Thursday, June 27, 2013

NPR Sunday Puzzle (Jun 23, 2013): Words with Unusual Properties II

NPR Sunday Puzzle (Jun 23, 2013): Words with Unusual Properties II:
Q: Write down these five words:
"aide," "heart," "tough," "gelatin" and "emanate." There is something very unusual they have in common. What is it? And what's another word with this property?
When my computer is not crashing and is able to filter my word grids, it does a most capable job. Anyway, at the moment it has about 800 words, possibly with some as long as 11 letters but I can't check them until it is done calculating.

Edit: Hints: "not crashing" = stable, "word grids" = tables, "most capable" = ablest. Some other words (6 letters or more) are given below. I tried to avoid plurals, but stable/tables/ablest was too good to ignore:
A: The property that the five words share is that if you move the first letter to the end, another word is formed.
aide --> idea
heart --> earth
tough --> ought
gelatin --> elating
emanate --> manatee

Here are a few words that also share this property:
dangle --> angled
echoic --> choice
height --> eighth
ramble --> ambler
revoke --> evoker
stable --> tables --> ablest (chain of 3 words)
yowler --> owlery
tangelo --> angelot
trundle --> rundlet
dalliance --> allianced
dunpickle --> unpickled
lethologica --> ethological

166 comments:

  1. Here's my standard reminder... don't post the answer or any hints that could lead directly to the answer (e.g. via a chain of thought, or an internet search) before the deadline of Thursday at 3pm ET. If you know the answer, click the link and 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 give the answer away. You can openly discuss your hints and the answer after the Thursday deadline. Thank you.

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Lethologica: a new word to forget when I can't think of the right word. ;-)

      Delete
  2. I do, I did, I don't...repeat often.

    ReplyDelete
  3. Do an end run around this one. Tall and/or tail order! (All from end of last week's blog).

    ReplyDelete
  4. I actually found three properties these words share however one of them is the obvious answer. The additional word I used has only three letters. And there’s another rule I think the inner puzzler in all of us should agree to although I’m not going to state it now because it would be a huge hint.

    Chuck

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Right, it would be best to exclude the ones you mean. But there are a great many other answers that would still be accepted, including Dave's.

      Delete
  5. I posted the following on last week's blog shortly after the new puzzle came online:

    skydiveboy Sun Jun 23, 04:57:00 AM PDT

    Next week's challenge: Write down these five words: "aide," "heart," "tough," "gelatin" and "emanate." There is something very unusual they have in common. What is it? And what's another word with this property?

    I got the answer almost immediately, but as with last week, it may take a bit for me to get another word that qualifies. Going back to bed for now.

    skydiveboy Sun Jun 23, 05:00:00 AM PDT

    Got one now.

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Sounds like you got it in your sleep -- I needed to eat some breakfast (and a little caffeine) to figure it out!

      Which also got my wondering, how many (other) words fulfill the property more than once; and how long are the longest words that do?

      Delete
    2. All I can tell you is that the longest words may have been spoken at Gettysburg, but not by President Lincoln.

      Delete
    3. mike - I like your idea for extending the puzzle. Have you been successful in finding any words (of more than two letters) that fulfill the property more than once?

      Delete
    4. Lorenzo, someone has already posted a hint to a simple word that meets the property twice.

      Delete
  6. This week I will give a hint, even if is not a very big one (need to put my hints on a diet)

    ReplyDelete
  7. Too easy. Will probably had this puzzle on auto pilot.

    ReplyDelete
  8. I found 13 2-letter words that meet the criteria (at least according to Merriam-Webster’s 11th Collegiate Dictionary).

    Chuck

    ReplyDelete
  9. How many on this blog think Will's puzzle chest is getting a bit thin?

    ReplyDelete
  10. Blaine, you surely did come up with a clever clue.

    ReplyDelete
  11. Musical clue: The Times They Are a-Changin'.

    (Not their Crossword Editor, I hope!)

    ReplyDelete
  12. I have a stinker of an answer - and at least 20 more.

    ReplyDelete
  13. Just finished watching Nik Walenda Walk across the Grand Canyon. Nice job! I was a bit surprised at his body size; I thought he would be more wiry.

    ReplyDelete
  14. Where is Weird Woman? Did she become inconsonantquential?

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. SlyDiveBoy, be careful lest ye be disemvoweled!

      Delete
    2. That sounds worse than a bottle of Italian Swiss Colonic wine.

