Sunday, July 02, 2023

NPR Sunday Puzzle (Jul 2, 2023): Time To Play!

NPR Sunday Puzzle (Jul 2, 2023): Time to Play!
Q: Name a sports facility in two words. (This is a general term, not a specific place.) Three consecutive letters in the first word also appear consecutively in the second word. If you reverse these three letters, you'll name something seen in this sports facility. What is it?
Take the last letter of the sports facility. Change it to the letter that appears 3 earlier in the alphabet. Rearrange to get a word or phrase used in a recent puzzle.

Edit: Change the ending K to an H and rearrange to get CHARACTER.
A: RACE TRACK --> CAR

174 comments:

  1. Move the last letter of the first word and the first letter of the second word, in that order, to the end of the second word. The result, in two words, will name (1) an organization related to a sport conducted at the sports facility referred to in the puzzle and (2) something seen at a different kind of sports facility.

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  2. I thought this was a clever puzzle. Rearrange the letters in the sports venue. You get two words, each meaning a type of flaw in material things.

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    Replies
    1. Nice, Rob. You can also get a two-word description of a journey to a capital city.

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  3. Replies
    1. Think of all the good puzzles Will is sitting on. Over 30 puzzles, myself. Three or four, I would admit are "iffy" and would draw the scorn of fellow Blaine-sters, but the rest are solid, and a handful, excellent. Crickets...

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    2. You should check out Puzzeleria site. I am sure they would love to have you.

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    3. This comment has been removed by the author.

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    4. Hey Siz, post one here for us. Not much else to ponder this week.

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    5. TomR and others:
      Lego will be running six of mine, that WS rejected, this coming Friday at his Puzzleria! blog.

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  4. 180 correct submissions last week.

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    1. Out of "over 200" total submissions.

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    2. I wonder what the presumably incorrect submissions' answers were.

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    3. This one was so easy, there will probably be 500 correct answers in the first 24 hours.

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    4. I wouldn't be at all surprised if the total number of correct submissions surpasses a thousand.

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  5. Many such venues were converted from another kind of facility. A few were converted back (temporarily, sometimes). One such case was given a two-word name, with 3 letters common to both words.

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  6. Hmmmmmm.
    The on air wording is not quite the same as the web site wording.

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  7. Once I got past boxing ring...

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    1. Hmmm, boxing ring, GNI . . . ? I wonder where the Global Network Initiative stands on the upcoming Zuckerberg-Musk cage match?

      (On last week's Wait Wait Don't Tell Me, Peter Sagal said, "The big question is, in an actual physical fight between Mark Zuckerberg and Elon Musk, is there any way Jeff Bezos could somehow get kicked in the balls, too?")

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    2. Have you tried the Uro dry system? Supposed to work really well and not too pricey. No bags or cathethers.

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  8. Since this two-word term is kind of broad in meaning, I guess you can say I was at one of those just yesterday.

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  9. This puzzle is more my speed compared to last week. Last week, I was having flashbacks to Stromboli and Ocho Rios.

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  10. Many sources call it a [single] compound word.

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

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    1. This comment has been removed by the author.

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    2. I like it. . . . Especially if you're getting specific about "something seen in this sports facility".

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    3. Very nice, but imt tmi. (In my... theory?)

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    4. I don't think SuperZee's comment should have been removed. The condition he referenced is pretty much implied by the wording of the puzzle.

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  12. Ah.
    I have the intended answer now, but I like the alternative answer I came up with a lot better!

    In case anyone wants to try for mine: it does not fit what Will said on the air but does fit the wording here and on the NPR web site. (Only if my answer were the intended one, I think people would complain that the wording was sloppy.)

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  13. I have another alt answer, which works much better in Australia.

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  14. Replace all occurrences of a particular vowel in the answer with the same other vowel, and you get something commonly seen at Benihana.

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    Replies
    1. To clarify your clue:

      Pick a particular vowel that's NOT IN the answer, replace all occurrences of a paricular vowel IN the answer with the other vowel that you've picked, and you get something commonly seen at Benihana.

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  15. Got it quickly. Not a day I want to spend figuring out the puzzle anyway. Stay safe this weekend, folks!

