Thursday, November 21, 2013

NPR Sunday Puzzle (Nov 17, 2013): Quarrel Synonyms

NPR Sunday Puzzle (Nov 17, 2013): Quarrel Synonyms:
Q: Think of a word meaning "quarrel" in which several of the letters appear more than once. Remove exactly two occurrences of every repeated letter, and the remaining letters can be rearranged to spell a new word meaning "quarrel." What are the two words?
I did not search my synonym list thoroughly enough the first time...

Edit: The first four words "I did not search..." start with I, D, N, S which are the pairs of letters that are removed.
A: MisUndERsTAndiNG --> ARGUMENT

100 comments:

  1. Here's my standard reminder... don't post the answer or any hints that could lead directly to the answer (e.g. via a chain of thought, or an internet search) 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.

    You 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.

    ReplyDelete
  2. There’s no clue here. Kudos to the puzzle author. It’s straightforward and clever at the same time. The first time I rushed through, made a mistake and missed it. But when I went back and double checked my work I found my error and got the answer.

    Chuck

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  3. Two pronunciation issues: Are we sure Will said "quarrel", not "quarl"? He may still be stuck on the rock theme...

    Also, did anyone else ketch the error in the last of the on-air questions? Y'awl know what I mean: The initial vowel sound in "catches" isn't a short "e".

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    Replies
    1. At first I thought I heard Will say "coral." That would have been a rock-solid member of the series!

      And, yes, to my New Jersey ears "catches" starts with a short a, not a short e.

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    2. Jan, good cetch. Guess Will better mind his b's and q's.

      Again (!), enjoying all the rock talk.

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    3. So, we're looking for a noun, rather than a verb?

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    4. Uncle John, you're baaack!

      Past, Present, and Future went out to dinner.

      It was tense.


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    5. Bob K (is that your real name?):

      I toyed with Kerfuffle and Frulk or Flurk but then Ed came along and took away all my pool toys.

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    6. "Bob Kerfuffle" is probably a lot closer to my real name than "Word Woman" is to your real name. :>))

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    7. Too Shea, Bob K.

      Although my daughter often says "Word" in commenting on my puns or stories.

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  4. The hardest part of this week's puzzle is to read the description carefully; therein lies the rub. I went through my synonym list (a.k.a. the thesaurus) once or twice before rechecking the wording of the clue.

    ReplyDelete
  5. Remove a few more letters to get another synonym. And then remove again and rearrange to get something that might accompany a quarrel.

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Antidisestablishmentarianism?

      Delete
    2. I think I'm on solid ground with this:

      Nuns plan teas

      ?

      Delete
    3. WW,
      Antidisestablishmentarianism? Wasn’t that a song in Mary Poppins? It also could well be a synonym for quarrel. It starts with “anti-,” always a good start for a querulously quarrelsome word. Its definition refers to a dispute between Anglicans and Anglicannots. So, I applied today’s puzzle’s AlGoreRhythm (or GeraldFordRhythm, see 9/15/13 puzzle) to it and, after weeding out half of the 28 letters and anagramming what remained, came up with “Sibilant Radish.”
      Sibilant Radish, of course, is the epitome of quarreling. You might recall that this seminal 1960s’ rock group performed at the 1969 Foodstock Festival on Max Yogurt’s farm in upstate New York. Also on the bill were Strawberry Alarm Clock, Electric Prunes, Peaches and Herb, Moby Grape, Country Joe and the Fish, Cream, Vanilla Fudge, Bread, Chuck Berry, Ultimate Spinach, Chocolate Watch Band, Peanut Butter Conspiracy, Jellyfish, Meat Loaf, Buffalo Wings Springfield, Fleetwood Macaroni and a very youthful Smashing Pumpkins (indeed, most members were at the time either toddlers, in diapers or in utero).
      The lead singer of “The Radish,” alas, sang with a pronounced lisp. The Foodstock faithful, high on corned beef hash, pot pies and hash browns, booed the hapless band off the stage. Subsequently, the other acts voted to exclude the Radish from all gate receipts. The Radish sued. A decades-long litigation of the dispute ensued. Quarrelsome stuff indeed.
      So I think I’ll submit my antidisestablishmentarianism/Sibilant Radish answer to Will and see what he says.
      Supercalifragi-Lambda-expia-Lego-cious…

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    4. Be still my prosodic feet, LL!

