I don't have a clue to help you identify the person... or do I?Q: The word NONUNION has four N's and no other consonant. What famous American of the past -- first and last names, 8 letters in all -- has four instances of the same consonant and no other consonant?
Edit: The vowels in "identify" are the same vowels in the answer.
A: Eli Lilly (founder of the pharmaceutical company).
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ReplyDeleteI believe I have the same answer.
DeleteWell, it depends!
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DeleteI'm not sure that spelling the answer one letter at a time is kosher.
DeleteWell, I still have it anyway...
DeleteThis comment has been removed by the author.
ReplyDeleteI'm pretty sure I have it. As Jan said, hard to clue (so probably I have the same one). I wasn't sold on the fame of this person, but I think it's okay.
ReplyDeleteNow let's see if I can think of a clue.
I think Lego will solve this one before most of us.
ReplyDeleteNot to be woke here, but most people think of this name as "they", rather than "he" or "she".
ReplyDeleteI have an answer.
ReplyDeleteThe person I have argued for regulation of the industry in which they were successful.
DeleteI have the same answer.
DeleteThis person has something in common with Pope Francis.
ReplyDeleteBlaine, the chart interferes with the puzzle on my computer.
ReplyDeleteBetter?
DeleteYes. Thank you. I read the puzzle on NPR site but just wanted to let you know about the problem.
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ReplyDeleteEh, as others have written, there's some leaps of faith required to get to this answer.
ReplyDeleteNeither names are palindromes.
ReplyDeleteThe name of this person's first spouse has a comparable quality.
ReplyDeleteIf so, we have different answers.
DeleteThis comment has been removed by a blog administrator.
DeletePlease delete the gender reference.
DeleteOops, one of this person's children, perhaps, also has a comparable quality.
DeleteTortieWhoDoesn'tThinkThatInadvertentlyGivingAwayThePerson'sGenderWillEnableAnyoneToMagically,SuddenlySolveThisOneButHey,It'sNotMyBlog
(to be clear, a comparable quality, not an identical one!)
DeleteEmily Lemen: two consonants (err, if you discount that pesky final "n").
DeleteThis person had a connection to the military.
ReplyDeleteEli Lilly was a Colonel the Union Army during the Civil War.
DeleteThere is a hint in the puzzle.
ReplyDeleteOh wow, so there is -- well spotted!
DeleteI guess I should have seen that! Good catch!
DeleteThe author of the puzzle is Lillian Range. Lilly is short for Lillian.
DeleteInterestingly, the on-air contestant the week before this puzzle was named Eli. It was Eli Shear-Baggish.
DeleteI get anxious just thinking about this one!
ReplyDeleteNotwithstanding Clotheslover’s post above, my answer phonetically can have a palindromic ring to it. This may be one of those puzzles where a cup of coffee after it may be more helpful than having one before it.
ReplyDeleteI'm feeling confident I have the same answer as you do...
DeleteAfter reading all about this "famous" American, they should be much more famous than they are. Sadly many celebrities, sports figures, etc., get famous without really accomplishing anything worthwhile.
ReplyDeleteSome might say this is one for the ages.
ReplyDeleteMark Twain coined the term, "The Gilded Age".
DeleteHe did, although Edith Wharton is its greatest writer.
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DeleteJust for grins, I ran this puzzle through ChatGPT, copying it word-for-word from the puzzle. On the first pass, it came up with William Williams. On the second pass, it came up with a reduplicated first name that comes close to the correct answer. On the third pass, it returned this nonsense:
ReplyDeleteThe famous American you’re looking for is Millard Fillmore. His first and last names together have eight letters, and the only consonant used is "L," which appears four times.
Somehow, I'm not too confident in its intelligence, artificial or otherwise...
Google Gemini came up with Aaron Burr because "R appears four times, and there are no other consonants."
DeleteArtificial stupidity
DeleteArtificial stupidity (this is my third try posting this.... don't know why it's not working)
DeleteAaro Rurr
DeleteThree consecutive letters in the answer spell an appropriate word.
