Rules used so far:

Y often at end of word: used in DAISY and SLEEPY.

EE frequently occurs, used in SLEEPY.

Letters and letter combinations that often occur at the end of words: Y, ED, ING. Half of all words end with E T D S. E used in CHOKE.

If there are 3 consonants in a word, there are six permutations: for example, WXZ, WZX, XWZ, XZW, ZWX and ZXW. Used in CHOKE and SLEEPY; CHK and SLP.

If there are 4 consonants in a word, try consonant pairs such as LL or SH, if available. Most common consonant pairs: TH ND ST LL SS TT FF RR NN PP CC. Example: TH in FATHER.


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Click on this.

Posted July 31, 2013. If you see this at a later date, go to the archive and click on July 31 2013.
The cartoon shows two adult fish looking at a baby fish. The baby is in a hammock, but if you look closely, it is a net.

Caption: "The newborn fish slept in a ______"

First word: INYSH

Place the Y at the end, recognize the consonant pair SH, and come up with SHINY. S & N are circled.

Second word: REBIB. There are three consonants, but one is repeated. So the only permutations are:

RBB BRB & BBR. If you sound out BRB, it suggests BRIBE. B & E are circled, so we have:
SNBE for the caption.

Fourth word: NANTIF. ANT are already in order, and T is a frequent last letter. So we have (maybe) FIN ANT and permutation INFANT may suggest itself. I, A, and T are circled. So we have SNBEIAT for the caption. Where do babies sleep: in a BASSINET. Despite that being 8 letters, and the caption being 9 letters, let's cross out the letters we already have: BAS S INET. Now, a BASS is a fish, and on closer inspection, the fish is sleeping in a net, so it looks like the caption might be:

"BASS-IN-NET" and we need an S and an I.

Third word: STILNP with the first and fifth letters circled; the only possibilities being S TLP I N or
I TLP S N. If you use the video version and put S and N in either the first or fifth position, you will see that the word is SPLINT; S is first and N is fifth.

So, the solution is:

SHINY
BRIBE
SPLINT
INFANT

and the caption is "The newborn fish slept in a BASS-IN-NET." The caption has a double N, and is misspelled, this is typical of the word-play in Jumble.

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Additional rules:

Consonant pair SH.

If there are three consonants, and one is repeated, there are only 3 permutations, as in BBR.

The mathematical rule for this situation is 3! divided by 2!, which is 6/2, or 3.