[Biograd] All year round

[biograd]

Note: VERY SILLY! Also, this may go really quickly, but I thought it was funny.

Today, I tried to communicate with a person who doesn't exist. Despite never having heard of this fictitious person, I know his middle name. How did this happen?

While we're on it, my puzzle "Contradictions" is getting pretty bored sitting down the bottom of the forum page.

[Westing1992]

Communicate via medium? Ouija board? Or maybe via telephone? E-mail? Letter? Receptionist?
Does this character appear in some other form of media? (Movie, TV, Comics, etc.)
I assume this was based on a misunderstanding? You thought it was a real person?
WAG: His middle name is 'The' (as in Kermit The Frog or Howard the Duck)?

[WiZ]

Were you aware of his middle name first, and tried to extrapolate an identity from that?

Were you aware this person was non-existent at the time of your initiating the communication?

Is this an established fictional character or identity? Or is it simply a combination of names that was generated/reached by accident?

[biograd]

Communicate via medium?Not in the sense implied by your next question, though there was a medium of communication other than speech (see later answers) Ouija board? Or maybe via telephone? E-mail?Yes, no to rest. Letter? Receptionist?
Does this character appear in some other form of media? (Movie, TV, Comics, etc.)No
I assume this was based on a misunderstanding?It's a stretch to call it a "misunderstanding", but it was a mistake, yes. You thought it was a real person?FA
WAG: His middle name is 'The' (as in Kermit The Frog or Howard the Duck)?No

[biograd]

Were you aware of his middle name first, and tried to extrapolate an identity from that?No

Were you aware this person was non-existent at the time of your initiating the communication?Yes or FA, depending on how you look at it.

Is this an established fictional character or identity?No Or is it simply a combination of names that was generated/reached by accident?Yes with elements of a FA

[Zanreo]

Would the full name be some kind of wordplay or pun? Fan theories relevant? edit: or probably not seeing the post above

[biograd]

Would the full name be some kind of wordplay or pun?No, but the whole situation is kind of "punny" in a yopish way (though don't focus on that--it will probably get you nowhere)

[Balin]

Is the person's first name relevant? Last name? Occupation?

[biograd]

Is the person's first name relevant?Yes, but beware FA. Last name?Yes, but again beware FA. Occupation?FA--remember that this person doesn't exist!

[Twilightseeker]

Is it part of a set expression used in everyday language (for some reason I am reminded of people using "H" as the middle initial of Jesus Christ's name--I have no idea where the H comes from, haha)?

[biograd]

Is it part of a set expression used in everyday language (for some reason I am reminded of people using "H" as the middle initial of Jesus Christ's name--I have no idea where the H comes from, haha)?Not an expression, no. But you are correct in that this "name" is relevant as a phrase, and in that sense this is the most OTRT question yet. And there is still a large FA that everyone up to this moment has been making.

[Twilightseeker]

Is the FA that the name refers to a person at all (real or unreal)? Is it in fact not a name? Does it look or sound like a name, but is instead something else? Is the "middle name" a single letter (e.g. an initial) or a full word? Is it not in fact a middle name but just a middle word of a phrase of some other type?

[biograd]

Is the FA that the name refers to a person at all (real or unreal)?Yes Is it in fact not a name?Yes! Does it look or sound like a name, but is instead something else?Quite the opposite, in fact. Is the "middle name" a single letter (e.g. an initial) or a full word?A full word Is it not in fact a middle name but just a middle word of a phrase of some other type?Yes!

[psymann]

Did you misinterpret the email address you were sending to, thinking that it was the name of a person when actually it was a personless/administrative email account? (Eg you sent an email to lilsuemasters@company.com, thinking you were sending to Lillian Sue Masters, but actually you were sending to the "Little Sue Masters" - a company who are masters of small suing litigation, and that was their main admin account?)

[biograd]

Did you misinterpret the email address you were sending to, thinking that it was the name of a person when actually it was a personless/administrative email account? (Eg you sent an email to lilsuemasters@company.com, thinking you were sending to Lillian Sue Masters, but actually you were sending to the "Little Sue Masters" - a company who are masters of small suing litigation, and that was their main admin account?)No. I believe there may be a FA still lurking. It was certainly there when people assumed that the "name" did in fact look like a name, but I'm not sure it's gone.

[psymann]

Would you have got the same knowledge about the middle name if the email address you had used to communicate with was abc@def.com?

Did you send an email thinking you were sending to a person whose middle name you knew?

Did you receive an email from an email account that you thought was from a person whose middle name you knew?

Did you believe the person did exist? Or you knew he was fictitious when you communicated with him?

[biograd]

Would you have got the same knowledge about the middle name if the email address you had used to communicate with was abc@def.com?From the email address as given, definitely No. And there is a new FA here (not the one I was referring to above).

Did you send an email thinking you were sending to a person whose middle name you knew?No. I did think I was sending (and in fact DID send) the email to someone I knew, but I didn't know that person's middle name.

