Q: Take the name of an island. Shift the first letter two later in the alphabet (e.g. A would become C). Read the result backwards and you'll have the name of another island. What are the two islands?While waiting to see if we'll have an NPR Puzzle this week, I thought I'd post a fill-in puzzle. Please don't post the answer until after the standard Thursday 3PM ET deadline. But feel free to hint at the answer.
Edit: My alternate idea was to write the island in uppercase, change the first letter to two later and read the resulting letters in a mirror.
A: GUAM --> MAUIInterestingly, the Mariana Islands have GUAM to the south and the MAUG Islands to the north.
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.
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.
Any limits on island size, Blaine? I've got some with common names that work, but I'd never heard of them.
DeleteThe intended answer has islands that should be familiar.
DeleteThank you for giving us all something to have on our minds.
ReplyDeleteHopefully all is well with Will. Cant ever remember missing unless it was a two week challenge.
ReplyDeleteKCFR reported it's due to the Afghanistan coverage.
DeleteI have the islands...
ReplyDeleteGood alternative - thanks Blaine- we’ll see if the real puzzle is as much of a layup as this one.
ReplyDeleteMe too. But what can I do with them?
ReplyDeleteI can't believe it's not Mazdagascar!
ReplyDeleteNeal Conan of NPR fame, Liane Hansen's ex, died this week in Hawaii of glioblastoma. I enjoyed his baseball musings.
DeleteI always thought that Conan's "Talk of the Nation" was a much better program than the programs that have replaced it over the years. Conan did an excellent job of recruiting RESPONSIBLE advocates of a wide range of opinions on a given topic.
DeleteIf I have the right pair they are approximately 10,200 miles apart.
ReplyDeleteI'll be interested to learn your pair. The islands in my answer are closer than that.
DeleteShould I say my pair now?
DeleteCharles, I suggest you go to Distance Between 2 Addresses, Cities or Zipcodes.
DeleteBlaine and I would both appreciate it if you go there, enter the Island names in the "From:" and "To:" fields, and then posted back the answer.
I think you might need to think outside the box (or the ocean) for this one.
Ah, forget my "think outside the box (or the ocean) comment. The website I gave in the above does NOT draw its red "great circle route" line well. I now recommend either
DeleteDistance Between Cities Places On Map Distance Calculator, or
How Far Is It Between, although that one asks you to turn off your ad-blocker.
"Distance Between Cities .." gave 10,482 miles (heading east), Bing search gave 10,245 miles (heading west) and the NOAA great circle calculator gave 10,230 miles.
DeleteI'll accept there might be an alternate answer. My intended islands are a few thousand miles closer together.
DeleteBTW, my first island is 9560 miles from Blaine's.
DeleteMy pair were Saba and Abau Island, Papua New Guinea.
DeleteThis comment has been removed by a blog administrator.
ReplyDeleteTMI
DeleteThere's a connection between the first island and the alternate solution proposed by Rob and me two weeks ago.
ReplyDelete(As Blaine noted, Guam is in the Marianas. Maid Marian is the companion of Robin Hood, our proposed alternate solution to the upside-down hero puzzle two weeks ago.)
DeleteBrings to mind the opening line of that famous limerick...
ReplyDeleteThere once was a man from Tekcutnap
You're WELcome!
DeleteOne of the big numbers in the Disney musical Moana is "You're Welcome" as sung by the character Maui, voiced by Dwayne Johnson.
DeleteThe islands remind me of a mnemonic aid used to distinguish a couple of nautical terms.
ReplyDeleteI think the first island may need an upgrade….
ReplyDeleteI have a pair that are 103 miles apart, in the same U.S. state.
ReplyDeleteThe two that you have in mind both remind me of that SAME MNEMONIC AID!
Deletejan, I just tried the pair of islands which I thought you had, in both
DeleteDistance Between 2 Addresses, Cities or Zipcodes and
How Far Is It Between, and I get distances of 20.04 miles and 20.058 miles, respectively.
Distance Between Cities Places On Map Distance Calculator can't find them! Despite the fact that I included "Island" after each of their names, it located two places on a SINGLE, much larger island nearby!
So apparently there are at least 3 pairs of islands. I'll have to try again to find the pair that you found.
DeleteWait! Counting the pair that Charles found, there must be at least 4 pairs of islands.
DeleteHi, this is Dr K’s wife. At the moment he’s driving us to the beach, but he’s got the answer. His hint—advance the first letter of the first island 5 letters in the alphabet, read the result backward and get a word that is a homonym of a famous political site. Thank you, Blaine, for the interim puzzle.