      Delete
  15. Saw Karl at 69 years old break the distance record at 550m in 1974. It was smoking hot and above blacktop.

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Yeah, I watched him fall to his death later. It was pathetic. You have to know when to fold 'em. I also met Philippe Petit here in Seattle two months ago tomorrow.

      Delete
  16. Live by the sword, die by the sword. Mots de vie.

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Please, I don't believe we come here expecting swordplay.

      Delete
    2. Reminds me of Eliza Doolittle.

      Delete
    3. The Dr. is in and how are all of my little friends?

      Delete
    4. You're the doctor; you tell us.

      Delete
    5. Finer than a frog hair split three ways. Pretty thin hint at that my fine feathered friend.

      Delete
  17. Am I the only one who noticed that a few of the posts are not posted, but are making it to our email boxes?

    ReplyDelete
  18. Where are these posts?

    Bob Kerfuffle has left a new comment on the post "NPR Sunday Puzzle (Jun 23, 2013): Words with Unusu...":

    Musical clue? DEVO



    mike_hinterberg

    Toskydiveboy@yahoo.com





    mike_hinterberg has left a new comment on the post "NPR Sunday Puzzle (Jun 16, 2013): Words with Unusu...":

    But what about ending a question with a proposition?



    Frommike_hinterberg

    Toskydiveboy@yahoo.com





    mike_hinterberg has left a new comment on the post "NPR Sunday Puzzle (Jun 16, 2013): Words with Unusu...":

    Muz nhnz emoak eajmyg g huryxtot nign e arugofoxtot?


    All three of these posts arrived in my email, but I do not find them on the blog itself.




    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Nice job, Mike...'arugofoxtot'?....is that kinda like 'slysaladkid'?

      SDB, I found 'Muz nhnz emoak eajmyg g huryxtot nign e arugofoxtot?' on the blog; apparently Mike deleted his earlier comment.
      Regarding Bob's comment: my hypothesis would be that he deleted it himself(he alone would know why) and Blaine has done some 'street sweeping'. Just a hypothesis.

      I sorta botched my early comment on the new puzzle. I'll attempt damage control on Thursday.

      Delete
    2. I had deleted my previous comment, thinking it would be more fun to encode it.

      Delete
  19. Paul, No I did not delete my comment, and considering how far removed from the answer it is, I don't think Blaine did either. (And when Blaine does remove a comment, the standard message is "This comment has been removed by a blog administrator" -- or is that at some other blog?) Just one of the infinite mysteries of the internet.

    Anyhoo, on Lorenzo's question of words that fulfill the property more than once, I have found a six-letter word that does, and it's just waiting to be picked.

    I also have a second three-letter word that might be acceptable, though the second iteration is somewhat dotty.

    ReplyDelete
  20. Pick up the horn. She's calling on line eight.

    ReplyDelete
  21. I think the internet age definition of hell is no wireless. I got the answer on my long drive out of hell and, like others have posted, the issue was finding the word to submit. I decided find my word on a road sign or billboard or bumper sticker, which wasn't all that hard.

    There are no clues in this post.

    ReplyDelete
  22. I was at a reunion all weekend, so I made this week's puzzle a family affair. My cousin Seth, who's from the Icelandic side of the family, got the answer once he translated the puzzle into his native tongue. My sly cousin Levi, whom I've always found a tad diabolical, figured it out immediately.

    ReplyDelete
  23. Correct me if I'm wrong, but I doubt there is one and only one word that's the correct answer. Correct?

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. There are lots of words that work.

      Delete
    2. “There is something very unusual they have in common?” More like “something somewhat unusual,” and surely less unusual than the previous puzzle’s word set. (Yes, going back in time can shed the light of historical perspective.) In our posts this week, unintentional clues are cropping up like Topsy, willy-nilly. And even jsulbyrn’s sly denim-clad cousin came up with an answer that “fulfills the property more than once.”
      (Incidentally, speaking of historical perspective, I’m new to this blog, following it less than a year, but I have noticed that we lately have been amusing ourselves by piggy-backing our own puzzles upon the shrugging shoulders of Will’s puzzles, especially when we deem them over-easy, like eggs we can crack with little effort. For instance, Blaine’s “mashed movie titles,” two weeks back, and this week’s “fulfills the property more than once” challenge that mike_hinterberg proposed. In the more distant past, has this type of “bonus puzzling” been commonplace, or very unusual? It is a trend I kinda like.)

