Solution: English Meta
Answer: LET EM HALVE IT

Written by Jonah Ostroff, Amos Eshel

The six puzzles in the English department each have two answers:

CHERUB and GIF
DEN and TOOTH
HYPOTHESIS and RAM
OX and PI
PARIS and SHELF
SCHEMA and STOOL

In each pair of answers, one word has an irregular plural. The other word can be transformed using the irregular pluralization from another puzzle’s answer to create a new, unrelated word. For example, SHELF is pluralized to SHELVES, and GIF can be similarly “pluralized” to GIVES.

Answer Irregular plural Answer from other puzzle Fake plural
CHERUB CHERUBIM DEN DENIM
HYPOTHESIS HYPOTHESES PARIS PARES
OX OXEN RAM RAMEN
SCHEMA SCHEMATA PI PITA
SHELF SHELVES GIF GIVES
TOOTH TEETH STOOL STEEL

The twelve pluralized answers can be arranged in a cycle, with each word adjacent to its pair from the above table as well as the other answer from its puzzle. The labels on six nodes of the diagram show how to arrange the cycle: STEEL and DENIM are materials, PITA and RAMEN are foods, and PARES and GIVES are actions. Starting from 1 o’clock on the ring we have:

Index Label Answer Pluralized answer Indexed letter
5 material STOOL STEEL L
4 SCHEMA SCHEMATA E
3 food PI PITA T
3 OX OXEN E
3 food RAM RAMEN M
1 HYPOTHESIS HYPOTHESES H
2 action PARIS PARES A
4 SHELF SHELVES L
3 action GIF GIVES V
3 CHERUB CHERUBIM E
4 material DEN DENIM I
4 TOOTH TEETH T

Indexing into the transformed words spells the answer: LET EM HALVE IT.

Author’s Notes

This puzzle originally had a more involved shell, with a longer (and more thematic) answer of HALVE AWAY WITH WORDS. But testers found it far too easy to solve with just half the answers, so the puzzle evolved into its current sleeker form. It’s still probably the most backsolvable meta in the hunt.