ReplyDeleteI have an answer as well that works with all the criteria, but as others have said, is not the name of someone I would consider hugely famous.
ReplyDeleteI agree. The name is well known; the person not.
DeleteThis person's first name has an interesting definition in the Urban Dictionary.
ReplyDeleteLike many terms at that site, it appears there is more than one definition.
DeleteYes, true. I should have specified the second definition. There is also a song title to which the term is related. There are other details but it's all TMI.
DeleteThis person's first name is the same as one of my niblings (a term I didn't know until I heard my HR manager use it last week).
ReplyDeleteNever knew that term before. What my brother-in-law called a niecephew.
DeleteWow it took me all day of thinking about this to come up with the answer! And I love it. The ones I solve in 3 minutes are underwhelming.
ReplyDeleteI have the answer. Like others here, makes me anxious to ponder how to clue it.
ReplyDelete"O, young Lochivar is come out of the west", for Scott's sake
ReplyDeleteLochinvar.
Deletethx
DeleteFlip side of a circle
ReplyDeleteThere's a macabre connection to last month's Wizard of Oz puzzle.
ReplyDeleteClue: the first name reminds me of a 1960s Top 10 song. Concern: I don’t think the puzzle is stated fairly.
ReplyDeleteYour clue makes me think we're on the same page.
DeleteThe surname reminds me of a Who single.
DeleteLegoWhoAsksTheQuestion"Who'sOnFirst?"AndThenAnswersThat"YesItIsProbablyWhoIfHeHadASingle!"
This puzzle actually reminded me of a mid-70s song
DeleteThis puzzle turned out to be just what the doctor ordered!
ReplyDeleteNice puzzle, Lillian Range! I've been through the alphabet about fifty times, and I'm totally stumped. My blog colleagues seem to suggest that the answer is accessible, so I may revisit it later, but my white flag is out for now. I may be kicking myself Thursday.
ReplyDeleteDon't feel bad. I found a list of the 1000 most famous Americans of all time online. The answer isn't among them.
DeleteFrom all the hints above, I feel I know everything about this person except their name.
DeleteLancek, I really sympathise. There are not too many clues that don't violate the TMI rule. So, I'll narrow it down to the two best ones, I think. Chuck left a clue pertaining to a 1960's hit song. I left a clue where I say this person has something in common with Pope Francis. Now research.
DeleteI finally have it, and it's a fine puzzle; just hard to solve. Muslinglink, those two hints didn't help me, but a later hint did. Chuck's hint had been taunting me as a record collector, as I would have found it ironic to have owned the record but to have missed the hint. Luckily, it's not one I own. In retrospect, I think I like Bobby's comment the best.
DeleteSpeaking of ironic, I just re-read my comment that began this thread. I was SO close!
DeleteCongrats to all who have solved it. I think I am going to throw in the towel. Time for some migraine meds....
DeleteLancek, I noticed the irony too, but wasn't sure how to point it out. And it was Bobby's comment that also sent me down the right path. Sometimes it takes a village!
DeleteWell, to Dr.K, anyway. I have a book with all the top twenty hits from the 1950s to the early 21st century. Such a source might help.
DeleteYou can see Top 40 charts for free at top40weekly.com, although that might be a bit of a slog for this purpose. In any case, there's some interesting trivia about this song and other hits at the time, one that I have a bit of a personal connection with.
DeleteI did a little such slogging when I was clueless, but it wasn't really much of a help. For the record (ha) there are a LOT of songs in the Hot 100 that have titles or artists with one-consonant first names!
DeleteI advise that you look in the top 20, not 40 or 100. Anyway, this particular song clue fits in with the Urban Dictionary's 2nd definition.
DeleteThis person shares a name with an actor, an inventor, and a sportsball player
ReplyDeleteEli Wallach, Eli Whitney, & Eli Manning
DeleteMy Bingo card had Eli Grba for the sportsballer.
DeleteAfter getting to know Mia May, Lila Lee, and Ed Dodd I ended up with the answer which I already knew :)
ReplyDeleteA little Shakespeare visit me thinks.
