Q: Name four parts of a car that are also terms used in a particular game. One of the parts is spelled in three letters, two of them in five letters each, and one has six letters. Two places a car might go are also terms used in the game. What game is it, and what are the terms?Musical Hint: Wake Up Little Susie
Edit: Wake Up Little Susie is a song by the Everly Brothers. Another song (their last top 40 hit) is "Bowling Green."
A: Car parts: Pin, Frame, Spare, Bumper
Places: Lane, Alley
Sport: Bowling
Note: Will may accept alternate words or answers.
Here's my standard reminder... don't post the answer or any hints that could lead directly to the answer (e.g. via Google or Bing) 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.
ReplyDeleteYou may provide indirect hints to the answer to show you know it, but make sure they don't give the answer away. You can openly discuss your hints and the answer after the Thursday deadline. Thank you.
There is a dictionary of automobile terms with more than 20,000 entries,
ReplyDeleteAnd glossaries of sport terms containing hundreds of words. The first game I looked at has dozens of words that work, and my guess is that it is not the answer the PM is looking for.....
I think I have connected the clues. If I am correct, 2 well known rock bands, popular in the 80's, are part of the answer. Can anyone confirm?
ReplyDeleteEasier than it appears at first glance. Not a board game.
ReplyDeleteOnly 220 correct answers last week.
As Bob Dylan almost said .....
ReplyDelete@EKW: My answer also has hundreds of terms associated with it (including some that fit the puzzle) but is not a sport.
ReplyDeleteMy wife and I came up with TWO games that totally fit the bill. Both are typically played indoors, but one is sometimes played outdoors. TJP Albuquerque
ReplyDeleteDo we all agree that generic sports terms like fan, clutch and choke are probably not part of the intended answer?
ReplyDeleteName an auto part that Blaine would not like to see posted on this blog.
ReplyDelete@Lorenzo, nice one. "Curses, foiled again!"
ReplyDeletebenmar12001:
ReplyDeleteActually it was stated, "almost 240 of you figured out the answer."
Lorenzo:
Are you being a spoil sport today? Or is that a clue I see in your post?
I guess I'm feeling disagreeable today.
ReplyDeleteSDB, only my first post this morning contained a hint (to the answer you have already hinted at).
ReplyDeleteI have an answer, but not one of the clues given makes sense to me. It's quite possible that I'm just being thick, but I'm wondering if I have an alternative answer. (I see AbqGuerilla has two, so probably my answer is one of his/hers.)
ReplyDeleteFor my answer, the two places a car could go are terms that seem more definitively associated with the game than the terms that name parts of a car. And there is also a term, definitely associated with the game, but somewhat more obscurely, that is an 8-letter car part name.
24 hours to solve this one...blows my mind. And while my car does not have one of the intended parts, most do.
ReplyDeleteThe second part of the puzzle left me nothing to go on.
Wow...this just dawned on me. My car is lacking one of the parts so today, I'll go out and pick one up!
ReplyDelete@Lorenzo, most women (lady Gaga included) would understand the multi-uses of a "clutch".
ReplyDeleteThe game I am thinking of has multiple terms that could be construed as automobile parts which also fit the letter requirements, and also multiple "places" a car might be able to go, although the most common one is a bit of a stretch when you say "place a car might go." To me, it almost seems like "a thing you might do in a car". That is, assuming I have the correct game in the first place.
ReplyDeleteThis comment has been removed by the author.
ReplyDeleteIn Britain, it might cost as much as £16 to play this game.
ReplyDeleteI think I have the same answer as bhunter47.
ReplyDeleteI have two possibilities now for 6-letter answers. They are both admissible answers, but neither is great. One is not exactly what you'd think of as a car part (although it might be a shorthand name for a car part) and the other is a mildly unusual term in this game.
I must have a similar answer to Crito. My six-letter word could be considered shorthand for a longer compound word. My three-letter word is a car part, but would take a modifier specifying where on the car it belongs (just as you might specify the dog's leg to distinguish it from a table leg). In that sense, my three-letter word also can be considered a part of many mechanical devices, as well as term that appears in crafts and in medicine.
ReplyDeletewww.curtisjohnsonimages.com
Now I have two possible answers. My original answer, and now a game that may force me to strike my original answer.
