Q: Think of a word that means exceptionally good. Add two letters at the end of it to make a word that means the exact opposite. What words are these?Change the last letter of the original word to three later in the alphabet, then add the same two letters as before. Rearrange to get a word meaning "sway".
A: SUPERB, SUPERBAD
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I love my pseudonym
ReplyDeleteOn the other hand...
ReplyDeleteIf we’re allowed modern slang, I have it.
ReplyDeleteI think I have the same one
DeleteIf so, we've found an alternate solution. A friend shared a better one.
DeleteI don't like my answer, as one of the words is a contranym; but it fits Blaine's clue
ReplyDeleteRob, what's the difference between an antonym and a contranym? is contranym a real word?
DeleteA contranym has two opposite meanings, like 'cleave'.
Delete"Contranym" is a real word, and signifies a word that has two meanings, one an opposite of the other. For example, "fast" can mean moving quickly but can also mean stuck firmly in one place.
DeleteThanks, Crito
DeleteThat was easy.
ReplyDeleteYes it was.
DeleteEasy it was.
ReplyDeleteNEWS
ReplyDeleteListening to the broadcast helped.
DeleteAs Huey Lewis and the NEWS observed in 1983, (sometimes) Bad Is Bad.
DeleteA clue citing a specific year would be removed by Blaine.
ReplyDeleteI should have said "certain year" rather than "specific year."
DeleteNearly 900 correct entries last week.
ReplyDeleteMovie clue....
ReplyDeleteThe answer rearranges to a writer and something he did a lot of.
ReplyDeleteWell, sort of.
ReplyDeleteNo list needed—the first word I tried worked! Blaine's clue confirmed I had the same answer. I initially forgot to add the same two letters, per Blaine's instructions, so I got a word that can mean "study."
ReplyDeleteIncidentally, regarding the "exact opposite" part of the puzzle directions: Merriam-Webster doesn't seem to see it that way.
I think Will said "can mean" on air. That might address your MW comment.
DeleteThe MW entry doesn't reflect the "can mean" part. Which is a little odd, because I agree with the "can mean" part of the puzzle.
DeleteAs Rob said, the answer seems to be a contronym.
By the way, the word I found that can mean "study" is some of a contronym. More on Thursday.
This comment has been removed by the author.
DeleteWolfgang, I learned that that word is a kind of contronym (which I misspelled above, sorry!) a few years ago -- I'd only known one of the meanings until then, the one sometimes deprecated by cognoscenti. Interesting.
DeleteOddly, my hardcopy Merriam Webster's Collegiate Dictionary, Eleventh Edition (copyright 2007), only gives the definition of the modified word as having the meaning opposite to the original word (not a separate entry; it's in an earlier list of words with a common prefix). But, the online Merriam-Webster (https://www.merriam-webster.com/) only gives the definition that that is synonymous with the original word, as far as I can tell.
DeleteInteresting! The OED has both senses.
DeleteMusical clue: Beastie Boys
ReplyDeleteNo clue here, but I got this before I finished breakfast. The idea of the puzzle is good – just a little on the easy side.
ReplyDeleteFrom yesterday's misfortune: Diane Keaton was 2 weeks older than another person, possibly even better-known, named D**** ***ton.
ReplyDeleteNot Diane Sawyer? She was born in December, 1945.
DeleteNo, not Diane Sawyer. The celebrity Rudolfo was referring to has recently posted a short video about her current status.
DeleteNice add-on! Claims "ain't dead yet", seems correct.
DeleteAsk Jolene
DeleteI'm kicking myself, because I had the right answer for a while, and didn't see it. No clue here. I easily verified my answer with other clues.
ReplyDeleteAn NMU alum...
ReplyDeleteLegoNotAMemberOfTheIlluminati
I think I have the answer—or at least my words fit Blaine’s clue.
