A Single Letter is missing from each, can you figure it out to find the answer and the question?

Question

Grasshopper, in order to know the answer you must first figure out the question.

H, H, D, P, ?                     (2)
P, L, T, Q, P, H, H, ?            (5)
R, C, C, U, B, A, ?               (9)
A, K, Q, J, T, N, E, ?           (11)
M, V, E, M, J, S, ?              (14)
D, P, N, G, C, M, ?              (15)
M, K, S, P, S, ?                 (16)
Y, C, A, G, ?                    (18)
A, T, G, C, L, V, ?              (48)
Z, O, T, T, F, F, S, S, E, N, ? (112)  
H, H, L, B, B, C, ?             (613)
A, A, N, S, A, ?             (371017)

Hint 1:

The answer is 3 letters long

Hint 2 (Bounty Hint):

H, H, D, P, ?, Z.                     (2)  
M, K, S, PH, S, ?, DP, DD, DQ...     (16)

Also anyone who has a better title LMK

Something simple like "Discover the missing letters" would probably suffice. is there supposed to be a letter missing from the fourth line? - looks like you already fixed that. :) — Bailey M, Jul 24 '15 at 20:02
@BaileyM It isn't just about discovering the letters, the numbers are also involved — qwertylpc, Jul 24 '15 at 20:03
@qwertylpc Well, you've inspired another puzzle from me: http://puzzling.stackexchange.com/questions/18363/a-quindectet-of-letter-sequences — VictorHenry, Jul 26 '15 at 00:59
As a side note, based on the Grasshopper reference, I was really hoping the answer would be "wax". =P — VictorHenry, Jul 29 '15 at 15:38

score 19 · Accepted Answer · edited Apr 13 '17 at 12:50

19

Alright, I'm going to start a partial answer, we'll see if it goes anywhere.

Missing letters:

Edit: Thanks to minitech for number 6! Thanks to Len for number 1! Thanks to Geobits for number 7!

1. H (Hestia, Hades, Demeter, Poseidon, Hera) - Cronus and Rhea's Children
2. O (Point, Line, Triangle, ..., Heptagon, Octagon) - Polygon by number of sides
3. I (Russia, Canada, China, United States, Brazil, Australia, India) - Countries by Area
4. S (Ace, King, Queen, Jack, ..., Eight, Seven) - Cards
5. U (Mercury, Venus, Earth, ..., Saturn, Uranus) - Planets
6. M (Delaware, Pennsylvania, New Jersey, ..., Massachusetts, Maryland) - US States by Ratification Date
7. B (McDonalds, KFC, Subway, Pizza Hut, Starbucks, Burger King) - Largest Fast Food Chains in the World by number of stores
8. R (Yankees, Cardinals, Athletics, Giants, Red Sox) - Most World Series titles
9. L (Aries, Taurus, Gemini, Cancer, Leo, Virgo, Libra) - Signs of the zodiac
10. T (Zero, One, Two, Three, ..., Nine, Ten) - Counting to ten
11. N (Hydrogen, Helium, Lithium, ..., Carbon, Nitrogen) - Periodic Table Elements
12. E (Asia, Africa, North America, South America, Antarctica, Europe) - Continents by Area

Cleaning up the list and adding the numbers gives us:

H 2
O 5
I 9
S 11
U 14
M 15
B 16
R 18
L 48
T 112
N 613
E 371017

EDIT: From Deusovi's answer below

"Deciphered the numbers based off VictorHenry's answer! All I had to do was... add a couple suggestive spaces:"

H 2
O 5
I 9
S 11
U 14
M 15
B 16
R 18
L 4 8
T 1 12
N 6 13
E 3 7 10 17

Each set of numbers tells us where that letter is located in the final phrase:
1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9101112 131415161718
T H E L O N E L I E S T N U M B E R
So the final answer is ONE!

edited Apr 13 '17 at 12:50

Community

1

answered Jul 24 '15 at 21:12

VictorHenry

7,129
2
21
48

All correct thus far. I have a new puzzle for you since you seem to be reading my mind today http://puzzling.stackexchange.com/questions/18350/an-hourglass-puzzle – qwertylpc Jul 24 '15 at 21:51
5

Maryland – Ry- Jul 25 '15 at 04:24
Everything so far is correct – qwertylpc Jul 25 '15 at 22:51
7

Perhaps "Cronus sired six children by Rhea: Hestia, Hades, Demeter, Poseidon, Hera, and Zeus in that order" – Len Jul 27 '15 at 03:23
@Len That is correct – qwertylpc Jul 27 '15 at 14:48
1

