Talk:cryptex

Plural
Would the plural of this include cryptices, since it is a portmanteau of the Latin word codex (which has the plural codices)? --BiT 00:02, 29 May 2007 (UTC)


 * With 115 Googles, half of them discussing whether that might be a plural? ;-) I think not ... Robert Ullmann 00:06, 29 May 2007 (UTC)
 * No I'm not talking about whether it's popular, just grammatically logical. Like the word penis, people might not use the plural penes a lot (why the hell would you want to refer to many penes in the first place?), but it's still correct. Ok, to rephrase my question does a compound word decline according to the latter word? E.g. girl + matrix = girltrix. Would the plurals be girltrixes and girltrices? Some help? --BiT 10:27, 30 May 2007 (UTC)


 * Since this is meant to be a descriptive dictionary, we'd just have to study actual usage. But yes, a word will usually decline according to its familiar ending. Equinox ◑ 23:00, 14 August 2013 (UTC)

RFV discussion
Only in one fictional universe (Da Vinci Code). Equinox ◑ 23:17, 5 June 2010 (UTC)


 * RFV failed, entry deleted. —Ruakh TALK 21:41, 7 July 2010 (UTC)

cryptex
For some reason, I was thinking about this last night. It's used in the Da Vinci Code, which by any imaginable standards is a well known work in English. Is the Da Vinci Code set in a fictional universe? I don't think so. I think this is just a nonce word used in a well-known work, ergo it meets CFI. Thoughts? NB see Talk:cryptex Mglovesfun (talk) 10:38, 15 October 2010 (UTC)


 * I would say that a fictional universe doesn't have to involve anything really "out there" like time travel or elves. Dan Brown's book is fiction, so its universe (with all of its invented characters, events, and places) is a fictional one. Equinox ◑ 09:40, 18 October 2010 (UTC)
 * Didn't you create that Moby-Dick nonce word a few months ago? How is this different? Mglovesfun (talk) 09:54, 18 October 2010 (UTC)
 * It's different because a "cryptex" is a specific invented thing or device that exists only in that universe. The word from Moby Dick was just a newly-coined poetic adjective, something along the lines of stormtossed; can you remember what it was? Also, Dan Brown sucks :) Equinox ◑ 10:16, 18 October 2010 (UTC)
 * I think it was a noun, somethingwood. Mglovesfun (talk) 10:18, 18 October 2010 (UTC)
 * Right, I was thinking of lashwise: (Melville, but not Moby Dick), but you mean warwood:; I don't think warwood is a new, sci-fi type of wood that Melville invented, but an unusual (nonce) name for some actual kind of wood that really exists. I couldn't find out what it was, unfortunately. I'd say cryptex is more comparable to Tardis. Equinox ◑ 10:22, 18 October 2010 (UTC)
 * Ha! If we don't know what it means, we don't know if it's fictional universe only or not. I mean Melville's characters were fictional too. Mglovesfun (talk) 14:13, 18 October 2010 (UTC)
 * Well, since the novel is supposed to be about real whaling in real ships made of real wood, I feel pretty sure about this. (Perhaps it's any wood wrested from the natives in wartime?) I suggest a separate RFV/RFD if you want to pursue that! Equinox ◑ 15:49, 18 October 2010 (UTC)
 * Some editions of Moby Dick, including the earliest ones that b.g.c. lets me preview, hyphenate it as (which we don't have an entry for). But as the latter elsewhere seems to mean "shield", or at least some sort of thing that's made of wood and used for war (rather than some specific sort of wood, perhaps related somehow to war) — see  — that doesn't seem to be terribly helpful. The book at one point uses the phrase "certain little canoes of dark wood, like the rich war-wood of his native isle", which really seems to indicate that Melville means a kind of wood. —Ruakh TALK 22:27, 18 October 2010 (UTC)
 * Another issue to the one Equinox mentions is that IMO Brown is not "a well-known work" as that phase is used in the CFI. It's not exactly Shakespeare or even Lewis Carroll. Wait fifty years or something and see how popular it is. &#x200b;—msh210℠ (talk) 15:44, 18 October 2010 (UTC)

Restarting this definition
It appears that this word has entered use in English. So I will attempt to collect some references here to prove it. Da Vinci Code might be the first to use it, but it has been used by others since. of his cryptex" Escape-cardio: Gamification in cardiovascular physiotherapy. An observational study "The material employed included locks of different types, a cryptex, test tubes, books, markers and ultraviolet flashlights and blood bags, among others." https://doi.org/10.1016/j.nedt.2021.105062 Graeme Bartlett (talk) 12:00, 26 November 2021 (UTC)
 * Used as a competition element in the TV episode The Challenge: War of the Worlds 2 in 2019
 * Used in the 2016 video game Cipher Hunt
 * Used in 2007 TV series The Search
 * JAMES JOYCE'S USAGE OF DICTION IN REPRESENTATION OF IRISH SOCIETY IN DUBLINERS: THE ANALYSIS OF "THE SISTERS" AND "THE DEAD" IN HISTORICAL CONTEXT. Journal of International Social Research . Fall 2012, Vol. 5 Issue 23, p169-174 "The triangle of 'paralysis', 'simony', and 'gnomon' is a key to decipher the Joycean codification
 * Nurse Education Today Volume 106, November 2021, 105062
 * 2019 Leveraging on Gamification and Learning Analytics for Improved Student Learning https://ieeexplore.ieee.org/abstract/document/8940584
 * Erasmus+ project „ Culture knowledge and language competences as a means to develop the 21st century skills” http://e-culture.eu/wp-content/uploads/2019/08/B1_B2_English_curriculum.pdf