Sunday, August 09, 2009

NPR Sunday Puzzle (Aug 2): Show Me the Money!

NPR Sunday Puzzle (Aug 2): Show Me the Money!:
Q: Take a slang term for money. Change one of its letters to the next letter of the alphabet. Rearrange the result, and you'll get another slang term for money. What are the words?
To be honest, I haven't figured this one out yet. I thought I was close with BEAN and BANK, but it fails the "next letter" rule.

Edit: I must admit I'd never come across the term Do-re-mi as slang for money. There were less than 300 entries so I don't think I was alone.
A: DO-RE-MI --> DINERO
Posted by Blaine at 7:36 AM
Labels: , ,

63 comments:

  1. Most all women controlling the savings and the spending of their very own - earned monies? Not in this World, not even with their very own stringy blingy thingys. DAS IST VERBOTEN! -- by the men in their adult! lives -- so ...

    ... while viewing a fawn suckling its mama may bring oxytocin - like sunshine to me and while Robert Mario's films are, to me, likewise lovely to view in his and so many others' testosteronal sorta way, too, ... that man's personal life ... so sucks.
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  3. Hint: Both words start with the same letter.
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  4. Lorenzo, Yes, you, Natasha, and I seem to have the easier word. I did hint at the other word, but one letter shy.
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  5. Thanks, Blue. Oddly enough our fathers used to share a loft in the 1950's. They were abstract expressionists together. The world they were in seems foreign to me now.
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  6. Blue, to answer Lorenzo's question again - You and I came to the same answer. You really strain my brain!
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  7. Lorenzo--I cam up with something that starts with 2 different letters....LOL
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  8. I thought of an answer in which the first letters of the two words are not the same. And from the clues posted above, I'm not sure anyone else got this answer, although a co-worker of mine got the same answers. One of these answers is also a synonym for the very easy synonym puzzle a few weeks ago; frankly it's more of a synonym for those two words than it is for money.
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  9. I wonder who else has some pearls of wisdom to share regarding this puzzle.
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  10. A comment above gives me one word, but the obvious word that would accompany it is more slang for dope or heroin than it is money... right?
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  11. This one won't get the "2900 correct entries" that Fresno/Reno received.
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  12. Ben,

    Just say no!

    (Or something that sounds like it.)

    This week's answer, in fact, contains no slang terms for dope. I totally disbelieve the rumors that Merl Reagle is a crackhead.

    -- Other Ben
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  13. Cookieface (and anyone else who wanted the answer to Dave's Puzzle #11):

    PUSHER becomes USER.
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  14. I've come up with an answer that I don't like, but it fits. One of the words is a little too "Woodstocky" for my taste.
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  15. I think I got one word from Blues Clues(love that show...lol), but there are to differnt spellings for it and can't get the second
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  16. I came up with two five letter slang words. Anyone agree?
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  17. Natasha, Are the 5 letter words the ones that I took to be your original choice?
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  18. Hugh, I found a different answer. Both words start with the same letter and I think go along with Blue's Clues.
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  19. I can safely say that once you have the answer, it is very clearly the answer. So if you're ambivalent, perhaps you need to get back on the path.

    And I have two little ones, so I've seen my share of Blue's Clues. I'd recommend two different kids' entertainment titles to seek your answer. But they are both quite popular, so if I say more I'll be giving it away.

    -- Other Ben
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  20. No clues, today. I know it's late and I could just wait out the last day.

    It's not like I'm paying for clues, but if I was would I be paying a specific bill like a dollar, a fin, a sawbuck a c-note or just something general like cold hard cash.

    I don't no the answer so if I inadvertently gave something away I apologize
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  21. One of these terms is not really a "word" and does not seem to appear in any dictionary (including dictionaries of slang). Its earliest use as a term for money that I am aware of dates back to 1938.
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  22. The answer I submitted fits rogerbuch's hint.
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  23. I'm really unhappy with my answer, which especially bakes me since @hugh said I clued the right one in the past. Something tells me it's not BONES/OBOES or BACON/NABOB.

    (My answers share the first character and seem to disagree with everyone else's clues.)
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  24. Wolftone, You're in the right church but the wrong pew. You picked up good possible clues, but the word I was referring to was incomplete and sandwiched in with a lot of other baloney. The word serves as only a check or a memory jog.
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  25. Wolftone, I think I'm with you - not happy with my second word. I loafed around for a while until I came up with my first word, but the second one strung me out for a while. I'm guessing 200+ entries and Will probably has an answer that will not satisfy several of us...
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  26. If one wants to apply major bass clef - strains
    To get out of one's lovely, scaled brains
    A syno - name for slang - money
    That's near drops - o' - sunny
    Why, me thinks what one will ... whilst my tongue - still - it remains.