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  16. https://consequence.net/wp-content/uploads/2022/10/Journey-2023-Tour-tour-poster.jpg

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    Replies
    1. Nodd and I were both thinking about ACCRA TREK.

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  17. I first had to clarify in my mind if it was just the same 3 letters reversed that names the "something " I might see in the facility or did I have to use all the letters once the 3 letters were reversed. The wording did confuse me at first. Hope I'm not sounding stupid.

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  18. Replies
    1. Dana Carvey- "Straight, white, single -sixty" has some great insights into what you are suffering from.

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  19. I have always seen this as only one word. Census puzzle--well over 200 correct answers this week.

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    1. About the answer being only one word: the following post with replies appeared near the end of last week's thread:

      geofan, Sun Jul 02, 05:20:00 AM PDT
      Many sources call it a [single] compound word.

      Crito, Sun Jul 02, 05:21:00 AM PDT
      Really???
      I must have a different answer, I think,

      Enya_and_WeirdAl_fan, Sun Jul 02, 06:03:00 AM PDT
      You can look it up as a single compound word on Wiktionary.

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    2. @ Word Woman, me too. Mostly though I wanted to say I thought maybe that was you answering today. The way she figured out the answer to last week's was impressive, and she was super-fast in answering on-air. I said to myself, could this be "Word Woman"?

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    3. @Unknown (Margaret?) Thank you for the compliment. Alas, I did not play with Will and Ayesha this week. She was fast! Believe me, if I'm ever called you all will know about it!

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    4. No one deserves to "get the call" more than Word Woman! And, I agree with Unknown's comment above about the brilliance of the on-air performance Word Woman would give: The entire process would take a New York Minute, or less. Word Woman would slice though Will Shortz's oral posers like a 4000°Celsius tantalum carbide or hafnium carbide knife though butter that was left out on a Pensacola picnic patio on the Fourth of July!
      As for the puzzle's wording, the place I have always seen this sports facility as "oneword" is in the book I had always assumed was Mr. Shortz's Bible!

      LegoWhoSuggestsTheBestWaysToKeepCoolOnSwelteringlySteamySummerDaysAreAirConditioningDrinkingLotsaLiquidsSeekingOutShadeUsingAFanAndTakingASwim

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    5. I wholeheartedly second the sentiments of Unknown and legolambda.

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    6. Thanks, legolambda and Dr. K!

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  20. As mentioned earlier, the phrase Will spoke twice: "IN THE SAME ORDER"; is not included in the written story. It limits possible answers.

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    1. e.g. Tennis Center and net fit written requirements but not what Will said.

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    2. How about a tennis tenement → net

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  21. This comment has been removed by the author.

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  22. Take the term for the sports facility, and remove all letters that appear more than once, leaving only the letters that appear just once each. Now add the "something seen in this sports facility." Rearrange to get something that probably won't be seen in this type of sports facility—although, in another sense, it might happen there.

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  23. B-side, 2nd song (I'll get deleted if I reveal which album). Suffice it to say this very popular group made surprisingly few studio albums.

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  24. Put the first letter of the second word in the sports facility in front of the first word to get the first name of a famous singer. The last name of the singer is something you can use the 3-letter word with.

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    1. I'm sorry, but if you go to Wikipedia, enter <the first name you've constructed><space><left parenthesis>><the word "name"><right parenthesis> and hit <Enter>, then 11 names come up, only the first of which is described as "singer". But I see no way that that person's last name can be something with which you can use the 3-letter word.

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    2. Trace Adkins is a famous singer. You can drive your car on Adkins Rd., an overpass of the Powhite Parkway in Richmond, VA.

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  25. Reverse the order of the 2 sports facility words to describe what some prejudiced persons do.

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  26. I'm glad I didn't get up too early for this one.

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  27. OK, and you can add a letter O to the solution and rearrange to get a nice dessert.

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  28. A rare three letter NPR Puzzle solution, especially one related to another wordplay genre.

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  29. Hold on while I search for a list of 'sports facilities."

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  30. If I'm not mistaken, I believe there has been a previous NPR puzzle that also involved this particular "sports facility" and its repeated letters, only as one word.
    pjbSaysKudosToRudolfoForGettingTheDessertFromTheAnswer(PlusO,OfCourse)

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  31. This comment has been removed by the author.