      Your post brought to mind "The Sun" newspaper headline from 2000 about a Scottish football (sock 'er to US) win when the Inverness Caledonian Thistle defeated Glasgow's Celtic Team:

      "Super Caley Go Ballistic, Celtic Are Atrocious."

      Trying to have a fruitful day here & not veg out. Carefully pronouncing things today. Your post made me wonder, though, is there a minimal list amount? Two items? Three?

      Word (Cauli-Rado) Woman



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    5. WW,
      My kind of headline. Go Caley! As a journalist, I reveled in writing headlines. My best effort on a sports page occurred atop a story in my college newspaper about our vaunted juggernautical track team finishing a shockingly disappointing seventh in an eight-team meet. The eighth-place finisher, Bethel University in St. Paul, was a perennial track and field doormat at that time. My headline: “Track team beats Bethel.
      I want to respond to your question, “…Is there a minimal list amount? Two
      items? Three?” but I’m alas at a loss regarding “list.” Does it pertain to this week’s puzzle, as in, for instance, the list of multiple letters contained in the larger of the quarrel synonyms? Pardon my incomprehension.
      Your “Cauli-Rado” signoff inspired me to (com)pose the following puzzle: The following list of three- and four-letter words share something somewhat unusual in common: Tuck, tan, main, ask, sour, law, wham, war, shin, cut. (a four-letter word in the previous paragraph also qualifies.) What is it that they share, and can you name words of five, six and seven letters that also share this property?
      LegoLambda-10,000-Lakes…

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    6. No but soup of cauliflower is thick I spit it out I'm nauseous

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    7. Hmmmmmmm, 13,000 plus LLL, pondering...

      Strawberry Alarm Clock
      Moby Grape
      Fleetwood Macaroni

      (listing to the right if the styles don't crash)

      I am making smashed cauliflower for Thanksgiving.

      Word (Why not?) Woman

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    8. Well I would like to add two of my favorites - Tina Turnips and Al Greens

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  6. Do the same with a synonym of "quarrels", and you get something you might do after the quarrels. Or another word that might be the result of the quarrels.

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    Replies
    1. I hope the answer is not fuss!

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    2. fuss might be a better answer, but I was thinking "differences", and after those you might "rescind", in a professional context, or you might have "cinders", perhaps less professionally.

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  7. Clearly the thesaurus disagrees with me, but I'm not sure the first word really "means" quarrel - more like what comes before...

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    Replies
    1. Agree with you, Sir Dave J. I guess that means two of us are right and the third party is wrong?

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  8. I understand the genesis of this puzzle.

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  9. I always have tried to date only single women so as not to cause one of these.

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    Replies
    1. Reminds me of the letters addressed:

      Wood
      John
      Mass.

      exactly half of which got lost.

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    2. Or, in the Thanksgiving spirit:

      Standish
      Miles

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  10. After enumerating all the synonyms of "quarrel," everyone should come up with this dark work of literature.

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. A quarrel is a
      MISUNDERSTANDING. For those of you that think a “misunderstanding” comes before a “quarrel,” See 2nd definition here:


      http://www.thefreedictionary.com/misunderstanding

      Remove “TWO occurrences of every repeated letter” (there are 3 N's in “misunderstanding,” so 1 N remains). This yields, after removing all the double letters: MUERTANG, which anagrams to ARGUMENT, a quarrel. The word: “enumerating” in my clue above contains the letters of “ARGUMENT.”