#7 is B or BK, at least according to this list. I see them in different orders on a couple other sites, but they may be measuring differently. I only add the BK option because the hint has some with double letters, but I assume it's just B. – Set Big O Jul 27 '15 at 16:03
1

I don't know what the numbers are, but the letters anagram to OH NUMBER LIST, or something along those lines. – Set Big O Jul 27 '15 at 16:16
Can I ask why #4 is S? Shouldn't it be N? – Klyzx Jul 27 '15 at 16:21
@CaelanO'Toole The full list in the OP is A, K, Q, J, T, N, E, ?. He cut some out and ellipsized them to save room in the answer. – Set Big O Jul 27 '15 at 16:23
OP? What is the OP? And I still don't see why #4 isn't N. – Klyzx Jul 27 '15 at 16:26
@CaelanO'Toole OP is Original Post (the question itself). It's S for Seven because the list goes from Ace down to Eight and the next after that is Seven. – Set Big O Jul 27 '15 at 16:28
Oh, I see now. Silly me, since I just read the ... as the one you need to fill in. – Klyzx Jul 27 '15 at 16:30
1

@Geobits it could also be HI LOST NUMBER – tfitzger Jul 27 '15 at 21:31

score 15 · Answer 2 · answered Jul 28 '15 at 12:05

15

Deciphered the numbers based off VictorHenry's answer! All I had to do was...

add a couple suggestive spaces:
H [2]
O [5]
I [9]
S [11]
U [14]
M [15]
B [16]
R [18]
L [4 8]
T [1 12]
N [6 13]
E [3 7 10 17]
Each set of numbers tells us where that letter is located in the final phrase. It spells out THE LONELIEST NUMBER, so the final answer is ONE!

answered Jul 28 '15 at 12:05

Deusovi

146,248
16
519
609

Nicely done! I was going nowhere with those numbers, but I knew someone would solve it! – VictorHenry Jul 28 '15 at 14:29
@VictorHenry and Deusovi Seeing as you both contributed a lot, I am not sure I know how to best award the bounty and the correct answer. I have posted about it on Puzzling Meta here: http://meta.puzzling.stackexchange.com/questions/3209/dealing-with-partial-answers-and-a-bounty, if either of you guys have ideas please let me know – qwertylpc Jul 28 '15 at 14:38
@qwertylpc Well in this particular case, several of my answers were crowdsourced, and I feel like Deusovi made the major leap, at least as far as the "lateral thinking" part of the puzzle went. Makes sense to me to give it to Deusovi. – VictorHenry Jul 28 '15 at 14:57
@VictorHenry, you got most of it though. I didn't do nearly as much as you did. – Deusovi Jul 28 '15 at 15:44
How about one of you gets the bounty, the other gets the check mark? – qwertylpc Jul 29 '15 at 02:16
@qwertylpc: I don't really care, tbh - resolve it however you see fit. – Deusovi Jul 29 '15 at 02:27
@qwertylpc what Deusovi said :D – VictorHenry Jul 29 '15 at 03:56
@qwertylpc Accept this one as it is THE answer, bounty to VictorHenry and then give a couple of Deusovi's accepted answers some +1 love? :) – Jamie Barker Jul 29 '15 at 07:56
I edited VictorHenry's answer to be complete, and will mark that as the best answer while awading the bounty to Deusovi because he/she finished it after I posted the bounty – qwertylpc Jul 29 '15 at 12:31
1

@JamieBarker You do know that serial upvoting is not allowed on SE and can get you into trouble? – mmking Jul 29 '15 at 14:31
@mmking surely you can only be a serial upvoter if you do more than 2, considering you have to kill three or more people to be classed as a serial killer. I only suggested a couple of upvotes ;) – Jamie Barker Jul 29 '15 at 14:37
1

@JamieBarker You mean 2 or more people? No. It is considered serial upvoting if you go around and upvote one person several times in a short period of time. And by "a couple of upvotes", I'm assuming you mean more than one or two. Do read the meta post I linked to. – mmking Jul 29 '15 at 14:47
@mmking Yes I read the post, and I agree it is serial up-voting if you go and up-vote one person several times in a short time period. This is different. Going through someone's posts and "systematically upvoting them" is far different to finding one or two (a couple means two, not more than, not less than, two) to vote-up that deserve an up-vote, such as most accepted answers. – Jamie Barker Jul 29 '15 at 14:58

A Single Letter is missing from each, can you figure it out to find the answer and the question?

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