ReplyDeleteOops. That should be "homophone."
DeleteThought I had it, but then I realized that with my pair of islands you move the first letter BACK two places in the alphabet. Clearly not Blaine's intended pair.
ReplyDeleteReplace the last letter of the first island with two new letters: one advanced one place from the original, and one advanced two places from the original. The result is...rather unpleasant.
ReplyDeleteAnd that unpleasant thing is also often associated with islands!
DeleteHa, good point!
DeleteThis comment has been removed by a blog administrator.
ReplyDeleteTMI
DeleteI thought it was cute, but I'll remove it out of caution.
DeleteAfter finding my obscure island pair, I wasn't going to bother looking further for the intended answer, but this clue brought me right to it.
DeleteI have an answer that fits the clues, but it does not seem to be Blaine's intended answer. Mine are roughly 14,000km apart.
ReplyDeleteI have a pair of well-known islands that are about 6,300 km apart.
DeleteSame.
DeleteSame...
DeleteSame.. (~3400 nm by sea)
DeleteNever mind, I just realized I transposed two letters, my pair does not meet the criteria.
DeleteThat was not as hard as I thought it would be. Good one Blaine. Much more satisfying than most NPR puzzles.
ReplyDeleteOne of the islands reminds me of a pet.
ReplyDeleteMaui sounds like "meowy", which is like a cat.
DeleteBlaine, satisfying puzzle! My clue: 8 1/6.
ReplyDeleteIn case anyone is wondering what happened to Clark a pseudonym, his computer gave up the ghost and he is trying to decide how to replace it. So he was unaware of our not having a puzzle. He now knows what we are working on thanks to Blaine and probably won't have a new computer for a while yet.
ReplyDeleteIs the first island, Qnagillig? Hey, someone had to do it...
ReplyDeleteThis comment has been removed by a blog administrator.
ReplyDeleteWhat is the distance between Lemuria and Atlantis?
ReplyDeleteDo you mean as the crow flies?
DeleteWill Shortz isn't having a good weekend, apparently. Not only did the NPR Sunday Puzzle get bumped, but the Sunday New York Times variety puzzles (including a Cox/Rathvon acrostic an three small puzzles) didn't appear on their crossword website.
ReplyDeleteUpdate: those Sunday puzzles showed up on the NYT crosswords website today.
DeleteI have two answers. In each the first island is pretty well-known, but the second is obscure.
ReplyDeleteI had Iona and Anok (Uganda) as well as Java and Aval (Brittany, France). Guam and Maui is much more elegant.
DeleteThe answer is elementary.
ReplyDeleteMake GUAM from: gold (AU) + magnesium (MG). Make MAUI from: americium (AM) + uranium (U) + iodine (I).
DeleteBig news for Colorado!
ReplyDeleteThe Southpark can only improve Casa Bonita. Even if they make it cartoonish, that’s an improvement over the previous incarnation
DeleteTrue. My kids did love it though. The food was awful.
DeleteI had not heard of Casa Bonita before watching that video link yesterday. My first thought as I watched it was that all the attention was paid to the visual experience and the "food" must be "pretty" awful and taste like shit.
DeleteYeah, I can’t speak to how well-known Casa Bonita is outside of Colorado. It’s both famous and notorious here. The fact that I live within 15 minutes of the place and haven’t eaten there since the Reagan administration should tell you what I think of their food
DeleteFeeling rather peaceful about the answer.
ReplyDeleteFeeling Pacific about the puzzle.
DeleteThink of an island country that has a repeated consonant. Remove one of the repeated consonant letters (just one of them). Rearrange to get another island country far away. What are these two well known island countries?
ReplyDeleteNice one, sdb. If I’ve got the right answer, I am currently on an island about 9,000 miles from each, and the islands themselves are about 1,100 miles apart.
DeleteThanks Dr.K, but it looks like you have an alternate answer and like Blaine said yesterday I am waiting for Thursday to find out what you came up with. My answer involves 2 oceans.
DeleteSorry, sdb, I was mistaken. I misread the directions. I've probably been spending too much time in the sun. Back to the drawing board.
DeleteEllis Island, drop an L, yields Isle (of Man).
Deleteron,
DeleteNope. Much more straightforward than that, and as I said, it involves 2 oceans.
...and Ellis Island is not an island country.
DeleteI actually had the answer. I hope it's OK to give it now: TAHITI minus a T yields HAITI...
Deleteron,
DeleteCongrats. I was hoping for people to wait until Thursday though.
Here's an easy one (if my understanding of the terms "adjacent" and "island country" is correct):
DeleteTake the name of an island. Remove two adjacent letters and rearrange what's left to get the name of an island country.
