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If a word has a certain property, I call it an Odd Word™.

In each of the short, unrelated sentences below, only one of the choices is an Odd Word™.

The sentences are for context only, and do not affect whether a word is an Odd Word™. Since a change in case or font might change the property, I have used all upper case, and made sure that the property holds true in the display font.

  1. SHE'S LEARNING TO MAKE (FEATHERSTITCHES / WHIPSTITCHES) TODAY.
  2. HE LOVES TO RIDE HIS NEW (BICYCLE / MOTORCYCLE).
  3. NOBODY WANTS TO BE KNOWN AS (AVERAGE / ORDINARY).
  4. JESSICA RAN THE RACE (QUICKLY / RAPIDLY).
  5. HE WANTED HER TO (ANSWER / RESPOND) BY NOON.
  6. GIVE (HER / HIM) ALL YOUR REP POINTS.
  7. THE CHILD HID (BESIDE / UNDER) THE TABLE.
  8. THEY ATE (BECAUSE / WHILE) THEY HAD THE TIME.
  9. (GOODNESS / YIKES), LOOK AT ALL THE PEOPLE!
  10. THE DOG (CHEWED / GNAWED) ON A BONE.

What makes a word an Odd Word™?

Sconibulus
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JLee
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  • I was going to say that something was an odd word iff it had an odd number of letters, but then QUICKLY/RAPIDLY and CHEWED/GNAWED put that down. –  Aug 11 '15 at 02:30
  • @JoeZ. Come on, Joe! I'm rooting for you on this one. I'm kinda surprised you haven't gotten one of these Phrase™ or Word™ puzzles already, being the lightning fast solver that you are. Of course, I remember you were crazy close on the Scalable Phrase™ puzzle. – JLee Aug 11 '15 at 02:39
  • It's more a function of I haven't really been on the website much lately. Working on too much stuff and it's distracting. –  Aug 11 '15 at 02:40
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    @JoeZ. Well, I'm sure others are glad to have that extra time to think! – JLee Aug 11 '15 at 02:41
  • Remember how I complained I never get these? I might've got this one if I hadn't been so late getting here – warspyking Aug 11 '15 at 04:00
  • I'm probably missing something, but what's to say it's not just, say, the first word of each pair by virtue of being the first? – jamesdlin Aug 11 '15 at 09:02
  • @warspyking I know! I wish I could somehow announce when I will post these, so everyone has fair warning. – JLee Aug 11 '15 at 12:01

2 Answers2

25

An Odd Word™ is one that...

has an odd number of "ends". An 'end' is a place where a letter in the word meets blank space in all but one direction; that is, if you were walking on the letter there would be only one way to go. For instance, RESPOND has 10 ends: two on the bottom of the R, three on the right of the E, two on the S, one on the P, and two on the N.
FEATHERSTITCHES: 41 (WHIPSTITCHES: 30)
MOTORCYCLE: 19 (BICYCLE: 14)
ORDINARY: 13 (AVERAGE: 16)
QUICKLY: 17 (RAPIDLY: 12)
ANSWER: 13 (RESPOND: 10)
HER: 9 (HIM: 8)
UNDER: 9 (BESIDE: 10)
WHILE: 13 (BECAUSE: 14)
GOODNESS: 11 (YIKES: 14)
GNAWED: 11 (CHEWED: 14)

I'll take my 100 rep now. ;)

Deusovi
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9

An odd word is a word that

has the odd number of 'endpoints'. For example, the letter A has 2 endpoints at the bottom; B has 0 because it is closed. C has 2; D has 0, E has 3, etc.
This will only works for the displayed font and case.
1.FEATHERSTITCHES = 41 total endpoints
2.MOTORCYCLE = 19
3.ORDINARY = 13
4.QUICKLY = 15
5.ANSWER = 13
6.HER = 9
7.UNDER = 9
8.WHILE = 13
9.GOODNESS = 11
10.GNAWED = 11

Deusovi
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Eli
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