Change the penultimate letter to an S and rearrange to name things that some people might treasure.Q: The "zh" sound can be spelled in many different ways in English — like the "s" in MEASURE; like the "g" in BEIGE; like the "z" in AZURE; like the "j" in MAHARAJAH; and like the "x" in LUXURY as some people pronounce it. The "zh" sound can also be spelled as a "t" in one instance. We know of only one common word this is true of, not counting its derivatives. What word is it?
Edit: Rearranging the letters you get ANTIQUES. My thumbnail image also had horizontal lines reminiscent of an equal sign.
A: EQUATION
Once again, easier to solve than it first seemed.
ReplyDeleteThe solution has another unusual property
ReplyDeleteThis is not easy to clue without giving it away. Good luck!
ReplyDeleteNot certain of that. Wolfgang and Dr. K did a formidable job.
DeleteThanks, Ben! (If it is just below the threshold of being "blog-administrated"…!)
DeleteOK, I searched and found one t / zh word, pronunciation verified, but I would be surprised if one is the maximum value of members of this set.
ReplyDeleteThat set most definitely has 1 member. This follows from the ZF axioms -- one of the axioms is particularly relevant.
DeleteGood clue, Blaine. I know quite a few people who do. It may have to do with where I live.
ReplyDeleteWhich is Greater Boston. A lot of history to go around, often tied to artifacts—which are, of course…antiques.
DeleteNice one, Blaine.
ReplyDeleteI think Ayesha said there were over 1300 correct entries this week.
ReplyDeleteThere may be a hint in Will's presentation of the puzzle.
My prediction based on the Roman numeral sum for acetyl salicylic acid actually wasn't far off! This week's total should be much lower, and so far it will not include me.
DeleteOK; now it includes me, but I still think this is a tough one to solve.
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DeleteI noticed that possible hint also.
DeleteThis one tracks.
ReplyDeleteGot it fairly quickly, but I may have an advantage over many participants.
ReplyDeleteOne of my favorite IPA symbols, /ʒ/.
ReplyDeleteStraightforward puzzle. Difficult to clue. Can't really zhuzh this one up.
For those who have yet to solve it or who think that a hint or clue may be difficult, don’t be discouraged. Education may help, but as my better half put it, “When one is confronted by doubt, a quiet no will suffice to dispel it.”
ReplyDeleteI may follow some wise advice and keep my mouth shut this week. (But probably not.)
ReplyDeleteI’m thinking of a quality that would be desired by many people.
ReplyDeleteI finally have it and it's not "tsar"
ReplyDeleteWell, as is usual with pronunciation puzzles, I'm only 90% sure I have it—but for now, I'll pat myself on the back and call it a day!
ReplyDeleteupdated to add: I think I have a second answer now...
Delete(before I got to "equation," I was thinking of "congratulate," which doesn't quite work)
DeleteMusical clue: Sam Cooke
ReplyDeleteI can't remember a Sunday Puzzle involving pronunciation that didn't run into problems.
ReplyDeleteI don't think Will said "zh" but only made the sound.
Some of his examples are "sh" in dictionaries.
T as "ch" is quite common and often is too close to the others for me to be sure of.
What is finally accepted will be interesting.
Oh, which of his examples are 'sh' in dictionaries? I think British people sometimes say
Delete/ˈlʌkʃ(ə)ri/
but that would be a 'problem' only if he posed the puzzle on the BBC!
As jsulbyrne notes, the IPA for the sound Will means is /ʒ/. I think it would have been nice if the web page version of the problem included that -- and the "zh" too for people who'd be frightened off by IPA.
You're gonna need a frothy IPA to solve this one.
DeleteCongratulations to all: no entries were removed by the blog administrator last week! (Nor this week, so far.)
ReplyDeleteGiven that Blaine noted that giving clues for this one is not easy, I'm expecting at least one comment to be removed. I had a few comments in mind that might have been removed, until I finally thought of something that gives nothing away, unless you know a fact about me.
DeleteYou gave it away a few months ago!
