Sunday, November 28, 2021

NPR Sunday Puzzle (Nov 28, 2021): What's Your Sign?

NPR Sunday Puzzle (Nov 28, 2021): What's Your Sign?
Q: Take the 9 letters of EARTH SIGN. Repeating them as often as necessary, you can spell the four-word title of a classic movie in 15 letters. You can also use them to spell the four-word title of a classic song in 19 letters. What two titles are these?
The actor we associate with the movie is an earth sign, but the singer we associate with the song is a fire sign. I also thought I had the wrong movie.

Edit: Gene Kelly is a Virgo and Frank Sinatra is a Sagittarius. Like others, I wasn't initially aware that the movie title had an apostrophe in it which messed up my letter count.
A: SINGIN' IN THE RAIN and STRANGERS IN THE NIGHT

186 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.

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    1. Blaine, at first "I also thought I had the wrong movie."

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  2. Numerical clue: 415

    On a personal note, my father used to work in the city where the singer was born, and I learned to swim in the city’s YMCA.

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    1. I went to school there (among other places).

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    2. Does the school you went to there begin with S?

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    3. Wow. Small world. I had a good friend who for many years taught there.

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  3. Replies
    1. So excuse me forgettin' this song (which was borderline TMI), but anyway, the thing is, what I really mean: Kelly is a shade of green.

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    2. Paul, I thought you might have been referring to Blue Eyes, but then again it could have been Just Like Strange Rain, Weight of the World (with a backing track of rain), the fact that he has performed both Singin' in the Rain and Strangers in the Night in concert, or maybe even the recent mishap with the band in the Yarra Valley!

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  4. Take the last three letters of both titles. Rearrange. You get something we have too much of these days.

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    1. Rob, nice confirming hint...and it didn't give me a headache!

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    2. Oh, thank you. Every mention this morning of TMI has made me flinch.

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    3. Take the last three letters from one title and the last two from the other. Rearrange. You get something folks here might want.

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  5. There's also a three-word movie with 15 letters, and probably lots of other songs and movies, given the friendly rack of tiles to work with. He should probably have specified that each of the EARTHSIGN letters must be used at least once.

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    1. The lack of comment on that point probably means you are right. But then loose bricks are not uncommon around here.

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  6. Two absolute classics, which immediately come to mind when their performers are identified.

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  7. The actor and the singer referred to in Blaine's clue were in a movie together.

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    1. You're right! The IMDb Collaborations Search page, with the actor and the singer listed in the "Two People in the Same Title" names fields, turns up 25 titles! The first 4 being movies; and oh man, all those TV specials!

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    2. At least the movie I originally had in mind turns up at #1 on that search.

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  8. Huh, this puzzle is reversible!

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  9. I can get a film title in 14 letters...hmm...

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    Replies
    1. Maybe recount?

      I have both titles.

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    2. I did. :( And another film with 17 letters. Argh!

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    4. Kindly recount (a story or the letters).

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    5. Finally! I got *an* answer for both.

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  10. I'm surprised my comment giving the number of years separating the two classics got deleted. (IMO, Blaine's comment about the number of letters in the movie title is a bigger giveaway.) Anyway, there's a connection to a couple of Sondheim Grammy winners.

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    1. As I replied to your comment in last week's thread (which I made before realizing that Blaine had deleted it), when I got one of the titles, your clue here helped me to quickly get the other.

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    2. If you figured out one, your post would've narrowed down the other. But in retrospect I agree on your comment about letters so I've changed it.

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    3. I got the movie on my own, your clue helped me get the song.

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    4. This comment has been removed by the author.

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    5. Same here: I had the movie; your comment helped me find the song.

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    6. There is a connection to the "King."

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    7. For the record, I got the movie quickly, and saw Jan's post. That clue did not help me get the song.

