This Anagram Does Not Exist - Solution
Written by Nishant Pappireddi, Rachel Wei, and Patrick Xia
Answer: BASTILLE DAWN
Each image clues an unusual phrase that can be anagrammed into a fictional or obscure word or phrase with the given fictional definition. As suggested by the 15th definition and word (EIGENLETTERS), we need the letter in the same position in each of the two anagrams. This is unique for each pair.
| Image | Image Answer | Image Explanation | Definition | Fake Word or Phrase | Word or Phrase Explanation | Eigenletter |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
(3 9)  | EAT STARSTORM | Starstorm is a magic card. | Wifi-connected device found in the kitchen (5 7) | SMART TOASTER | Smartphones (one-word) are wifi-connected phones. Smarttoasters don’t really exist yet, certainly not as a single word. | T |
(4 5)  | TIDE JEANS | A familiar smell (in France) (4 5) | DEJA SENTI | Much like déjà vu meaning "already seen" in French, déjà senti translates to "already smelled." | E | |
(5 5)  | MAINE PANDA | Flag of Maine. | The typical size of ships that pass between the Caribbean Sea and the Pacific Ocean (10) | PANAMEDIAN | Similar to Panamax, the maximum size of ships that can traverse the Panama Canal, Panamedian is the median, or "typical," size of ships that pass through | A |
(6 5)  | SLEIGH LOOPS | A person who loves French kissing (11) | GLOSSOPHILE | Glosso ("tongue") + phile ("lover"). Tongues are used in French kissing. | L | |
(3 8)  | BAT RELIGION | Region teeming with life in the Atlantic Ocean (11) | BIOTRIANGLE | Much like one describes regions on Earth as biospheres, one could describe the region of the Bermuda Triangle that contains life as a biotriangle. | B | |
(5 2 2 3)  | MURAL OF AN EGG | Body of water alongside an ancient sea that covered Australia (8 4) | EROMANGA GULF | The Eromanga Sea is an ancient sea that covers much of Australia. A body of water next to it can be the Eromanga Gulf. | A | |
(7 3)  | IMPOUND LOT | An impound lot is a real thing. | Protein whose activity is adjusted, controlled, and regulated by K+ ions, and which regulates downstream proteins (10) | POTMODULIN | The protein Calmodulin is regulated by Calcium ions, so Potmodulin would be a protein regulated by Potassium ions. | L |
(4 8)  | ANDY ACCEPTOR | Acceptor as in electron acceptor (and donor). | Government of people concerned with the strict interpretation of theory (12) | PEDANTOCRACY | This comes from pedant (people concerned with strict interpretation of theory) + ocracy (a government). | D |
(3 7)  | WET FREDDIE | Freddie Benson from iCarly. | Counterclockwise unit of distance (10) | WIDDERFEET | "Widdershins" is a synonym for counterclockwise, so a counterclockwise unit of distance would be widderfeet. | W |
(9 3)  | PROPHETIC SIM | Sim is from The Sims. | Having seven shapes or forms (12) | SEPTIMORPHIC | Septi (seven prefix) + morphic (shapes or forms). | I |
(3 8)  | RUN MONGOLIA | Flag of Mongolia. | One Misaka (11) | MONORAILGUN | Mikoto Misaka, from A Certain Magical Index/A Certain Scientific Railgun, is known as "Railgun," named after her signature move. One of her is thus a Monorailgun. | N |
(6 2 5)  | SNAKES IN TROUT | Another name for Xinjiang (4-9) | SINO-TURKESTAN | Another name for Xinjiang or Chinese Turkestan could be Sino-Turkestan. | S | |
(4 6)  | MISO FRINGE | Taxonomic order of fire birds (10) | IGNIFORMES | Igni (fire) + formes (suffix for many bird orders). | F | |
(7'1 4)  | PROGRAM'S OVEN | .exe is a program. | People who sell empty promises (12) | VAPORMONGERS | Mongers are people who sell particular wares. Vapor can be used figuratively to describe something without substance, such as an empty promise. Vapormongers would be terrible people to make purchases from. | R |
(4 8)  | LEET STEERING | 1337 is leetspeak for leet. | Parts of anagrams in linear algebra that are what you need next (12) | EIGENLETTERS | In linear algebra, eigenvectors are vectors that do not change direction after a transformation. They can be viewed as "fixed" and unaffected by the transformation. eigen- is used with other words (eigenvalue, eigenspace) associated with these vectors. In this context of this puzzle, anagramming can be viewed as a transformation of the words (specifically, the letters in the words). The eigenletter can be interpreted as the fixed letter in the transformation. This clue is intentionally underclued since the interpretation is used to extract the final phrase. | E |
