersections spell out ANDERSON AS ANGUS. Richard Dean Anderson played Angus MacGyver, so the answer is MACGYVER.


2006 MIT Mystery Hunt