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  11. The first “classic song” that came to mind was Arlo Guthrie’s Alice’s Restaurant. Obviously that can’t be the song looked for—although, no doubt, it is a classic song. It is the song I kept playing in the car on Thanksgiving Day as I went to spend it with friends across the state line. I am still whistling that recurring guitar theme. (And I can hear Arlo saying “That was horrible.”) The sun was shining, a few trees were still lush with golden leaves, and traffic was light. Hope y’all had a great Thanksgiving!

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  12. You can also spell an extremely appropriate four-word classic novel title!

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    1. (That's The Grass is Singing, which seemed nicely linked to EARTH SIGN.)

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  13. It's nice out today, think I'll meet up with some friends to talk.

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  14. I got the movie quickly. The song took a while. I'm not going to even try to post a hint, because everything I've thought of so far would be TMI.

    I can say that I immediately thought of a different movie, only 10 letters, not four words.

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  16. The longest word in the movie title contains the name of a general category. The longest word in the song title contains an example of that category.

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    1. Nice clue, though I confess I was getting a little irritated trying to decipher it till I realized the source I consulted used a different synonym for the example.

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    2. Thanks! And it's clear that you did decipher it, proving that patience is a virtue.

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    3. Right, and confession of my initial irritation felt quite virtuous too.

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    4. After clearing my head with an hour-long shootaround (basketball, not guns), I see....Nice. The key was to expand my scope.

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    5. Good one! I extracted another word from the song title at first—same number of letters, but "panned" differently. No wonder I couldn't find a matching general category. But I just took a fresh look, and I am proud to say I got it right away this time.

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    6. Nice! You came up with an original way to show you have the solution!

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    7. Thank you! I was initially feeling a bit lazy after my clue about novels, but decided to step things up a bit :).

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    8. As you all very astutely spotted, I was thinking of SIN and ANGER.

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  17. Have the movie. Working on the song. A hint here helped me confirm the movie.

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  18. This comment has been removed by a blog administrator.

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  19. I think this is a really stinky puzzle. Why, you ask? More will be revealed on Thursday.

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  20. This comment has been removed by a blog administrator.

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  21. Musical Clue, movie and song: The Doors.

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    Replies
    1. “Singin’ in the Rain,” “Strangers in the Night.”

      (The Doors’ song “People Are Strange” includes the lines “When you're strange, faces come out of the rain” and “People are strange when you're a stranger,” thus referencing “rain” and “strangers” and bringing to mind the movie and song titles that make up the answer.)

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  22. Name another lead actor known for the same thing, change one letter, then rearrange, and you'll get the name of the song's singer.

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    1. Astaire -"e" to "n"- rearrange - Sinatra

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  23. I surprised myself by again solving it while still in bed. I thought I would need lists as I am not all that good at bringing up names of movies and songs. I quickly got the song first and then the movie.

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  24. I got the movie quickly. The song came to me after coming up with a current TV show that shares the first 8 letters.

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  25. The movie reminds me of a recent movie that I saw.

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    1. A great movie: "The Heart Sees Her." (15 letters)

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    3. I saw the movie Sing in 2017. The word "Sing" is in "Singin' in the Rain". There is a sequel to Sing coming soon called Sing 2.

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  26. For those of you for whom this night is special, Happy Chanukah.

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    1. C a p, see last week (after load more) and make your move accordingly.

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  28. Sorry guys by the time I looked at the website again, it had switched to this week. Sorry to all, I had missed it. My apologies to Blaine as well.

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    1. Thanks, C a p. And Happy Chanukah!

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    2. C a p, thanks for the good wishes. I do not practice Judaism but I do celebrate light! Best wishes to all who enjoy one or both.

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  29. Santa better be careful with his sleigh around those chimneys...

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  30. Replies
    1. I was about to use the clue that is one link closer till I checked on the (alleged) authors < my link said Socrates> whatever, you beat me to it

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    2. This is a graffito that was popular in the 60s:
      Aristotle: to be is to do.
      Sartre: to do is to be.
      Sinatra: do be do be do.

