Q: Name a well-known U.S. city in four syllables. The first two syllables, with a letter inserted, will name an animal — that might be found in the place named by the last syllable. What city is it?The third syllable is also the sixth.
A: KALAMAZOO --> KOALA, ZOO
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.
Easy. What a gas.
ReplyDeleteThe first and last syllables, in order, can give you a buzz.
ReplyDeleteKazoo.
DeleteEasy as 1-2-3.
ReplyDeleteSwap the 3rd and 5th letters in the city name. Then, drop the last three letters to get the first name of a famous person in the US.
ReplyDeleteKamala Harris
Delete443 correct entries last week.
ReplyDeleteI wish he had mentioned how many entries were ill-fated variations of transforming Los Angeles to Angelenos. I'll bet there were quite a few, especially from NPR listeners who rely on their memory of the radio instructions.
DeleteI was one of those who submitted Los Angeles/Angelenos. I felt really foolish when I saw the correct answer.
DeleteNo cute twists in this easy peasy puzzle
ReplyDeleteIs easy breesy TMI?
DeleteThere's a word for puzzles like this; and there's a word for animals like this.
ReplyDeleteCute as Kevin McCarthy?
DeleteCan you call it fun if you get the answer as soon the question is read?
ReplyDeleteNot when it's this stupid.
DeleteMight be a challenge for a kindergartner.
ReplyDeleteI don't think most 5-year olds know the city. But a one-syllable place where you might find a certain animal? Ridiculous!
DeleteI am sitting with two teenagers that haven't solved it yet. They are really enjoying the challenge, and it is keeping them very occupied.
DeleteI suggest checking them for drugs.
DeleteIs this you being judgemental?
DeleteNo
DeleteExplain then.
DeleteOh come on. Jan's joke is very funny!
DeleteEasy puzzle, but then again, I know my alphabet.
ReplyDeleteI know my calculus
DeleteIt says you plus me equals us
I immediately thought of the song, I Got a Gal in Kalamazoo, which starts, A B C D E F G H I got a gal in Kalamazoo.
DeleteMusical Clue: Simon and Garfunkel
ReplyDeleteThat was going to be my clue too. Of course, S&G can work for most any puzzle.
DeleteI considered it as a hint as well but thought it might be TMI. Please see my comment above.
DeleteEasy.. I don’t get Blaine’s hint
ReplyDeleteI think I understand Blaine's hint, but I had to chew on it for a bit.
DeleteNothing to sneeze at.
DeleteI think there are two valid answers to this one...
ReplyDeleteYep, I got two answers as well. Hopefully, I don't get penalized for submitting them both. :)
DeleteBummer, I thought I was done. Now I gotta look for the alternate answer.
DeleteOne of the two is definitely the preferred answer! Interesting alt answer but probably not worth the effort!
DeleteI won't spend too much time on it. I don't have many brain cells left after last week's puzzle. :)
DeleteAgreed. The intended answer would be tough to dispute. My (our?) alternate answer has a little more wiggle room but is quite defensible, IMO. Don't sweat it, Scarlett...
DeleteI've got the answer, but I almost messed up my clue!
ReplyDeleteAfter being stumped last week, I was in the mood for an easy puzzle.
ReplyDeleteGot it! Hard to thread the needle with a decodable clue this week...
ReplyDeleteKalamazoo does seem to contain a subtle camel as well as a llama...and you know what they say about rich men, camels, and needles.
DeleteSurprised the puzzle did not utilize the middle two syllables in its construction. Anyway, sticking with my approach from last week, one of my favorite athletes of all time played for a number of years in this city.
ReplyDeleteAs cute as this puzzle is, one is unlikely to see this animal on hiking trails.
ReplyDeleteDepends on where you are in the world.
DeletePretty sure I figured out Blaine's statement. Which is pretty rare for me! --Margaret G.
ReplyDeleteI have two answers. In one answer, you can remove two letters from the animal to get another animal found in the last syllable of the city. In the other answer, you can add a letter to the second and third syllables of the city to get another animal found in the last syllable of the city.
ReplyDeleteYour second answer reminds me of one I saw recently somewhere else.
DeleteIndeed, Nodd!
DeleteMy answers are Beverly Hills (beaver, hills) and Kalamazoo (koala, zoo). Beaver-ve=bear, which can be found in the hills. Lama+l=llama, which can be found in the zoo.
DeleteClark a pseudonym has now been AWOL for 2 full weeks.
ReplyDeleteBeing in the ER with my wife (she's fine) delayed my response, but even so, I didn't find this one easy. Add a letter to the animal, rearrange, and you get a tribe.
