Namechange

[prog]

I hereby declare that the name of the puzzle-solving group that gathers together at my house sometimes, and is mostly-but-not-entirely made of members from the "Immoral, Illegal & Fattening" MIT mystery hunt team, to be Shabbas Llamas. This comes from an excellently incorrect clue answer we generated on Sunday, thanks to hahathor.

For lack of a better name, I two months ago described ourselves as "Immoral Illegal & Fattening (and friends)" for listing purposes in the issue's leaderboard, since we placed among the previous issue's first ten solvers. I regretted this as soon as I saw it in print; it struck me as an unauthorized use of a name that I don't own, and felt yuckier given that IIF's team captain is listed in the magazine's masthead.

I like this solution much better, and hope nobody thinks ill of me for the unintentional slight!

Comments

[jadelennox]

it hurts my brain that the twowords in your group name don't even come close to rhyming, though.

[prog.livejournal.com]

Google doesn't like the spelling either, but we had to spell it that way or it wouldn't have fit the puzzle.

And then we were all too busy giggling over the idea of friendly trained llamas going around turning on lights to care too much.

[mrmorse.livejournal.com]

Sure they do. It's pronounced Shabbat Llamat. Accent on the second syllable in both words. At least, that's how I read it.

[rikchik.livejournal.com]

is that pronounced /sha-BAT ya-MAT/?

[mrmorse.livejournal.com]

I was thinking /sha-BAT la-MAT/, but there's a good case for a y instead of an l.

[530nm330hz.livejournal.com]

I'd go with Shabbat Llamot, myself, since the second word is clearly a feminine plural. :-)

[mrmorse.livejournal.com]

Good point, but doesn't that break the rhyme?

[dougo.livejournal.com]

It wasn't meant to be a rhyme, but it was meant to have only As as vowels (to fit the puzzle theme). Shabbat Llamas would work just as well, I think, or even Sabbath Llamas. Although Shabbas Llamas has nice assonance and meter (at least the way hahathor pronounced it).

[hahathor.livejournal.com]

I am so delighted that the name got picked up. And I'm looking forward to being a yiddische llama during future solving sessions.