      Lego…

      Delete
    3. It depends on who defines unusual vs common, we bloggers or Will Shortz. ;-)

      I have let this group be the Blaine of my Existence since January so I am even more of a neophyte, Lego (3).

      Delete
    4. Are you always so Blaine spoken?

      Delete
    5. Mais oui, well spoken in Spokane (and other locales).

      Et vous?

      Delete
    6. Reminds me of Isadora Duncan from our discussion last week where she was well spoken. So to speak.

      (Above hint included gratis.)

      Delete
    7. So she spoke out of turn when she was not dancing?

      Delete
    8. Oooh! Another hint.
      No, her muffler (scarf) caught in the spokes of a rear wheel of the Amilcar race car she passsengered in and she was muffled for good. She wasn't even eligible for a twelve step program after that.

      Delete
  24. One of the (MANY!) answers is an answer to a previous week's challenge.

    LMP

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. the previous answer: EMIR to MIRE

      I omitted answers such as SWORD and WORDS, as there are numerous words beginning with "S" that can be made into plural words by moving the "S" to the end.

      However, there are a couple of PLURAL words that can be made into singular words, to wit:

      SKIS and KISS

      YEAS and EASY

      and other non-plural/non-S words:

      THIN and HINT

      ETHER and THERE

      NEAR and EARN

      RAVE and AVER

      ROVE and OVER

      MITE and ITEM

      NAME and AMEN

      NOW and OWN

      EAR and ARE

      DEN and END

      DAN and AND

      EVIL and VILE

      EON and ONE

      LMP

      Delete
    2. LMP,
      LMP was on every health form I ever filled out, referring to Last Menstrual Period...So I wondered with your above list if LMP was about to transform to MPL (Math Professor, Libertarian). ;-).

      I enjoyed your list.

      Delete
    3. Then there's old Zeke, PLM, pretty lame mathematician.

      Delete
  25. Great clues (and presumable computer script), Blaine!
    As for the possible long word -- if you've figured it out, you've got it...if not, you've still got it.

    ReplyDelete
  26. I'm wondering if the property perhaps has to be > 1?

    Great weekend with a fun high school friend from New Hampshire toodling around and hiking on some delightful CO days.

    I am not sure about this fitting the letter of the law but I thought it was a great slogan: "Zymurgy Brewery~~crafting the last good beer."

    ReplyDelete
  27. WW,
    Although I frequented many sherry receptions at Smith College, I always came back to my dorm on Friday afternoons for a different kind of party which actually gave me five words including the advantage of one French word (or disadvantage since I can't use that one).

    ReplyDelete
  28. I got this one within five minutes on Sunday morning. I've just been hesitating in posting here, since I have no ideas on good, non-obvious clues.

    ReplyDelete
  29. What a sad, sad day this is for our country and democracy.

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. ... and they're not done yet.

      Delete
    2. It just occurred to me that in 1852 Uncle Tom's Cabin was the hot seller. If Harriet Beecher Stowe were alive today perhaps it would be Uncle Thomas's RV.

      (Perhaps some reading this post will not be familiar with the fact that Clarabelle likes to spend his summer vacations driving his enormous recreational vehicle around the country at our expense with bodyguards.) Where are the roadside bombs when they are really needed?

      Gotta go; I didn't expect them to be banging at my front door so soon.

      Delete
    3. ... but SCOTUS took a different route today. Progress isn't stable, but comes in fits and starts. Happily, a decision of a different stripe.

      Delete
    4. Maybe they got enough of their bigotry out of their system yesterday.

      Delete
  30. Below is another post I received in my email box, but seems not to have been displayed here:


    ron has left a new comment on the post "NPR Sunday Puzzle (Jun 23, 2013): Words with Unusu...":

    Aches & pains, to each his own. Yes, I have two three-letter words also that are synonyms!

    ReplyDelete
  31. Thin bankers and toilet smackers... all kinds of fun to be had with this one.

    ReplyDelete
  32. Well, shoot, I came here looking for a little guidance and will leave just a little more confused. Time to focus on nuptials and moving instead.

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Loop:
      Are you saying it was a moving decision? :-)

      Delete
    2. In an odd twist, we are buying the house that she lived in when she first moved to town.

      Delete
    3. Congrats on the wedding. I bet that diamond put a smile on her face.

      Delete
    4. I had to wait for, almost, a full day before I got the answer I had hoped for.

