Friday puzzle -- a word challenge

Some clarification

The subject line of the original message and the body of the message (separately, but not together) obey a very simple rule. The subject and last paragraph of this message obey the same rule, although this paragraph doesn't.

Your task -- find a rule that works.

A hint (maybe two)

Rules can be hard to use or find but easy to explain or test. If no mistakes on this, rule is obeyed (in subject and text and both).

This one has totally lost me ;-(

Cannot even figure out where to start.

Re: This one has totally lost me ;-(

This phrase fails the test

Phrase two passes

Phrase three fails

Phrase four fails as well

Your subject line fails. But change it to "This one has befuddled this reader" and it works.

More hints

I could have titled this "More clues", but that would have failed the test. I am not making any attempt to comply in what I write in this post, but offer some hints from the exchange where I saw this one. I'll check back tomorrow and provide the very simple rule if no one claims it firest.

A hint from the puzzle's author:

The entire message [in the original post] is a sequence of

words that satisfies a constraint. (*Each* contiguous

subsequence of words in the message satisfies the same

constraint.) The *meanings* of the message and

the individual words are *irrelevant.* My full name

"James Dow Allen" satisfies the constraint, but

"Richard Heathfield" does not, nor does "James Allen".

And some successful claims to have found the rule:

Given your "hint", a puzzle which seemed too hard is now much easier

to unravel. I am writing a short piece to claim to have found a

solution. Am I correct?

He is.

Light dawns (I hope?)

Scary how many hours I pondered this - and how many rules got despatched. I agree with a prior message - It has been a struggle in the making of this reply.

I can't go any further

He found the rule, but violated it once in his reply.

And another one who found the solution, but made a small error in replying -- obeying this rule is MUCH harder than describing it:

I solved it (.....pause for applause.....) too.

But I am finding the proof a bit hard to manage.

I'll try a riddle.

Why did the gnu cross the road?

The gnu wished to see a gnu view.

*almost* ken

Again, only failed the rule once, while this sentence and each sequence within this sentence fails.

still lost

Probably do a face palm when I see it ;-)

Perhaps I see a rule that works here

Re: Perhaps I see a rule that works here

Perhaps you see a rule that works, but here? No.

Re: still lost

probably not. It is VERY hard to see (IMO) or to obey, even if easy to express.

I suspect

that you are like two of the posters in the examples I gave, in that you saw the rule, but made a simple error in execution. Did you mean to say "here"?

I erred in applying the rule.

Perhaps I see a rule that does apply here.

The word here is OK here, but was not where I used it before.

Re: I erred in applying the rule.

Perhaps I see a rule that does apply here.

The word here is OK here, but was not where I used it before.

Yes, you've got it! And "here" is okay in your first sentence, but not in the whole passage . ("here. The")

Congrats.

Solution

Congrats to Bill for solving this one!

The rule is simple: no two adjacent words can share a letter in common. Pretty simple, eh? But just try to obey it in a sentence of any length, and you will find it very hard. (Use of small words helps, btw)