full transcript

From the Ted Talk by Daniel Finkel: Can you solve the sea monster riddle?

Unscramble the Blue Letters

You think back to the legends. In the stories, the ruler of the city saved his people by fdeneig the cearetrus a ransom of praels. The pearls would be split equally between the leviathans lords. Each leviathan would then divide its share into 11 equal pleis, keeping one, and giving the other 10 to their kraken commanders. Each kraken would then divide its srhae into 13 equal piles, keeping one, and distributing the other twelve to their mtmriee minions. If any one of these doniiivss left an unequal pile or leftover pearl, the monsters would pull everyone to the bottom of the sea. Such was the fate of your fabled sister city.

Open Cloze

You think back to the legends. In the stories, the ruler of the city saved his people by _______ the _________ a ransom of ______. The pearls would be split equally between the leviathans lords. Each leviathan would then divide its share into 11 equal _____, keeping one, and giving the other 10 to their kraken commanders. Each kraken would then divide its _____ into 13 equal piles, keeping one, and distributing the other twelve to their _______ minions. If any one of these _________ left an unequal pile or leftover pearl, the monsters would pull everyone to the bottom of the sea. Such was the fate of your fabled sister city.

Solution

  1. piles
  2. share
  3. feeding
  4. pearls
  5. divisions
  6. creatures
  7. mermite

Original Text

You think back to the legends. In the stories, the ruler of the city saved his people by feeding the creatures a ransom of pearls. The pearls would be split equally between the leviathans lords. Each leviathan would then divide its share into 11 equal piles, keeping one, and giving the other 10 to their kraken commanders. Each kraken would then divide its share into 13 equal piles, keeping one, and distributing the other twelve to their mermite minions. If any one of these divisions left an unequal pile or leftover pearl, the monsters would pull everyone to the bottom of the sea. Such was the fate of your fabled sister city.

Frequently Occurring Word Combinations

ngrams of length 2

collocation frequency
sea monsters 3
thousand years 2

Important Words

  1. bottom
  2. city
  3. commanders
  4. creatures
  5. distributing
  6. divide
  7. divisions
  8. equal
  9. equally
  10. fabled
  11. fate
  12. feeding
  13. giving
  14. keeping
  15. kraken
  16. left
  17. leftover
  18. legends
  19. leviathan
  20. leviathans
  21. lords
  22. mermite
  23. minions
  24. monsters
  25. pearl
  26. pearls
  27. people
  28. pile
  29. piles
  30. pull
  31. ransom
  32. ruler
  33. saved
  34. sea
  35. share
  36. sister
  37. split
  38. stories
  39. twelve
  40. unequal