Did you receive an email from an email account that you thought was from a person whose middle name you knew?No. Receiving emails is irrelevant, only the one I sent.

Did you believe the person did exist?No Or you knew he was fictitious when you communicated with him?I can't answer since there are two closely linked FAs here, one of which was the one I mentioned in my last post (that I'm much surer is lurking after this question). The other is something you can correct by re-reading the puzzle statement more carefully. Going by what I think you meant to ask, though, the answer is Yes.

[psymann]

Did you send the one email to two addresses:
a) the person you know
b) an email address relating to a 'fictional person'

Did you want the person-you-know to think the email had been read by someone else? or to think that the fictional person was actually a real person?

Did you make up the fictional person yourself and therefore you know the middle name because you made it up?

[biograd]

Did you send the one email to two addresses:
a) the person you know
b) an email address relating to a 'fictional person' This is all correct, except the 'fictional person' did not have an email address at all.

Did you want the person-you-know to think the email had been read by someone else? or to think that the fictional person was actually a real person?No to both.

Did you make up the fictional person yourself and therefore you know the middle name because you made it up?I didn't make it up, but somehow I caused it to be created (I know that sounds awkward, but it's the only way I can really put it). So yes, I know the middle name because the "name" originated with me, in a sense.

[Grip]

Is Roy G. Biv relevant?

[biograd]

Is Roy G. Biv relevant?Not in the slightest.

[Grip]

Is the text of either of the two emails relevant? the subject lines? the actual e-mail addresses?

[biograd]

Is the text of either of the two emails relevant?FA and no. the subject lines?YES the actual e-mail addresses?Yes, insofar as the fictitious person HAD no email address (this clears one of the FAs, but not the main one).

[Grip]

Hmmm...did you send the same e-mail to two different addresses? on accident? the one sent to the fictitious person bounced back as undeliverable because the person and address did not exist?

Was the subject line where the middle name originated from?

I think I'm getting myself tied up in FAs!

[biograd]

Hmmm...did you send the same e-mail to two different addresses?Yes, or at least "tried" to. on accident?Yes! the one sent to the fictitious person bounced back as undeliverable because the person and address did not exist?Yes, exactly.

Was the subject line where the middle name originated from?Yes, the whole name, in fact...

I think I'm getting myself tied up in FAs!Well, you managed to untie the biggest one, which was that I did this on purpose (none of you ever said this explicitly, but this was clearly being assumed). I didn't want to say "a computer tried to send an email on my behalf" in the puzzle statement, first it would give too much away, and secondly I think it's quite unfair to blame the computer in this instance, because the mistake was entirely the fault of the user (a.k.a me )

Someone care to solve it now?

[Grip]

Allright, made good progress!

When the computer sent back the invalid e-mail, did it alter the subject line in any way? Mine sometimes does that.

[biograd]

Allright, made good progress!

When the computer sent back the invalid e-mail, did it alter the subject line in any way? Mine sometimes does that.No. I also don't think it actually came back--as I remember there was an error message in the email program as it was being sent.

[CoffeeBean]

Did the return email have "Re:" in the subject line?

[biograd]

Did the return email have "Re:" in the subject line?Which return email? In any case, even though the email I sent may have been composed as a reply to a message I had received several days before (I don't remember, it's irrelevant), it didn't have "Re:" in the subject line.

[Grip]

Did the error message somehow alter the subject line?

[biograd]

Did the error message somehow alter the subject line?No. It's irrelevant what the consequence of the error message was (I just OKed it and realized immediately what had happened). The subject line was the "cause" of the error.

[Grip]

Did the subject line look like a name?

[biograd]

Did the subject line look like a name?Not at all, at least to a human. But why did a computer misinterpret it as such?

[Grip]

Relevant what computer you have? relevant what e-mail program you use?

[biograd]

Relevant what computer you have?No... it was a webmail app. relevant what e-mail program you use?Yes, though knowing it may or may not help you depending on whether you are aware of the relevant feature. Keep in mind, also, that user error on my part is very relevant.

[Grip]

Were the words in the subject line formatted like a name?

Is the size of the type in the subject line relevant?

[Acridian9]

Was there a "@" in the subject line?

[biograd]

Were the words in the subject line formatted like a name?It's unclear what you mean here. Usually I think of formatting as fonts, bold/italic text, punctuation, etc., and in this sense, I am unsure what "formatted like a name" might mean. However, there IS a sense in which it could be said it was "formatted like a name".

Is the size of the type in the subject line relevant?No

Was there a "@" in the subject line?No

Hint: the content of the subject line is irrelevant, except for the number of words it contained. It was something quite mundane--you will never randomly guess it I'm sure, and don't need to. However, there was a mistake I made when typing the subject line, and that's the relevant part.

[Grip]

Sorry, I meant formatted as in it looking like "Fred G. Muggs" or somesuch.