      Delete
  33. Mathematical clue: (10^6-1)/7

    ReplyDelete
  34. Move the first letter to the end to make another valid word.

    > Musical clue: The Times They Are a-Changin'.

    "And the first one now will later be last"

    > There are lots of words that work.

    ear -> are, slot -> lots, sword -> words

    > but SCOTUS took a different route today.
    > Progress isn't stable, but comes in fits and starts.
    > Happily, a decision of a different stripe.

    Three words that have the "unusual property" twice:
    route -> outer -> utero
    stable -> tables -> ablest
    stripe -> tripes -> ripest

    ReplyDelete
  35. Each of the words forms another word by moving the first letter to the end.

    aide – idea
    heart – earth
    tough – ought
    gelatin – elating
    emanate – manatee

    Another word with this property is car – arc.

    Last Sunday I said, “I actually found three properties these words share however one of them is the obvious answer. The additional word I used has only three letters. And there’s another rule I think the inner puzzler in all of us should agree to although I’m not going to state it now because it would be a huge hint.”

    Another shared property: each of the words contains multiple words inside it with no rearranging of letters needed.

    aide – aid, id
    heart – he, hear, ear, art
    tough – to, ugh
    gelatin – gel, el, latin, at, tin, in
    emanate – em, man, an, at, ate

    Another word with this property is property: pro, prop, rope, ope, per, pert.

    Another shared property – but more general than the actual answer – is that each of the words anagrams perfectly to another common single word.

    aide – idea
    heart – earth
    tough – ought
    gelatin – genital
    emanate – manatee

    Another word with this property is bowling which anagrams perfectly to blowing. Bowling also meets answer #2: bow, owl, in.

    The other rule I suggest we adopt is that the other word we submit should not start with an “s” so that the new word we create is simply a plural of some common word.

    ReplyDelete
  36. If you remove the first letter of these words and place it at the end of that word, you will now have a different word.

    There are many words this can be done with such as:
    on > no, speak > peaks, thin > hint, eon > one, now > own, who > how, spot > pots, just to name a few.

    I left numerous hints including:

    "Blaine, you surely did come up with a clever clue."

    Blaine hinted by using 11 for eleven, which transformes into levene. Levene and surely sounds similar to Laverne and Shirley.

    ReplyDelete
  37. Collecting my comments on this week’s puzzle, where relevant (Hah! As if!):

    john brown said, Referring to Bob's admonition last week, should we avoid "directly naming an alternate answer". Or is the real contest to see how many we can fit in a single clue?

    After which I innocently posted: (Late additions in square brackets.)

    I was up very early (for me [em]) today, but now [own] that [hath] I have had breakfast, I believe I know the [het] answer to the [het] challenge, and as usual I will stop [tops] looking after finding one [neo] good example word.

    I was thinking of “eat” - “ate”, but hadn’t realized I had already included six words that answered the challenge in my post! Which was what I had thought to be improper!

    So later, when I saw my error:

    john brown - I beg your forgiveness, six times! All of my sins [ins] were completely accidental.

    Like any veteran sinner[inners?], I will look for someone else to blame - in this case Will Shortz for suggesting that [hath] the [het] "unique" property of his [-ish] example words is [si - OK, that’s Spanish] really that [hath] rare, when it seems actually to be quite common. (Six more potential apologies!)

    My breakfast did not include coffee! (Zero apologies!) [But, the implication was, it may have contained “tea” a third member of the eat-ate-tea set.]

    Which was what I was referring to in this remark: Lorenzo, someone has already posted a hint to a simple word that meets the property twice.

    And later,
    Please, I don't believe we come here expecting swordplay. [wordplays -probably valid, but pushing it.]

    And my comment which was among the mysteriously disappeared:
    Musical clue? DEVO [ really far fetched: DEVOLVE - EVOL VED] (Add on Thursday - Sorry, I didn’t know Alan Myers had died.)

    And finally:
    Anyhoo, on Lorenzo's question of words that fulfill the property more than once, I have found a six-letter word that does, and it's just waiting to be picked. [stripe - tripes - ripest]
    and
    I also have a second three-letter word that might be acceptable, though the second iteration is somewhat dotty. [tap - apt - P.T.A.]
    (Add Thursday - Today’s NYTimes Xword has four theme answers which would serve as answers to this challenge! Yes, I know, QUIDS only works as when paired with QUOS!)