No need to hesitate; just blurt it out if you know it.
skydiveboy, since ron gave away the answer to your puzzle and you acknowledged it, I can at least quibble about it. Tahiti and Haiti both fail as island nations because Tahiti is not a nation (It's part of French Polynesia) and Haiti is not an island (It's part of the island of Hispaniola).
DeleteI did not use the word nation; you did. See references below:
DeleteIs Tahiti its own country?
The islands were first settled by migrating Polynesians as early as 500BC. They were later discovered by European explorers during the 16th century and eventually colonized by France. Now officially known as French Polynesia, Tahiti is an autonomous overseas country of the French Republic.
Is Tahiti a sovereign nation?
Image result for is tahiti a nation
Tahiti, in the Society islands, became a French colony in 1880. France later annexed other islands to form the French Colony of Oceania. In 1946 the islands became an overseas territory and in 2004 gained "overseas country" status.May 22, 2018
Paul: Are the two adjacent letters the same letter or any two letters?
Deleteron: they're different letters
DeleteBRUNEI → NIUE
DeleteI too looked at Brunei, but it is not an island. It is a tiny country in an island.
DeleteDo you mean, just like Haiti is not an island, but a country that actually takes up less than 4/11 of Hispaniola?
DeleteYes, and that is why I wrote my puzzle saying island country rather than just island. That is why my puzzle works perfectly as I wrote it.
DeleteJust so we don't run out of things to argue about, was Russia a country from 1922 to 1991?
DeleteThere was no Russia during that period. At least that is what some would say, although of course Russia did not cease to exist. But I suppose it was incorrect to call it a country when it was called the Soviet Union. But why let it stop here when we can drag it out at least until Thursday?
DeleteI don't think Russia ever WAS the Soviet Union, as in Russia = Soviet Union. I thought Russia was one of several entities within the Soviet Union.
DeleteThat has been my understanding too.
DeleteI've often wondered:
ReplyDeleteare "repeated consonanants" neccessisarily adjacent
?
Either way.
DeleteThanks so much for giving us a new puzzle to think about, Blaine. I'm going to go up a mountain to reflect on it, and hope to come down soon with an answer. --Margaret G.
ReplyDeleteI like what you did there!
DeleteThey didn't even release the puzzle on the NPR web site. I suppose they can re-use it for next week's show.
ReplyDeleteWell, they likely have a recorded session with the winning contestant from last week all ready to go.
DeleteTo all those that listen to the CBC Radio and its daily news program, As It Happens, Will Shortz was interviewed about the death of a puzzle master who was delighted with Soduko. (PS - I didn't realize he was in Houston, Texas I thought he was up at my old stompin' ground in Toronto.) https://www.cbc.ca/radio/asithappens/as-it-happens-tuesday-edition-1.3061865
ReplyDeleteSurprising that Will didn't know anything about C++.
DeleteWill Shortz does not live in Houston, Texas or Toronto. He resides in Pleasantville, New York, where he works from home.
DeleteHere is the write-up of the piece
ReplyDeleteSudoku-solving program
The Prime Minister of Singapore is a real puzzler. But what's clear -- as crossword guru Will Shortz will explain -- is that the Singaporean PM has somehow created a program to save you time by solving your Sudoku puzzle.
Can anyone here remember who said....Let Saigon's be Saigon's all this talk of Vietnam Hanoi's me
ReplyDeleteNot sure as that was Hue too long ago.
DeleteNot quite the same quote but I think you are remembering Kinky Friedman from "We Reserve The Right To Refuse Service To You."
Delete" Let Saigons be bygones,
Don't you blow this world in two.
We reserve the right to refuse service to you."
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uHI943GcX5s
It's almost Thursday, which means NOTHING this week!
ReplyDeleteWhich reminds me that one of our Blainesvillians blurted out, on Sunday, that the "Taliban had ruined their Sunday Puzzle," or something to that effect.
I'll chime in that the Taliban ACTUALLY DID ruin a Sunday Puzzle idea that I had, though Puzzlemaster Shortz dinged it. He didn't like it.
Anyway, I tried setting it up a few ways, yet it never passed muster. Here it is, for no reason:
Name a country for which the descriptor of a national of that country is hidden, reading left to right, within the full name of the ruler of that country.
The Answer (but only until this past Sunday): mohammad ashrAF GHANI ahmadzai
Oh well, religious militants are once again stepping on my dreams.
Great puzzle, Ben!
DeleteSpeaking of great puzzles...
Here is an earlier-than-usual preview of our next Puzzleria! on August 20.