ReplyDeleteLike Blaine's hint, the second syllable is also the sixth.
ReplyDeleteEighteenth, if I understood him correctly. --Margaret G.
DeleteI think Unknown and I are on the same page on Blaine's hint.
Delete18th in two different sequences, for that matter.
DeleteEighteenth in Blain's sequence, sixth in mine.
DeleteI totally get Tortitude's sixth. I still haven't come up with Blaine's.
DeleteSDB,
ReplyDeleteThanks for my being missed. It took me a while to figure out how to post since all of a sudden I kept getting a something that said I had to log in thru Google. Once I got over being ticked by the interference, I followed the Command and so, here I am.
Here is an inelegantly worded puzzle to fill your empty time.
ReplyDeleteWrite a two word city. Add the second letter again. Rearrange to get a food item. What is it?
Green Bay + r --> energy bar.
DeleteCongratulations Dr. K - that took you no time at all.
DeleteThanks, TomR. That was fun.
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ReplyDeleteClue? Find yourself a message and some words to call your own (unquote).
ReplyDeleteThe clue I posted "Find yourself a message and some words to call your own" was a line from the 1970's pop song from the group Bread, "Guitar Man." The eponymic guitar man of 20th century American enterprise was Orville Gibson,who first set up shop in Kalamazoo and made it famous for guitar and mandolin innovation and manufacturing.
DeleteI realize this puzzle is so difficult no one here has yet to solve it. So I am suggesting you all head on over to Joe Young's Puzzleria! (link provided by Blaine above on right) and try to solve 7 puzzles I coined and all but one were sent to Will, who rejected them for one reason or another or no reason at all. I know they are too hard for most to solve, but what else have you to do? Trust me on this, and if you have some money to spare I have some digital coins you might want to purchase at a bargain price.
ReplyDeleteTV Clue: The Carol Burnett Show(specifically Tim and Harvey together in sketches)
ReplyDeletepjbBelievesSometimesCharactersWereMeantToBeBroken
Left home as the Puzzle aired this a.m., just got home with the answer in the bag.
ReplyDeleteAs a long time (years) fan of this blog, and a newbie poster (weeks), with one TMI detected but unindicted (for "lads and lassuses" re trombones), I respectfully suggest a countervailing acronym for Blainesvillains, I mean Blainesvilleans, consideration; namely WTI for "way too indirect".
ReplyDeleteI think of this as a metric akin to the recently popular "degrees of separation" meme. I certainly do give credit for the lively imaginations at play, some possibly on steroids.
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DeleteAs usual I was overthinking this one, and was trying to justify the existence of the fictional creature "Dayato" or "Dayuto" or "Dayoto" that lives on the Beach.
ReplyDeleteSorry for the delayed response this week. We had out-of-town guests all weekend, Anyway, this puzzle is OK with me.
ReplyDeleteNice of you to state that.
DeleteIf second prez John Adam's were an animal, he'd be one of these.
ReplyDelete... Or a marmoset.
DeleteI just looked up marmoset. Those things are like half squirrel, half monkey. I've heard of a marmot, those are everywhere in Pennsylvania, but if I saw a marmoset, I'd freak. Of course Ben Franklin and John Adams look alikes are known to frequent Independence Hall.
DeleteThe city's name rhymes with the first word of a slogan used in a past political campaign.
ReplyDeleteOver/Under 1,300
ReplyDeleteI was making plans to retire to this well known cosmopolitan city if I were to have won last night's $1.04 Billion Powerball drawing!
ReplyDeleteWell, ixnay on those plans!!
Well, thanks for paying my taxes, anyway!
DeleteThis comment has been removed by the author.
DeleteWinning that big a jackpot is one of those things that you have to be careful what you wish for...
DeleteThis comment has been removed by a blog administrator.
ReplyDeleteThis comment has been removed by the author.
DeleteGreat!
DeleteThis comment has been removed by Matt Gaetz.
DeleteHahahaha
DeleteDitto on the HA HAs!!
DeleteAh ha; I appreciate the HA HAs.
DeleteDammit!! I neglected to select "Notify Me"!
DeleteKALAMAZOO; KOALA, ZOO
ReplyDeleteI enjoyed jan's quickly deleted additional puzzle for KALAMAZOO which also included LLAMA.
Speaking of which, note this recent Schpuzzle of the Week on Puzzleria!
DeleteLegoWhoWouldSayThat"GreatMindsThinkAlike"WereItNotForTheObviousFactThatjanIsMuchBrighterThanHe!
Our featured puzzle on this week's Puzzleria! is Patrick J. Berry’s (cranberry’s) thirty-second Cryptic Crossword, which will surely take you longer than thirty seconds to solve... it poses a particularly Promethean challenge!