DeleteMy answer fits Blaine's clue. Not sure how I solved this puzzle. Was going to put it behind me.
ReplyDeleteI like this word. A lot of words have T sounding like "sh", like facetious.
ReplyDeleteYes, it's curious that in this word alone it's pronounced "zh". I did find a couple of very obscure words with this pronunciation, but nothing else commonly seen. Maybe after Thursday some linguist among us could explain why?
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DeleteI like equations because I like math. "Equation" and "facetious" both use every vowel exactly once.
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ReplyDeleteRight, but the first one, the one the puzzle is using, is the preferred one. Not that I particularly like this puzzle. BTW, I sent him another suggestion for an NPR puzzle this morning which he already has rejected, as 2 others I sent him last week.
DeleteI deleted my post as was not accurate. I never got a rejection for my submission. You are fortunate to get a personal rejection.
DeleteNPR has never sent rejections, they are just not accepted and used. I expect Lego will be using my rejected puzzles in the future.
DeleteSo you send puzzle suggestions to WS email not NPR. I could do that in the future. I liked my last one. Maybe will send to ws.
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ReplyDeleteExcept Will already mentioned LUXURY as an example of this.
DeleteI forgot that. But Will did not mention that luxury was the only word using x.
DeleteI pronounce it "luck jury." (lŭk) (jo͝or′ē)
DeleteI will have an embarrassing admission on Thursday regarding how I came up with this week's answer.
ReplyDeleteI submitted an answer that sounded correct to me. Left wondering if my pronunciation matches others'.
ReplyDeleteThis comment has been removed by the author.
ReplyDeleteI thought of one of my sexy teachers in high school.
ReplyDeleteThis puzzle was simpler than today's Wordle
ReplyDeleteMusical clue: 2gether
ReplyDeleteI prefer my pi to be edible.
ReplyDeleteWalmart.
ReplyDeleteReplace the fourth letter with its nextdoor neighbor and rearrange to lead to something a famous writer described as overpowering. The writer's initials are the third, fourth, and fifth letters of this word.
ReplyDeleteHmmm.
DeleteI'm pretty sure I know what you're referring to, and that you have the same answer I have, even though there seem to me to be two mistakes in the clue, either of which should make me think my answer doesn't match yours. (Maybe there's some tricky twist I'm missing.)
Here's a test: can you think of a different work that would better have been clued yesterday?
Yes. My skills as a cluer are a work in progress, but I see no mistakes in the hint I posted above. I don't mean to waste your time on trivialities, however.
DeleteOkay I think I see after all how what you actually said fits -- more Thursday!
DeleteGreat; thanks for inquiring.
DeleteNow I totally get it.
DeleteI think I just had too much on my plate, no room for your thing.
Works for me; you must have had your hands full.
DeleteSolved this one. I feel this was more of word trivia than a puzzle. A puzzle should have some word manipulation or at the minimum, some math involved.
ReplyDeletePredicting 1000+ correct entries this week. Admittedly I completely blew it on the estimate last week.
I'll go with 500.
DeleteAgreed - this is not a puzzle.
DeleteYou nailed it Jan! I thought there'd be more people who knew this...
Deletejan,
ReplyDeleteI have a Covid 19 question for you. Recently you said you tested pos after you were over it for some time. I got it over 2 weeks back and had almost no symptoms at all for 2 days and then felt fine, but developed a bit of a cough and tested pos although I am perfectly well. Today I tested negative, but still have a tiny bit of the cough left. Does that, in your opinion, mean I cannot infect anyone now?
You got Covid over 2 weeks ago, and completed a course of Paxlovid. If you're testing negative now, you're likely no longer infectious.
DeleteYeah, I took the 5 day course of Paxlovid, but kept testing pos until today. They said I might test pos for awhile, but not have Covid. I just don't want to pass it on to anyone other than Joe Manchin. Thanks.
DeleteAs far as I'm concerned, if someone is testing positive on a rapid antigen test, they're infectious, whether or not you'd consider them to have Covid.