ReplyDeleteI'm having a problem similar to Curtis's: three letter word and one five-letter word need modifiers specifying where on the car they belong; three-letter word has lots of different uses. My six-letter word is a bona fide car part, but is very seldom used in the game I'm thinking of. At least my "two places" make perfect sense, as does one of my five-letter words. I wonder if I'm missing something...some six-letter car part that fits the game better. Or maybe I've just picked the wrong game entirely. Has anyone come up with an answer they believe is completely elegant, has no weak links, and fits perfectly into the puzzle as described?
ReplyDeleteWhile I still am thinking about this puzzle I am going to get a haircut.
ReplyDeleteUp, up and away. The new puzzle is finally air borne.
ReplyDeleteFollow this link
BOWLING is the game
ReplyDeleteWho knows for sure what Will is looking for as answers to the car parts, as there are several that work?
PIN, FAN & OIL
SPARE, FRAME, CHOKE & SHOES
STRIKE, BUMPER, CLUTCH & EMBLEM
All the above terms are both car parts and terms used in bowling, but some are obscure and/or so common as to be suspect.
I got the answer as I stood outside my estate and watched as my chauffeur drove my children up in the Maybach on their return from Child Protective Services. The kids were getting out of the car when I notices a bird offense disgracing the car and immediately struck my driver for failing to rectify the obscenity, and as I did so, of course, striking him made me think of bowling. Thank god I'm in the top One Percent, or I might never have got the answer.
I like the game of baseball, with tag, choke, frame, heater, fan, stick, rubber, wheels, clutch, plate, bench, and probably more. And you can go out, home, or up the alley.
ReplyDeleteIf ladies golf is a sport, how come bowling is a game ?
ReplyDeleteI think Alley & Lane were the assumed destinations.
DaveJ:
ReplyDeleteI was thinking it was ALLEY & GUTTER.
DaveJ: Well put!
ReplyDelete@sdb - remind me not to drive with you !
ReplyDeleteNot my favorite puzzle ever.
Bob Dylan: "The answer is bowlin' (sic)"
ReplyDeleteDaveJ:
ReplyDeleteDon't blame me. Blame my chauffeur.
Lorenzo:
I'm glad you expllained that. :)
Like others, I submitted Bowling, with these words:
ReplyDeletePin (as in hinge pin)
Spare
Frame
Gutter (cars used to have rain gutters - really, they did, back when us dinosaurs roamed the earth)
Places to drive the car:
Lane
Alley
I submitted bowling, pin (as in kingpin) (or bed as in pickup bed), spare, frame, and bumper (or clutch). Two places a car might go are an alley, a gutter (or a lane).
ReplyDeleteBryan, I like your answer, especially since tag is a far better answer than pin, fan, bed or oil (not a car part), but I don't like out or home as places where a car drives.
I had come up with Poker as the game:
ReplyDelete3: Nut
5: Wheel
5: Paint or Light
6: Button
Places to go to: Street and Bank
Besides bowling and poker, I thought one could also make the case for pool/billiards. This was a weak puzzle, IMHO.
ReplyDeleteBLAINE - What's wrong with POKER? CAP ( radiator cap, gas cap ), LIGHT, WHEEL, BUTTON Places to go BANK, RIVER, BLUFF, TRIPS, etc.
ReplyDeleteCan't see why this would not work.
EDDY
@SDB: Haircut?
ReplyDeleteI realized then that we both had the same answer, because you probably put a bowl over your head and had your wife just trim around the edges!
dumpsterdivelad:
ReplyDeleteThanks, I meant to clarify that clue, but got sidetracked by my nonsense post story. And, yes, I cut my own hair, but I don't use a bowl. Not because it would make for a lousy haircut, but I have never found a bowl large enough to fit over my head.
The key to me is that bowling is a SPORT - poker is a GAME. EDDY
ReplyDelete"Take me out to the BALLGAME."
ReplyDeleteNormally you "know" when you have the right answer, but none of the three letter words sound really strong to me - be interesting to see what Will says on Sunday.
ReplyDeleteSo Blaine: We're the Every Brothers avid bowlers or....
DaveJ:
ReplyDeleteNot "Every Brother" is an Everly Brother. :)
I think that BOTH puzzles this year have been rather lame. Ladies Golf makes about as much sense to me as Ladies Engineering.
ReplyDeleteHow about BASKETBALL, guys?
ReplyDeleteRim, Paint, Glass, Window
Places to go: Bank (as in bank shot), Lane (driving the lane), or possibly TRAVELLING
There are many more. Downtown is a place you could go in a car, that is a term in basketball. This was a terrible puzzle, in my mind.