(5 6)  | HEART BOUNCE | One who endures long competitions consisting of solving 3x3s, 4x4s, etc (11) | CUBEATHONER | 3x3s, 4x4s etc are common types of Rubik’s cubes, and people who competitively solve these cubes are (speed)cubers. They participate in (speed)cubing competitions. Long competitions that involve solving all sorts of cubes could be called cubeathons (akin to other derived terms like hackathon), and one who participates in these competitions would be a cubeathoner. | N | |
(5 5)  | CABIN SAUDI | The arrow points to the person. | Land across the river from the western regions of Hungary (10) | CISDANUBIA | The western regions of Hungary are known as Transdanubia, so the regions across the Danube would be known as Cisdanubia. | C |
(4 5)  | CASE SHOUT | Strategy game that plays itself (9) | AUTOCHESS | Auto (by one's self) + chess (a strategy game). Incidentally, auto chess is also a real video game genre. | H | |
(4 5)  | DASH PRIME | Dash is a character from the incredibles. When ' is used to denote the derivative, it is verbalized as prime. | Just a little bit high, musically (9) | DEMISHARP | demi (half) + sharp (higher tone in music) is a rare word that is played a quarter tone higher. Here, demi does not mean half, as half-sharp already exists. | D |
(4 5)  | TAIL AREAS | The union of Queensland, New South Wales, and Victoria (9) | EASTRALIA | Eastralia is an abbreviation for Eastern Australia, similar to how Westralia is an abbreviation for Western Australia. | A | |
(6 4)  | GALLON OKAY | This hand emoji is a symbol for "okay." | The study of saturated hydrocarbons (10) | ALKANOLOGY | Saturated hydrocarbons are alkanes, so the study of them is alkanology. | Y |
(6 6)  | SHEILA STREET | The picture on the sign are all Sheilas, and the sign is from Sesame Street. | Region in England containing a US city (12) | SEATTLESHIRE | In addition to being a region in Middle-Earth where a hobbit might live, a shire is a county in England. A shire containing the lovely Emerald City might be named Seattleshire. | S |
(6 4)  | GUITAR MACH | Mach is a unit of speed relative to breaking the sound barrier. | Element named for a Roman enemy (10) | CARTHAGIUM | Carthage was one of Rome’s enemies (Cato the Elder was famous for often ending his speeches with Carthago delenda est, or “Carthage must be destroyed”), and an element named after it would be called Carthagium. | T |
(4 2 5)  | EARS OF COLIN | The person is Colin Kaepernick. | Sugar molecule first synthesized in a certain US state (11) | CALIFORNOSE | Chemical names of sugars usually end in -ose, so a sugar first discovered in California would be called Californose. This is similar to the naming process of the element Californium. | A |
(7 5)  | TWELFTH ARUBA | The island is Aruba. | Characterized by or containing liquid from human cleansing ritual (12) | BATHWATERFUL | Baths are a human cleansing ritual, done in the liquid known as bathwater. Something filled with bathwater would be bathwaterful. | R |
(4 5)  | RENT PRIDE | The background is from Rent. The flag is the Pride flag. | Describes an early time period of the Homo genus (or 2011) (9) | PRETINDER | A long time ago, before humans discovered fire, they were pretinder. A few years ago, before the advent of dating apps, man was also pre-Tinder. | T |
Considering the line dividing the list of images and definitions in half, the eigenletters extract to TEAL BALDWINS/FRENCH DAY START. Getting the final answer requires performing the puzzle’s mechanic one more time. With TEAL BALDWINS as the phrase to be anagrammed and FRENCH DAY START as the definition, the final answer is BASTILLE DAWN
Author's Notes
PX: This puzzle was inspired by a clue from Mark Halpin’s 2020 puzzle, Pyramids. We spent far too long on the clue "castle top anagram." How could something clued so heavily (we had all the letters!) be unsearchable? This particular one stumped our team.