ReplyDeleteI'm amazed at what channelling may win.
ReplyDelete"What channelling may win" is an anagram of the surnames of an actor, an inventor, and a football player having the same first name as a certain druggist.
DeleteMusic Clue: A Huey Lewis and the News song comes to mind.
ReplyDeleteOh, my word. Having thrown in the towel (mostly--see above) and having endured a migraine (but those meds certainly helped), I just solved it. Amazing. I would say there's no clue here, but I'm still a bit foggy, so I'm not sure.
ReplyDeleteYou may be foggy, but there's definitely a clue here!
Delete"Throw in the towel?" You? You were merely giving the rest of us a chance to catch up!
DeleteGave up, don't care, too busy.
ReplyDeleteFive and a half hours before the deadline my brain FINALLY kicked in!
ReplyDeleteOur elusive (at least to me) American has something in common with The Bambino.
Farting always leaves me feeling deflated.
ReplyDeleteExample given applies, then no, now no, even if you don't remove the thw.
ReplyDeleteThen no, now no... Eli Lilly served as a Union Army officer, so he was not the word "nonunion," nor is the company now, with SEIU and other collective bargaining agreements in place.
DeleteELI LILLY
ReplyDelete"Eh, as others have written, there's some leaps of faith required to get to this answer." Eh refers to Eleanor Hospital, founded by Eli Lilly as a tribute to his deceased daughter.
ELI LILLY
ReplyDeleteEli Lilly
ReplyDeleteMy Hint:
"Some might say this is one for the ages." Perhaps the Gilded Age, but then we would not want to gild the Lilly.
ELI LILLY
ReplyDeleteBefore I had solved the puzzle, “meds” was an inadvertent hint in my first post, but it was deliberate in the second. Good catch, Jan. And thanks to Musinglink for the kind words.
I was disappointed when one of my first guesses, “Leila Ali,” didn’t work, though at the time I had no idea how close that erroneous answer came to the intended one. A future puzzle, perhaps?
Kudos to those who solved this challenging puzzle so quickly.
Btw, were there any Laura Nyro hints, explicit or otherwise?
I had one (see below), but it was really subtle, and you had to know my first name to figure it out.
DeleteEli Lilly. My deleted comment: Since this blog entry wasn't up right away, I had to consult the NPR puzzle page, as I couldn't remember all of the details. For example, I couldn't remember if it was an American or not. I found that it helped.
ReplyDeleteWhile it’s true that I viewed the NPR page due to forgetting some details, knowing whether the person was American or in the past didn’t really help me that much. However, the difference between this page and the NPR page is that the NPR page lists the puzzle-maker as well as the puzzle-maker’s hometown. I thought that perhaps seeing LILLian (pronounced LILLY-an) Range, while a somewhat subtle clue, might nevertheless be too obvious for this blog and I deleted the comment before it was deleted by Blaine.
I later wrote: I think Lego will solve this one before most of us.. On Puzzleria each week, Lego writes a puzzle about the puzzle-maker who created the NPR puzzle, and therefore would be more likely to make the Lillian/Lilly connection.
It seems that Bobby also caught onto the Lillian/Lilly connection, but his hint was better than my hints. My first and deleted hint likely made the puzzle too easy, and the second one was likely too subtle.
I also wrote in response to Dr. Awkward’s hint: One of this person’s (originally had “his”) children, perhaps, has a comparable quality as well. One of his children was named Eleanor. It’s entirely plausible that she used the nickname Ellie or Elly, which means she’d have a name with five Ls and no other consonants.
Finally, Chuck’s hint referred to “Eli’s Coming,” which was a Top 10 hit at the same time as “And When I Die” and “Wedding Bell Blues.” All three songs were written by Laura Nyro, whose first name I share.
TortieWhoCan’tWriteSongsUnfortunatelyButCanWritePuzzlesSometimes
I actually thought Bobby was referring to the word NONUNION, since Lilly was an officer in the Civil War.
DeleteYeah, that's what I thought too.