ReplyDeleteI also did bowling but used KEY as my three-letter word.
ReplyDeleteThe KEY in bowling is the spot you strike on the bowling pin. Seemed more natural than saying a car had a PIN.
-- Other Ben
My 3-letter word was OIL, as there is an oil pattern on each lane.
ReplyDeleteOil: The conditioner used in the front two-thirds of the lane, which allows the ball with side-spin to roll the necessary distance down the lane before it starts to generate friction and hook.
ReplyDeleteI also came up with poker, using "dealer" and "mechanic" (apparently another name for "cheater" in poker) as the two places.
ReplyDeleteMe and Lady GaGa are still going with a Poker Face. To me,
ReplyDeleteBowling is a sports event made up of several games in a row. Would you say Tennis was "a game"?
I enjoy NPR’s Weekend Edition Sunday Puzzle segment and always will. I almost _always_ submit an answer but confess I did not do so this week. IMHO, this week’s puzzle fell into the How-Do-You-Know-When-You-Have-The-Answer category. Loosey goosey, poorly-conceived clues. Oh well – one must accept these every now and again...
ReplyDeleteChuck
"Let the games begin!"
ReplyDeleteAll sports are games, but not all games are sports.
To wake up little Susie, you need to poke her.
ReplyDeleteI think BOWLING was the intended answer, but as others have noted, there are potential alternate answers that Will may accept.
ReplyDeleteBecause I was fixated on BUMPER, I was initially trying to make PINBALL (BUMPER, LIGHT, RAMP, SPRING...) or BILLIARDS (BUMPER, STICK, RACK...) work as the answer.
Baseball
ReplyDeletebag/choke/plate/clutch/home/out
I went with Bridge:
ReplyDeleteKey
block
wheel
Return
And the two places you can go w/your car, which are Bridge terms, are:
Chicago
Boston
My clue "In Britain, it might cost as much as £16 to play this game." refers to the fact that a regulation bowling ball can weigh up to 16 pounds.
ReplyDeleteCurtis, I too submitted the term (rain) gutters. That's where we used to clamped on our ski rack/ bike rack, etc.
I really wanted Bumper Pool to be the answer, but couldn't make it work.
ReplyDeleteThis week's segment should be interesting, since I see a lot of good answers here, with good reasons for those answers.
ReplyDeleteWard - we also used the gutters that way. On family trips, we'd attach a car-top luggage rack to them.
I'm surprised that baseball wasn't mentioned more often. Were people put off by Lorenzo's second comment? Is there something wrong in using terms used by sportscasters while commenting on a game?
ReplyDeletefan: to strike out
gas (accelerator): a fastball
relay: throw from outfielder to infielder to catcher, for instance.
choke: a high grip on the bat.
shift: an infield alignment.
clutch: clutch hitter.
wheels: players' legs.
Places to go:
Home
On the interstate
Golfing
Hugh,
ReplyDeleteNice, non-generic uses of "fan" and "choke".
Lorenzo,
ReplyDeleteYour use of "generic" did color the way I selected my answers. Since the non-generic "pinch" has evidently been replaced by "clutch" I hoped the classification was the same. If not, I covered that with "wheels".
I really have no good idea what Will is expecting for the six letter answer, but I like STRIKE up to a point. Every door has a strike and on Car Talk today they used that term in helping some guy who cannot unlock his rear door. I will not be surprised however, should it turn out to be CLUTCH. Will might even list several answers as he did recently and not highlight the intended ones.
ReplyDeleteAnyway, I think this puzzle is lousy.
New non-puzzle is up. Another disappointment and it is for two weeks. What a crummy beginning for the new year this has been.
ReplyDeleteNobody has mentioned basketball! I knew bowling was more popular, but I thought somebody must have had my answers:
ReplyDeletescreen
point
block
rim
lane
drive
I know 'screen' isn't great, but I'm not fond of 'bumper' either, for bowling.
I had BASKETBALL too! I thought for sure it was correct. 3letter: rim 5letters: glass and clock 6letter: points Places: traveling and forward. This puzzle was one of Will's all time worst. 'Pin' and 'Frame' are not at all commonly used terms for car parts! A frame is a CHASSIS!!! And what in the world is a PIN??? BASKETBALL was the correct answer.
ReplyDelete