NPR Sunday Puzzle (Sep 20): Higher Education

NPR Sunday Puzzle (Sep 20): Higher Education

Q: Name a well-known university. Move the last letter three places earlier in the name. The result will be a phrase meaning 'represent.' What's the university and what's the phrase?

Did you hear about the blonde that wanted a higher education? She did her homework in a tall tree. Okay, that was a silly joke. Back to giving clues on the puzzle. I don't know about you, but I didn't much care for the movie; however, I really did enjoy the play.

Edit: The hints this week were "tall tree" (which is the literal translation of Palo Alto) and of course the famous Big Game ending called The Play

A: STANFORD --> STAND FOR

NPR Sunday Puzzle (Sep 13): Voulez-vous coucher avec moi?

NPR Sunday Puzzle (Sep 13): Voulez-vous coucher avec moi?

Q: Take a familiar French word with three letters. It's a word everyone knows. Then take its meaning in English, also with three letters. Say these two words one after the other, and phonetically they'll sound like another French word everyone knows. What word is it?

Well, I must admit I know very little French. And despite the title, I wouldn't recommend learning conversational French from songs.

When I saw this puzzle, I tried to make MOI or OUI work. We've all heard Miss Piggy utter "moi" (meaning me). And isn't "yes" one of the first words we learn in whatever language we are studying? Unfortunately MOI-ME and OUI-YES, don't result in familiar French words.

Edit: My hints take a little bit of explaining. We have MOI or OUI. MOI translates to ME. Then you have the word "OR". And OUI is YES, but in another language would be SI. So all together you have ME OR SI which sounds like MERCI.

Several people will probably complain that MER is not a common French word, but those people just haven't done enough crossword puzzles. Plus you could have solved this working backwards, which is exactly what I did.

One additional hint, if you read my standard reminder at the top of the comments, you'll notice I left off the "Thank you" at the end.

A: MER + SEA --> MERCI

NPR Sunday Puzzle (Sep 6): Element-ary School Math Puzzle

NPR Sunday Puzzle (Sep 6): Element-ary School Math Puzzle:

Q: Take the names of the first nine elements of the periodic table: hydrogen, helium, lithium, beryllium, boron, carbon, nitrogen, oxygen and fluorine. Select one letter from each of these names in order to spell a familiar nine-letter word. Hint: It's a word used in math.

Did I give this away with the reference to elementary school in the title? Well there are many terms we learn in our formative years of school, so I don't think it's too big of a giveaway. However, if it did spoil the puzzle for you, get over it. On the other hand, if you want another clue, look to a puzzle we had in August.

Edit: The puzzle in question was from August 2008 where the answer was FRACTION/RATIO. This week's hint was "get over it..."

A: NUMERATOR

NPR Sunday Puzzle (Aug 30): Take me to your Leader

NPR Sunday Puzzle (Aug 30): Take me to your Leader:

Q: Name a famous leader in world history — the name by which this person is usually known. Change the first letter of the leader's name to the previous letter of the alphabet, rearrange the result, and you'll name what this person was the leader of. Who is it, and where was this person the leader?

I haven't a clue, yet... sorry, I'm no real help at the moment.

Edit: Here's the hidden hint "I'm no real help..."

A: NERO --> ROME