The puzzle is easy -- a clue, not so much.Q: Think of a common phrase in the form "___ of my ___." The word that goes in the first blank is the name of a well-known company. And the word that goes in the second blank sounds like part of the names of many of that company's products. What phrase is it?
A: Easy as (apple) pie.
A: APPLE of my EYE (I in iMac, iPhone, iPod, iPad, etc.)
Not true for the first 22 years!
ReplyDeleteKind of like "P&G of my Gillette."
DeleteThis comment has been removed by the author.
ReplyDeleteRight here, right now!
ReplyDeleteThe puzzle is not challenging, but it does have a certain amount of elegance in that the answer is an apt description of the relationship that the typical user of the company’s best-known product bears to the product itself.
ReplyDeleteIn its ease and simplicity, some may find this puzzle appealing.
ReplyDeleteI like Blaine's "Story of my Life" riff. I spend too much time on this blog. It's the Blaine of my Existence....
ReplyDeleteHow easy is this one? Love of my life...
ReplyDeletelife boat, life vest, lifetime friendship, lifelong friend...
DeleteOver 2000 responses this week!
ReplyDeleteI think it was in fact Jackson Browne, not the Eagles, who wrote the song "Take It Easy"!
ReplyDeleteWhich is better?
DeleteAlways Jackson Browne!
DeleteAnd the first syllable ... oh, never mind.
ReplyDeleteYeah. Same goes for my musical clue.
DeleteMy brother Bob always listens to the puzzle. My brother Johnny, not so much.
ReplyDeleteWhat about your sister, the one whose name begins with M?
DeleteGreat day to go for a long hike and take pics of beautiful foliage. Trees will have dropped everything soon enough.
ReplyDeleteMcMuffin
ReplyDeleteMcFlurry
McNuggets
McCafe
McGriddles
McChicken
...and for the last time around (thankfully) MCRIB!!!
The actual answer was the first thing that came to mind when the puzzle said: " word that goes in the second blank sounds like part of the names of many of that company's products."
Such a Biblical phrase
ReplyDeleteIn the beginning... the number of the Beast!
DeleteTell me my clue isn't lame.
ReplyDeleteMy clue isn't lame.
DeleteFunny Ben! One of my core values is that laughter truly is good medicine.
DeleteUsually by now someone has posted a musical clue….I wonder if there’s a good one for this.
ReplyDeleteMany would be too obvious--tmi--and Blaine would justifiably pull them, but here's one that's obscure enough and might avoid the axe: Henry Burr.
DeleteStevie Wonder
Delete57k
ReplyDeleteThis company currently has a strong connection with the letter "c".
ReplyDeleteThis company currently has a strong connection with the letter "c". Apple devices now get their current through a c-type USB connection.
DeleteDon’t let last week’s bomb color your enthusiasm for this week’s puzzle.
ReplyDeleteI actually got an acknowledgment email this week, after many weeks of not getting those emails. All I can say is that the company name in today's puzzle hasn't been verbed yet, like Xerox and Google.
ReplyDeleteMusical cue: Funny Girl.
ReplyDeleteGwyneth Paltrow
ReplyDeleteGwyneth Paltrow's daughter is named Apple.
DeleteMusical Clue: Blind Owl
ReplyDeleteThe first three letters of the company name also seem relevant.
ReplyDeleteISWYDT
DeleteWYSIWYG
DeleteLOL
DeleteGMTA
DeleteWonderful! Unlike the last several weeks, we have puzzle that did not require searching through lists or serpentine logic.
ReplyDeleteWord Woman mentioned last week that the whole puzzle seemed like a plug for the movie. The boast of high Rotten Tomato scores and the inflated (IMHO) number of correct responses may bear this out.
ReplyDeleteIf there were 2000 answers, then expect 20,000 this week.
Easiest on-air segment ever?
Yes, plugging the movie was the number 1 goal of last week's puzzle. Even Jeopardy! has plugged categories every now and then. I'm not entirely fond of the practice. I also despise ads hawking stuff when I'm pumping gas. Let's leave the plugging to hairline products, eh?
DeleteYou think Studio A24 paid Weekend Edition or Will Shortz for using their movie title? That is really, really implausible.
DeleteImplausible? Yet Trump was actually our President.
DeleteNobody mentioned weekend Edition, which I don't think has much say in Shortz's choice of material.