We offer six splended puzzles this week formed from the fertile mind of our friend geofan, aka Ken Pratt. They appear in his always-entertaining-and-educational "Worldplay" series.
(One of Ken's six this week is a "demonymic Euro-Auto shop Service Pledge" in which you are asked to fill in a series of blanks with Europe-related demonyms. Very creative!)
Also on our menus this week:
* a Schpuzzle of the Week that asks you to "Say it with a song and a spray,"
* an Anatomic Bombast Puzzle Slice that hits you above (and below) the belt,
* a Spoonerific Dessert that flings "Winged and wingless things" your way, and
* eight riff-offs of Blaine's excellent "Pair-of-Island-Paradise" puzzle – one composed by geofan and another composed by our friend Plantsmith, both who are valued Puzzleria! contributors.
We upload Puzzleria! very early on Friday, at Midnight PDT.
All are welcome!
LegoWhoSaysToTakeTheNameOfAnIslandInTheUnitedStatesAndShiftTheFirstLetterTwentyPlacesLaterInTheAlphabetSo"A"WouldBecome"U"ForExampleAndThenReadTheResultBackwardToGetAWordToDescribeThePre-emptionOfWillShortz'sNPRPuzzleThisPastSunday!
Realy good Ben.
DeleteIf I have the answer right, I just returned from very close to one of these islands today!
ReplyDeleteIf "Ask Me Another" is ending soon(and it is), then this week's Sunday Puzzle "preemption" doesn't bode well for the segment's future, either.
ReplyDeletepjbSaysSolve'EmWhileYouGot'Em,Folks!
GUAM (G→I) = IUAM, reverse → MAUI.
ReplyDeleteI did not look for any alternate answers...
GUAM & MAUI
ReplyDeleteGUAM, MAUI
ReplyDeleteAbout 6,300 km apart.
Also, DEER Island, and REEF Island, about 103 miles apart, in Washington (and in other places).
I misread the challenge and changed the last letter by two, instead of the first, and got Hawaii and Kiawah (SC).
ReplyDeleteGUAM —> MAUI
ReplyDeleteMy hint: If you change the first letter of the first island’s name to 5 letters later in the alphabet and read the result backward, you get…“maul,” both a word and a homophone of the National Mall in D. C.
Thanks again, Blaine.
I got the call! They said mine was the only submission.
ReplyDeleteWill and Lulu are taking the week off. You can talk about anything you want.
DeleteNo man is an island.
DeleteWW--I hope you're done.
DeleteJust off Aquinnah on Martha's Vineyard, WW
DeleteDr K and jan, I'm donne ...and yet I'm not.
DeleteAsk not for whom the Tell Bowls:
DeleteTell City Bowling Center
91 Google reviews
Bowling Alley in Tell City, Indiana
Address: 322 IN-66, Tell City, IN 47586
Phone: (812) 547-7958
Guam, Maui
ReplyDeleteGUAM >>> IUAM >>>MAUI
ReplyDelete"8 1/6" hours is the flight time between these two islands.
So Charles:
ReplyDeleteI'm sure Blaine is as interested as I to learn your pair of islands which are approximately 10,200 miles apart. The rest of us know of 3 pairs:
1. GUAM and MAUI
2. CRAB and BARE (both among the San Juan Islands, Washington State, USA) and...
3. DEER and REEF (also both in WA, USA)
SABA and ABAU Island, Papua New Guinea
DeleteInteresting! So all 8 islands involved in all 4 pairs of solutions are 4 letters long; consistent with an old mnemonic aid I've known for some time for distinguishing between two nautical terms! Between PORT and STARBOARD, which means the left side of a ship and which means the right side? Answer: PORT is the LEFT side because PORT and LEFT are both 4 letters long. Here's another one: Is the PORT light red or green? Answer: The PORT light is red because PORT WINE is red.
DeleteThis is how I remember the green and red boat lights (song I learned at Girl Scout Camp):
DeleteBarges
submitted by Sara Prater
Barges, I would like to go with you,
I would like to sail the ocean blue.
Barges, have you treasures in your hold?
Do you fight with priates brave and bold?
Out of my window looking in the night,
I can see the barges flickering light.
Silently flows the river to the sea,
As the barges go by silently.
Chorus
Out of my window looking in the night,
I can see the barges flickering light.
Starboard shining green and port is shining red,
I can see the barges from my bed.
It's a sweet song.