DeleteYeah, that is how I played it. It was nice to get a negative result today.
DeleteStay healthy, sbd. BTW, did you see the story on NPR about the skydiver whose foot got caught in the passenger seat belt? Shouldn't they have removed that when they removed the seat?
DeleteYes, I heard it. Nothing story. No, it only needed to be unfastened. I also have stories about stupid pilots and seatbelts.
ReplyDeleteGordon Lightfoot. Reminds me that the first Capitol Steps song I ever heard was "The Wreck of the Walter Fritz Mondale". (Unless it was "Thank God I'm a Contra Boy".) I guess I'm just perverse.
ReplyDeleteTotally not a puzzle. A (somewhat) interesting trivia question at best.
ReplyDeleteI get why some are saying it's a trivia question.
ReplyDeleteBut with trivia questions, you either know it or you don't, and if you don't you're going to have to ask someone or look it up. E.g. (an interesting piece of trivia, I think), what is the only world capital that is divided into two time zones? I mean, you aren't going to be able to figure that out!
But this week's NPR puzzle isn't like that. We all know this word, and we all know, in some sense, that it has a 't' that's pronounced /ʒ/, so it's just a matter of thinking of it -- of recalling it from your memory.
This week, there aren't obvious ways of searching through what you know to get the answer. But there are ways!
But I definitely agree that it's not as good as a "figure it out" puzzle. But then again, I'd be very happy if Will gave us a lot more of the mathy kind of puzzle.
I watch a half hour of network TV -- Jeopardy! -- daily, when it's raining or snowing and I don't bike outside. It's weirding me out that the past two shows I've seen -- in Boston! -- included ads for Ron DeSantis for President in 2024.
ReplyDeleteR.I.P. Gordon Lightfoot
ReplyDeleteSpeaking of Jeopardy!, tonight's Final Jeopardy is kinda fun:
ReplyDeleteBUSINESS & SOCIAL MEDIA
ON TWITTER IN 2023, THIS FOOD FRANCHISE FOLLOWED AN EXACT TOTAL OF 11 ACCOUNTS THAT INCLUDED VICTORIA BECKHAM, MEL B & HERB ALPERT
Thanks for ruining final Jeopardy Jan.
DeleteI didn't give the correct response, just the question. How did that ruin anything?
Delete... and, anyway, I just re-posted here what's published daily on the Jeopardy website.
DeleteNot the final Jeopardy where I live.
DeleteNo winder your comments are so hard to understand.
There is a writer strike going on. Jeopardy depends on its writers, so final jeopardy may be different where you live.
DeleteJeopardy! shows are recorded months in advance.
DeleteMaybe that's still true as of 2023, but the story goes back at least as far as 2017.
DeleteRemember back when George Santos was a Jeopardy contestant and wowed everyone?
DeleteHey Jan;
ReplyDeleteWell I made it to the MET last week-before the Gala. I always enjoy the Monet water lilly paintings. Still no NYC Botanical.
My son's place in East Harlem - off Lexington is about three blocks from original Rao's. An area that was once dominately Italian. You been there? Any Harlem restaurant recommends. I have been to Patsys Pizza more than once, Red Rooster once- . I guess Rao's is a tought table.. Sam's is another pizza place close to my son's on 116th.
The streets here seem a little meaner than on last trip.
It took me until just a moment ago to solve this puzzle. The key was finding the right search criteria, and, voila, this common word was in the first result.
ReplyDeleteSolve and result are both words associated with equations
DeleteThe thing that Blaine tells us might be treasured can also be verbed. In fact, my wife and I might do some of that verb as we take a well needed break this week in a small, southern Colorado town near the Great Sand Dunes
ReplyDeleteHave a grand time at the Great Sand Dunes, my favorite national park. Looks like Medano Creek is surging! And a fun town, to boot.
DeleteI went to a Gordon Lightfoot concert at Red Rocks about 1000 years ago. 1976". People were so drunk. Throwing beer bottles at him- he finally walked off the stage. I had a summer job at" La Forret " in the Black forrest outside of Fort Collins. Beautiful country. I chain sawed Tamarck all summer for the camp supplies. What is the name of the Taco place? Taco Johns- really good.