Deleteb>ELI LILLY
ReplyDelete> Not to be woke here, but most people think of this name as "they", rather than "he" or "she".
The company name is familiar, but I doubt most people know anything about the founder. For someone to be considered famous, a lot of people should recognize their picture, or be able to tell you something about when they lived and what they did during their life, other than that they started the company named after them.
> Mark Twain coined the term, "The Gilded Age".
That's when the subject acquired his great wealth, but I was mostly going for a "gilding the LILLY" pun opportunity.
> There's a macabre connection to last month's Wizard of Oz puzzle.
Judy Garland died from an overdose of Seconal, made by ELI LILLY and Company. (So did Jimi Hendrix.)
> You may be foggy, but there's definitely a clue here! [After Dr. K reported having taken meds for his migraine]
Migraine meds? Reyvow and Emgality are two migraine meds made by ELI LILLY and Company.
I thought Hendrix took Vesparax, or is that the same?
DeleteTo Jan's 'gilded age' clue I added that Edith Wharton was the age's greatest writer. The heroine of House of Mirth is named 'Lily Bart'.
DeleteELI LILLY.
ReplyDeleteEli Lilly and Babe (The Bambino)Ruth were born in Baltimore.
My clue: Flip side of a circle.
ReplyDelete"Circle For a Landing" was the B-side of Three Dog Night's "Eli's Coming."
I really WAS stumped when I complimented the actual author of the puzzle, Lillian Range, in a Monday post. It was only after happening upon the answer later that I discovered how close I had been. One might have said I had “Lilly in range.”
ReplyDeleteI was thinking that was Bobby's clue but I didn't want to say anything TMIish...
DeleteEli Lilly
ReplyDeleteEli Lilly. Eli is a name that means womanizer according to the second definition in the "Urban Dictionary" based on Laura Nyro's song "Eli's Coming," a hit for Three Dog Night in December, 1969. Pope Francis studied pharmacology and was a pharmacist for a time in his earlier years, as wad of course, Eli Lilly.
ReplyDeleteEli Lilly
ReplyDeleteThe Sunday Challenge this week consisted of identifying a very unusual proper name. But it was finding a factoid, not solving a puzzle. It was nonetheless entertaining so props to Lillian Range (wonder where she got the idea :)
Earlier this week I said, “Clue: the first name reminds me of a 1960s Top 10 song. Concern: I don’t think the puzzle is stated fairly.”
The song is “Eli’s Coming” written by Laura Nyro and recorded by Three Dog Night. It reached #10 on Billboard’s Hot 100 in November, 1969.
My concern is that even though in the name, Eli Lilly, Y is pronounced as a long E, a vowel sound, that fact the Y can be used as both a vowel and a consonant renders the puzzle’s assertion “and no other consonant” to be unfair. It’s mushy at best. The last four words of this week’s entry should have been left out. I doubt that there are any other famous people with 8-letter names and 4 of the same consonant. But even if there were, it would do no harm to have two correct answers. It’s happened plenty of times before.
I hate to contradict ya, there big guy, but according to my source, "Hit Singles Top 20 Charts From 1954 to Present," the number 10 hit in the U.S., in November of 1969 was "Na Na Hey Hey Kiss Him Goodbye" by Steam. "Eli's Coming" entered the U.S. charts, as I correctly stated, in December of 1969, at number 11.
DeleteHm, I don't think it's mushy or unfair. The letter 'y' in the name 'Lilly' is definitely a vowel. The fact that some people might get confused about this may render the puzzle less elegant, but it's entirely fair.
DeleteWell, _I_ hate to contradict _you_, but my source is The Billboard Book of Top 40 Hits” by Joel Whitburn. It states Eli’s Coming by Three Dog Night reached #10 on November 8, 1969. Who am I to argue with Billboard?
DeleteI also have the Whitburn book, and I can corroborate Chuck's reporting. It might be a difference between weekly and monthly sales accumulations.