ReplyDeleteWell, I have two answers. One of them is a (substandard, now standard) contronym I learned in elementary school in the 1970's. The other one, in its more recognizable form, is an adjectival modifier for a substance used by the ones who usef the first contronym.
ReplyDeleteMy answer, which I got much earlier this morning but thought, surely not, fits Blaine's clue. I would have preferred a puzzle out of the relationship between "mode" (e.g. fashion and dress" and "modest" or something like that.
ReplyDeleteIncidentally, I still recall the cheer I heard using this word in 5th grade.
DeleteNot surprised to learn that a certain exceptionally good bird of prey preys on a certain not-so-good small mammal, but a lot of people are talking about them.
ReplyDeleteThanks Blaine. Now I will spend the rest of today thinking of Dean Martin. When I hear him sing the chorus I know the proper lyrics, but I always laughingly hear it slightly differently than intended.
ReplyDelete[Chorus]
Other dancers may be on the floor
Dear, but my eyes will see only you
Only you have the magic technique
When we sway, I go weak
[My Chorsus version]
Other dancers may pee on the floor
Dear, but my eyes will see only you
Only you have the magic technique
When we sway, I go weak
I sometimes make two further changes, but I will let you figure that out.
I have 2 answers. In one of them, both words can be good or bad. In the other answer, there is a synonym that is awesome.
ReplyDeleteThe answers are terrific, terrifical and superb, superbad. Terrific and terrifical can both be good or bad. Superb and awesome are synonyms with the same alphanumeric value of 81.
DeleteS+U+P+E+R+B=19+21+16+5+18+2=81
A+W+E+S+O+M+E=1+23+5+19+15+13+5=81
I do not believe I ever heard of the second word, and it is not in my Webster's Ninth New Collegiate Dictionary.
ReplyDeleteMy second answer is in the dictionary and appears to be valid. I intend to submit both, and perhaps email Will, or he will not likely know of alternate answers unless someone informs him.
That's odd!
DeleteIt is definitely in later editions. And it's not a particularly new word, so it's surprising it isn't in the 1981 edition.
Remove the last letter of the original word to get (arguably) a synonym.
ReplyDeleteGot the answer after waking up shivering and damp.
ReplyDeleteSo what?
DeleteDon't make me say it loud.
Deletegive a hoot?
ReplyDeleteWe're thinking along the same lines, I believe.
DeleteYeah, I was thinking of a... more direct hint along these lines but I was worried it would be tmi.
DeleteA relevant number is 60. Does that fit with what you (Jan and Dr Awk) had in mind?
Yes.
DeleteIndeed!
DeleteI was thinking of the Super Bowl aka Superb Owl!
DeleteI’m a little slow to solve this week. The solution I found fits Blaine’s hint. I might have hyphenated the second word.
ReplyDeleteSUPERB, SUPERBAD
ReplyDelete"Well, sort of." As others have mentioned, SUPERBAD can be a synonym or antonym to SUPERB. Thus, its status as a contranym is noted.
A certain orange one used the term in social media posts this week but he wrote super-bad or super bad.
DeleteSUPERB + AD —> SUPERBAD
ReplyDelete“Superb” was the first word I thought of. That seems to have been the case for others on the blog as well
I was considering “James Bond” as a hint, i.e., 007 —> 2007, the year the film Superbad was released, but it’s not a film I’ve seen or have any interest in seeing (and knew nothing about until I googled “superbad” as a search term), so I thought better of it. Dr. Awkward’s “hoot” hint may be relevant.
Lorenzo, was 2007 the “specific year” or “certain year” you meant?
Interestingly, Will’s authority, Merriam-Webster, lists “superbad” as “Informal” in its online dictionary and provides only one definition: “extremely good or impressive especially in a tough or showy way.” It does not provide a contronymic definition. I have Webster’s Ninth New Collegiate Dictionary (1983/1987), and “superbad” is not even an entry. What does the most recent edition, the 11th (2003/rev. ed. 2019), of Webster's say? Perhaps it’s no matter. There will be a new 12th edition released on November 18. I wonder: Will “superbad” warrant an entry, and if so, will there also be the contronymic definition?
