NPR Sunday Puzzle (Apr 13, 2025): European Vacation

NPR Sunday Puzzle (Apr 13, 2025): European Vacation

Q: Name a famous European tourist site in nine letters. Rearrange its last four letters to name something that its first five letters can be planted in.

I believe in behavior which is positive and helpful.

NPR Sunday Puzzle (Apr 6, 2025): Milk and Beef

NPR Sunday Puzzle (Apr 6, 2025): Milk and Beef

Q: Think of an 11-letter word that might describe milk. Change one letter in it to an A, and say the result out loud. You'll get a hyphenated word that might describe beef. What is it?

Pour out a sunrise smile!

Edit: The letters in my hint anagram to "Monsieur Louis Pasteur"

A: PASTEURIZED --> PASTURE-RAISED

NPR Sunday Puzzle (Mar 30, 2025): Answers Delayed Until Thursday

NPR Sunday Puzzle (Mar 30, 2025): Answers Delayed Until Thursday

Q: Think of a word meaning "delay." Remove one W from it and you'll be left with another word meaning "delay." What words are these?

Read carefully, if you don't want to be delayed.

Edit: The puzzle includes the phrase "one W" which may make you think that W appears more than once (e.g. SLOWDOWN). But that made me question why it was worded that specific way. It became clear that this was intended to be a tricky puzzle where you had to remove "ONE W" from the word.

A: STONEWALL --> STALL

NPR Sunday Puzzle (Mar 23, 2025): TH: Think vs. That

NPR Sunday Puzzle (Mar 23, 2025): TH: Think vs. That

Q: In English the two-letter combination TH can be pronounced in two different ways: once as in the word "booth," the other as in "smooth." What is the only common English word, other than "smooth," that ends in the letters TH as pronounced in smooth?

I can't be the only one that is having trouble in clueing the answer to this puzzle. That's assuming you aren't already having trouble in hearing the distinction between an unvoiced and voiced dental fricative.

Edit: I wasn't sure if the intended answer was WITH or MOUTH (verb). I had to work to not include WITH in my clue. And often when you MOUTH something, you don't use your voice. I agree there can be other valid answers like BETROTH, BEQUEATH, etc.

A: MOUTH (verb)

NPR Sunday Puzzle (Mar 16, 2025): Eight Letter Island

NPR Sunday Puzzle (Mar 16, 2025): Eight Letter Island

Q:

Name a famous island in eight letters. Remove three consecutive letters. The letters that remain, in left-to-right order, will name where many islands can be found -- but not this one. What is this island, and where can't it be found?

Who has been scouring lists of islands or bodies of waters?

Edit: I must admit I spent too much time with lists of actual islands and types of waterways while the parts of the answer couldn't be found on either of those lists.

A: ATLANTIS, ATLAS

NPR Sunday Puzzle (Mar 9, 2025): Jon Stewart at the Movies

NPR Sunday Puzzle (Mar 9, 2025): Jon Stewart at the Movies

Q: Take the name JON STEWART, as in the comedian and TV host. Rearrange the letters to spell the titles of three classic movies. One of the titles is its familiar shortened form.

ChatGPT isn't much help, or is it?

Edit: Spielberg directed two of the movies. He also directed A.I. Artificial Intelligence in 2001.

A: JAWS, ET and TRON

NPR Sunday Puzzle (Mar 2, 2025): Scary Things: The Musical

NPR Sunday Puzzle (Mar 2, 2025): Scary Things: The Musical

Q: Think of a famous singer and actress, first and last names, two syllables each. The second syllable of the last name followed by the first syllable of the first name spell something that can be dangerous to run into. What is it?

After we've gotten the answer, we'll be the judges of whether this was a good puzzle or not.

Edit: If you take the left over letters (BRASTREI) and rearrange them, you get ARBITERS.

A: BARBRA STREISAND --> SANDBAR

NPR Sunday Puzzle (Feb 23, 2025): Musical Artists and Game Pieces

NPR Sunday Puzzle (Feb 23, 2025): Musical Artists and Game Pieces

Q: Think of two classic music artists with multiple top 40 hits. Their first names are near-synonyms. And their last names are both game pieces. Who are they?

