Thursday, January 27, 2011

NPR Sunday Puzzle (Jan 23, 2011): Another 5-letter Countries Puzzle

NPR Sunday Puzzle (Jan 23, 2011): Another 5-letter Countries Puzzle:
Q: Name a nationality. The third, fourth, fifth, sixth and 10th letters in order name a country. Also the fourth, fifth, seventh, ninth and 12th letters in order also name a country. Neither country is related to the nationality. What nationality is this?
Both countries have been the answer to recent NPR puzzles. That aside, a couple lists I checked for nationalities had a shorter version, but thanks to this puzzle, I stand corrected on the nationality name.

Edit: We had a recent 5-letter country names puzzle. And we've seen Ghana and Haiti mentioned in other puzzles. My hint was the "ISTAN" from "I stand". The lists I checked had "Afghani" as the nationality rather than "Afghanistani".
A:
afGHANistAni (GHANA)
afgHAnIsTanI (HAITI)

39 comments:

  1. 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.

    ReplyDelete
  2. I devised an amazing way to solve this puzzle.

    ReplyDelete
  3. Because there are alternative demonyms for this nationality, I found it easier to solve the puzzle by starting with countries and working backwards.

    Chuck

    ReplyDelete
  4. Here's a variation on the puzzle:

    Think of a country with two official languages. Rearrange the letters in the name of each language to get two words or phrases that mean roughly "hot tub" and "what you are not when you get out of the tub." What country is this?

    ReplyDelete
  5. Chuck (and probably Natasha): I agree.

    ReplyDelete
  6. General Patton & Thomas Blanket (circa Edwd III)
    could have been a team.

    ReplyDelete
  7. I third (fourth?) Chuck, Lorenzo and Natasha's method. That's how I solved it too.

    ReplyDelete
  8. I started with five letter countries too. What I did after that revealed the nationality very quickly.

    ReplyDelete
  9. I started thinking of countries with long names which rules out A LOT of countries. The 3, 4, 5, 6 string made the solution pretty obvious.

    Just for kicks, I'm recycling my Frank Loesser clue from 2 weeks ago.

    ReplyDelete
  10. Lorenzo, I don't know that I've ever heard of anyone getting out of the "hot tub" to which you are referring, unless it was from the sprinkling of another. If that were to be the case, I would respectfully disagree with part 2 of your proposition.

    ReplyDelete
  11. This was a fun one to solve - but Blaine's clues elude me as usual and I hate to hang about too long to try and solve them - got to get on with Sunday !

    ReplyDelete
  12. After solving this one over breakfast I thought I might run away to one of the countries involved (or anywhere), because my home life is unsatisfying.

    ReplyDelete
  13. My boss expects I will come in every monday morning wih the correct answer to the puzzle for the week and I am having trouble with this one and I would hate to be called on the carpet if I fail.

    ReplyDelete
  14. I knitted my brow on this one but not for long. as always I land on my feet.

    ReplyDelete
  15. I am still having problems getting this one. Will sometimes presents puzzles that have difficult answers, but this one is at the top of my list.

    ReplyDelete
  16. Well I'm afraid my time is running out and if I don't get a good clue pretty soon I'm gonna have to give up. Not getting this one solved will be earth shattering for me.

    ReplyDelete
  17. Amazingly, my wife lived in one of these countries and I lived in the other.

    I shan't tell you if there is a clue above, cause I'm crazy like the French and like a Lamb stew.

    -- Other Ben

    ReplyDelete
  18. Lamb stew could be balm in the west.

    ReplyDelete
  19. Since it is now a new day perhaps I should confess and admit that my first three posts yesterday are disingenuous, but they do contain five distinct clues. Now I am wondering if anyone noticed this.????

    Regarding my fourth post, I feel rather sheepish.

    ReplyDelete
  20. Swap A-E-I-O-U and you can
    pick a Crate and Barrel coupon!

    ReplyDelete
  21. Skydiveboy, we usually dissect the posts Thursdays after the three o'clock deadline.

    ReplyDelete
  22. Tommy Boy,
    Thank you for the advice.

    ReplyDelete
  23. If your vehicle had a burned out headlight you might think of this country.

    ReplyDelete
  24. After finding, generally, hardly any noteowrthy inspiration, sometimes taking a new insight is helpful.

    ReplyDelete
  25. I'm afraid of what might be in the lamb stew...I wonder if "roast aphid" is any good?

    ReplyDelete
  26. I will admit roast aphid is quite good. I'm still leery of the lamb stew; if the lamb was carelessly slaughtered, there could be wool, blood &...who knows what... in there! Fava beans?

    ReplyDelete
  27. The usual nationality word seems to be Afghan or Afghani. The syllable "stan", related to our word "stand", means the "place where" you find the relevant nationality or peoples. Works for Tajikistan, Uzbekistan, Turkmenistan, Kazhakstan, etc. (Pakistan was made up, however.)

    The construction Afghanistani for the nationality is therefore a bit contrived. Shame on Will for using it.

    If that is the nationality, do we find those people in Afghanistanistan? And can we then call them Afghanistanistanis? Where do we really have to stop??

    This is what Blaine was hinting about, I think, in his initial clue.

    ReplyDelete
  28. *I hate* (haiti) to *hang a*bout (ghana)

    ReplyDelete
  29. hate relates to Haiti
    carpet relates to Afghan rug
    gonna relates to Ghana
    top of my list relates to A-stan being at the top of the list literally
    earth shattering relates to Hatian earthquake
    vehicle with burned out headlight refers to the headlights on a car frequently being drawn as eyes. So who is the president of Afghanistan? Sorry, Hu is the president of China; Karzai is the president of Afghanistan—car's eye.

    It took me a little longer than I expected to solve this one as I never found a list with Afghanistani. The closest one omitted the final "I" and so I kept looking as I was counting the letters. I then gave up on that method and made a list of all the five letter countries and played with the letter order clues and it was easy. I had more fun making up silly clues than actually solving the puzzle.

    ReplyDelete
  30. It is indeed true that my wife lived in Ghana (for two years) and I lived in Haiti (only for two weeks).

    I'm also food obsessed, and wrote "crazy like the French" because the French word for crazy is "foux" (pronounced "foo") -- double it and you get fu fu, the national dish of Ghana.

    I wrote that "I like a Lamb stew" because Lambi stew (like a conch soup) is a national dish of Haiti. Amazingly delicious.

    And I wrote that you could swap a few vowels to PICK A CRATE AND BARREL COUPON after discovering that a change of a couple vowels allows you to anagram:

    PICK A CRATE AND BARREL COUPON

    into:

    KABUL, PORT AU PRINCE, AND ACCRA,

    the three relevant capitals.

    -- Other Ben

    ReplyDelete
  31. After creating a list of 5-letter countries, I found two pairs of countries that matched the criteria for the puzzle:
    Ghana and Haiti
    Spain and Palau
    The first pair resulted in the following partial name for the nationality (where the x’s are the missing letters): xxghanixtaxi
    From there, it was easy to come up with Afghanistani
    P.S. The first letters of the first twelve words in my previous clue spell out the answer.

    ReplyDelete
  32. Great anagram, Ben. Lots of very clever clues this week.

    My clue was fait accompli. aFghAnIsTani.

    ReplyDelete
  33. The answer to tomorrows puzzle is:

    CREATES

    ReplyDelete
  34. Not one of 322 can spell "potato".

    ReplyDelete
  35. The word "hemidemisemiquaver" comes to mind.

    ReplyDelete

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.