      There are, of course, lots of variations, as bird points out. The version I saw substituted Nietzsche for Sartre. Never having read either of them I can't say which is closer to the mark.

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  31. This comment has been removed by the author.

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    1. This comment has been removed by the author.

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  32. Rearrange one of the names to get an aristocrat.

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    1. …..or a specific mode of transportation in the city closest to that name’s birthplace.

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  33. this comment is removable as it don't mean a thing

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    Replies
    1. ella sang above title and was a scat singer. frankie was arguably singing scat as well

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  34. I just solved it! Good puzzle. I loved it at first sight.

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  35. All right, my clue. Here goes:
    Believe it or not, he was awed by Michael Jackson.

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  36. Got the movie earlier today, just now the song came to me.
    pjbFirstThoughtHeHadNoClue,ButNowInThisPostHeHasNoHint!

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  37. Replies
    1. "Perfect strangers" -Deep Purple
      "Raindrops keep fallin' on my head"- B J Thomas

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  38. It was great this past holiday weekend. I had a couple of chances to spend a day (safely) with family, talking about something besides the weather.

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  39. I got the movie easily, although at first I miscalculated and thought it was 16 letters long. The song took longer but it did come to me. Both movie and song are familiar to me.

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  41. This comment has been removed by the author.

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    1. Hansel and Gretel have been on my mind lately. The story seems to come to an end, but not really. It just appears that everything returns to normal, something like people today think will happen after the pandemic they refuse to accept and deal with ends. Good luck with that one. But what has been on my mind is, what would the outcome be today were the story to take place in our country? Would Gretel's defense attorneys present a "stand your ground" rational? How do we know, without written, audio or video evidence what the witch's intentions were? Would her relatives even be able to obtain adequate defense being that she was rather indigent? Ask yourself why you are so quick to condemn when she may only have been attempting to get these annoying kids to leave her alone by putting on a charade. Couldn't Gretel just have walked away and called 911? Would she be tried as an adult? What advice would you give your children today were they to wander off into some vacant lot? You can see how these questions have been keeping me awake at night.

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  42. SDB,

    You're spending too much time alone!! Please don't be offended by my comment...It's not meant that way.

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    1. Cap,

      You are right. I realized this this morning when I remembered a short dream I had last night. I rarely recall my dreams. The dream was simply that I was about to walk to the door and leave what appeared to be my dorm room and my much younger roommate was sitting in a chair by the door and, while coughing, revealed that he had a cold. He assumed he had Covid and I tried to reassure him that it might just be a cold or the flu. That was all it was. I never lived in a dorm and have never dreamed of the pandemic before, but this made me aware of just how much more the pandemic may have been affecting me than I realized.

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    2. Be well. Life is too short to be wasting time. Gadzooks! Now I'm starting to sound like some old man. WHICH I AM>>>Damn!!!

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    3. See what the Dalai Lama has to say HERE.

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    4. Cap,

      "Life is too short to be wasting time." Isn't that part of what I am saying in my two above posts? You seem to miss that I frequently use humor as a means of addressing serious issues.

      ron,

      Thank you for posting that wonderful Dalai Lama quote. I had not seen it before. It reminds me of when I long ago decided to give up the corporate money chase in order to actually have a life. He has so much wisdom to offer if we would only pay more attention instead of all the attention paid to the corrupt money men in the Vatican along with their anti-abortion nonsense and refusal to deal with pedophilia and use their power for good rather than profit.

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  43. Man, we are all getting so philosophical. Hell, why not! Thanks Ron

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  44. The current Peanuts reruns feature skating judges that can't skate and unmarried marriage counselors.
    I've always liked and respected the Dalai Lama, but I am a little wary of thinking that he has had much in his life that gives him insight into mine.