DeleteNobody mentioned "paid" either. There are many ways to enjoy quids pro quo for for plugging a product.
I think Will did so to the detriment of the puzzle and that's plausible.
Oh, what was the quid pro quo? You think Will got something from Studio A24, but not necessarily money, is that right?
DeleteWhat's the evidence for this fairly serious charge?
Of course I can only guess what pro quo quid was involved, just the clues (noted above) that it seems likely.
DeleteAnd it is not a "serious charge," only an observation.
Tis the season, I suppose.
ReplyDeleteYes, an apt puzzle for the eve of Halloween!
DeleteIf we thought 2,000 was a lot of puzzle submissions, how about next week's 10,000?
ReplyDeleteHow big is the Weekend Edition audience?
we will find out as soon as he announces total correct, no one is gonna puzzle much on this one
DeleteIs it just me, or have all the puzzles lately been either ridiculously easy (like this week's), or ridiculously hard (like last week's)?
ReplyDeleteIn any case, name a British band who has three different connections to the puzzle answer.
I can think of a British musician who rather famously has no connection to the puzzle answer.
DeleteAnd I have an American one who has a direct connection to it, but then also rather prominently lacks a direct connection to it!
DeleteSo many people predicting 10K or more answers this week. I think it will be more than 1976. Heck, I'm confident in 50 more than that. But numbers above that, and my vision gets cloudy. I don't want to predict higher numbers, even though this looks like a blockbuster right now.
ReplyDeleteThink of an unrelated company with the same name. There's a rhyming, two-word phrase that was commonly used to describe the founders of the company. Reverse the letters of the first word of that phrase. Translate a homophone of the resulting word from French.
ReplyDeletehttps://news.yahoo.com/peoples-bodies-now-run-cooler-180429911.html
ReplyDeleteAnd you can rearrange the letters of "cool" to get "loco", which proves about as much.
DeleteAre you saying we should trust you and not the science? That really sounds loco to me.
DeleteAnagram the missing words to have a sword fight.
ReplyDeleteI have an idea for the puzzle, but I haven't been able to figure out how to submit it. I'm a bit of a Luddite, so I would appreciate any help. Thanks.
ReplyDeleteOh, I mean, that I would like to send my idea to NPR, not that I have an idea for this week's puzzle, which was a no-brainer.
ReplyDeleteGo to where you submit your answer and at the very top click on CHANGE
DeleteSadly, there is no such choice on the web page I use. Thanks for your help, in any case.
DeleteGo to help.npr.org/contact/s/ , click on The Sunday Puzzle button, and then Suggest a puzzle idea.
DeleteThanks! That did the trick!
DeleteThere's a movie, a song, a Biblical quote. It's difficult to clue more directly.
ReplyDeleteRene used a face-full of it.
ReplyDeleteRene Magritte's famous painting "Son of Man" depicts a fellow in suit and bowler hat with his face (and eyes) obscured by an apple.
DeleteTrump asks U.S. Supreme Court to block lawmakers from obtaining tax returns
ReplyDeleteDon't read too much into this though. I'm sure he isn't hiding anything.
https://news.yahoo.com/trump-asks-u-supreme-court-170123244.html
Reminds of that show about people helping strangers.
ReplyDeleteThe edition of Puzzleria! that we uploaded last Friday features a superb Halloween challenge created by Rudolfo, plus a whole mess of masterful "Conquer/Concur"-style riff-offs, courtesy of Ecoarchitect.
ReplyDeleteAnd, for those Blainesvillians who have already solved this week's "story-of-my-life" NPR puzzle, here are a few current Puzzleria! offerings that are perhaps a bit more of a challenge:
#1. Take someone who puts out figurative fires, in two words and four syllables. Delete the second syllable and the space. “Squish together” the first two letters of the third syllable to form a new letter (for example, “r” and “n” would resemble an “m”). The result sounds like a vehicle that might help put out literal fires. What are these two "fire extinguishers?"
Hint: The second syllable that you deleted is a synonym of “compose” or “enclose.”
#2. Name a literary work with a multiple-word title in which all the words have the same number of letters (Like "Madame Bovary" or "All's Well That Ends Well"). Replace the last word in the title with a synonym. The initial letters of this result spell something you may grow in your garden.
What is the synonym and what may you grow in your garden?
LegoWhoInvitesAllToVisitOurPuzzleria!Blog
Ayesha Rascoe said there were over 2000 responses to the puzzle last week. She did not say they were correct responses.