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  32. I wonder if this roller coaster at Carowinds, in Charlotte, was engineered by the same people who built that Titan submersible?

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    1. No, jan. They were down to earth engineers, and what the Titan experienced would have been far beneath them and their scruples, if they have any.

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  33. I won't be in the USA on Thursday, so even if I win, I lose. But I still entered. Musical clue: Call Yep Solo

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  34. I'm amazed that people are even taking this puzzle seriously enough to construct alternate clues. It seems like a throwaway. I did always wonder, though, whether they really counted the number of correct answers rather than reading them until they got to a correct one, and then stopping and merely counting the rest. Why should they count correct answers instead of just answers? But apparently they do.

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    1. sw: We have discussed the process many times over the years, without getting a clear picture of how it works. Or, more accurately, getting several versions of how it maybe works.
      You obviously have an inquiring mind, so perhaps your taking a fresh look will clear it up for us.

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  35. I often forget that this place and thing belong in the "sports" family. However, it seems like just about anything can be considered a sport these days, eh?

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    1. I love chess, but when they refer to it as being a sport I want to barf. Old Maid will be next.

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    2. Right, it's a road to tile'n'all.

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  36. The on air winner today had to answer two of the questions that were having to do with the bible. WS does this frequently, but never with another religion. I find it offensive that he seems to think we are all expected to be familiar with Judeo-Christianity.

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    1. puzzle are more fun with polytheistic religions

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    2. Yes bring back the polytheistic puzzles.

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    3. I really enjoyed the Bahai puzzle you did a few years back. That was killer.

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    4. Bahai--" I can't believe it's not Buddhism."

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  37. My username is almost, but not quite, relevant here.

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    1. I have a new respect for your username; I can't believe I never noticed! There's a familiar corollary to this puzzle for which the relevance is exact.

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    2. You mean Dr. Awkward is an impostor? Sister to Natasha?

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    3. I believe Lancek has noticed that my username is a palindrome—much like the word "racecar," which was almost relevant here!

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  38. Took me longer than it should have. There are geographical advantages here, perhaps. Music Clue: Beach Boys and a Beatles song, too.

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  39. So, I thought I had the correct answer, but now Merriam Webster dictionary is trying to correct me. It says that my intended answer is not two words, but one whole word. Does anyone else have any thoughts?

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    1. Shep, one word is indeed, preferred. See discussions above.

      I imagine the two word term made explaining the puzzle parameters easier so Will chose to use that alternate.

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    2. This comment has been removed by the author.

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    3. Here's one really good example of why I much prefer Wiktionary over Merriam Webster's dictionary. Try looking up "antumbra" on Merriam Webster's dictionary, and on Wiktionary. And you will be able to look up the answer on Wiktionary by the two-word term.

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    4. I always thought an antumbra was the teeny tiny shadow cast by formicidae (when the moon isn't blocking the sun). My aunt Umbra would have taken antumbrage at this whole discussion.

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    5. Formica countertops now have a whole other meaning for me. I imagine the inventors who used the substitute "for mica" never thought about ants crawling on their resinous surfaces ;-).

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  40. Super Moon tonight!
    You will be able to recognize it by its cape with a big M.

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  41. Did anyone else here happen to notice that In Depends Day is also on the 4th of July this year!?

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    Replies
    1. Yes, that is the day our fathers brought forth, upon incontinence, a new nation.

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    2. Happy Depends day to all the Boomers out there.

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  42. Thanks, PellGuy, for reprising my favorite, pithy, all-purpose hint. I think I even see how it applies!

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  43. You can take away my fireworks when you pry them from my cold dead fingers, which are laying over there by the sidewalk.

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    1. If I understand you correctly, you are giving us the finger?

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    2. I used to buy them, but too expensive and too many restrictions for me! I'll just let somebody else have all the fun!! ...

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    3. I played with firecrackers when I was junior high age. I remember a neighbor friend and me making a cannon out of a croquet mallet and some other stuff. We took it out in the middle of the road and shot marbles up the street using a firecracker for the explosive. Now I shudder to think of how easily that could have backfired big time, but things were a little more relaxed back then.

