Thursday, March 26, 2009

NPR Sunday Puzzle (Mar 22): Add 3 Letters Twice

NPR Sunday Puzzle (Mar 22): Add 3 Letters Twice:
Q: Here's an example: Take the letters I, L, R and T. Insert a trigram (three-letter group) twice into these letters to complete a familiar 10-letter word. If you add S, P and O, you would get the answer, 'spoilsport.'
Now, take R F E and R. Insert a trigram twice somewhere in these letters to complete a familiar two-word phrase. What phrase is it?
On a scale of 0 to 9, I give this week's puzzle a 3.

Edit: 0 to 9 would be the set of *digits* where 3 is the *fourth* digit.
A: Insert ING twice --> R(ING) F(ING)ER
Posted by Blaine at 12:15 PM
Labels: ,

29 comments:

  1. I think the ladies would enjoy this leftist leaning puzzle more than the men. At least it didn't take two months to solve...
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  2. on a scale of 0 to 9, i give this one "the bird"
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  3. I can't add much to radiohead's clue.

    Looks like another bank is in trouble, Netherland FFIG, not the well known one.
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  4. I think Blaine's scoring is just about right, although I'd give it a four.

    But I'm curious how you arrived at that score. I propose that if you tell me your criteria I'll tell you mine.
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  5. Yngvai, I had the same problem until i checked
    http://mw1.merriam-webster.com
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  6. I proposed an answer to this weeks puzzle to my girlfriend. She says she knows the answer but wants to keep me guessing!
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  7. hugh, yup, dictionary.com has it there, too. But wikipedia has both (agreed that it's not the most authoritative source, though).
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  8. yngvai, I agree. It's a four.
    But getting the answer made me feel
    like singing.

    Liane Hansen said, "About a thousand
    people sent in correct answers this
    time. Re: Suze Orman/Zeus Roman
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  9. Come to think about it, since Blaine's scale was from 0 to 9, his 3 could be Yngvai's 4, or he could claim he meant the dictionary's 3 all along. Pretty crafty.
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  10. what an engaging puzzle. i feel trapped trying to come up with an answer.
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  11. i can't stop dolores repeating over and over in my head: "do you have to, do you have to, do you have to..."
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  12. I would like to point to the Car Talk puzzles as fun diversion for you puzzle enthusiasts.
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  13. What almost killed me with this week's puzzle is -- my wife thought I was going to solve it while we were on this trip. But in fact I didn't solve it until we were at a restaurant awhile later.

    Very dangerous.

    - Other Ben
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  14. For some reason, this week's puzzle made me think of salmon. I like coho.
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  15. what about lake trout in up-state new york
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  16. Which U.S. state and its capital city do not share any of the same letters?
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  17. Geri,

    That's a vicious one, because nobody knows that state capital anyway!

    - Other Ben
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  19. I'm just back from family medical emergency which had me out of town and I couldn't get internet or NPR. I see my Suze Orman was right. I'm not sure of the cutoff for submission so I should probably catch up on sleep & laundry instead of staying up to figure this one out,.
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  20. The state capital is easy, cause Lennon lived/died there...
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  21. I've been pretty busy and, between that and the fact that this one just didn't appeal to me, I didn't try hard to figure it out.But now I see the answer is actually a Nine Inch Nails song I'm sorry; would have made for fun/obscure clues...
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  22. radiohead00725, The Dakota where John Lennon was shot is an apartment building in New York City.
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  23. If Blaine does any programming, I suppose he uses a compiler like "C" where arrays of length n have subscripts running from 0 to n-1. Fortran subscripts run from 1 to n. Old habits died hard.
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  24. Timmy, you of the Blainwise digit of 2 (more likely 7), what does a person do who drinks too much dry wine?
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  25. wakes up with dry heaves?
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  26. Timmy,Try

    http://unrepeatable.livejournal.com/tag/san+francisco

    Sorry, it's a really old joke.
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  27. gets his whistle soaking wet?

    is there a hint?
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  28. Ring finger got "just over 700."

    This week's "product" should top that easily.
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  29. Geri, as an actual NPR listener (member, I hope) you'll agree that this puzzle would also be appropriate for another NPR program.
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