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  45. an apostrophe's just a comma
    that got high, in some sorta way
    I wouldn't, shouldn't, couldn't ignore it
    that's all I've got to say

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  46. Rules for Writing

    1. Don't use no double negatives.
    2. Make each pronoun agree with their antecedent.
    3. When dangling, watch your participles.
    4. Don't use commas, which aren't necessary.
    5. Verbs has to agree with their subjects.
    6. About those sentence fragments.
    7. Try to not ever split infinitives.
    8. It is important to use apostrophe's correctly.
    9. Always check what you have written to see you any words out.
    10. Correct spelling is esential.

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    1. Wish everyone could view this list.

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    2. thies is gud rools too rite good

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    3. https://ia800905.us.archive.org/35/items/PDF4Kurd-English-Dictionary1/Dictionary-3-FMEU.pdf

      H. W. Fowler, A Dictionary of Modern English Usage, Oxford University Press, 1944

      Split Infinitive. The English-speaking world may be divided into (1) those who neither know nor care what a split infinitive is; (2) those who do not know, but care very much; (3) those who know & condemn; (4) those who know and approve; & (5) those who know & distinguish.

      1. Those who neither know nor care are the vast majority, & are a happy folk, to be envied by most of the minority classes. 'To really understand' comes readier to their lips and pens than 'really to understand'; they see no reason why they should not say it (small blame to them, seeing that reasons are not their critics' strong point), and they do say it, to the discomfort of some among us, but not to their own.
      2. To the second class, those who do not know but care, who would as soon be caught putting their knives in their mouths as splitting an infinitive but have hazy notions of what constitutes that deplorable breach of etiquette, this article is chiefly addressed. … they will subject their sentences to the queerest distortions, all to escape imaginary split infinitives …
      3. … Those who presumably do know what split infinitives are, and condemn them, are not so easily identified, since they include all who neither commit the sin nor flounder about in saving themselves from it—all who combine a reasonable dexterity with acceptance of conventional rules. But when the dexterity is lacking, disaster follows. …
      4. … those who know and approve are not distinguishable with certainty …
      5. The attitude of those who know and distinguish is something like this: We admit that separation of to from its infinitive is not in itself desirable, and we shall not gratuitously say either 'to mortally wound' or 'to mortally be wounded'; but we are not foolish enough to confuse the latter with 'to be mortally wounded', which is blameless English, nor 'to just have heard' with 'to have just heard', which is also blameless. We maintain, however, that a real s. i., though not desirable in itself, is preferable to either of two things, to real ambiguity, and to patent artificiality. …

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    4. I thoroughly enjoyed reading that, but decline to specify which group I belong in because I do not want anyone to know what a horrible student I was in school; where else would apply? That being said, I must comment on #2. Where it mentions the faux pas of inserting a knife tip into one's word trumpet. In Lisboa on vacation with two friends in 1999 we dined one evening in a posh, upscale restaurant that was packed with well dressed and mannered Portuguese adults. Each table was well appointed with numerous silverware pieces on three sides of the main plate. I was not at all unaware of formal silverware placement, as I had studied drawings in etiquette books, but I had never seen anything even close to this array. I was lost and knew I would never figure out how and why there were so many utensils, nor which ones I should be about to use. I decided not to let it bother me enough to spoil my meal and we ordered. While we were waiting our first course to arrive I noticed a gentleman at the table to my right using his knife to deliver a morsel of fish to his mouth and was shocked. I had the presence of mind to realize he was not about to be cast into the street for his indiscretion, but that it was I who must be ignorant of what in this part of the world was considered quite proper. Apparently I was correct in this assumption as I noticed others doing the same as we dined that evening. We three also managed to enjoy our meal without being violently ejected.

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    5. And then as Ogden Nash and I say--I eat my peas with honey/I've done it all my life/It makes the peas taste funny/but it keeps them on my knife.

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    6. It could be argued that this discussion is becoming cutting edge.