Our puzzle is also inspired by two other teammates who loved random anagramming in their testsolves (often with success). In some ways, this puzzle is also a spirital successor to the puzzles involving nonsense images in Now Get Ready For... and the nonsense words in 50/50.
RW: I think that when people first start doing puzzlehunts, before they learn about all these powerful and wonderful tools for doing things like looking up anagrams or cracking cryptograms, even doing simple anagrams is fun and enjoyable. I hope that this puzzle brought back a little bit of that innocent joy! If not ... at least you’re a better anagram solver, now d:
NP: We had a lot of fun coming up with these fake words and phrases, as well as making the images for their anagrams.
From all the authors, we’d like to share our collection of technical descriptions, vignettes, and alternative history that use all of these words and phrases.
| Definition | Fake Word or Phrase | Example Usage |
|---|---|---|
| French Day Start | BASTILLE DAWN | We danced and partied all Bastille Eve, and we were still bar hopping in Montmartre by Bastille Dawn. A couple hours later, we heard the annual military parade over Champs Elysees. |
| Wifi-connected device found in the kitchen (5 7) | SMART TOASTER | Unlike my Zoomer parents who always burn their toast, my smarttoaster reads the humidity in the room and posts automatically pictures of my toast to Twitter. |
| A familiar smell (in France) (4 5) | DEJA SENTI | After getting a very late start to Bastille Dawn, Adeline had a sense of déjà senti when she walked into the kitchen. Oh, that’s right, her leftover strawberry crepe in her smarttoaster filled the room with a fresh and sweet aroma, reminiscent of when she had first bought it. |
| The typical size of ships that pass between the Caribbean Sea and the Pacific Ocean (10) | PANAMEDIAN | Due to construction of larger locks in the Panama Canal, the Panamax has grown larger since 2018. The Panamedian, however, has stayed constant, as the increase in Panamax has been balanced out by a decrease in Panamin, as there has been a recent trend among small children of floating paper boats down the canal. |
| A person who loves French kissing (11) | GLOSSOPHILE | Ugh, I went out with this really cute guy but at the end of the night I knew it wouldn’t last - he was a real slobbery glossophile, if you know what I mean. |
| Region teeming with life in the Atlantic Ocean (11) | BIOTRIANGLE | My area of expertise as a marine conspiracy theorist is studying the extinction and disappearances of fish in the biotriangle. |
| Body of water alongside an ancient sea that covered Australia (8 4) | EROMANGA GULF | In my pretinder time traveling adventures, I scuba dived in the Eromanga Gulf in Eastralia and enjoyed the precursor to the Great Barrier Reef. |
| Protein whose activity is adjusted, controlled, and regulated by K+ ions, and which regulates downstream proteins (10) | POTMODULIN | When the marijuana-loving biologist discovered a new protein in Igniformes that was regulated by potassium ions, she knew she had no choice but to name it Potmodulin. |
| Government of people concerned with the strict interpretation of theory (12) | PEDANTOCRACY | After the Académie Française succeeded in their coup, they installed a pedantocracy over France, forcing everyone to speak perfect, grammatically accurate French. They even went as far as fining people who used French slang or English words. |
| Counterclockwise unit of distance (10) | WIDDERFEET | In the Northern Hemisphere, we measure the size of cyclones in feet. In the Southern Hemisphere, due to the Coriolis effect, they measure the size of cyclones in widderfeet. Anybody who tries to convince you that this same difference is true for water draining down a sink, however, is woefully misinformed. As a member of the pendantocracy, I must tell you that water drains down sinks in both inches and widderinches in both hemispheres, as the Coriolis effect is only noticeable over large distances! |