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  44. Question to those of you who are dog owners. Any problem with you pet's response to the noise of of firecrackers> My pup gets terrified

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    Replies
    1. A weighted vest and a dog snood really help.

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    2. A really loud fan to cover the noise also helps. Hope your pup does ok.

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    3. I can't speak to how dogs react, but one of our cats was absolutely fascinated by the fireworks being set off in our neighborhood and jumped onto my desk for a better view out the window!

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    4. I've seen ads for ThunderShirt. If fireworks make your dog crazy, put him in a strait jacket, I guess.

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  45. I passed a construction site today with a wall that read, "THIS FENCE IS TEMPORARILY". I figured it was a mistake by someone who could have saved a couple of letters, but then I realized that it was completely correct especially if you emphasize the existential verb (and maybe add a comma after it). We all are, temporarily, after all.

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    Replies
    1. Descartes thought, 1596 - 1650.

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    2. Did you add the comma? Great thinking. I once worked on philosophy masters at the new school.

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  46. Lancek, Thanks. Actually, PellGuy is my new handle. I used to be FloridaGuy, but that became inappropriate some time ago. PellGuy is a nod to my interest in Pell equations. I suspect that you know the various ``e clues'' backwards and forwards.

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  47. RACE TRACK or, more commonly, RACETRACK, CAR

    "I'm glad I didn't get up too early for this one." >>> I was thinking of the opposite of up, as in Churchill Downs Racetrack.

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  48. Our featured guest puzzle-maker on this week's Puzzleria! is our friend skydiveboy (Mark Scott), who is presenting to us an exciting sextet of Appetizing yet “Skydiversionary” and Mystifying morsels upon which to munch, titled “Moods, Weather, Netherlands, French, Phonetics & Shopping!”
    We upload Puzzleria! around Midnight PDT, more or less, in the wee in-between hours that divide Thursday and Friday.
    Also on our menus this week:
    * a Schpuzzle of the Week titled “Matthews & Mercury, Mutually,”
    * a “Concraniumdrum” Hors d’Oeuvre titled “A puzzle that exercises your brain... and more!”
    * a Blankety-Blank-Blankety-Blank Slice titled “Devoted to one’s duds,”
    * a Synonymous Antonymous Dessert titled “Changing ‘healthful’ to ‘harmful’ by ‘raising the middle letter!’ ” and
    * eleven Riff-Offs of this Week's NPR puzzle titled “Race Cars on Racetracks!”
    That's a lotta excla!mat!on marks... and, counting Mark's six "Skydiversions," that makes 21 puzzles this week, three for each day!
    (Skydiveboy's Skydiversions are not to be missed!

    LegoWhoTendsToBe"Concraniumdumb!

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  49. RACE TRACK, CAR

    > Many such venues were converted from another kind of facility. A few were converted back (temporarily, sometimes). One such case was given a two-word name, with 3 letters common to both words.

    After World War II, many unneeded airfields were converted to race tracks, including Royal Canadian Air Force Station Gimli, in Manitoba. On July 23, 1983, the crew of Air Canada Flight 143, a Boeing 767 from Montreal to Edmonton, miscalculated the amount of fuel needed because of an error converting between metric and imperial units. They ran out of fuel enroute at 41,000 feet, and landed without power there, earning the designation as the Gimli Glider. (All 69 aboard survived, with only 10 minor injuries.)

    >> Musical clue: Paul Revere
    > Nicely done!

    In Guys and Dolls, one of the singers of "Fugue for Tinhorns" ("I got the horse right here, the name is Paul Revere") is Nicely-Nicely Johnson.

    >> This puzzle brings out my aibohphobia. [deleted]
    > I like it. . . . Especially if you're getting specific about "something seen in this sports facility".

    "Race car" is a palindrome.

    >> Descartes thought, 1596 - 1650.
    > Not before 1500!

    Besides cars, you also see horses at a RACE TRACK. But mentioning that before the 3:00 p.m. deadline, putting Descartes before de horse, is TMI, I think.