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    7. One more rule:
      Always remember that a preposition is the one part of speech one must never, ever end a sentence with.
      pjbBelievesThisIsSomethingUpWithWhichHeSimplyCannotPut

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    8. Or as Churchill quipped when he was chided for ending sentences with a preposition, "This is the type of errant pedantry up with which I will not put."

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    9. Fowler: preposition at end. It was once a cherished superstition that prepositions must be kept true to their name and placed before the word they govern in spite of the incurable English instinct for putting them late ('They are the fittest timber to make great politics of' said Bacon; and 'What are you hitting me for"?' says the modern schoolboy). 'A sentence ending in a preposition is an inelegant sentence' represents what used to be a very general belief, and it is not yet dead. One of its chief supports is the fact that Dryden, an acknowledged master of English prose, went through all his prefaces contriving away the final prepositions that he had been guilty of in his first editions. It is interesting to find Ruskin almost reversing this procedure. ...

      It was said above that almost all our great writers have allowed themselves to end a sentence or a clause with a preposition. A score or so of specimens follow ...

      If it were not presumptuous, after that, to offer advice, the advice would be this : Follow no arbitrary rule, but remember that there are often two or more possible arrangements between which a choice should be consciously made. If the final preposition that has naturally presented itself sounds comfortable, keep it; if it does not sound comfortable, still keep it if it has compensating vigour, or when among awkward possibilities it is the least awkward. If the 'preposition' is in fact the adverbial particle of a PHRASAL VERB, no choice is open to us; it cannot be wrested from its partner. Not even Dryden could have altered "which I will not put up with" to "up with which I will not put.

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    10. Speaking of language usage, President Biden recently had a colonoscopy. Does that mean he is now colonized?

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    11. Grammar is fluid and changes over time. The split infinitives rule began with Latin grammar because the infinitive is attached to the verb.

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  47. Even though I enjoyed reading "The Oxbow Incident," I thought the story was a bit of a stretch.

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  48. Thinking of Barenaked Ladies as a song clue made me laugh and then I realized I had given a movie hint.

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    1. Bert Kaempfert's got the mad hits from BNL's One Week. Composer of Strangers in the Night. Made me laugh references Make 'Em Laugh from Singin' in the Rain.

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  49. Uh, my last birthday was 1/23/21, and this Friday is 12/3/21 ... always using the US system of month first. When is the next palindromic date? Ha!: it is tomorrow, Thursday 12/02/2021 ! I'm not waiting till the next one of *those* ...

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    1. If we ignore leading zeros, there are 11 palindromic dates this month…12/1/21, 12/2/21, 12/3/21, 12/4/21, 12/5/21, 12/6/21, 12/7/21, 12/8/21, 12/9/21, 12/11/21 and 12/22/21.

      (And, the is Ground Hog Day, 2022, i.e., 2/2/22.)

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    2. Yes ... and tomorrow 12/02/2021 is more special, mirroring the whole year. Next one of those is ... 03/02/2030. And thank you for the G H Day note ... a family birthday too!

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  50. I have the song, not the movie.

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  51. No clue here: Right after I graduated high school, many decades ago, I went on a brief bus tour in Europe. The driver had rigged the bus with a horn that played this song.

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    1. And, coincidentally, we just watched the movie. It’s one of the few of its genre that I truly enjoy

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    2. I can't imagine going on a bus tour without being fully clothed. :-)

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  52. According to rumors, two of them dated.

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  53. There’s a friends connection to the song

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  54. Singin' in the Rain (1952) (15 letters) &
    Strangers in the Night (Frank Sinatra, 1966) (19 letters)

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  55. SINGIN' IN THE RAIN and STRANGERS IN THE NIGHT

    My Hints:

    "Cole Porter" He composed "I Love Paris," which is the setting for the movie.

    "60 Minutes" This is the only TV I watch regularly, and, by coincidence, Sunday evening the third segment was about Rita Moreno, who was cast in the movie, and a poster of the movie flashed on my TV screen causing me to laugh.

