[Solution] True/False – 10 April 2023

Each speech bubble contains one true statement and one false statement about the answer word. There are many paths to finding the correct answer, the easiest involving attempting thematic answers to find one which fits the criteria. A more exhaustive path follows:

Since the middle letter must be an I or T, the answer must be five letters long. As well, the fifth speech bubble tells that the word must include the letter Y, which (by the sixth clue) cannot be the last letter.

The list of common or otherwise relevant five-letter words with and I or T in the third position and also containing a Y is quite short: ALIYA, BUTYL, BYTES, CETYL, DYING, EYING, KYTHE, LYING, MYTHS, SATYR, TYING, VYING, and YETIS. Your list may vary slightly, but the next few clues will narrow it down further. Solvers may notice at this point that LYING and MYTHS are both thematic to the puzzle.

Eliminating any answer which does not follow either of possibilities from the final clue leaves a list of only ALIYA, KYTHE, LYING, TYING, VYING, and YETIS. Of these, only ALIYA and LYING contain an L or R.

ALIYA is already a bit iffy thanks to having a tie for its first letter alphabetically, but only having a single tall letter and a single fall letter eliminates it for sure, leaving only LYING* as an answer.

*Using an unabridged dictionary may lead to a few alternate results, such as LYTIC, but I don’t think anybody would find this on their own, and at that point, it should be pretty obvious what the answer is.