DeletePlantsmith, not sure of the taco place. . .
DeleteBut, May the 4th be with all of you!
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ReplyDeleteOur friend geofan is in the spotlight again this week on Puzzleria! spinning six intricate puzzles about U.S. towns, European cities, intracity transport, a phantom silent-G, a few of all God's homophonic creatures, and... Einstein! All this fun can be found in geofan's always-entertaining and mind-stretching "Worldplay" feature.
ReplyDeleteWe upload P! at around Midnight PDT, more or less, in the wee hours of early Friday (or double-digit hours of late Thursday).
Our menus this week also feature:
* a Schpuzzle of the Week titled "Oven-baked breadwinners," that asks you to find a currently hot euphemism for “employee,”
* a Flambé Field Hors d'Oeuvre about “Pampas” and paradise,
* a puzzle slice that tests your botanical branding skills,
* a Dessert slice that challenges you to take your best shot at shortening a long shot, and
* ten riffs on this week's NPR puzzle titled “E.T. Phone Home?...” No, “Z.H. PhoneMe!” (Included in this mix is a quintet of “mini-riffs” created by our friend Ecoarchitect.)
Tired of puzzles that are mere child's play? Stop by Puzzleria! tomorrow for some first-rate "Worldplay!"
LegoWhoIsAlsoKnownForShortAsZhouOrForLongerAsZhoucephalous(AlthoughHeSometimesLosesHisHeadOrUsesItInefficienctly!)
EQUATION
ReplyDeleteHint #1: “The solution has another unusual property.”
“Equation” has each principal vowel (no “y”) once.
Hint #2: “For those who have yet to solve it or who think that a hint or clue may be difficult, don’t be discouraged. Education may help, but as my better half put it, ‘When one is confronted by doubt, a quiet no will suffice to dispel it’.”
Like “equation,” both “discouraged” and “education” have all five vowels once, and the phrase “a quiet no” is itself an anagram of “equation.”
EQUATION
ReplyDeleteWhy is a kitchen knife like a skydiving rig?
DeleteEQUATION
ReplyDelete> There may be a hint in Will's presentation of the puzzle.
He mentioned "derivatives". A differential EQUATION relates one or more unknown functions and their derivatives.
> I may follow some wise advice and keep my mouth shut this week.
In a 1929 New York Times interview with S. J. Woolf, Albert Einstein proposed the EQUATION "A = X + Y + Z", where A is success in life, X is work, Y is play, and Z is keeping your mouth shut.
>> I had a few comments in mind that might have been removed, until I finally thought of something that gives nothing away, unless you know a fact about me.
> You gave it away a few months ago!
On Sun Feb 26, JAWS wrote:
As a math person, I really want to adjust the EQUATION to make it work mathematically. This one might be a little more challenging for me.
> I will have an embarrassing admission on Thursday regarding how I came up with this week's answer.
ChatGPT was no help. But Google's Bard nailed it.
Excellent point Jan, I had forgotten that I had typed that, until I saw your comment. As someone that deals with equations a lot, this was fairly easy.
DeleteIn addition, I played around with some searches, and by searching for different ways to make the sound, I hit a site in the top 10 results that specifically gave the example. Because of that, I expect a higher number of correct submissions this week, over 2000.
EQUATION → (ĭ-kwā′zhən)
ReplyDeleteSee this:
“There is only one word in which T produces the /ʒ/ sound: equation (/ɪˈkweɪʒən/).”
equation
ReplyDeleteLast Sunday I said, “I’m thinking of a quality that would be desired by many people.” I am thinking of “equality” which is always the basis of an equation.
EQUATION.
ReplyDeleteWolfgang and Dr. K and Blains all left great clues, so I didn't know what to add, except to say their work was FORMIDABLE, implying a FORMULA.
Thank you, Ben.