    . . but ... additionally . .

    There at once is a mark called a dash - thingy
    That'll turn a passel o'letters to a fine stringy.
    A word that's compound
    Truly is soooo NOT profound! ...
    'Specially as it relates to slang - o' - $ blingy.
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  27. Blue, Thanks for the helping hand (I think). I don't know how large a flock flew over my head this time.
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  28. Let's go back to Blue's Clues. ("Look, a clue, a clue!")

    The two words have nothing to do with Blue's Clues. But they can be derived from two other wildly popular kids entertainment titles, as noted earlier.

    One is a movie, one of the most popular of all time, and it takes place in a foreign land. It was filmed in that land. And, of course, in Hollywood too.

    One is on TV and it seems foreign as well, though like Blue's Clues it is made right here in New York City.

    If you can guess these two titles, I think you can get the words. And once you have the money words, there is no doubt they are correct. If you're troubled by your choices, they likely aren't right -- Merl Reagle doesn't mess around.

    -- Other Ben
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  29. Clarification re "The two words have nothing to do with Blue's Clues" - statement above.

    The two words about which Mr Reagle and Mr Shortz are puzzling have nothing to do with the wee kiddos' television program entitled ... "Blue's Clues."

    And everything to do with ... mine.
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  30. Sorry if I offended, dear esteemed colleague!

    {grin}

    -- Other Ben
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  31. I guess my two-word hint ("sounds musical") posted Sunday morning (on last-week's blog)wasn't too revealing after all!
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  32. Post-deadline comments:

    Probable intended answer: Lyrics in a Dust Bowl ballad by Woody Guthrie and the Spanish word for money.

    Runner up: Bread and beads. However, "beads" does not seem to be used as slang for "money" even though beads have been used as money (wampum in certain Native American nations or bar-beads at Club Med!)
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  33. Post-deadline answer:
    I was thinking ONES and NOTE
    ??????still not sure
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  34. Take pity on a gal who couldn't figure out this week's puzzle despite all of your clues, and post the answer so I can smack myself in the forehead! Something to do with dinero?
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  35. OK, we're past deadline.

    I sent in DOREMI and DINERO, which I'm sure was the answer of Lorenzo and Blue as well.

    Lorenzo alluded above to DOREMI as a Woody Guthrie song.

    Blue (of Iowa) wrote of "Das Ist Verboten," likely an allusion to the "Sound of Music," the kids' film I was referring to.

    The TV Show I noted was Dora, which of course flirts with Spanish all the time (and "like Blue's Clues" is animated and syndicated by Viacom here in NYC). Swiper is always on the prowl for dinero.

    Blue (of Iowa)'s mention of Robert Mario's films omits his last name, DeNiro. His father was indeed an abstract expressionist painter (Robert DeNiro, Sr.) and did share a painting loft with my dad in the 1950's in the Village.

    Alas, still no call from Will.

    -- Other Ben
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  36. I can see how BEADS link (albeit weakly)to wampum which is slang for money, but I couldn't find any dictionary or thesaurus references that linked DOREMI with money..? Ah Will has challenged us once more and he never mentions those also-ran solutions we spend out time on. Oh well,back to real life !
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  37. I found a listing for do-re-mi with the hyphens as slang for money.
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  38. Darn - foiled by spaces & hypens !

    Apparently do-re-mi is derived from dough. Learn something every day !
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  39. Check out the july 2, 2009 NYT crossword 41 down. Seems do-re-mi was used for cabbage (without hyphens).
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  40. I was thrown off by hyphens. Used beads and bread.
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  41. Funny. I had DOREMI/DINERO and rejected it on the basis that the "word" was really a phrase "DO RE MI" and that DINERO isn't so much slang as a foreign word. So I went with BREAD/BEADS. I'm getting tired of these highly ambiguous synonym puzzles.
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  42. wolftone, I agree with you. The puzzle did state "terms" however. I think Will should accept our answers.
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  44. Well, I didn't smack myself in the forehead because it wasn't a "duh!" answer to me! I've NEVER heard do re mi used as a term for money. I'm a young 'un though... =)
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  45. Urban dictonary does say do-re-mi is "a somewhat dated term for money" I'll be really interested to hear how many correct entries they receive - or does Liane just say "entries" ?
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  46. I have heard Liane say "correct entries" sometimes and just "entries" at other times.
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  47. I've certainly heard DO-RE-MI used before and agree it is dated -- mostly in 1950's films and Laverne & Shirley-type comedy.