    ReplyDelete
  38. I do EAT
    I did eat ATE
    I don't eat TEA
    These three keep on going as long ad you wish.

    Live by the SWORD...
    mots de vie. WORDS

    Pick up the horn TRUMPETS
    she's calling-call girl-STRUMPET
    eight is the number of letters per word.

    ReplyDelete
  39. My "triples" are tea/eat/ate and saver/avers/versa.

    When I said "There are no clues in this post", I meant "There, are, no- clues in this post." I guess I am bad at punctuation.

    ReplyDelete
  40. I started with words that contain multiples of other words (MEOW in HOMEOWNER was my favorite) and eventually got to "the first shall be last" answer of moving the first letter the last to get AIDE >> IDEA, etc. "Zymurgy Brewery" was a hint at that moving the first letter to the last.
    In honor of Greek letters, I submitted UM >> MU.

    ReplyDelete
  41. "Auto pilot" was a reference to both: "ought to" (for tough becoming ought) and "car" for arc.

    ReplyDelete
  42. On Sun Jun 23, 05:22:00 AM PDT, I commented:
    Two of my answers have almost, but not quite, the same meaning; however, one of them is probably unacceptable. The other might be used in a description of the common property.

    I was thinking of GRIN and SMILE. I rejected SMILE for the reason noted by Chuck (and Blaine). You might also visualize the transformation involved by writing each word in a RING and changing the starting point.

    By an entirely different transformation, 53836 719 432 becomes 'Never say IED'.

    ReplyDelete
  43. I believe several regulars on this blog are also regulars at "An Englishman Solves American Puzzles." but for those who aren't they have provided this very interesting link:

    http://newsgroups.derkeiler.com/Archive/Rec/rec.puzzles/2005-08/msg00017.html

    ReplyDelete
  44. Yes, I liked their list, especially dhurrie to hurried!

    ReplyDelete
  45. I posted on Wed Jun 26, at 08:51:00 PM PDT:

    Mathematical clue: (10^6-1)/7

    (10^6-1)/7 * 1 = 142857
    (10^6-1)/7 * 3 = 428571
    (10^6-1)/7 * 2 = 285714
    (10^6-1)/7 * 6 = 857142
    (10^6-1)/7 * 4 = 571428
    (10^6-1)/7 * 5 = 714285

    So the first 6 multiples of (10^6-1)/7 form a fully rotatable set.

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Very nice. Very, very, very, very, very, very nice.

      Delete
    2. I suppose I could have said:
      tres, tres, tres, tres, tres, tres bien.


      Aaaaaah! 20/20 hindsight!

      Delete
    3. Yes, a few of us took pains (in spain by Rove - over) to speak a little french with the rest well - tres bien connection. Also, my French opportunity word was tasse for asset. Word Woman and I remember Friday afternoons at Smith - tea eat ate scone. Do they still follow that tradition I wonder. I was not so focused on tradition and demi-tasse as much as I was always hungry LOL

      Delete
    4. RoRo, tea is still a big deal, including molasses cookies made from Sophia Smith's recipe.

      Apparently, "What is Smith College?" was the question on Jeopardy this week. No one got the question correctly, according to the College's web site.

      Delete
  46. My best word pair is ASPIRE and SPIREA, but then again, I have always wanted to be a landscape architect.

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. My best word pair is LEASE and EASEL, and frankly, landscape architect beats starving artist by a mile.

      Delete
    2. Oh Mr. Gauguin! There you go, complaining about money again.

      Delete
    3. Really? Do I seem like a pecuniary whiner? I'll try to be more of an owlery yowler from now on.

      Delete
    4. I really have no idea what that means, but I just now came in from my exquisite glass of wine on the patio in order to post the Spoonerism I just made up to my Joke File and came across your post, so here it is:

      What is the difference between a football field and a haunted firehouse?

      One has goal posts and the other has pole ghosts.

      Delete
    5. I'm oddly motivated to watch 'Frequency' again, but I think my copy is VHS and I don't know where it is, and I don't have my VCR hooked up, so I'll see what youtube has to offer in the way of clips.

      Delete
    6. Again no idea what "Frequency" was about, but Googled and saw it was a sci-fi film. I hate sci-fi and fantasy with rare exception, so I know nothing about what you are referring to. With apologies to Abe Lincoln.

