5

Inspired by Avi's Vowelburger™ Riddle here
After a short legal battle with what we believe to be a bribed judge, we have been rebranded and forcibly merged into the all-consuming Vowelburger business. To keep our spirits alive, however, we have added an extra ingredient to one of our burgers to test the company’s professional tasters. Can you become one among them, and find the difference in our aptly nicknamed “Spite Bite” burger?

Warning: We hold no responsibility if you break your lower jaw while eating our doubly-thick sandwich buns!

One Is Extra! Vowelburger™ Spite Bite
? urinal
? lightning
? yet
? rigid
? mineshaft
Stiv
  • 140,467
  • 11
  • 495
  • 752
Rewan Demontay
  • 8,263
  • 3
  • 15
  • 56

1 Answers1

4

The buns for your Spite Bite burger are:

ST and LL

making

STALL (urinal)
STELLA (lightning; see below)
STILL (yet)
STOLL (rigid; isn't a word but at least one online source claims that the surname Stoll may have been "a nickname for a rigid person")
STULL (mineshaft; turns out this is a platform of boards to protect miners from falling rocks)

The extra ingredient

is the A in STELLA. But what does STELLA have to do with lightning? Well, STELLA is the Latin for "star"; stars are made of plasma, and lightning produces plasma. (That seems a bit tenuous to me, but it is the answer. Perhaps it's also relevant that stars and lightning both produce light.)

Gareth McCaughan
  • 119,120
  • 7
  • 313
  • 454
  • 1
    OK, have deleted my expressions of doubt about the one with the surname. Still don't have anything very convincing for the other one yet... – Gareth McCaughan Mar 11 '20 at 02:04
  • @RewanDemontay Are the buns right? – Ébe Isaac Mar 11 '20 at 02:54
  • Chances are, you're not going to be very happy as a professional taste tester if rot13(lbhe ohetre vf svyyrq jvgu FGRRY... be RRYF) – Avi Mar 11 '20 at 03:11
  • @Avi I agree but neither of those seems to have any connection with lightning, nor (as Rewan has confirmed I should be expecting) with stars, nor indeed with plasma. – Gareth McCaughan Mar 11 '20 at 10:51
  • I mean, the obvious thing to consider is rot13(FGRYYN) which amusingly is among other things the name of a lighting company. Other than that, it's a term for a rot13(fgne-funcrq ovbybtvpny fgehpgher be pelfgny) which doesn't seem like it has much relationship to lightning. There is a rot13(pelcgbpheerapl pnyyrq FGRYYNE) and a rot13(pelcgbpheerapl-eryngrq guvat pnyyrq gur Yvtugavat Argjbex) but they don't seem to have much to do with one another and in any case that's an extra two letters. – Gareth McCaughan Mar 11 '20 at 12:55
  • OK, edited appropriately. – Gareth McCaughan Mar 11 '20 at 17:53