      The “dark work of literature” was not Les Mis, but Nobel Prize winner Albert Camus' play, Le Malentendu (The Misunderstanding), written in 1943, during the “dark” period of Nazi Occupation in France. Check out the “dark” plot of the play here:

      http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Misunderstanding



      If you take the “mnt” out of “argument,” you have “argue” (to quarrel) and if you remove the “u” from argue and rearrange you have “rage,” something that can accompany a “quarrel.”




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    2. Ron, agreed, quite good.

      Didn't Sally Ride drink MU(J)ERTANG in space?

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    3. Slow down, WW.
      Just a suggestion.

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    4. And kudos to Lorenzo on the part-of-speech thing.

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  11. Try not to go overboard on this one.

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  12. Like Rachmaninoff, Brahms and Berkovich before them, poster/composers Lorenzo and ecoarchitect (see above) have this week been recording a symphony of their own Variations on a Theme of Puzzle-nini. Here is my variation:
    Think of an antonym of quarrel in which exactly one letter appears more than once. Remove the first two occurrences of this letter, insert a different letter in their place, and reverse the two letters immediately preceding it. The result is a synonym for quarrel. What are these two words? (Hint: If you submit this answer to Will this week he might give you half credit… or at least credit for being a half-wit.)
    LisztoLambda…

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Berkovich ... hmmm

      Well, anyway, I got this one, but I didn't get your other one, or ecoarchitect's, or MrScience's, and I'm not sure about Lorenzo's; so here's mine:
      There's a synonym of your antonym, and both of it's syllables start with the same two letters, in the same order. Take those four letters, don't mess with 'em, just sit 'em side by side and put a food item at the end, and you'll get ... another food item! The remaining letters don't form a word, lacking a vowel, but can be the initials of all sorts of things, especially if rearrangement is allowed (to which i have no objection).
      Did I mention that the original word also relates to a food item? Well, I did now.

      Delete
    2. Paul,
      And, if you add an “A “ to “those four letters” sitting side by side, you get still another food item. Grape puzzle! NPR-worthy; indeed, IMHO, cleverer than most of Will’s offerings recently, even this week’s, which is actually pretty clever. So, I am treating your puzzle as I would an NPR puzzle, and will comply with Blaine’s “standard reminder” allowing only “indirect hints to the answer to show (I) know it.” My indirect hints: The “synonym of (my) antonym” was at the crux of a 2011 “gaffe heard round the world” made by the person who misrepresents me in The House of Reprehensibles. Pluralizing the food item placed after your four side-by-side letters results in a word often used to describe this misrepresentative. The “another food item!” ultimately formed is plentiful where Word Woman is visiting in January (see last week’s blog).
      LuauLambda...

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    3. She's such a silly (word)woman.

      I'd be very surprised if there's an anagram of UNPLEASANTNESS anywhere on this page.

      If Lorenzo's answer doesn't have something to do with RAGE and/or RANT, I'm sunk, like a cheesebox on a raft.

      I didn't realize until this week how nearly the JFK assassination coincided with the centennial of the Gettysburg Address. (Cue Theremin)

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    4. I do tend to go with the flow (of the rock layers) ;-)

      Cheesebox on a raft--where do you come up with these images, Paul?

      Delete
  13. Or, consider a word that's a synonym. It's a common word, something you'll find in ordinary philosophical conversation If you say this word, Will will fly down and pay you $100. The word tonight is "convoluted." OK, Feniman, who's out first contestant?

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Ordinary philosophical conversation in this ignorant country is something like, "Is it okay to wear sweat pants when shopping at the mall?" What's more; I think you are ducking the issue. Not to mention that Mr. Feniman's boss was an old grouch.

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    2. Have you stopped beating your wife yet? Yes or no!

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  14. I was going to work on the puzzle Sunday afternoon, but my rugby team rung me up and we played ball until dark. Although I was the game runt, our team still won! Hopefully, I will have some time to work on the puzzle tomorrow. I actually could have had some "free" time today, as several of my employees came in sick yesterday, but I was a germ nut and insisted they go home.