ReplyDeleteWe upload Puzzleria! around Midnight Pacific Daylight Time, on the wee-hour cusp between Thursday and Friday.
Also on our menus this week:
* a Schpuzzle of the Week about a pair of oft-paired foods which can be mixed together to create a pair of synonyms,
* an Hors d'Oeuvre regarding not sins, but signs of omission,
* a "Vidiot Box" Puzzle Slice titled “ ‘Citified’ television personalities,”
* a Sequential Dessert about neither a Twelfth Night nor Twelfth hour, but about a Twelfth number, and
* roughly ten riffs of this week's NPR Puzzle, titled “Koalamazoo?” “Kalanmazoo?”
Join us for some Cryptic Crosswordery created by cranberry! Then stick around for a stack of additional sticklers.
LegoWhoPromisesPuzzlesOfPrometheanPuzzlerianProportions!
Kalamazoo +O >>> koala, zoo
ReplyDeleteKALAMAZOO, Michigan → A KOALA “might be found in” a ZOO.
ReplyDeleteKALAMAZOO (+O—> KOALA + ZOO)
ReplyDeleteHint: “What a gas.”
A throwaway lyric in Simon and Garfunkel’s “At the Zoo.”
As I mentioned, I had considered “Simon and Garfunkel” (M5’s clue) as my hint but was concerned that a direct reference to them—possibly leading to a web search of S & G song titles and then to “At the Zoo”—would be TMI as it would violate Blaine’s restriction on “any hints that could lead to the answer.” Perhaps overly cautious on my part, but I opted to be safe rather than sorry.
Always best to be safe. I do believe it's true.
DeleteExcellent.
DeleteKalamazoo>>>Camel, Zoo
ReplyDeleteMy comment that I was, "In the mood," for an easy puzzle this week was based on In The Mood and I’ve Got a Girl in Kalamazoo being two of Glenn Miller’s hit songs.
Some might refer to easy puzzles like this one as LAYUPS; practically everyone would call the animal CUTE.
ReplyDeleteLAYUPS+CUTE => EUCALYPTUS
Just a little food for thought.
I wrote, “Add a letter to the animal, rearrange, and you get a tribe.” That’s LAKOTA.
ReplyDeleteKALAMAZOO; add 'O' to get KOALA found in a ZOO.
ReplyDeleteBlaine's hint: MA was the sixth state to join the Union. My hint was that LA is the sixth note in the do-re-mi scale. Others hinted that LA was the eighteenth state to join the Union.
Very clever!
DeleteLA is also 18th in alphabetical order.
DeleteWhen I wrote "I think I understand Blaine's hint, but I had to chew on it for a bit." I was referencing the fact that Kalamazoo was once known as the "Celery City" because it only had the one crop.
ReplyDeleteInteresting; I thought it might refer to MassaCHUsetts.
DeleteThat works too. :)
DeleteThat was why I said, "Nothing to sneeze at." I was thinking "Mass-ACHOO-setts."
DeleteOkay 68Charger, JayB, and Bobby: What's the alternate answer?
ReplyDeleteLike Bobby, I was thinking of Beverly Hills = Beaver & Hills.
DeleteOf course, Kalamazoo & Koala were the best answers!!
I was thinking of Overland Park, KS. Lots of animals "named" Rover -- and you can find them in parks!
DeleteBeverly Hills (beaver, hills) or Kalamazoo (koala, zoo)
ReplyDeleteBever+a=beaver, which can be found in the hills. Kala+o=koala, which can be found in the zoo.
I like it! Of course, the beavers would probably prefer a pond at the base of the hills.
ReplyDelete...unless they're looking for trees to fell, in which case it would make sense to go uphill from the pond. They are dam clever, those beavers.
DeleteKalamazoo/Koala. My mini spinoff clue leads to Kamala. As in Kamala Harris.
ReplyDeleteMy comment was
ReplyDelete"I've got the answer, but I almost messed up my clue!"
so I was amused to read Quester's suggestion of WTI for "way too indirect".
Nothing could be more indirect than my marker. I had the answer quickly, in the shower, of course, but my brain misfired and I thought the old song was "I Met a Girl in Kalamazoo" and I started making up clues playing on the word "meta."
Yes, it is "I've Got a Girl in Kalamazoo"
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fFv_PoZ2iP0
so I posted "I've got the answer" and it seemed rock solid to me.
KALAMAZOO -> KOALA, ZOO
ReplyDelete> Not the first time this city has been a Sunday Puzzle answer.
That was in August, 2012:
Take the name of a well-known U.S. city in four syllables. The first and last syllables together name a musical instrument, and the two interior syllables name a religious official. What is the city?
