Q: Think of three six-letter words starting with B, G and F. The last five letters of the words are the same and in the same order, yet none of the words rhymes with any of the others. What words are these?This puzzle is rather easy and I don't have time to come up with a clever clue, but this does remind me of our annual Christmas Puzzle from 2006 entitled Close But No Rhyme. It's based on the same concept of non-rhyming words that only differ in their first letter. Enjoy.
Edit: The clue word was "rather". Also, question #17 on our Christmas puzzle used 2 of the 3 words.
A: BATHER, FATHER and GATHER
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.
ReplyDeleteI found 30 6-letter b-word / g-word / f-word triads whose last 5 letters match. But only one such triad had the additional characteristic that none of the three words rhymed with either of the other two.
ReplyDeleteI’m not sure I agree with Blaine that this is a relatively easy puzzle. Perhaps that is true for the puzzle people found here in Blainesville, but I’m not sure it will be easy for the NPR-listening population at large...
Chuck
chuckquartz, now that you have the answer you will see that Blaine's comment was a actually a clue as much as an assessment of the difficulty of the puzzle.
ReplyDeleteBlaine: You do provide a clever clue. And, thanks for the link to your 2006 Christmas puzzle--very nice indeed. Though, I did wonder why you had four clues about mom but only one about dad.
ReplyDeleteAfter collecting my thoughts and pondering Blaine's clue, I finally came up with the solution. My son told me he figured it out in a couple minutes. For dear old dad, it took much longer than that.
ReplyDeleteTo solve this, sire, I must cleanse my mind and collect my thoughts...
ReplyDeleteGuys (Chezedog & phredp), any more obvious?
ReplyDeleteThough the answer seems too easy to be correct, I have to consider that the big WS has consistently given us enigmatological breaks around the holidays... Anyone remember the bagpipes?
These clues are all way too obvious. But then again, so is the puzzle. I solved in between various, rather unpleasant conditions resulting from mild food poisoning.
ReplyDeleteLorenzo –
ReplyDeleteTrue. But I believe one should be able to comment on an explicit comment without garnering comments on their comment on the comment from their elders :)
Chuck
Mixing up a couple of sisters helped me solve this puzzle...
ReplyDeleteRoxie, Dudelsack, if you please. One of my favorite words for descriptive compactness and completeness.
ReplyDeleteSpencer Tracy and Steve Martin. Not too obvious this time, I hope.
ReplyDeleteThis is actually a pretty tough puzzle. I figured it out while I was sitting at a traffic light last night (that's not a hint).
ReplyDeleteHint: There are only a few letters that can go after b, f and g.
Hugh, I am personally a huge fan of the tootle sack, as much as I am a fan of German literalism and onomatopoeia :-)
ReplyDeleteEither this puzzle is as easy as Blaine says, or perhaps it's just been rather well-clued as everyone here is such a smarty pants.
ReplyDeleteInstead of adding a clue, I'll add a new side-puzzle instead.
I submitted this one to Shortz but he dinged it, mumbling something about how I shouldn't bother him as I wasn't even half the Ben that original Ben was, but I might someday measure up to full-Ben status if I kept trying.
PUZZLE:
Name a kind of music. The term for this kind of music has a letter that appears twice. Remove both instances of the repeated letter and when you read the term backwards, you'll have the last name of a famous author. What is the musical genre and who is the author?
-- Other Ben
Gee Other Ben, that's a toughie... I don't know if I can figure that one out without help...
ReplyDeleteBut anyway, last year (in the fall) I went to this club to see one of my favorite jazz bands. The club was pretty crowded; it's not a very big house. I waited for all of fifteen minutes for an usher to show me to my seat! Good show, though; worth the wait.
My answers:
ReplyDelete11/22: OKAY = OK and AY
11/15: VIRGIN (mobile) and RAMBLER
10/4: carbon-copy-cat-call-center-city-chest-cold-case-closed-circuit 11 words!
Other Ben, Carl was right about your music puzzle being a toughie.
ReplyDeleteWell, it was way past midnight and I was weary. I needed to watch some TV to clear my mind. A Vincent Price movie was on; but it was too scary for me. I didn't want to have nightmares or to dream dreams that no mortal ever dared to dream before.
Other Ben,
ReplyDeleteYour puzzle brings to mind a closely related question articulated by Hamlet, albeit penned by a different author.
Ben, nice puzzle. Searching for more puzzles to solve is a telltale sign that we're puzzle addicts.
ReplyDeleteI leave the honor to our host (or whoever else wants to) to post the correct answer. But now that the deadline for submission has passed, I thought some here might possibly like to see a list of all the 29 non-winning 6-letter b-word, f-word and g-word triads I could find that are incorrect because at least two (if not all three) of the words rhyme:
ReplyDeletebagged, fagged, gagged
banged, fanged, ganged
bashed, fashed, gashed
bashes, fashes, gashes
basted, fasted, gasted
baster, faster, gaster
bating, fating, gating
belled, felled, gelled
bender, fender, gender
better, fetter, getter
bibbed, fibbed, gibbed
bibber, fibber, gibber
billed, filled, gilled
biller, filler, giller
binger, finger, ginger
binned, finned, ginned
births, firths, girths
blared, flared, glared
blares, flares, glares
bloats, floats, gloats
blowed, flowed, glowed
blower, flower, glower
blumes, flumes, glumes
bobbed, fobbed, gobbed
bolder, folder, golder
brails, frails, grails
brayed, frayed, grayed
brills, frills, grills
bulled, fulled, gulled
Personally, I was hoping that there might be a verb “bing,” i.e., snapping your fingernail on a bowl, cup or glass to make a “binging” sound. If there were, there would be binger, finger, ginger. But, alas, no such luck – binger means one who binges and it rhymes with ginger :(
Chuck
BTW...
ReplyDeleteIt’s approximately 2:45 PM CST on 12/03/09. This has absolutely to do with this week’s NPR puzzle but I wanted to try it out on you all and see what you think.
I have coined (at least I think I’m the first) a new word: hand-helding. It can be used as a verb to describe actively using or employing a handheld device such as an i-Phone, Blackberry, Palm, cell phone or other handheld device for any of a variety of tasks or for entertainment purposes. Example: my girlfriend got upset because I was hand-helding while she was talking to me.
Any thoughts?
Chuck
I also submitted FATHER BATHER GATHER.
ReplyDeleteI clued these when I created my secondary puzzle. In my setup, I used the words EITHER RATHER and BOTHER.
And it seems that at least William, Carl, and Eddie got my secondary puzzle. I'll post the answer tomorrow.
-- Other Ben
PUZZLE:
ReplyDeleteName a kind of music. The term for this kind of music has a letter that appears twice. Remove both instances of the repeated letter and when you read the term backwards, you'll have the last name of a famous author. What is the musical genre and who is the author?
ANSWER:
BEBOP and EDGAR ALLEN POE
Ben, I solved your puzzle, too. I posted, "Searching for more puzzles to solve is a TELLTALE sign that we're puzzle addicts."
ReplyDeleteAs Hamlet said, "Two B's or not two B's, that is the question." Or something like that. Clearly he was talking about Ben's puzzle!
ReplyDeleteHi, Does anyone know how to submit a puzzle suggestion to Will?
ReplyDeleteJean, go to the NPR website. Click on Sunday Edition. There will be a form to fill out asking whether you have a question or a comment. Fill out the form and you'll be able to submit a puzzle. I've done it about half a dozen times but haven't been picked yet. Good luck!
ReplyDelete