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. A few clues here: "team rung," "game runt," and "a germ nut" all anagram to "argument."

      Delete
  15. I was watching old Paul Newman movies last night. When I heard Luke say, "What we've got here is failure to communicate," the solution became crystal clear.

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  16. Business lunch today so no minute-early posts for me. ;-)

    Looking forward to reading all the puzzle answers later today.

    In the meantime, Happy Julia Child Day! My favorite Julia quote: "Every woman should have a blow torch." Bon appetit!

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    Replies
    1. Same to you. One of my favorite quotes as well. Have you tried any of the Smith College wines she endorsed?

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    2. RoRo, I didn't know Julia had endorsed any wines. I will check them out. Have you tried them? Perhaps paired with
      the Juliamenu from yesterday?: Autumn bisque, Beef Bourguignonne
      Lentil Napoleon,
      Parslied Noodles, Roasted Brussels Sprouts,"Smith Loves Julia" Cake.

      Delete
  17. ───┬───┬───┬───┬───┬───┬───┬───┬──────
    ═══╪═══╪═══╪═══╪═══╪═══╪═══╪═══╪══════
    ───┼───┼───┼───┼───┴───┼───┼───┼───┐
    ───┼───┼───┼───┼───────┼───┼───┼───┼─┐
    ───┼───┼───┼───┼───────┼───┼───┼───┼─┼─┐
    ───┼───┼───┼───┴───────┼───┼───┼───┼─┼─┤
    ───┼───┼───┼───────────┼───┼───┼───┼─┼─┤
    ───┼───┼───┼───────────┼───┼───┼───┼─┼─┼─┐
    ───┼───┼───┼───────────┴───┼───┼───┼─┼─┼─┤
    ───┼───┴───┼───────────────┼───┼───┼─┼─┼─┤
    ───┼───────┼───────────────┼───┼───┼─┼─┘─┤
    ───┼───────┼───────────────┼───┴───┼─┼───┤
    ───┴───────┼───────────────┼───────┼─┼───┤
    ───────────┼───────────────┼───────┼─┼───┤
    ───────────┼───────────────┼───────┼─┼───┘
    ───────────┼───────────────┼───────┼─┘
    ───────────┼───────────────┴───────┤
    ───────────┴───────────────────────┘
    My post in just under an hour and a half won't look quite this good, but it should still look somewhat decent.

    Anyway, for those of you who haven't yet figured it out, consider what I've posted above a clue!

    ReplyDelete
  18. Whoops! I guess it's a good thing I made the above test post!

    ──┬───┬───┬───┬───┬───┬───┬───┬──────
    ══╪═══╪═══╪═══╪═══╪═══╪═══╪═══╪══════
    ──┼───┼───┼───┼───┴───┼───┼───┼───┐
    ──┼───┼───┼───┼───────┼───┼───┼───┼─┐
    ──┼───┼───┼───┼───────┼───┼───┼───┼─┼─┐
    ──┼───┼───┼───┴───────┼───┼───┼───┼─┼─┤
    ──┼───┼───┼───────────┼───┼───┼───┼─┼─┤
    ──┼───┼───┼───────────┼───┼───┼───┼─┼─┼─┐
    ──┼───┼───┼───────────┴───┼───┼───┼─┼─┼─┤
    ──┼───┴───┼───────────────┼───┼───┼─┼─┼─┤
    ──┼───────┼───────────────┼───┼───┼─┼─┘─┤
    ──┼───────┼───────────────┼───┴───┼─┼───┤
    ──┴───────┼───────────────┼───────┼─┼───┤
    ──────────┼───────────────┼───────┼─┼───┤
    ──────────┼───────────────┼───────┼─┼───┘
    ──────────┼───────────────┼───────┼─┘
    ──────────┼───────────────┴───────┤
    ──────────┴───────────────────────┘

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  19. MISUNDERSTANDING > ARGUMENT

    My Hint:

    “I always have tried to date only single women so as not to cause one of these.”