ReplyDeleteI missed that qualifier on Sunday morning.
DeleteOver the years, that number has been all over the place and, I'm afraid, sometimes reflects what the want us to believe rather than the reality.
It strikes me that this particular answer was pretty unique in that no other possible submission could have been made.
I've always encouraged the PM to recognize alternative answers, but this time there were none.
Musical clue: Badfinger
ReplyDeleteTake the real name of a musician. Remove the last syllables of the first and last name to get a two-word phrase that describes the real identity of a fictional superhero.
ReplyDeleteYou know, a lot of big companies tout themselves as creating jobs. This one, quite the opposite!
ReplyDeleteAPPLE OF MY EYE
ReplyDeletePuzzleria! is proud to feature this week a quartet of "Skydiverting" puzzles penned by our friend skydiveboy. These "Skydiversions" involve:
ReplyDelete1. "Municipersonalities,"
2. a country, capital and "pristine letters,"
3. an island not named Cook that is nevertheless associated with cookware, and
4. an irreverent quest for "a phrase seldom heard in church."
We upload P! every early Friday, just after Midnight PDT.
Our menus this week also include:
* a Schpuzzle of the Week titled "A Portrait of the Poultry Artist as a Young Man,"
* a Puzzle Slice about a light one might sight in the night sky,
* a Dessert Puzzle that invites you to “Meet the Beatles’... kinfolk!” and
* seven riff-offs of the NPR "Apple of our i...Phone" puzzle that we all took a bite out of.
Come join us for some "Skydiversion-immersion" and other "mystidiversity!"
LegoWhoInvitesYouAllTo"MeetOurUnBeatleblePuzzles!"
APPLE, I (EYE) PAD, POD, etc
ReplyDelete"What can I say? How about simple to go with easy..." >>> Simple Simon met a pieman (APPLE of course).
"57k" There are about 57,000 genes in APPLES. Whoa.
Apple of my eye/Apple, iPad, iPod, iMac, etc.
ReplyDeleteMy comment that it was nice to have a “…puzzle that did not, require searching through lists or serpentine logic,” was a reference to the serpent which tempted Eve to eat the fruit of the Tree of Knowledge, commonly portrayed in Western art as an apple.
APPLE OF MY EYE & iPhone/iPad, whatever
ReplyDeleteAPPLE OF MY EYE
ReplyDeleteHint #1: “ap-peal-ing” —> “peel” (a clue that, like the puzzle itself, was easy and virtually transparent)
My second (and obscure) music hint: “Henry Burr.” Henry Burr was an immensely popular early 20th-century singer, a pioneer in the nascent music industry, one of whose dozens of hits, from 1905, was “In the Shade of the Old Apple Tree.” Since I subsequently found out that the song title would turn up in a web search for his songs (among many others, though), I was somewhat surprised the hint wasn’t removed.
My thanks to Blaine, who chose not to remove either hint.
APPLE of my EYE → Apple Products: iMac, iPad, iPod, iPhone, etc.
ReplyDeleteAPPLE OF MY EYE. I said the answer is an apt description of the relationship that the typical user of the company’s best-known product bears to the product. The apple of one's eye is defined by Urban Dictionary as “someone that you look at a lot and enjoy seeing.”
ReplyDeleteAPPLE OF MY EYE
ReplyDeleteI had said. "So many people predicting 10K or more answers this week. I think it will be more than 1976. Heck, I'm confident in 50 more than that. But numbers above that, and my vision gets cloudy. I don't want to predict higher numbers, even though this looks like a blockbuster right now."
Apple was started in 1976, and is still going strong in 2022, and probably still will be in 2026 (50-years later, hence my 50 more). But hey, Blockbuster Video was looking great, and then experienced a rapid decline after Netflix launched. I'm not saying that would happen to Apple, but it's amazing how rapidly things can change with tech companies.
APPLE OF MY EYE
ReplyDelete> Not true for the first 22 years!
The Apple I came out in April, 1976, the iMac G3 not until August, 1998. The iBook, iPod, iPhone, and iPad came even later.
> In the beginning... the number of the Beast!
$666!
> Yes, an apt puzzle for the Eve of Halloween!
Bobbing for apples, and the Garden of Eden thing.
