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This puzzle is part of the Puzzling Stack Exchange Advent Calendar 2024. The accepted answer to this question will be awarded a bounty worth 50 reputation.

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I hope that you're marking this special day with Friends. In honour of the occasion, please divide the following words into sets. Each set is associated to a thematic word, which you should identify. At the end you might find a message.
BALGOWNIE BALKAN BALTIC BOMBO CASH
CATARACT CHLOE CLINTON CORDIALE DILLON
DONG GALE KENT MACARTHUR MONTEZUMA
PAPI POBBLE QUAKE QUANGLE-WANGLE TREMOR
WAVE

HINT:

The thematic words are structurally linked to the "special" day; none of them are the name of a person. If I were to give Trivial Pursuit colours to the thematic words, they might be
* Green
* Yellow
* Blue (though with Pink in the set)
* Blue (though with Yellow in the set)
* Pink
* Blue
* Purple

HINT 2:

Lousianian reassesses singing
Phoebe

HINT 3:

Six of the words are surnames; two of the thematic words are very similar.

HINT 4:

The surname GALE belongs to Dorothy

HINT 5:

The surname KENT belongs to Clark

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1 Answer 1

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There are 21 words, so it's not the usual division into 4 categories of 4 words. Luckily, there aren't many ways to factorise 21, so here are the subsets of words:

  • BALKAN, BALTIC, CORDIALE are all instances of an ENTENTE.

  • DONG, POBBLE, QUANGLE-WANGLE are all from Edward Lear's NONSENSE poem. Thanks @Stiv for getting this!

  • BALGOWNIE, BOMBO, CATARACT, are all suburbs of WOLLONGONG, Australia.

  • QUAKE, TREMOR, WAVE can all be preceded by EARTH - so the word here (thanks @user39583) could be SEISMISM.

  • CASH, CLINTON, MACARTHUR are all men from Arkansas, who apparently are called ARKANSANS. Thanks again @user39583 for finding the connection!

  • CHLOE, MONTEZUMA, PAPI are all characters in a film - specifically, each of them is a CHIHUAHUA. Thanks again @user39583 - I would never have known about this!

  • DILLON, GALE, KENT are all presumably KANSANS.

The OP says "At the end you might find a message." I think this means the thematic words should be

put together and respaced,

or rather, more specifically (and following Hint 2),

we're looking specifically for thematic words with repeated three-letter strings, and probably it's those three-letter strings that should be put together and respaced.

The letters are:

NTE, NSE, ONG, ISM, ANS, HUA, ANS,

and (thanks @Stiv for spotting this)

the final letters of these strings rearrange to MESSAGE, hence "At the end you might find a message"!

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  • $\begingroup$ Nice work. I will say that you have correctly identified 3 sets and 1 thematic word. $\endgroup$ Commented Dec 23, 2024 at 13:03
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    $\begingroup$ Pretty sure you're going to want Pobble, Dong and Quangle-Wangle together... (google them as a set) $\endgroup$ Commented Dec 23, 2024 at 13:53
  • $\begingroup$ @DanielS With help from Stiv for one of the sets, I think I've now got all 7 sets and maybe 6(?) of the thematic words, as well as a potential route to the final expected answer. $\endgroup$ Commented Dec 23, 2024 at 19:57
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    $\begingroup$ Given the new hint I suspect your first word is the one that's right... rot13(Vg unf n 3 yrggre ercrngrq fgevat RAG, yvxr gur bgure guerr jbeqf va gur uvag - Ybhvfvnavna unf VNA, rgp. Lbhe AFJ Jnyrf frg znl arrq 3 cynprf va Jbyy(BAT)(BAT) fcrpvsvpnyyl - 2 bs gurz ner ng gur zbzrag...) And if the word that links the Quangle Wangle category is 'nonsense' then that fits too... $\endgroup$ Commented Dec 25, 2024 at 9:12
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    $\begingroup$ Aha. Following the OP's hint, Dillon must be this guy since all 3 are fictional... Furthermore rot13(gur ynfg yrggref bs gurfr ercrngrq fhofgevatf fcryy ZRFFNTR, urapr svaqvat 'n zrffntr ng gur raq'!) $\endgroup$ Commented Dec 28, 2024 at 18:29

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