DeleteI wrote, “... but I would be surprised if one is the maximum value of members of this set.” I tried to state this in a mathematical style, with “is” doing the job of “equals.”
ReplyDeleteEQUATION. My hint: Replace the fourth letter with its nextdoor neighbor and rearrange to lead to something a famous writer described as overpowering. The writer's initials are the third, fourth, and fifth letters of this word. ("overwhelming question"; T.S. Eliot.)
ReplyDeleteThe reason I thought it was a mistake is that you said 'overpowering' instead of 'overwhelming', but then I realized you were keeping TMI at arm's length! Also I thought the 'neighbor' of the "A" should be "B"! But of course you meant its neighbor in the word.
Delete(Then the rest of our exchange all hinted more at Eliot -- I was obviously thinking of 'The Waste Land', which begins with thoughts about April, thus 'better clued yesterday' [which was April 30th]; and you got the 'plate' reference to Prufrock!)
Actually I meant its nextdoor neighbor on a keyboard. To convert "equation" to "question" you would change "a" to "s" and rearrange. Also, my use of "cluer" was meant to evoke "cruel", as in "cruellest month." You're right, I figured "overwhelming" was too risky!
Deleteequation
ReplyDeleteI'm glad to see that I sent in the correct answer even though I didn't receive a phone call. We're very lucky to have the NPR puzzle each week, thanks to the efforts of the Puzzle Master. I find them entertaining and fun, despite the weekly grumbling of certain Blainesvillians.
ReplyDeleteI wouldn't give up on that phone call yet. I seem to recall it coming maybe 15 or 20 minutes past 3:00.
DeleteIf the phone call was made to me, then I missed it. My phone was in limbo thanks to a software update. :(
Deletehttps://www.thefreedictionary.com/Forming-the-zh-Sound.htm
ReplyDeleteThis source mentions equation
Yes. See my THIS above.
Deleteron, I read your post and overlooked THIS to click on. thanks.
DeleteAll right, all right, sorry I'm late to the party again—the answer is EQUATION anyway.
ReplyDeleteThanks again to Ben for his accolades regarding my clue, "easier to solve…."
Are there any linguists here who will explain why the -zh sound after a long ā is so uniquely formed by a "T" in EQUATION?
ReplyDeleteMaybe need to contact a university linguistics department.
ReplyDeletehttps://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ChuVhTcXA2c
ReplyDeleteMay the 4th be with you!
ReplyDeleteI have always liked the discussions on StackExchange where I found:
ReplyDelete"One word that is a weird exception is equation, where most speakers have a voiced consonant /ʒən/ for some unclear reason."
I think the "most" part is true.
I did also got Equation, but was busy all day "til now.
ReplyDeleteThanks to Blaine, I solved it.
ReplyDeleteI solved it while wondering out loud, “is tion one pronunciation like shun orthodox different, sh un. I was talking to my dad, we always do the puzzle together, and gave the example equation. And so, voila, I solved the puzzle while thinking I hadn’t
ReplyDelete"Don't know much trigonometry
ReplyDeleteDon't know much about algebra
Don't know what a slide rule is for"
-Sam Cooke. Equation.
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ReplyDeleteAt first today, Chat gpt did not answer the puzzle correctly. Then I got it to find the answer with the linguistic explanations.
ReplyDeleteThis week's challenge comes from listener Mark Isaak, of Sunnyvale, Calif. Think of part of the human body whose name is a compound word (like fingertip or toenail). Add an N and rearrange the result to get another part of the body whose name is also a compound word. What body parts are these?
ReplyDeleteGot it, while sitting in the lobby of the Park Plaza, Boston. (Hi, Jan. ) Waiting for Blaine…
ReplyDeleteHi, Dr. K! What brings you to Beantown?
DeleteFamily memorial. Heading soon for the airport to return home.
DeleteI think I have a good hint, assuming Blaine doesn’t think it’s TMI.
Delete500 correct submissions this week.
ReplyDeleteNot the larynx, obviously -- but think of parts that have something in common with it!
ReplyDelete