| Having seven shapes or forms (12) | SEPTIMORPHIC | A normal Rotom was originally able to transform into five different alternate forms depending on which appliance it possessed. But it recently gained the ability to possess a Pokedex and transform into a Rotom Pokedex form. With this, Rotom has become septimorphic. |
| One Misaka (11) | MONORAILGUN | Although the thousands of clones of Mikoto Misaka would form a powerful army if united together, the original Misaka is strong enough as a Monorailgun to be a one-girl army. |
| Another name for Xinjiang (4-9) | SINO-TURKESTAN | The region of Sino-Turkestan, despite officially being on Beijing time, unofficially uses a local time 2 hours behind Beijing. |
| Taxonomic order of fire birds (10) | IGNIFORMES | According to Mystical Creatures, 3rd Edition written by the famous vapormonger Sir Bryan, the phoenix is a common sighting in Cisdanubia. A member of Igniformes, it is related to other birds like the Bennu and Huma. Their distinguishing characteristic is their ability to revive anew after burning out. |
| People who sell empty promises (12) | VAPORMONGERS | The self-proclaimed vapormonger sold me bamboozle insurance and, unsurprisingly, I was bamboozled. |
| Parts of anagrams in linear algebra that are what you need next (12) | EIGENLETTERS | If letters from an infinite alphabet are used to make words with no repeated letters, then the probability of a random anagram of a word having an eigenletter approaches 1-1/e as the word’s length approaches infinity. |
| One who endures long competitions consisting of solving 3x3s, 4x4s, etc (11) | CUBEATHONER | I have a close friend who’s a cubeathoner - they spend all their weekends at long Rubiks cube competitions. I feel like you could call me a real friendathoner for enduring my friendship with them! |
| Land across the river from the western regions of Hungary (10) | CISDANUBIA | By the beginning of 1945, the Red Army had made major progress in conquering Hungary, having taken control of almost all of Cisdanubia. |
| Strategy game that plays itself (9) | AUTOCHESS | In recent years, chess enthusiasts have started watching competitive autochess tournaments, where different chess engines compete against each other. Since these computers can think and make moves almost instantly, the longest games rarely last more than a minute. |
| Just a little bit high, musically (9) | DEMISHARP | The violin was tuned a little too tight, and so everything the Cisdanubian musician played was demisharp. |
| The union of Queensland, New South Wales, and Victoria (9) | EASTRALIA | 81% of the population of Australia lives in Eastralia. |
| The study of saturated hydrocarbons (10) | ALKANOLOGY | My friend, who studies alkanology, has the unusual ability to look at a zig-zag line on a piece of paper and immediately state the chemical name of the corresponding hydrocarbon. |
| Region in England containing a US city (12) | SEATTLESHIRE | After the Great Pacific Northwest Earthquake, residents of the gloomy city of Seattle took refuge in Seattleshire, an equally gloomy county in the UK. |
| Element named for a Roman enemy (10) | CARTHAGIUM | The Tunisian scientists who had discovered the new element decided to name it Carthagium rather than Tunisium, possibly in response to the previously named element Romium. |
| Sugar molecule first synthesized in a certain US state (11) | CALIFORNOSE | Three scientists from Berkeley were awarded the 2065 Nobel Prize in Chemistry for their discovery and synthesis of Californose, a negative-calorie sweetener that takes ten times more energy for humans to digest than it gives back. |
| Characterized by or containing liquid from human cleansing ritual (12) | BATHWATERFUL | Did you know that some people buy bathwaterful bottles over the internet? They go for $50 per bottle. |
| Describes an early time period of the Homo genus (or 2011) (9) | PRETINDER |
|