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  50. RACE TRACK —> CAR

    I had very little to say about this easy puzzle except “S. F.”, the initials of Stephen Foster, America’s first major songwriter, who wrote “Camptown Races.”

    “The Camptown race track’s five miles long….”

    I considered oblique allusions to Mel Brooks and/or Blazing Saddles—see the first few minutes of the film—but thought it might be TMI.

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  51. RACE TRACK >>> CAR

    My Hint:
    "Reverse the order of the 2 sports facility words to describe what some prejudiced persons do." TRACK RACE

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  52. Race Track>Car

    I was surprised to see my comment about aibohphobia (the fear of palindromes) deleted as there are many possible palindromes and I had avoided any elaboration that might lead to RACE CAR. But then I saw that a follow up comment had added a level of specificity.

    Oh well.

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    Replies
    1. It was definitely your clue that pushed me over the edge to solving it. Maybe because a recent NYT crossword used it in a palindromic-styled puzzle.

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    2. Speaking of palindromes, am I the only one who had heretofore overlooked the specialness of Dr. Awkward's username? Nice code, Doc!

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  53. "Not a day I want to spend figuring out the puzzle anyway." - Not a day is an anagram of Daytona, a famous racetrack.

    "there will probably be 500 correct answers in the first 24 hours." - That same Daytona racetrack has famously hosted races both 500 miles long, and 24 hours long.

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    Replies
    1. Oh yeah, I forgot to put the answer here! RACE TRACK CAR

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  54. This comment has been removed by the author.

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  55. RACE TRACK; CAR. My hints:

    1. Move the last letter of the first word and the first letter of the second word to the end of the second word to name (1) an organization related to the sport conducted at the sports facility and (2) something seen at a different kind of sports facility. (RAC (Royal Automobile Club); RACKET.)

    2. Rearrange the letters in the name of the sports facility to get a two-word description of a journey to a capital city. (ACCRA TREK.)

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  56. I wrote, “Rearrange the letters in the sports venue. You get two words, each meaning a type of flaw in material things.” RACE TRACK yields TEAR and CRACK.

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  57. In my "sign-off" to my Sun Jul 02, 09:09:00 PM PDT comment about how Word Woman should have a chance to play "The NPR Puzzle" on air, I wrote:
    LegoWhoSuggestsTheBestWaysToKeepCoolOnSwelteringlySteamySummerDaysAreAirConditioningDrinkingLotsaLiquidsSeekingOutShadeUsingAFanAndTakingASwim...
    "AreAirConditioning" = R+AC, which is embedded in RACetRACk twice and is, of course, CAR spelled in reverse (not neutral or drive).

    LegoWhoReallyDoesThinkWordWomanShouldPlayOnAir(SheWouldDominate!)

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  58. Agreed. PellGuy is MUCH better than FloridaGuy. Your last sentence was probably another cool hint, as my interpretation of the "e" this time was that it's the glue that holds the palindrome RACECAR together, the other pieces being CAR backwards and forwards.

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  59. I wrote: "B-side, 2nd song (I'll get deleted if I reveal which album). Suffice it to say this very popular group made surprisingly few studio albums." Baby Driver was on side B of Simon & Garfunkel's Bridge Over Troubled Water album. It was second "track", but I couldn't use that word in my clue. The song ends with sound effects from a race track.

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  60. Race track, Car.

    My musical clue was Call Yep Solo, which anagrams to Les Claypool, the leader of the band Primus.

    Primus' breakout hit was "Johnny was a race car driver," and I'm not going to try and describe that one.

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  61. RACE TRACK — CAR

    As others have noted: More often than not, this is set as one word. Seems almost typical WS didn’t catch that.

    My clue:
    Since this two-word term is kind of broad in meaning, I guess you can say I was at one of those just yesterday.
    That would have been a school sports field open to the public. Around the football field it has…well, what do you know…a (400m) race track.

    My other post was unnecessarily complicated. I could have just said:
    Take the term for the sports facility, and remove one set of the “three consecutive letters.” Rearrange to get something that probably won’t be seen in this type of sports facility—although, in another sense, it might happen there.
    What I had in mind: You go from RACETRACK to RACE TK (or E TRACK), which anagrams to RACKET.

