Comments on Blaine's Puzzle Blog: NPR Sunday Puzzle (Oct 25): Where in the World...

You know the capital of the Isle of Man, a autonom...

2009-12-03T13:10:58.831-08:00

You know the capital of the Isle of Man, a autonomous British crown dependency, has as its capital city Douglas, which is an anagram of the word Stephen Douglas. Just thought you should know the Seoul is not the only world capital that can be formed with those letters.

From the "Handbook of Good English", ...

2009-10-31T13:48:24.684-07:00
From the "Handbook of Good English", There are many words formed with the usually negative prefix in and a few words formed with the almost always negative prefixes dis and un that are not negative: inflammable, disannul, unloose. In these words the prefixes are intensifiers.

Lorenzo, I got curious about those words. After ch...

2009-10-31T12:55:40.549-07:00
Lorenzo, I got curious about those words. After checking:

http://www.merriam-webster.com/
http://www.etymonline.com/

Unloose seems to be an emphasis:
un(2) meaning "release from", and loose meaning the same.

Inflammable seems to be a literal translation from Latin "able to be put "in flamma", in flames.

Dave, the misdirection toward a 'roo was inten...

2009-10-31T08:28:20.526-07:00
Dave, the misdirection toward a 'roo was intentional, but the misuse of "unloosen" was not. Sorry, mate!

Blaine, interesting linguistic phenomenon (unloose...

2009-10-31T08:23:48.028-07:00
Blaine, interesting linguistic phenomenon (unloosen = loosen). A similar example is inflammable = flammable. Are there others? Does this phenomenon have a name?

I revisited the "hot chocolate" and &quo...

2009-10-30T10:55:11.368-07:00
I revisited the "hot chocolate" and "manhattan" grid with text message abbreviations.

G T K Good To Know
O B U Okay By yoU? ( I made this one up)
R R R haR haR haR

The capital's countries (in IOC abbreviations) are on the diagonals.

Well, I think Lorenzo thought that unloosen would ...

2009-10-30T09:30:01.430-07:00
Well, I think Lorenzo thought that unloosen would be the opposite of loosen, so it should mean tighten.

Apparently it is a word, but it is essentially a synonym for loosen. Unloose

Is unloosen a real word? I tried Lorenzo's an...

2009-10-30T09:06:45.755-07:00
Is unloosen a real word? I tried Lorenzo's anagram and was certain that it had to do with a roo, so I didn't get very far.

And for Lorenzo's anagram, I think it is: &quo...

2009-10-29T23:32:46.307-07:00
And for Lorenzo's anagram, I think it is:
"unloosen darn koala"

P.S. Ben from Chicago is on notice. If he doesn&...

2009-10-29T13:57:35.310-07:00
P.S. Ben from Chicago is on notice. If he doesn't show up for a few more months, I'm changing from "Other Ben" to "Ben."

Squatter's rights, you know.

Deadline passed. I submitted London, Ankara, an...

2009-10-29T13:56:26.077-07:00
Deadline passed.

I submitted London, Ankara, and Seoul.

Thanks to ChezeDog I now know that the three cities anagram into "sad annual onlooker."

And if I'm reading Blaine correctly, his hint that he "pulled" an all-nighter related to Turkish Toffee. Or maybe I'm on crack.

-- Other Ben

OR Carl or Herblady?

2009-10-28T12:46:57.972-07:00
OR Carl or Herblady?

Submitted. Hey, what's happened to Blue?

2009-10-27T16:34:41.594-07:00
Submitted. Hey, what's happened to Blue?

hmmmmmmmmm could the answers be in exact order con...

2009-10-26T16:42:49.858-07:00
hmmmmmmmmm could the answers be in exact order consecutively??

Around the table. The Clash answered to find out w...

2009-10-26T14:39:08.570-07:00
Around the table.
The Clash answered to find out who was on the other end of the ringing phone while the Michael Jackson collaborator on what is now "This is It" praised the Sun God during Thanksgiving dinner. Then Neil Young dropped by to pick up a reason.

I found one, Blaine, relating to your all-nighter....

2009-10-26T13:55:42.556-07:00
I found one, Blaine, relating to your all-nighter. But once I had the puzzle I didn't search for the other two.

-- Other Ben

Anyone able to spot the hidden answers in my post?...

2009-10-26T13:23:02.231-07:00
Anyone able to spot the hidden answers in my post?

Chezedog, nice puzzle. Lorenzo, I'm working o...

2009-10-26T09:40:28.090-07:00
Chezedog, nice puzzle. Lorenzo, I'm working on yours.

The author of "Murder on the Orient Express&q...

2009-10-26T09:15:48.048-07:00
The author of "Murder on the Orient Express" provides several clues without giving it away.

Chezedog, another rearrangement advises to tie dow...

2009-10-26T08:25:46.997-07:00
Chezedog, another rearrangement advises to tie down a cursed marsupial.

Agreed. A fun little ditty, Chezedog. Answer sub...

2009-10-26T08:18:31.627-07:00
Agreed. A fun little ditty, Chezedog.

Answer submitted.

-- Other Ben

Chezedog, thanks for the additional puzzle. That w...

2009-10-26T07:38:09.315-07:00
Chezedog, thanks for the additional puzzle. That was fun.

One could take this week's answer and re-arran...

2009-10-25T23:00:39.543-07:00
One could take this week's answer and re-arrange the letters to get three words that might describe an unhappy spectator at a yearly event.

Here's my standard reminder... don't post ...

2009-10-25T22:10:20.965-07:00
Here's my standard reminder... don't post the answer or any outright spoilers 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. Thank you.