Thursday, January 29, 2009

NPR Sunday Puzzle (Jan 25): Starts with M, Ends with M

NPR Sunday Puzzle (Jan 25): Starts with M, Ends with M:
Q: Think of a word that starts and ends with the letter M, drop the first M, insert an O somewhere and you'll get a new word that means the same thing as the first word. What words are these?
Truth be told, I'm not positive I have the right answer so I won't say anything (As they say, "A closed mouth gathers no foot.")

Edit: "Truth" was an obvious hint to the synonyms.
A: MAXIM --> AXIOM

28 comments:

  1. A frequent contributor of puzzles used by Will Shortz is Ed Pegg Jr. I'm sure he would find this one self-evident.

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  2. I'm trying to figure out whether something Polonius said, given the current state of the economy, is good, bad, or balonius.

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  3. Polonius was a wise man. We should
    follow his advice. I'm remembering
    an old one, "A penny saved is a
    penny earned."

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  4. Polonius? Benjamin Franklin? any current hints? Those people, fictional or not, seem from faraway time periodicals.

    I've got an ax to grind with Will Shortz and how hard these riddles are - I'm worried I've reached the limit of my riddle-solving capacity.

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  5. Not sure how Ed Pegg Jr. fits into this puzzle or answer. When I think of him I just think "mathpuzzle.org".

    Geri, I jumped right to the answer when I read your hint, but if I didn't want a hint I wouldn't have come here, so I can't complain.

    Polonius' wisdom is elemental.

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  6. ugh! my neighbor's Isuzu is blocking me in again!

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  7. Minncognito, your neighbor isn't looking at pictures in his car again, is he? Thanks for the hint, Geri.

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  8. Ben,you made the association I had intended with the reference to Ed Pegg, Jr. That, plus the rest of my clue are designed to point to the technical use of the second of the pair of answer words.

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  9. Minncognito, are you sure your neighbor's car is not a Nissan?

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  10. he did own a Nissan, but now he's definitely driving an Isuzu.

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  11. minncognito, between us we could have come up with an interesting puzzle with the same two-word answer.

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  12. True dat! Off to look at the girlie mags.

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  13. Phredp, that's what I was allewding to (spelling mistake intended), but I didn't know if I'd be revealing too much.

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  14. Dave, I thought your comment was pretty x-plicit.

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  15. boring boring boring. too easy. Sorry everyone; been busy busy busy and distracted with personal stuff including the wonderful experience of accidentally finding myself mentoring an incredibly sweet high school girl from Viet Nam in her project for an architectural design class. And her mom has been having so much fun hanging out with my girlfriend! Sorry, know it's boring.

    And so is this week's puzzle. Too easy. Geri, thanks for thinking of me. I know if you were my next-door neighbor it would be soooooo hard to move.

    Well, there's an old saying... well, actually, there are LOTS of them, aren't there?

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  16. And Geri, I had to google Merl Reagle Study Group to refresh my memory. I did that puzzle and I remembered liking that clue/answer. Now I'm thinking about puzzles so I'll probably lie awake doing this weeks Sunday crosswords...

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  17. Carl, Glad you're back. I thought
    you might have gone to Egypt to build
    a pyramid but what you are doing is
    much more interesting.

    Check out Merl Reagle's "A Pronounced
    Difference" 110d.

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  18. I hope we're all submitting our
    answers. Nuts and crackers got
    fewer than five humdred responses
    last week.

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  19. Geri, I've been curious to know how many responses there are each week. How did you find that out? Do they announce it on the show?

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  20. Dave, YES. Will Shortz gives the
    answer and they give the total
    just before they announce the
    winner.

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  21. I had to scroll to Older Posts to find this blog dated as Tuesday, January 29, 2008. Must've used 2008 when posting the answer.
    (Delete this)

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  22. Doh! I mistyped the year when updating the post. Thanks for catching that. I'd probably still be writing 2007 on my checks (if I wrote checks anymore).

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  23. to all the crossword puzzle addicts:

    I just discovered "xword info" and
    all its variations. Google has
    several hits--all fun and useful.

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  24. Geri, thanks for the info. Like many others on this blog, I do the N.Y. Times puzzle every day. It's great to have this asset available for those frustrating times when you can't get a word.

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  25. today's puzzle was so easy I got it in about a second. Maybe it is because this woman's music takes ones breath away. Is that the same as primary alveolar hypoventilation?

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  26. Dave claims that there are those on this blog who do the Times puzzle every day.

    In fact, there are many of us here who do it every HOUR.

    - Other Ben

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  27. justme, Unless you're being metaphorical in your musical
    allusion I got a different
    answer.

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For NPR puzzle posts, don't post the answer or any hints that could lead to the answer before the deadline (usually Thursday at 3pm ET). If you know the answer, submit it to NPR, but don't give it away here.

You may provide indirect hints to the answer to show you know it, but make sure they don't assist with solving. You can openly discuss your hints and the answer after the deadline. Thank you.