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  56. SINGIN’ IN THE RAIN + “STRANGERS IN THE NIGHT”

    Hint #1: “Numerical clue: 415” refers to the street address, 415 Monroe Street, Hoboken, NJ, where Frank Sinatra was born.

    Hint: #2: “Alas, Poor Yorick!” is an example of the literary device of apostrophe. A different type of apostrophe—the punctuation mark—appears in the title of the movie.

    The song title came to me first, but I initially thought the movie title spelled its first word with all 7 letters. I then realized that sixteen letters was probably too close to fifteen to be just a coincidence, so subsequent checking of the title online disabused me of my misconception.

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  57. SINGIN' IN THE RAIN (which I got quickly)
    STRANGERS IN THE NIGHT (which took a while)

    I had said (after a day to come up with something):

    I had a couple of chances to spend a day (safely) with family, talking about something besides the weather.

    This, of course, is loaded with references--day (opposite of night); family (opposite of strangers); talking (as opposed to singin'), and the weather (a reference to the rain. Glad to see it was not considered TMI.

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  58. SINGIN' IN THE RAIN, STRANGERS IN THE NIGHT

    > There's a connection to a couple of Sondheim Grammy winners.
    > Google celebrate Seurat's birthday.

    "Send in the Clowns" and "Sunday in the Park with George" are also of the form "S[blank] in the [blank]".

    > Santa better be careful with his sleigh around those chimneys...

    ... or he could end up singein' the reins!

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    1. Since you mentioned that Sondheim work, Brian O'Nolan aka Flann O'Brien aka Myles na gCopaleen once wrote that he traced the influences of a particularly mediocre painter “more in Seurat than in Ingres.” You're welcome.

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  59. Movie: Singin' in The Rain, Song: Strangers In The Night

    It’s funny how the mind works. While combing through a list of song titles, my brain went from song to sing and singing. A quick check of the movie’s actual title and I was half way home.

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  60. I wrote, “Take the last three letters of both titles. Rearrange. You get something we have too much of these days.” That’s HATING.

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  61. SINGIN' IN THE RAIN and STRANGERS IN THE NIGHT

    One comment I posted talked about the way I spent Thanksgiving. The comment made mentions of whistling and the sun shining (instead of singing and rain), as well as friends and (Thanksgiving) Day (instead of strangers and night).

    Jyqm managed to make similar allusions in a much shorter comment—a one-liner, in fact! In recognition of that, I posted a reply minutes ago: "In fewer words, huh?"

    Finally, Dr. Awkward aka Veronica made that astute observation about the category of sin and one example of that, anger. I indicated my understanding by plugging another sin (pride) in my reply.

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  62. I posted on Sun Nov 28, at 06:31:00 AM PST:

    The actor and the singer referred to in Blaine's clue were in a movie together.

    And after the reply surferwoman made on Sun Nov 28, at 10:54:00 AM PST,...

    More than one!

    I admitted on Tue Nov 30, at 02:25:00 AM PST:

    You're right! The IMDb Collaborations Search page, with the actor and the singer listed in the "Two People in the Same Title" names fields, turns up 25 titles! The first 4 being movies; and oh man, all those TV specials!

    ...which I followed on Tue Nov 30, at 02:30:00 AM PST with...

    At least the movie I originally had in mind turns up at #1 on that search.

    "Singin' in the Rain" (starring Gene Kelly) & "Strangers in the Night" (sung by Frank Sinatra)

    The movie I had in mind was "Anchors Aweigh".

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  63. This week's Puzzleria! features a very clever puzzle created by our friend and very clever puzzle-maker skydiveboy. It involves filling in two blanks with words of a dozen letters each.
    There is also a puzzle slice about an appointment book entry for January 6, 2021
    We are also serving up about a dozen, more or less, other puzzles on our Puzzleria! menus this week, including riff-offs of the strange and rainy NPR puzzle.
    Puzzleria! is uploaded in the wee hours of Friday, just after Midnight PST.
    Stop by and fill in our blanks!