[biograd]

Sorry, I meant formatted as in it looking like "Fred G. Muggs" or somesuch.
So, you mean with one word being abbreviated to an initial? No. It was three words long, though.

[Grip]

When typing the subject line did you err in adding something to it? leaving something out?

If you had not erred when typing the subject line, would this incident not have occurred at all?

[biograd]

When typing the subject line did you err in adding something to it? leaving something out?Neither of these

If you had not erred when typing the subject line, would this incident not have occurred at all?Yes, everything would have happened the way I intended, with no error messages of any kind, and the email sent only to the intended recipient.

[Grip]

Was your error that you didn't use any spacing?

[biograd]

Was your error that you didn't use any spacing?No

[Grip]

Was your error that you used too much spacing?

[biograd]

Was your error that you used too much spacing?No. Maybe I misled--in some sense I did make the mistake "while typing" the subject line, while in another sense I made it before typing the subject line (but after entering the email address of the intended recipient). In any case, the sequence of characters, spaces, etc. within the subject line was correct.

[Acridian9]

Is something added to the subject line automatically?

[Grip]

Is capitalization or lack thereof relevant?

[biograd]

Is something added to the subject line automatically?No. However, something WAS done automatically with the "subject line" as the message was being sent.

Is capitalization or lack thereof relevant?No, as I said the sequence of characters in the "subject line" was entirely correct.

By the way, the quotes are there to possibly dispel a FA, since I realize that while I'm completely truthful in saying that the sequence of keystrokes/characters was absolutely correct, calling them a subject line may strictly not be.

[GalFisk]

Was something automatically truncated?

[biograd]

Was something automatically truncated?No. The only thing that happened "automatically" was that the software attempted to parse the "subject line" as a name. No changes were made to the text.

The answer is really simple--I'm sure a great deal of you have made this mistake at one time or another. What's "new" here is that rather than just give an error that relates to the actual mistake, the progam tried to overcome the mistake by "creating" a nonexistent person.

[Grip]

The program "created" a non-existent person, and gave the person a middle name?

Are you using Outlook?

[biograd]

The program "created" a non-existent personYes, and gave the person a middle name?No, in fact kind of the opposite--it ignored the "middle name", because of interpreting it as such.

Are you using Outlook?Yes, the Outlook web edition provided as part of Office 365 (hence the title). I'm guessing the desktop version of Outlook does a similar thing, though there's one small part of what it did that would be different (not really relevant).

[irishelk]

Capitalization relevant? Any type of formatting that Outlook recognizes as an instruction (like some sites take * to indicate you want a word bolded)?

Just to be clear: Are the fictitious person's first and last name words in your subject line? And the middle name would be the word between them, but Outlook omitted it?

[Grip]

Did you know the middle name because the first and last name that was created was familiar to you in some way?

[biograd]

Capitalization relevant?No Any type of formatting that Outlook recognizes as an instruction (like some sites take * to indicate you want a word bolded)?Not like this, no.

Just to be clear: Are the fictitious person's first and last name words in your subject line?All three of them were And the middle name would be the word between them, but Outlook omitted it?Yes, Outlook parsed the yesish subject line as a name and therefore considered the first and last words of the three-word phrase as a first and last name.

Did you know the middle name because the first and last name that was created was familiar to you in some way?No, I "knew" the "middle name" because I had typed it, as part of the yesish subject line. That's all I meant--that the person effectively had a middle name.

Hint: In addition to the recipient, the subject line, and the body, what other fields may an email have?

[Grip]

Is the From line relevant?

[biograd]

Is the From line relevant?No. What's left?

[Grip]

Is the CC line relevant?

[irishelk]

Did you type something accidentally? Like accidentally put the subject in the CC or BCC line? Or accidentally Paste it there?

[biograd]

Is the CC line relevant?Yes

Did you type something accidentally? Like accidentally put the subject in the CC or BCC line?Yes! Or accidentally Paste it there?

My university uses Microsoft Office 365, which works OK enough to do the job, but is much glitchier than the other webmail programs I have used, often taking a few tries to load (particularly on mobile devices). However, the incident in this puzzle was entirely my own fault.

In an email to someone else in my lab, I accidentally typed the subject line, "More paper questions" (as in, more questions about a scientific paper I was reading) into the CC blank, most likely because I wasn't yet used to where things were in Office 365. In lieu of an actual email address, the web app tried to be helpful by attempting to parse the misplaced subject line as a person's name and looking it up in the university directory. So, right after sending I got an error message saying something along the lines of "Cannot find name 'More Questions'", with one of the colored bubbles that the program uses to represent parties to a conversation, containing the initials MQ. So somehow I had addressed that email knowing that if Mr. Questions had existed, his middle name would be "Paper".

I told you this was silly!

[irishelk]

Haha, good one! I hadn't noticed this particular quirk of Office, I'll have to try it.
It seems to work a little better through Outlook than a web browser, but still quite glitchy, I agree.

[Grip]

Whew, another tough puzzle solved! And yes, very silly.