Meanwhile, the online OED mentions that “superbad” has two meanings. I don’t have access to the definitions, but given the listing’s additional acknowledgment that “[t]his word is used in African-American English,” I think that it does in fact treat “superbad” as a contronym (although without access to the definitions I can’t be certain). Like my Webster’s Ninth, my own OED, the 1971 edition, does not even list “superbad.”
Here's the OED entry:
Delete1.
1871–
Extremely bad; very poor, awful.
2.
1970–
slang (originally in African American usage). Of a person: very tough, formidable. Also as a general term of approbation: very good, extremely impressive. Cf. bad adj. A.IV.12, A.IV.13.
Thanks, Crito. That confirms the contronym. But I still wonder what the latest Webster’s Collegiate, the 11th, says and what the new edition next month will say.
DeleteYes, the year was 2007.
DeleteSUPERB & SUPERBAD and PEAK & PEAKED
ReplyDeleteI wrote that I didn’t like my answer because one of the words was a contranym. SUPERBAD literally means “very bad,” but it seems, from the web research I have done, it is currently much more common as slang meaning “very good.” The _Oxford English Dictionary_ dates the first citation of the “bad” meaning at 1871, and the first citation of the “good” meaning at 1970, the James Brown song.
ReplyDelete"This means war!" this week on Puzzleria!
ReplyDeleteOur good friend Ecoarchitect (aka Greg VanMechelen) has composed for our solving enjoyment a dozen-puzzle edition of his "Econfusions," titled "Weaponizing Words."
(Lately, alas, "weaponization" has come to mean the strategic manipulation or transformation of information, institutions or social issues into tools for gaining political advantage, launching partisan attacks, and delegitimizing opponents... Eco, however, wisely (and refreshingly) focuses more on "old-school weaponizing words" like, for example, Government-Issue Glocks, Gatling guns, garrotes, guillotines and gauntlets.
We shall upload Puzzleria! very soon, this very afternoon.
Also on this week's menus:
# a Schpuzzle of the Week titled “A whole wordful of Hippocraticity,
”# a World Wide Webfooted Hors d’Oeuvre titled “Cyber-thumbs up or down?”
# a Penny Loafer Shoestring Budget Puzzle Slice titled “Lace-ups loafers sneakers sandals plimsolls pumps,”
# an Anagramadjectival Dessert titled “Calendrical landscaping techniques,” and finally,
# ten riff-offs of this week’s NPR Puzzle Challenge titled “Superbly Superbad Yooper Grads!”
That adds up to 26 puzzles. So, gird your loins for some “Eco-warfare,” weaponization and wonderful wordplay of the highest order... and ordnance!
LegoWhoNotesThat"Weapons"CanBeAnagrammedToSpellTheSurnameOfAnAuthorAndALowercaseHomophoneOfALaterCharacterCreatedByAnAuthorWhoseSurnameSharesTheSameInitialLetterAsTheFirstAuthor
"Weapons" can anagrammed to spell "Poe" (as in Edgar Allan) and "swan" which is a lowercase homophone of "Swann," a character created by Marcel Proust.
DeleteLegoSwanSinging
SUPERB, SUPERBAD
ReplyDelete> Not surprised to learn that a certain exceptionally good bird of prey preys on a certain not-so-good small mammal, but a lot of people are talking about them.
I keep hearing about a bad bunny and a superb owl lately..
YIL: I was so taken with Jyqm's coded reference to "Cold Sweat" by the Godfather of Soul (who also gave us "Superbad" just in case you don't see the connection) that I looked up the lyrics for "Cold Sweat" and discovered that Alfred "Pee Wee" Ellis, who co-wrote the song, derived the horn line from Miles Davis' "So What." https://genius.com/James-brown-cold-sweat-lyrics. As a wise man once said, everything's connected.�
ReplyDeleteI was wondering what the "So What" connection could be -- that's an incredible fun fact that will have me listening to both tunes for the rest of the afternoon!