I have long known the ``We have some nice red port'' mnemonic. But what really sunk in for me was realizing that the rule for boats is the same as the rule for cars meeting at an unmarked intersection (not that I've seen one of those since I can remember--here in Colorado, even intersections of dirt roads seem to have stop signs!). Namely, the vehicle to the right of another vehicle has right of way; the vehicle to the left of the other has to yield. With boats, the vehicle to the right will be showing a red light (if it's approaching from your right, you are looking at its port side), and the vehicle approaching from the left will show a green light (you are looking at its starboard side). Red means stop and green means go. There you have it!
DeleteOf course, the small sailboats I mostly use don't have any lights at all. We don't go out when its dark. But a sailboat on starboard tack (wind is coming over the starboard side of the boat; sail is to port) has right of way over a boat on port tack. It's really the same rule. But then if two boats are on the same tack, the leeward boat has right of way over the windward boat, except when then overlap is created by …. See The Racing Rules of Sailing for the 100 pages or so of rules!
Oops. "when it's dark."
DeleteA related story. Many here are too young to remember what an inspiration John F. Kennedy was, and what a grand sense of humor he had. Three months before he died, he gave a speech to the midshipmen at my alma mater, the US Naval Academy; this was five years before I enrolled. Anyway, he ended the speech with this story:
Delete------
There is an old story-which I will close with which will give you very valuable advice as you follow a naval career-about a young yeoman who watched a lieutenant begin a meteoric career in the Navy, and he always used to go into his office every morning and go to his drawer and take out a piece of paper and look at it. He became the youngest captain, the youngest admiral, the youngest commander-in-chief. Finally one day he had a heart attack. The yeoman said, "I want to see what is in that paper. It might help me." So he went over and opened up the safe and pulled out the paper. And it said, "Left-port; right-starboard."
If you can remember that, your careers are assured!
I also had GUAM > MAUI.
ReplyDeleteAs for my "contribution":
Greenland is an "autonomous territory" of Denmark (whatever that means); it's not a country, but it's an island. REmove RE from GREENLAND and just slide the G over to between the N and the L, and you get ENGLAND, which I call a country (as I think most people do), even though it's only a "constituent" of the sovereign state known as the United Kingdom. Since it's on the island of Great Britain, I think that makes it an "island country".
That was my intended answer, and I'll bet ron and sdb knew that.
It's interesting (to me) that dropping the IA from RUSSIA leaves a muddled version of USSR, but clearly neither of those entities could ever be considered an island, except in some far-fetched metaphorical sense. I only mentioned them because:
England : UK :: Russia : USSR
... in some sense ...
Paul,
DeleteEvery "contribution" you make (both here and over on Puzzleria!) is "thought-provoking" and/or "clever."
LegoLeavingAMuddledVersionOfAnIntendedKudo
My sign-off to the weekly Puzzleria! preview I posted Wed Aug 18, 01:49:00 PM PDT included a riff that challenged Blainesvillians to:
ReplyDelete"Take the name of an island in the United States and shift the first letter twenty places later in the alphabet (so "A" would become "U", for example) and then read the result backward to get a word to describe the pre-emption of Will Shortz's NPR puzzle this past Sunday."
The answer:
Ellis Island; Silly
ELLIS=>YLLIS=>SILLY!
LegoWhoThanksBlaineForATerrificAndRiffiblePuzzleToTideUsOver
Fortunately, systems are "go" for tomorrow.
DeleteRight. They scrapped the taping from last week and taped it again yesterday with a different on air challenge. Next week they will use the scrapped challenge with this week's winner.
DeleteI wonder if this is the first time an on air contestant got to participate in two separate on air challenges a week apart and for solving just one puzzle.
DeleteHow do you know about the refresh of the on-air challenge SDB?
DeleteBen,
DeleteWill told me all about it today.
Hilarious.
DeleteGuam and Maui...my earlier post alluded to the fact that I just recently returned from Oahu, not far from Maui
ReplyDeleteThis week's challenge comes from listener Ben Austin, of Dobbs Ferry, N.Y. Take the name of a major American city. Move one of its letters three spaces later in the alphabet. Embedded in the resulting string of letters, reading left to right, is a cardinal number. Remove that number, and the remaining letters, reading left to right, spell an ordinal number. What city is it, and what are the numbers?
ReplyDeleteCongrats, Ben!
DeleteWay to go, Ben!
DeleteVery cool Ben. Watch out for Henri.
DeleteThis comment has been removed by a blog administrator.
ReplyDeleteReread the question.
DeleteSorry, I misread the puzzle.
DeleteMomma told me i should have taken math.
ReplyDeleteI really value these early Sunday morning puzzles! It always helps to read the question thoroughly. --Margaret G.
ReplyDeleteThis comment has been removed by a blog administrator.
ReplyDelete