      Delete
  47. I think the longest pair may be the 11-letter long STABULATION and TABULATIONS, while the most multiple rotations includes some obscure words, but the following four are ALL recognized by dictionary.com:

    ESTRE ==> STREE ==> TREES ==> REEST

    Can anyone else find a valid word at least four letters long whose THREE immediate rotations are all also valid words?

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Since I haven't, I'll put 50 (imaginary) bucks on NOPE.

      Delete
    2. The link Bob mentioned gives this 14-letter word pair: adiadokokinesi, diadokokinesia. It also notes the 11-letter word pairs deviscerate and eviscerated, lethologica and ethological (the latter pair noted by Blaine in his word pair list).

      Delete
    3. I noticed that dictionary.com does NOT recognize adiadokokinesi, although it DOES recognize:

      adiadokokinesia
      adiadokokinesias
      adiadokokinesis'
      adiadokokineses
      adiadokokinesia's
      adiadokokinesias'
      adiadokokinesis's

      Delete
  48. I stopped looking for more creative answers once I thought of Smitten and Mittens. I just liked the sound of them.

    I realized that Mittens is plural, and probably should be avoided, but I rationalized that the word is generally used in the plural.

    Thanks – Phil J.

    ReplyDelete
  49. Hey Puzzle Fans! Shortz will be using one of my spoonerisms as the challenge this Sunday.

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Congrats, but what are Fuzzle Pans?

      Delete
    2. Police Officers Surveying a Large Area? Lis Willten for it, AI.

      Delete
    3. Oh, the Hue-Manatee!

      (works better when accompanied by a photo of a colorful sea creature)

      Delete
    4. May the good Lord have a List Willen.

      Delete
    5. Al:
      A couple of years back Will did a puzzle substitution where we were to make up a Spoonerism beginning with, What's the difference between...

      Because of this, last evening, after reading your above post, I decided I should try and make up a suitable Spoonerism just in case.

      If it is not called for I will post it tomorrow. I think you might enjoy it.

      Delete
    6. SkyDiveBoy, were you a BoyScout? Ready for dining on camping trips with a mess kit of knife, fork, and spoonerism?

      Delete
    7. I began hiking with my dad when I was just seven and had no use for a mess kit or scouting. However I do remember that frequently my feet were smellin' and my nose was runnin'.

      Delete
    8. You seem so prepared with a spoonerism for any occasion...;-)

      My favorite part about Girl Scouts was camping. We made cool "stoves" out of cardboard wound in a tight spiral in tunafish cans and then covered with paraffin.

      Delete
    9. Actually I don't make up many Spoonerisms, but I wanted to be prepared in case Will does his contest thing again. I hope he doesn't, but I created one just in case and am glad I did because I have been trying it out today and have made several revisions to the lead up to the punch line. I feel it is now ready for prime time.

      I find it very easy to make up jokes, but sometimes they take a lot of tweaking in order to get them just right.

      As for Scouting, it was created in order to provide opportunities for city boys (not girls; that came later) to have outdoor experiences and make them more fit. I found it a total bore since I already was way ahead of the game.

      What I find most interesting about the BSA is that the founder, Lord Baden Powel, was himself gay, but don't expect any acknowledgment of that obvious fact from the BSA leadership. Truth is always stranger than fiction and frequently uncomfortable, which is why it is so often covered up and denied. Long live Edward Snowdon.

      Delete
    10. An assumption based on his waiting for marriage late in life. Many are married to their jobs.

      Delete
    11. zeke:
      From your above post it is clear you have not discovered the evidence which is extensive, including letters with very revealing information.

      Delete
    12. Ignorance on my part for this man harms me not. Thx anyway, friend. :-) I'll stick with the more pleasant memories.

      Delete
    13. I implied no value judgment. I am only pointing out the truth and the BSA hypocrisy.

      Delete
  50. Rightal! I am anxiously awaiting the Punday Suzzle.

    ReplyDelete
  51. For Sunday, June 30: You can picture the scene after a storm: A truck pulls into town, lowers its lift gate, and out steps the FEMA representative with his gift, late.

    You might think that the above scenario would cause consternation, but I am sure that all the inhabitants of this blog will make the situation clear as usual.

    ReplyDelete
  52. New puzzle is up. Here it is:

    Next week's challenge from Al Gori of Cozy Lake, N.J.: It involves a spoonerism, in which you reverse the initial consonant sounds in one phrase to make another phrase. For example, if you spoonerize "light rain," you get "right lane." Name part of a truck in two words; spoonerize it, and you'll name something FEMA uses. What is it?