DeleteMy mental clue links:
ReplyDeleteLochinvar=>Lock=>Yale=>Eli then people lists
Back in ‘69, Janis Joplin "Got Dem Ol' Kozmic Blues Again Mama!" Fifty-five years later, we've got "Dem Young Laura Kozma, not singin’ the Blues, but rather finding inspiration from her "Puzzle Muse" (Athena perhaps?) and then composing fine-tuned croonable conundrums for our solving enjoyment!
ReplyDeleteIn her "Tortie's Slow But Sure Puzzles" on this week's Puzzleria!, Laura shares a "Top-Of-The-Pops Appetizer" containing:
~ a "Drinking-song Grammy?"
~ a City State Sport Song,
~ a Country singers & Countryside novel, and
~ “ROT”ing the rotating records!
We'll be uploading Puzzleria! very soon, this very afternoon!
Also on our menus are:
* a Schpuzzle of the Week titled “Wanna wear wigs bigly? Dollywould!”
* an Ab Ovo Obsolescent Hors d’Oeuvre titled “In the beginning,” Eden or Ending?
* a Gracefully Tasteful Slice titled “Chocolate Archipelago?”
* an 'It’s Beginning To Look A Lot Like... Dessert" titled "Holiday, not a Holy Day," and
* 13 Riffing Off Shortz And Range Entrees titled “Eli Lillian Range?” – including 11 composed by Puzzlerian Puzzlemasters Nodd, Ecoarchitect, Plantsmith, and a “great friend and puzzle contributor to Puzzleria!” — all who participate in our great “guest puzzle-maker rotation.”
So, drop by for some Slow but Sure “Kozmac” fun, Tortitude-Style!
LegoWhoObservesThatLauraKozma(akaTortitudeorTortie)NeverRestsOnHerLaurals!
I clued Like others here, makes me anxious to ponder how to clue it, taking the same ANXIETY / PROZAC route as did a few others.
ReplyDeleteCongrats and good luck!
DeleteA number of us here have had a go on the air. Here are a couple of thoughts. Quiet room. Have a pencil and paper handy. After a few right answers, the butterflies in your stomach will go away.
THEY CALLED ME! Best day ever. Wish me luck! : )
ReplyDeleteCongratulations! How wonderful. I'm looking forward to Sunday. Best of luck!
DeleteCongrats! Good luck!
DeleteCongrats! Let us know how it goes.
DeleteCongrats!
DeleteCongrats, metsma. Just "be as ready as you'll ever be"
Deleteand you'll do fine!
Lego"Hell'N'ReadyAsHe'llEverBe!"
Congratulations on getting the call! Best of luck on the puzzle!
DeleteThat is cool. You'll be on a landline I trust.
DeleteGreat work, Franny / metsma!
DeleteEli Lilly, who, according to the Wikipedia page, argued that the pharmaceutical industry should be regulated by the government.
ReplyDeleteGot the lily part right but wracked my brains over what else. Spelled it wrong, and honestly thought Eli was the guy who invented the paper cup.
ReplyDeleteA cup made from good quality, high rag-content paper, filled with cotton gin, which he also invented. Cheers!
DeleteLove those lily cup dispensers. In a lot of rest rooms and restaurants.
ReplyDeleteAnyone know what today's puzzle is? I only have THIS
ReplyDeleteI'm sure metsma does!
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Deletehttps://www.npr.org/2024/09/01/nx-s1-5094886/sunday-puzzle-three-of-a-kind
Deleteron, Scroll down on this site to see the puzzle. Not in the usual format. NPR must be low on funds.
Delete440 correct entries last week.
ReplyDeleteName a famous TV personality of the past. Drop the second letter of the last name. Phonetically, the first and last name together will sound like a creature of the past. Who is it?
ReplyDeleteTook me longer to type that in than to solve it!
DeleteSame here. Virtually instantaneous.
DeleteTook me longer than you guys, but once I got it, I did think, "Hm, haven't I noticed this before?"
ReplyDeleteYes, I believe the TV personality also noticed it, and I've been searching (so far unsuccessfully) for evidence of that fact.
DeleteThat makes three of us.
ReplyDeleteWas Marlon Brando ever on TV?