Thursday, January 18, 2007

NPR Sunday Puzzle (Jan 21): After the New Year's Shindig...

NPR Sunday Puzzle (Jan 21): After the New Year's Shindig...:
Q: A special challenge open for two weeks. The object is to arrange 16 different letters of the alphabet into a 4-by-4 square, so that four common, uncapitalized words read across and four common uncapitalized words read down. To start, the second word across is RULY. This is the only slightly unusual word in the square. Every other word in it is one any school child would know. Can you do it?
Now that my wife and I are done with the New Year's Eve shindig in the city, is time to get things back in order here. However, I will say we were quite a cute couple and my wife looked gorgeous in her fancy dress. Anyway, back to the puzzle solution. Given that you already know one of the words, and the letters can't repeat it really isn't that hard to figure out. I would definitely work on the word in the last column since there are fewer choices. From there things should fall into place. If you find it hard, at least you have a couple weeks to work on it.
Edit: Once you see my answer, you'll notice all the clues above. New Year's Shindig = Bash, In order = Ruly, Cute couple = Item, Fancy dress = Gown.
A:
BASH
RULY
ITEM
GOWN

I've learned from other sources that there is an alternate answer. After some additional trials, I came up with it too. It only varies in a couple letters:

GASH
RULY
ITEM
DOWN

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