    (Now this is not a clue, but I find it interesting that the spell checker on this blog does not recognize the word "spoonerize"!)

    This is another one of those puzzles in which there will be some folks who solve this one in two seconds; -- and STILL be angry at themselves for not having solved it in less than one second.

    SOME folks, however, might miss this one on account of not realizing an option they had at their disposal. As noted above, in a spoonerism, (Hmmm... the spell checker here did recognize "spoonerism") the initial consonant sounds are switched between the two words. What the stated puzzle does NOT say, is that one or both of the vowel sounds within the word(s) may be alternately spelled!

    ReplyDelete
  53. Reminds me a football game. Excellent!

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Nothing to do with today's puzzle, but your hint made me think of a spoonerism for something from football and Delft, for example.

      Delete
    2. And yesterday evening I made up a poor one also dealing with football, which I don't even like.

      What is the difference between a football field and a haunted firehouse?

      Answer:
      One has goal posts and the other has pole ghosts.

      Delete
    3. Is it too late to go back and add the 'of' that I dropped?
      Yeah, it's too late.
      Way, way, way, way, way, way too late.

      Delete
    4. Speaking of football, better to drop a preposition than the ball, Paul.

      Where is our fearless leader? Hope there is no emergency, FEMA or otherwise, in Blaine's neck of the woods.

      Delete
    5. From your fingertips to God's retina, WW.

      Delete
    6. Poking God in the eye sounds sacrilegious. Are you sure He reads this blog? Maybe you need to use a service like the one that takes faxed or emailed prayers, prints them out, and sticks them into cracks in the Western Wall in Jerusalem for God to read.

      Delete
    7. Takes faxes Spoonerizes into fakes taxes.
      I thought I should point this out.

      Delete
    8. Too much sharp, pointy eye poking for me, Femalee.

      Delete
  54. Right I got it almost immediately, as in less than one minute.

    ReplyDelete
  55. You could clean up hurricane-blown grizzlies with a bear rake.

    ReplyDelete
  56. The agency's initials suggest, initially, a common adornment.

    ReplyDelete
  57. To Witt, want to join our punny group?

    ReplyDelete
  58. I'm thinking of a diminuative character who is void of truth.

    ReplyDelete
  59. I've got a patient whose first name is Fema. My mother knows someone whose first name is Female, pronounced FEM-uh-lee, because her mother saw that printed on the baby's birth certificate the hospital gave her, and she liked the way it sounded. I wonder if my patient has a similar story?

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. True story.

      I used to work with someone named Nova. Her supervisor once complained to me about catching the flack when Nova messed up; and I said, "Well, of course, they're going to........."

      Delete
    2. Well, he or she just waltzed right into that one!

      Delete
    3. Hmmmm, more like exploded into it. . .

      Delete
  60. Maxmilliam Schell in "Man In A Glass Booth," said, "well Charlie it's a rainy day."

    ReplyDelete
  61. Name part of a truck in two words; spoonerize it, and you'll name something a male might give to a FEMAle. What is it?

    ReplyDelete
  62. I posted a couple of days ago that because of Al's heads up about our upcoming puzzle being a Spoonerism I had made one up in case Will again decided to do a contest. Well, he didn't, and I'm grateful, so here is my Spoonerism:

    What’s the difference between a pioneer family and an estate with a crazy gardener?




    Answer:





    One has a prairie schooner and the other has a scary pruner.

    ReplyDelete
  63. First it was Comet Hale–Bopp not producing the promised results of Heaven's Gate. Before that it was Peoples Temple at Jonestown. Then it was Bhagwan Shree Rajneesh. I forget all the others except for the Mayans and that fanatic who predicted the end of the world a few months back, but now Blaine is missing, and I suspect he is not stuck in traffic behind a stalled semi-truck. What are we to do? Today I meant to panic, but miss-spelled it and went on a nice picnic. Oh well, at least I tried. Blaine. Blaine. Come back!

    ReplyDelete
  64. Name a part of a truck in rwo words. Spoonerize it and it will give the condition of some of the homes FEMA inspects.

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. My clue to the puzzle of 06/30/13: Ferlin Husky

      LMProf

      Delete
  65. So Zeke, what are rwo words? Is that the language of Rwanda? LOL You don't have to take that kind of flack from me.

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. A burgundy flloor mat, and it's Burundi, playfriend.

      Delete

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.