    LegoAllWrappedUpInHisLinusBlanket

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  64. SINGIN' IN THE RAIN, STRANGERS IN THE NIGHT

    "Fun crossover possibilities." as in SINGIN' IN THE NIGHT or STRANGERS IN THE RAIN.

    "I think this is a really stinky puzzle. WhY, you ask? More will be revealed on Thursday." >>> "A REALLY STINKY" anagrams to "KELLY + SINATRA + Y."

    "XIIIS" translates to 13.5 in Roman Numerals (S = 1/2). SINATRA weighed 13.5 pounds at birth.

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    Replies
    1. There are, of course, songs with both those names on YouTube.

      More familiar would be the Beatles song that comes close to quoting your first title: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Man4Xw8Xypo

      And then there is https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Q4REEz5wars

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  65. Singin' in the Rain, Strangers in the Night

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  66. Singin’ in the Rain, Strangers in the Night

    Last Sunday I said, “Clue: Ray Charles.” He sang both “RAINy NIGHT in Georgia” and “The NIGHT time is the Right Time.”

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  67. I realized too late that I could have used Spain's greatest cyclist as a clue: https://www.latimes.com/archives/la-xpm-1996-08-04-ss-31362-story.html. But maybe it's better that I didn't.

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  68. I mentioned that there was a three-word film with 15 letters and all the EARTHSIGN letters: THE GREAT SANTINI. I was unable to find a three-word song title with 19 letters, which would have rounded out a complementary challenge.

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  69. SINGIN' IN THE RAIN, STRANGERS IN THE NIGHT

    I wrote that "I miss the OLD JEOPARDY," because I miss Alex Trebek.

    And as much as everyone thinks of Gene Kelly re: the movie "Singin' in the Rain," I have to admit, sheepishly, that when I think of the song "Singin' in the Rain," I automatically think of Malcolm McDowell as ALEX in Clockwork Orange. Dare I say that is the iconic performance that I can't get out of my mind.

    Please don't tell my wife or my therapist.

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  70. My comment was removed by an administrator (Got it finally! Now I'm going out on the town to celebrate!) "On The Town" was a movie that starred Frank Sinatra and Gene Kelly. I honestly didn't think that was TMI because a prior comment stated that the actor and the singer were in a movie together. Guess I still have a lot to learn about posting clues.

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  71. I wonder if we need a orthopedist on retainer for Thursday afternoons.

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  72. I'm happy that I solved the movie.

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  73. My clue was: he was awed by Michael Jackson. This refers to Gene Kelly, who visited Michael Jackson in Encino, CA. Kelly said Jackson "knows when to stop and then flash out like a bolt of lightning."

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  74. Singin' In The Rain/Strangers In The Night. My clue about the movie and the film having something else in common other than the letters got deleted. Not sure why, but they are both song titles, and both movie titles. Also, Debbie Reynolds supposedly dated Frank Sinatra. Oddly, the main three characters in SITR, and Frank Sinatra all died in California.

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  75. SINGIN' IN THE RAIN, STRANGERS IN THE NIGHT
    pjbSaysThat'llShoobeeDoobeeDooItForAnotherWeek!

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  76. I did get the answer but too busy yesterday to post "Singin' in the Rain" and "Strangers in the Night"

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  77. I want to both thank Lego for running the puzzle I coined last week and sent to Will Shortz, who thought it too easy and so rejected using it. I disagree, and invite you all to head on over to Lego's Puzzleria! to solve it. (Link above and to the right. ron already seems to have solved it, and cranberry finds it so upsetting he wants me to die skydiving. All I can say is I hope you all enjoy it, and that it contains more blanks than an Alec Baldwin prop gun.

