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Riddle me this:

I am home to the letters,
But I am not the alphabet.
Whenever there be errors,
The display may then correct / A corner may correct.

You can find my ancestor,
Only in the highest row.
Ten units is its measure,
Being not numeric, though.

What am I?

I have included the slash, as in some cases, corrections do not happen automatically.


Hint:

Both my ancestor and I are compounds,
Such that I keep to a name (same start).
Either of us hold this riddle spellbound,
Though no enthral nor enchantments take part.


Apologies for my sloppy rhyming, and if this riddle is too easy; I am currently running out of ideas of answers that have not been famously riddled about. It is likely that I will get back to doing anagram puzzles (or Riley riddles!) for the time being. Also, not much knowledge is needed for this riddle.


The answer to the riddle and the answer's ancestor is hidden in the title (as well as another minor clue). To get you started, I must point out that writers like Poky himself hate wordy sentences.

Whoever finds the full answer and ancestor in the title will receive a 50 rep bounty reward. (Turns out, the user who solved the entire puzzle altogether, namely @Bass, kindly refused the bounty reward offer.)

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1 Answer 1

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I am home to the letters,
But I am not the alphabet.
Whenever there be errors,
The display may then correct.

This would be a

keyboard, with the very handy backspace key that can erase a typo you see on the monitor.

You can find my ancestor,
Only in the highest row.
Ten units is its measure,
Being not numeric, though.

The ancestor, then, is a

typewriter, a word with 10 letters, each on the top row of a keyboard, as long as you don't count digits row.

Most of the words in the title are

composed of letters that share a property in their location on the keyboard when touch typing:

writer: top row only.
Poky: right hand only.
was betrayed: left hand only (EDIT: oops, looks like I (or maybe even Poky?) overreached with the left index finger: there's an Y in "betrayed")

this is pretty impressive, since "writer poky betrayed" is an anagram for "keyboard typewriter"

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  • 1
    $\begingroup$ I have reached my daily voting limit, and have to wait at least $10$ hours from now before I can upvote; but nonetheless, prepare to see a green tick beside your answer and a blue box with the number $50$ on it. You did it; you solved the riddle (or at least, the bounty, but I am sure you can match your answer with the actual riddle itself)! Every single part of your answer is correct! This may be one of my last riddles of this form for a while — I need to study for school and am running out of riddle ideas, wherefore I tried making this riddle one of my best :D $\endgroup$
    – Mr Pie
    Commented Aug 11, 2018 at 13:54
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    $\begingroup$ great answer, the explanation was nice. $\endgroup$ Commented Aug 11, 2018 at 15:25
  • $\begingroup$ Regarding the first line, (ROT13) V jnf ersreevat gb nhgbpbeerpg, jvgu gur qvfcynl orvat gur fperra bs n pbzchgre. Ohg lbhe nygreangvir nyfb svgf :) $\endgroup$
    – Mr Pie
    Commented Aug 11, 2018 at 22:55
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    $\begingroup$ Thanks @user477343! There's really no need for a bounty though, I just passed the 20k milestone yesterday, so any rep is pretty much wasted on me from now on :-) (with regards to the rot13 in your comment that just appeared, I find it mostly changes words that were correct already..) $\endgroup$
    – Bass
    Commented Aug 11, 2018 at 22:57
  • $\begingroup$ Alright, then. Congratulations on reaching past your 20k milestone! :D $\endgroup$
    – Mr Pie
    Commented Aug 11, 2018 at 23:04

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