> Think of an unrelated company with the same name. There's a rhyming, two-word phrase that was commonly used to describe the founders of the company. Reverse the letters of the first word of that phrase. Translate a homophone of the resulting word from French.
Apple [Records] -> mop top -> pom -> pomme -> apple!
I thought of posting The Beatles as a clue, but thought it would be deleted as too revealing by bringing Apple Records to mind right away.
DeleteNow that all is said and done, jan, I'd like to give your preliminary hint the raspberry it deserved: https://www.raspberrypi.com/
DeleteSee, also, Natasha's comment, below.
My "preliminary hint" was simply: "Easy as ..."
DeleteAs I said, Blaine deleted my comment, deleted two letters ("as"), and went with just "The puzzle is easy".
There are many kinds of pie. As for your raspberry, I'll say that Arduino puns are ... arduous?
I've never toyed with either flavor of single-board processor. As a kid, I played with model rockets and planes, so if I were a kid today, I'd probably be homebrewing kamikaze drones.
I wonder if Blaine was referring to "easy" as pie...apple pie.
ReplyDeleteAPPLE of my EYE
ReplyDeleteMy clue: Right here, right now!
I was on my Apple computer—right there, right then!
Apple of my eye
ReplyDeleteLast week I said, “Don’t let last week’s bomb color your enthusiasm for this week.” Both apples and eyes come in different colors.
In a later post I said, “Anagram the missing words to have a sword fight.” “Appleeye” anagrams to “epee play.”
I swooped in with a last-minute clue: "You know, a lot of big companies tout themselves as creating jobs. This one, quite the opposite!"
ReplyDeleteWhile other companies create jobs, in the case of Apple, (Steve) Jobs created it.
big jobs — n pl British excrement, defecation. A mainly middle class nursery term, in use since the 1940s … Contemporary slang
DeleteMy clue referred to Badfinger. I thought it might be too obvious just to post the band name, although I really doubt many solved struggled with this one. The connections: 1) Badfinger recorded for Apple Records (obvious); 2) they recorded a song called "Apple of My Eye"; and 3) they used to be known as the Iveys, which made me think of former Apple product designer, Jony Ive.
ReplyDeleteAPPLE of my EYE
ReplyDeleteMy clue: I think it was in fact Jackson Browne, not the Eagles, who wrote the song "Take It Easy"!
I thought it was too much a giveaway to mention the Beatles, who recorded on Apple Records. Instead I mentioned the song "Take It Easy", because John Lennon wrote the line "Take It Easy, Take It Easy, Everybody's got something to hide...."
My clue - I wonder if there’s a good musical clue for this one - was a reference to Stevie Wonder and “You are the sunshine of my life….you are the apple of my eye”. CAP - I guess you didn’t pick up on my subtler clue for this!
ReplyDeleteMy clue, "Blind Owl", referred to the Badfinger song that was the B-side of their last single for Apple Records. The A-side was "Apple of My Eye".
ReplyDeleteI forgot to mention that I at first was thinking, Love of my Life and similar. I was first to see Blaine's picture hint and realized it was not going to end in LIFE. I then thought of, LAND of my BLANK. I was thinking the company might be Polaroid Land Cameras. Then I quickly got the intended answer to this awful puzzle. I have long noticed that WS tends to use terms and expressions in these puzzle offerings that I do not use or think of. This puzzle is no exception. I have never used this expression.
ReplyDeleteWhen I was just 4 years old my parents took me to the Ringling Bros. and Barnum & Bailey Circus. I soon realized that our situation was going to be in tents.
ReplyDeleteMany years later one of my close friends enrolled in Ringling Bros. and Barnum & Bailey Clown College. He didn't last long however due to him taking his studies too seriously.
DeleteMy comment was "Tell me my clue isn't lame." That was a nod to William Tell who shot an apple off his son's head. There was a hilarious Far Side cartoon that had a picture of a kid with a huge head and a tiny apple setting on top. He was saying "Come on dad, shoot the apple!" The caption was "Unknown to most historians William Tell had an older less fortunate son named Warren."
ReplyDeleteI suppose I should have thought of that and posted The Lone Ranger as a hint.
DeleteIOAg!
DeleteThis week's challenge comes from Simeon Seigel, of Brooklyn. Name a punctuation mark found on a computer keyboard. Somewhere inside this insert a word for what this punctuation mark may be part of or what it may represent. The result will be a 10-letter word associated with painting. What words are these?
ReplyDelete