    So…I guess I was still on the right (race) track.

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  62. race track --> rac --> car

    Last Sunday I said, “Musical clue: Paul Revere.” This did not refer to Paul Revere and the Raiders. Rather, it referred to a Frank Loesser, Guys and Dolls, song with lyrics: “I got the horse right here, his name is Paul Revere.” It’s a song about betting on horses at the race track.

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    Replies
    1. I am just now learning that this wonderful song's real title is "Fugue for Tinhorns." Hilarious.

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  63. Mmm cranberry, you can add a letter O to the solution and rearrange to get a nice dessert. RACE TRACK + O => CARROT CAKE

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  64. I had clued "e". As Lancek noted above, RACE CAR is a well-known palindrome. Drop the Rs, As, and Cs, and, voila!, e. Also, as noted above, I have changed my handle from FloridaGuy, as that has not been appropriate for some time.

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  65. Almost the first thing that came to mind was "Race car."
    And the last, "Al lets Della call Ed Stella.”

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  66. Race track, car. I underappreciate the athleticism involved in race car driving. Yes, it's a sport, but isn't really on my radar.

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  67. Nodd,
    A while back you recommended I read Eagle Against The Sun, by Ronald H. Spector. I informed you that our libraries did not have this title. I put in a request and Seattle Public Library ordered 2 copies. They came in recently and I just a moment ago finished page 400, but still have a long way to go. I may even decide to go back and actually read the first 399 pages, but you never know.

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    1. sdb, is 400 your last page? My paperback copy ends on 561.

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    2. No, I have the same edition as you. I intended to finish reading it last week while camping in Eastern Oregon on the Deschutes River, but found too much other stuff to do.
      I put in a request for the book on your recommendation, but was not really looking forward to reading it. I thought it would be a rather boring compilation of battles. I realized right after I began reading it that I was wrong about that assumption. This is an amazing book, and I wish more people would read it. Problem is, I have other titles that come in at the library that I have to read at the same time.

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  68. If a young person who was always immersed into country music suddenly found himself unexpectedly delving into classical music, which of the great masters would most accurately describe this odd endeavor homophonically by pronouncing his last name?

    No, I did not submit this one to Will Shortz, he would never accept it.

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    Replies
    1. Gabriel Fauré
      The young person made a foray into classical music.

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  69. Replies
    1. The pronunciation of "Bach" in English is similar to the word "back." So, in a playful sense, one could say that the young person has taken a step "Bach" in their musical exploration, returning or going back to the roots of classical music.

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    2. But he's not going back. He's going forward into new territory for him.

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    3. Chat should not get Beet hoven it's answer.

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  70. My Yiddish father-in-law might have said "Go know!" (Gounod).

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    1. He would have been close to the actual composer, but not there yet.

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    2. I'm too Bizet to spend much time on this.

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    3. They may delve into classical music for a while, but they're Offenbach to country in no time.

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    4. Ah, Foucquet, I give up.

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    5. See above, below the puzzle for the answer.

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    6. Cap, I posted my answer above, below my posting of the puzzle.

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  71. I'm an 85 year old man today. Even though I'm no musician, what can I do with ease?

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    1. Happy Birthday, CAP, and many happy returns! How about that great democratic instument, the kazoo?

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    2. Thanks, Dr. K. Not the answer I was looking for. Since we're all waiting for the new puzzle, I'll give you my answer so as not to divert us...Even though , I'm no musician, at 85, I may give an organ recital with ease!

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  72. Thanks, Jan. But now what is it I can do with ease even though I;m no musician?

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    1. Gee, I hope we're not going in the same direction as that old one about what Beethoven's doing now?

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  73. This week's challenge comes from listener Peter Gwinn, who writes for "Wait Wait ... Don't Tell Me!" Take the first name of a famous movie director. Write it in upper- and lowercase letters. Rotate the third letter of this name 180° and you'll get the name of the main character in one of this director's most popular movies. Who is it?

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  74. I think I've got it. Waiting for Blaine...

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

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

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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.

You may provide indirect hints to the answer to show you know it, but make sure they don't assist with solving. You can openly discuss your hints and the answer after the deadline. Thank you.