    A single woman is frequently referred to as Miss and this hints at the first syllable of misunderstanding.

    Pretty good puzzle this week, but I do think it could have been better stated as I do not consider misunderstanding to be synonymous with quarrel. It could have been stated:

    A (BLANK) can sometimes lead to a quarrel. Or: Think of a word that describes a precursor to a possible quarrel.

    ReplyDelete
  20. misunderstanding, argument

    Last Sunday I said, “There’s no clue here. Kudos to the puzzle author. It’s straightforward and clever at the same time. The first time I rushed through, made a mistake and missed it. But when I went back and double checked my work I found my error and got the answer.”

    Actually, I lied – there were a couple of tiny clues there. “Straightforward” as in there is no misunderstanding. “Missed” evoking “mis”understanding.

    Chuck

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. My clue: like you say: "straight forward."

      Delete
    2. Chuck and benmar12001, these two above clues made me think I was on to something referring to a quarrel being an arrow or bolt you'd keep in your quiver ("Will better mind his b's and q's").

      I must have been in a Humboldt Fog though as I never quite got the words to work --details, details...(even though those arrows/bolts going straightforward seemed to make so much sense!)

      I did figure it out on the way to lunch today but, alas, did not submit an answer this week.

      RoRo, Les Mis helped me the most! Very clever.

      Slinging arrows from snowy Colorado,
      Word Woman

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    3. Quarrel Definition and Word Origin (from Merriam Webster):

      "{The stone/rock theme continues...}

      Function: noun Etymology: Middle English, from Anglo-French, square block of stone, bolt, from Vulgar Latin *quadrellum, diminutive of Latin quadrum square —more at QUADRATE Date: 13th century : a square-headed bolt or arrow especially for a crossbow

      Delete
  21. MISUNDERSTANDING -> ARGUMENT

    > Or, in the Thanksgiving spirit:
    >
    > Standish
    > Miles

    If a miss is as good as a mile, this is as good as a miss under standish...

    ReplyDelete
  22. Well, Jan, I think we can both be thankful this is horseshoes, and not hand grenades.

    ReplyDelete
  23. When I posted "I think PC might be familiar with one of these terms," I was thinking of Planned Chaos and the argument of a function.
    Phil Collins didn't occur to me until I read Leo's comment.
    Honest.

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Paul,
      Now you understand my "seriously" response.

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    2. "Cirrusly?" she said, with her head in the clouds.

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    3. Climb in the back with your head in the clouds and you're gone

      Delete
  24. Solving this puzzle wasn't too hard. But I am making no headway at all with this New Yorker cartoon:

    http://www.newyorker.com/humor/issuecartoons/2013/11/25/cartoons#slide=5

    Could someone please explain what's funny here?

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Best I can figure is that these creatures live in the forest and have been living an idyllic life until one day evil Ed comes to snag a few for his "pool toy" business. I think we have to assume the empty trees once held the creatures that are now in the back of the truck. One of the animals is calling back to his parents (the two in the foreground) saying "Mom! Dad! Do something!). For me, it more sad than funny, especially since I see tears in the eyes of the one speaking as well as the two that we assume are his parents.

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    2. Maybe I am overthinking this ( imagine that?) but how could Ed get the pool toys off the trees without either cutting open the plastic critters or sliding them off over the tops of the trees (unwieldy and unlikely)?

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    3. This is a bit odd for the New Yorker, who is very careful with their cartoons. I tend to agree with Blaine, but it is obvious these beings have been there for a very long time as they must have been there when the trees were first planted. The kids are imploring their parents to do something, but it is also obvious none of them has ever done anything in all the years that have gone by.

      Delete
    4. They're flexible, for cryin' out loud!