Answer: Kalamazoo (kazoo, lama)
> Nor the second.
That was in December, 2013:
Name a U.S. city in nine letters. Shift the third letter six places later in the alphabet. Then shift the last letter seven places later in the alphabet. The result will be a family name featured in the title of a famous work of fiction. What is the city, and what is the family name?
Answer: Kalamazoo, Karamazov
I know who I'd nominate to write a history of the NPR puzzle.
DeleteI came up with Beverly Hills -- beaver, hills also. There are actually mountain beavers. But alas, I didn't receive The Call.
ReplyDeleteThis comment has been removed by the author.
ReplyDeleteMy reference to rhyming with the first world of a political campaign was for "Tippecanoe, and Tyler too", which was used by Willam Henry Harrison and John Tyler in their president bid. They won. But Harrison had the shortest time in ofiice of any US president, dying after only one month of serving.
ReplyDeleteTippecanoe is the name of a battle site in Indiana in which Harrison commanded the US troops and Tecumseh the Shawnee Indians.
Is this apprpriately indirect ?
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ReplyDeleteKalamazoo --> koala --> zoo
ReplyDeleteLast Monday I said, “Sorry for the delayed response this week. We had out-of-town guests all weekend, Anyway, this puzzle is OK with me.” OK, intending to evoke KO, the first two letters of the animal in the puzzle.
Sorry for the double entry, its due to my fumbly fingers at my computer. Goodness, I wonder Clark and Clotheslover had to say about my modest posting that caused them to self censor. I suppose it wasn;t laudatory.
ReplyDeleteAlso I'm mildly dislexic and I've spotted two typing errors in my post.
ReplyDeleteKALAMAZOO -> KOALA, ZOO
ReplyDeleteNo hint from me this week, because I can't play the Kazoo.
BREAKING NEWS via ABC:
ReplyDeleteMonths after leaving the White House, former President Donald Trump allegedly discussed potentially sensitive information about U.S. nuclear submarines with a member of his Mar-a-Lago Club -- an Australian billionaire who then allegedly shared the information with scores of others, including more than a dozen foreign officials, several of his own employees, and a handful of journalists, according to sources familiar with the matter.
Nothing is too low to be beneath Trump, not even submarines.
To think that he may become the next Speaker Of The House ...
DeleteDoes anyone other than me remember "I've got a gal in Kalamazoo-zoo-zoo-zoo-zoo"?
DeletePS I hope I got the number of "zoos" right
DeleteSure, Cap. There's also an unrelated tune in which a gal sings about a man she has in Kalamazoo.
DeleteYes, Cap. See my Sunday post above, that's what I was referring to when I said I know my alphabet.
DeleteAnd my reference to In the Mood,/i> was a pointer to Glenn Miller and his I've Got a Girl in Kalamazoo.
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ReplyDeleteThink of a well known U.S. city in 2 syllables. Add the full name of a free social networking site to the end and you will now understand why I did not submit this to Will to use on NPR.
ReplyDeleteNew York Tumblr?
DeleteNot even close.
DeleteNew York is not 2 syllables. It is 2 words.
DeleteI guess I will have to provide a give-away clue if no one is working this one. The answer is also 2 syllables.
DeleteBOISEX?
DeleteNodd, you are on the right track, but opposite area of the country. Think product company name.
DeleteThis comment has been removed by the author.
ReplyDeleteMy clue: Easy as 1-2-3.
ReplyDeleteI was alluding to the Jackson Five song "ABC Easy as 123".
The lyrics of the Glenn Miller song "I've Got a Gal in Kalamazoo" start with "A-B-C-D-E-F-G-H…."
I actually thought my comment might get blog-administered.
DeleteKALAMAZOO(MI), KOALA, ZOO
ReplyDeleteTwice when Tim Conway was playing his "World's Oldest Man" character opposite Harvey Korman on "The Carol Burnett Show", he could cause Harvey to break by saying just one word: KOALA. Of course, just explaining it here wouldn't do it justice. You'd have to check YouTube to see how Tim pronounced it, but trust me, it worked.
pjbIsSoGladWeHadThisTimeTogether
This week's challenge comes from listener Andrew Chaikin, of San Francisco. Think of a mammal, an insect, and a bird, in that order —six, three, and four letters, respectively. Say them out loud and you'll name something often seen around this time of year. What is it?
ReplyDeleteAnother too easy one.
DeleteI found many images of a certain singer.
DeleteThe first bird I thought of works nearly as well as the one I've settled on.
DeletePaul, I made the same observation.
Delete"Great minds..." ðŸ§
Delete