At 10am today the tickets for the next Edinburgh Secret Society event (“The Lafayette Seance”) will go on sale here.
On Friday I posted this puzzle….
Can you cross out the unnecessary letters to leave a common phrase?
ATCHEOUNMNE
MCESOSNAPRH
YRLEATTSEERS
If you have not tried to solve it, have a go now. For everyone else, the answer is after the break.
ATCHEOUNMNE
MCESOSNAPRH
YRLEATTSEERS
Did you solve it? Any other solutions?
If you enjoy the Friday Puzzle, remember that I have produced a kindle ebook containing 101 of the previous Friday Puzzles! It is called PUZZLED and is available in the UK here and USA here.
UPDATE: When I originally posted this I left a second R and PHRASE – this has now been corrected.
Sneaky! Nice one
Richard, you haven’t crossed out the ‘R’ between the ‘P’ & ‘H’. Close…
Yes. And last time I checked it was spelled P-H-R-A-S-E not P-R-H-A-S-E.
That said, I thought the same thing for a brief second. Must be something to do with the P, R, H being close together at the end of the line.
Damn, I cannot read this morning. Totally missed the word “haven’t”. Doh! Never mind. Obviously, Richard has corrected it already.
I didnt solve it… Just saw the “the” in the first line and a “yes” in the third line.
that’s because there’s an r in phrase…
Only one, however – Richard has left in two.
It’s not prhrase…
And also not NESSESAY
as a non english speaker, i am still puzzeled by the solution.
What does it mean?
I thought the last word could be “year” or “years” but…
can someone upgrade my english idiom… thanks
The letters that are crossed out are the letters that make up “the unnecessary letters” in order you remove the T then the H then the E etc. once those letters have been removed the remaining letters are “ACOMMONPHRASE” or “a common phrase”.
ATCHEOUNMNE
A..C….O…M….
..T..HE..UN..NE
MCESOSNAPRH
M……O..N..P..H
..CES..S..A..R..
YRLEATTSEERS
..R…A….SE…..
Y..LE..TT….ERS
Got it now?
I had solved it, but I had not realized the crossed-out letters had a meaning too.
JayCee, the letters crossed out are “THEUNNECESSARYLETTERS” (the unnecessary letters”), leaving “ACOMMONPHRASE” (a common phrase).
Jay – the answer is literal, the letters crossed out spell ‘the unnecessary letters’, leaving ‘a common phrase’. An r has been missed though so it currently spells a common prhrase.
I got it!
goooooooood!!
i got only after reading significance answer.
thanks
I read the question as an instruction and it was easy.
My second answer was to cross out every thing but ….ME…..ME…..
another very common phrase.
I got the answer but hadn’t realised the letters left spelt out “the unecessary letters” – nice
.
Delicious and sneaky. Didn’t solve it. I thought it was to cross across lines and leave some common saying, and didn’t trusted my English to do that (crossing across lines is difficult because if we choose 2 letters to cross, that implies in some cases crossing a third letter… unless the crossing is too much slanted).
Got it, but only after staring at it for ages xD
I started crossing off likely letters, then while I was doing that looked at the comments and saw someone mention it was very ‘punny’. I then had a hunch, and checked my suspicions by doing the puzzle in reverse: deliberately crossing out ACOMMONPHRASE, which left me with THEUNNECESSARYLETTERS.
Well played!
i spotted ‘a common phrase’ but not ‘the unnecessary letters’. thought that was it – didn’t think to check what letters I’d crossed out.
I got “the unnecessary letters” first. I was very close to stopping right there, but fortunatelly I thought about it a bit more and got the real answer.
Ouch!
Nice puzzle. I like it.
Want a laugh? Check this out: http://today.yougov.co.uk/life/could-homeopathy-work
‘The results come in the wake of World Homeopathy Awareness Week (10th – 17th April) which aims to increase knowledge and understanding of homeopathic remedies around the globe’ XD
Noooo
( I actually remained with the unnecesary letters 
)
Must have been blind – got it now,
thanks all!
I got this one- the word ‘letters’ seemed really easy to see on the last line and from there the answer came to me straight away!
wow! never realised the crossed out letters were significant until flicking through the comments…
I just wanted to say I really like your writing style.
Nice puzzle but i don’t know how to make it . I like it.
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