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    1. Skydiveboy: If she's setting world records, isn't the person who shot this footage, too?

      (She could probably go even faster if it weren't for that bulky pack on her back....)

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    2. jan,
      I had not heard of this. I always heard we could probably exceed 200 MPH in a properly executed head down dive. I used to do that on occasion. You really feel the speed, but I had not heard of what you are referring to. I would like to watch the video you are referring to, but I cannot open it. I take the free NYT online daily email. I am supposed to get 10 free articles eacvh month, but lately it will not let me access even one a month. I tried accessing it via the library, but I can only get the article and the video is not included. I understand your question, but need to see the video in order to properly answer it.

      In the meantime I have a question for you that I came up with earlier this morning. I will now post it below for everyone.

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    3. jan,

      I managed to find another way to watch what I believe is the 30 second video you mentioned. The NYT article it accompanies begins:

      "Kyle Lobpries jumps out of the airplane — backward. As he watches it fly away, he leans back and shifts his gaze toward the inverted horizon, the sky bowing before the earth."

      What a crock of shit! Kyle is not jumping backwards from the plane. Neither is he jumping. He is diving out. This is conventional exiting and not backwards. It is looking forward and he is unable to see the plane in his position after leaving, and is not "shifting his gaze toward the inverted horizon." Prose any editor would love, but completely inaccurate. I still cannot fully answer your question about how it was filmed. When I would do a Tandem skydive sans drogue and it was being filmed the photographer could not keep up with our rate of descent. We were typically going at 180 mph compared with 120 mph, which is typical. Anything you read that is written by a non-skydiver about skydiving is going to be misleading at best, and full of false information.

      One time I was doing a Tandem skydive with a student and it was being filmed by Ron Hesse. Ron did a lot of video skydiving and was himself a Tandem instructor. During this particular skydive he was right in our faces during the freefall. When the main chute was activated it streamered big time. This put our two bodies into a feet to earth verticle position which would normally substantially increase our rate of descent. However, because of the drag created by the uninflated parachute our rate of descent remained the same as during normal freefall, 120 mph or so. Ron kept filming and stayed right in our faces until I cutaway the streamering main and we dropped quickly below him as I then dumped the reserve chute. I loved that skydive; it was a hoot. I don't believe I have a copy of that one although I did see it after. I made many, many skydives that were filmed that I never even saw afterwards. I was too busy.

      Delete
  78. Anyone here know what the difference is between a frat party and a fart party?

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    1. This comment has been removed by the author.

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    2. Yes. A frat party (especially one where beer flows freely) is populated with many a prat farty. But a fart party is only part farty.

      LegoScatting(AndNotProudOfIt!)

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    3. Frat parties are for younger people and Fart parties for people who are older than SDB (like me!)

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    4. ANSWER:

      The answer is that both parties stink, but no one dies at a fart party.

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    5. ...except, of course, for any houseplants that may be in the frathouse vicinity.

      LegoWhoPrefers"LoudButLively"To"SilentButDeadly"

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    6. I coined that joke this morning as I awoke. It appears on the surface to be nothing more than a silly, slightly off color, mindless joke. However, with a more careful examination it shows itself to be a perfect example of Peter Ustinov's oft quoted insight:

      "Comedy is simply a funny way of being serious."
      Peter Ustinov

      My joke at first presents itself as both simple word play and a fart joke, but please notice that it also is telling us that promising collage students are losing their lives needlessly at fraternity hazing parties. And while perhaps most will not consciously make this connection, it still is entering that conscious mind of theirs.

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    7. Pastiche lives matter, too. And let's not forget the montages.

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    8. Didn't they have problem with the Capulets?

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  79. This week's challenge comes from listener Tom Bible, of Cincinnati. Think of a word to describe a single animal. Change the third letter to get a word that describes the plural of that animal. Both are nouns, and neither word contains an "s."

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  80. More than 900 correct responses this week.

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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.

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