DeleteMy first answer was Beast and Beastly; my second was Best and Bested.
ReplyDeleteterrific, terrifical or superb, superbad
ReplyDeleteSUPERB — SUPERBAD
ReplyDeleteTrying to apply Blaine's clue, I initially forgot to add the two letters, and instead of persuade, I got peruse.
I hinted that what I got was some of a contronym, which it is: "peruse" can mean both 'examine in detail' and 'look over in a casual manner.'
"Superbad" is a contronym, of course, as was amply discussed in the comments above. As I said, the Merriam-Webster entry doesn't include the (more literal) meaning of 'exceptionally bad' intended by the puzzle. And as I said, I thought that was odd.
ChatGPT says the answer is FINE, and then you add the letter D to make FINED, which it thinks works because it is bad to be fined.
ReplyDeleteSuperb + ad, superbad. My hint -- the answer rearranges to a writer and something he did a lot of. (James) Beard, sup.
ReplyDeleteSUPERB — SUPERBAD
ReplyDeleteI wrote Musical Clue Beatie Boys because the of the world famous Kerfuffle between Will Shortz and Mike Diamond of the Beastie boys, that made it all the way to Television.
Will used the word ILLIN as a Crossword (clued “Wack, as in hip hop” in the puzzle).
Mike D thought it can be a positive word, where as the Puzzle Constructor used it as a negative. The BEEF went national, covered in Vulture (NY Mag) and even on the Colbert Report.
https://archive.nytimes.com/wordplay.blogs.nytimes.com/2012/01/10/the-puzzle-master-throws-down/
Julieanne Smolinski’s intent was to school Mr. Shortz on the actual meaning of the word ILLIN’ (clued “Wack, as in hip hop” in the puzzle), which she feels means actually “ill” (in a positive way, as she says). Mr. Shortz contends that his references back up the original clue, and that at least one of those references define the word ILLIN’ as “stupid, insane”.
I clued Beasties because I fear a similar fate with SUPERBAD.
The Puzzle implies SUPERBAD is the opposite of SUPERB. Growing up in New York City, I've ONLY heard SUPERBAD as a total compliment, but I didn't want Blaine to TMI me by citing James Brown, with his legendary 1970 track SUPERBAD, where it is absolutely a COMPLIMENT.
"I got soul, I'm Superbad" - James Brown
Side puzzle: Diane Keaton was 2 weeks older than Dolly "Ain't dead yet" Parton. They were born about 9 months after VE Day.
ReplyDeleteI rode the wayback machine to 9th-grade Latin and came back with SUPER > SUPERBA.
ReplyDeleteRIP Susan Stamberg. What a gem!
ReplyDeleteI posted her mother's Thanksgiving cranberry relish recipe to the Usenet Cookbook about 40 years ago. But I stopped making it a couple of years ago because nobody likes it but me.
DeleteA little research reveals that, whilst she did obtain the recipe from her mother in law, it was first introduced in the Americas by Myles Spamdish.
DeleteThis week's challenge comes from Dan Pitt, of Palo Alto, Calif. Think of something to drink in two words. Rearrange the letters to spell a famous prison and a means of getting out of prison. What words are these?
ReplyDeleteMusical clue?
DeleteFirst drink and prison I thought of! I feel just grand!
ReplyDeleteSame here, but I feel isolated.
DeleteThe on-air challenge provides a common word plus a letter, to be anagrammed to name something you would or might find in a hotel room. (Ex. MAP + L --> LAMP). The second clue is HORSE + W. I saw WHORES before SHOWER.
ReplyDeleteYou can lead . . . I'll come in again.
Deletejan, are you trying to tell us you were showered with whores?
DeleteEvents at the prison were front page news in a prior time.
ReplyDelete