      Delete
    5. What does flexibility have to do with it? They don't stretch, and they don't appear to be less than complete circles.

      Delete
    6. From the visual evidence, I'm not convinced they're complete circles.
      If they are, then WW has a valid point. However, I believe they're deflatable, which would facilitate the over-the-top extraction protocol WW pooh-poohs, particularly if Ed is more ambitious than at first presumed. Or he could cut 'em and patch 'em and figure out some way to get away with that.

      Delete
    7. I think you are making this more complex than necessary and intended to be. I believe we are not expected to consider how Ed obtains them—only that he does. The humor comes from the kids asking for their parents to "do something" when it is clear that they never have in the past, nor could they now.

      Delete
    8. And perhaps the humor obtains from the supposition that pool toys grow on trees; or the anthropomorphization of pool toys.
      It's all good.

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    9. I suspect we are just to accept that these pool toys grow this way. I got hung up at first on thinking the cartoon had something to do with this fact and I missed the plea for the parents to do something as being the joke.

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    10. Jan.
      Any intended humor in the cartoon soars way over my head, so no headway for me either. It seems to me to be a sad toon. I can only hope that Ed will someday return to the scene of his “harvesting” so that the fragmented Floatie Family might be somehow, storybook-style, reunited, frolicking happily and bobbingly ever after on some Hawaiian surf or posh heated pool. (Indeed, perhaps we should view Ed not as a villain but as a liberator of sorts, like those PETA people who spring chinchillas and minks. Interminable involuntary tree-hugging must start going against ones grain after awhile, even if that’s where your roots are.) BTW, Jan, your post has inspired a string of bloggery (by Blaine, WW, SDB, Paul and moi) that reads a tad like a slow-witted parody of Swift’s Gulliver’s Travels.
      Here is an instructive link regarding “not getting” cartoons:
      http://www.newyorker.com/humor/issuecartoons/2013/11/25/cartoons#slide=5
      In an above post I posed the following puzzle: “The following list of three- and four-letter words share something somewhat unusual in common: Tuck, tan, main, ask, sour, law, wham, war, shin, cut. (a four-letter word in the previous paragraph also qualifies.) What is it that they share, and can you name words of five, six and seven letters that also share this property?” Answer: The words of five, six and seven letters are COLOR, FLORID AND CONNECT. (Stop reading… Got it now?) … The listed words all appear in the names of the United States; for example: kenTUCKy, misSOURi and neW HAMshire.
      My second posted puzzle posed no challenge to Paul but perhaps helped inspire him to pose an excellent puzzle of his own. My puzzle read: “Think of an antonym of quarrel in which exactly one letter appears more than once. Remove the first two occurrences of this letter, insert a different letter in their place, and reverse the two letters immediately preceding it. The result is a synonym of quarrel. What are these two words?” Answer: AGREEMENT. ARGUMENT.
      Lilliputo-Lambda…

      Delete
    11. I enjoyed the word state puzzle, Lego, even though I was not even close to figuring it out and even though you left the 'p' out of the Granite State. Could DISTRICT be considered a word of 8 letters that fits your theme?

      The Gulliver's Travels analogy is interesting, especially since slow-witted describes my week well. Slow things are not necessarily bad (i.e., the Slow Foods movement). Also, there have certainly been times of visiting Lapuda on the blog...

      Word Santa's Helper Elfie Woman

      Delete
    12. jan,
      I made copies of this cartoon today and took them around to a couple of wine tastings I attended where I encounter intelligent people. Not one of these people figured the cartoon out until I explained it. Some of them thought it funny when they understood it, but others were blank. I earlier in the day sent an email request for an explanation, but have not as yet heard back from the New Yorker. I hope to though. I think this is funny when you understand it, but not an easy cartoon to get. I think it's the kind of joke that works best on those of us who make up jokes and see obscure humor in life. The crux of the cartoon is in the caption. Irony.