    And there is the very famous 1930's usage pointed out by Lorenzo:

    http://www.woodyguthrie.org/Lyrics/Do_Re_Mi.htm

    Then again, BREAD is also quite dated -- I haven't heard it used outside of a 1960's context at all, really.

    BEADS I've never heard before.

    -- Other Ben
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  48. not stringy blingy thingys = not wampum’s necklacing strings of beads

    das ist verboten = Austrian lexicon = The Sound of Music

    fawn’s mama = “do ... a deer, a female deer”

    sunshine = re

    to me / to me = mi

    Robert Mario = De Niro ... rearranged = dinero

    major strains = music and scales

    scaled = do – re – mi = the major scale

    name = “mi ... a name I call myself”

    drops – o’ – sunny = “re ... a drop of golden sun”

    punctuation mark = dash = hyphen

    passel o’ letters to a fine stringy word = do–re–me

    compound word = Some sources state that a hyphen combines > letter pieces into one word; refers to this process as a compound word although I myself did not know of this specific terming re hyphens making words ... compound.

    soooo not profound = do-re-mi
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  49. I found two places where the words appear in the same list. The on-line one is page 52 of the following:

    http://www.scribd.com/doc/16627018/The-Complete-Book-of-Greed-M-Hirsh-Goldberg
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  50. I submitted bread/beads because I consider dinero to be a Spanish word rather than a slang term. Either way, Do-Re-Mi and beads are kind of a stretch for money slang. And, since it's probably one of those two possibilities, I agree with DaveJ's assessment that the entry count will be in low hundreds rather than the usual thousands.
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  51. I about drove myself round the bend trying to work over "dough" and "moolah" and other such common terms. Like Curtis I eliminated "dinero" because I don't think of it as a slang term in English, and I have never heard of do-re-mi, nor came across it in my research. BREAD and BEADS has the right simplicity, but I just don't believe "beads" as a plausible slang term for money. I'm not satisfied with either of these possibilities--any chance there's another good answer out there?
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  52. How about c-note and ounce...lol
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  53. I agree with wolftone, 8-6-09 2:40 pm, "I'm getting tired of these highly ambiguous synonym puzzles." I submitted bread/beads although I can't recall that I've ever heard "beads" used to mean "money."

    Natasha, Last week was the first time I noticed that Liane said, "correct entries."
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  54. Geri, she has alternated between correct and just entries for a while.
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  55. Lorenzo, speaking on behalf of only myself, I would not think to look at a previous week's comment stack for a clue to a current puzzle. Just my $.02.

    I have heard do-re-mi used as slang for money and turned that in as my answer. Couldn't convince myself that SMACK was good, although I liked CLAMS -- especially after someone above alluded to pearls of wisdom.

    - Original Ben
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  56. Beads are what the explorers used for Money to buy furs etc. so it seems perfectly logical to use that as a term for $. That is not what I answered however. I uses "ones" (dollar bills) and C-note (for thousand)..LOL
    Go figure
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  57. Original Ben, I took "pearls of wisdom" to hint at wearing a string of pearls around my neck=BEADS. Some of the hints seem to ignore the clue in the original puzzle which said to change one of the letters to the next one in the alphabet. Hence the "r" in bread changes to the "s" in beads.
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  58. SO glad I didn't get into the drawing to play on air this week. It was brutal!
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  59. Liane said "About 300 entries" but at least Will acknowledged "several different answers" other than the do-re-mi he was looking for.
    This weeks logic puzzle is much easier in comparison.
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  60. Albeit we use "dinero" in a "slang" context in
    American English it is NOT slang in Spanish. Bah, humbug.

    Any waitress who would ask such a question is
    asking for trouble. There is NO way she can act on the five answers given. Ipso facto, there is NO answer to this week's puzzle.
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  61. Geri,

    This week's puzzle is indeed defective.

    I think Will is assuming that the waitress is herself a logician, and will therefore come up with the "right" number of coffees. But as a fellow logician she would not have asked her question in such a stupid way. She would have asked, "Does ANYONE want a coffee?"

    Bah!
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  62. The new puzzle scenario is plausible assuming the waitress knows the logicians are regulars and they usually all order coffee. The waitress does not have to be a logician, but it does require logic to solve the puzzle.
    This one will be difficult to hint at...
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  63. Does everyone here know the answer?
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