      Delete
    13. Sorry, SDB, I've tried it with and without wine, and I still don't get it. The closest I come is:

      Q: How many surrealists does it take to change a light bulb?

      A: Two, one to hold the giraffe, and the other to fill the bathtub with brightly colored machine tools.

      Delete
    14. W-SHE-W
      Regarding my missing P (“YipPee! That pesky drug tester misplaced my urine specimen. Olympics here I come!”), it seems you have the soul of either an editor or Scripps spelling pee champ. You claim you “enjoyed“ my word-state puzzle, but I suspect you just were grateful for an opportunity to post the nickname “Granite State” {thereby perpetuating this blog’s snowbouldering stone/rock theme}.
      As to whether your eight-letter “district” is legit, sure, why not? DC is a quasi-state-of-the-union. If it’s good enough for the leggy Miss America Pageant it’s good enough for “Lego’s Misunderstood Puzzle Pageant.”
      LegoColambdia

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    15. What's the difference between an orange?

      A bicycle, because everyone everyone knows a vest doesn't have sleeves.

      Delete
    16. How many segments in an orange? Is it fixed, variable, variety-dependent? I must in-vest-igate.

      Delete
    17. Horace Greely said, "Go vest young man." I think he may have had a vested interest in California or something.

      Delete
    18. jan:
      I did a Google search for Zachary Kanin and got several hits. One of them had several of his cartoons. I read all of them and he has a quirky sense of humor that I really enjoy. His Pool Toys cartoon fits right in with them. Perhaps if you check some of his other cartoons you will begin to see the humor in this one too.

      Delete
    19. I forgot to mention there is a Facebook link to him too. You might give that a try and find another explanation. I refuse to do Facebook, so cannot access it myself.

      Delete
    20. I don't have to pay any mind to HG. One of the benefits of being an old man, I guess.

      Delete
    21. "I've never seen Mom this angry before"

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    22. This comment has been removed by the author.

      Delete
    23. Jan,

      No soap, radio!

      LegoColambdia,

      Word.

      Word Woman
      (Letters, not just for words any more)

      Delete
  25. Tree tease (Treatise)? Grasping at very large straws here...:-)

    ReplyDelete
  26. MISUNDERSTANDING & ARGUMENT; A visual correspondence:

    ──A───R───G───U───M───E───N───T──────
    ══╪═══╪═══╪═══╪═══╪═══╪═══╪═══╪══════
    ──┼───┼───┼───┼───M───┼───┼───┼───M
    ──┼───┼───┼───┼───────┼───┼───┼───I─┐
    ──┼───┼───┼───┼───────┼───┼───┼───S─┼─┐
    ──┼───┼───┼───U───────┼───┼───┼───U─┼─┤
    ──┼───┼───┼───────────┼───N───┼───N─┼─┤
    ──┼───┼───┼───────────┼───┼───┼───D─┼─┼─┐
    ──┼───┼───┼───────────E───┼───┼───E─┼─┼─┤
    ──┼───R───┼───────────────┼───┼───R─┼─┼─┤
    ──┼───────┼───────────────┼───┼───S─┼─┘─┤
    ──┼───────┼───────────────┼───T───T─┼───┤
    ──A───────┼───────────────┼───────A─┼───┤
    ──────────┼───────────────N───────N─┼───┤
    ──────────┼───────────────┼───────D─┼───┘
    ──────────┼───────────────┼───────I─┘
    ──────────┼───────────────N───────N
    ──────────G───────────────────────G

    ReplyDelete
  27. Next week's challenge: Name a tree whose letters can be rearranged to spell two herbs or spices. What are they? Hint: The tree has a two-word name.

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Jan, your "New Yorker" cartoon above was prescient this week.

      Treely yours,

      Word Woman

      Delete
    2. You beat me to it, WW. I was going to say it must be POOL TOYS.

      Delete
  28. Lett's just say you're getting warm . . . getting warmer . . . getting hot . . !

    ReplyDelete

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