Their last names being similar is not a coincidence.

Edit: Ernest Evans had the nickname "Chubby". Barbara Clark (wife of Dick Clark) heard a song from "Chubby" of him doing a vocal impression of Fats Domino. She suggested that Chubby be called "Chubby Checker" in homage to Fats Domino and the stage name stuck.

A: FATS DOMINO, CHUBBY CHECKER

NPR Sunday Puzzle (Feb 16, 2025): Sports Figure and American of the Past

NPR Sunday Puzzle (Feb 16, 2025): Sports Figure and American of the Past

Q: Name a famous sports figure of the past (5,4). Change the third and fourth letters of the first name to a single D, and you'll have the nickname of another famous American of the past. Who are these two people?

Been there, done that.

Edit: I liked the way the puzzle was presented previously.

A: LARRY BIRD, LADY BIRD (Johnson)

NPR Sunday Puzzle (Feb 9, 2025): Happy Valentine's Day!

NPR Sunday Puzzle (Feb 9, 2025): Happy Valentine's Day!

Q: Name a well-known cartoon character in eight letters. Change the last letter to a U and rearrange the result to make a phrase you might see on a Valentine's Day card.

The cartoon starring this character had a different name for quite awhile.

Olive Oyl was one of the cast of characters in the strip "Thimble Theater". It would be almost a decade later before the character Popeye appeared.

A: OLIVE OYL --> I LOVE YOU

NPR Sunday Puzzle (Feb 2, 2025): Hip, Hip Hooray!

NPR Sunday Puzzle (Feb 2, 2025): Hip, Hip Hooray!

Q: Name a part of the human body in seven letters. Add a B and rearrange the result it to get another part of the human body.

I woke up and it was yet another body part puzzle. Is this Groundhog Day?

Edit: The groundhog actually has a functioning tail containing bones. Also, hip (from the title) and toe are examples of three-letter parts of the body. Can you name eight more?

A: TOENAIL + B --> TAILBONE

NPR Sunday Puzzle (Jan 26, 2025): Name That Popular Singer

NPR Sunday Puzzle (Jan 26, 2025): Name That Popular Singer

Q: Think of a popular singer whose first and last names each have two syllables. Drop the second syllable from each name and you'll be left with the piece of a toy. What singer is this?

I accidentally focused on the letters in the second syllables; I was way off.

Edit: The leftover letters are YON.

A: DOLLY PARTON, DOLL PART

NPR Sunday Puzzle (Jan 19, 2025): Should You Choose to Accept It

NPR Sunday Puzzle (Jan 19, 2025): Should You Choose to Accept It

Q: Think of a familiar two-word phrase that means "a secret mission". Move the last letter of the first word to the start of the second word. The result will be two words that are synonyms. What are they?

I keep feeling like there's more to this.

Edit: My first thought was "covert operation", hence the hint about something missing.

A: COVERT OP --> COVER, TOP

NPR Sunday Puzzle (Jan 12, 2025): Rot-13 International Location

NPR Sunday Puzzle (Jan 12, 2025): Rot-13 International Location

Q: Think of a well-known international location in nine letters. Take the first five letters and shift each of them 13 places later in the alphabet. The result will be a synonym for the remaining four letters in the place's name. What place is it?

I was sure the answer was going to be NICAR/AGUA, but sadly NICAR didn't become WATER.

On my map, the WATER is BLUE and the LAND is GREEN. Also, AGUA is a Spanish word we know to be WATER, while TERRA is a Latin word we know to be EARTH or LAND

A: GREENLAND --> TERRA, LAND

NPR Sunday Puzzle (Jan 5, 2025): Math Fun in 2025

NPR Sunday Puzzle (Jan 5, 2025): Math Fun in 2025

Q: This week's challenge is s a numerical challenge for a change. Take the digits 2, 3, 4, and 5. Arrange them in some way using standard arithmetic operations to make 2,025. Can you do it?

I'm not sure how to clue this... but I'm going to say 865 or 2619.

Edit: One possible order to the digits is 3452. The prime factorization of 3452 is 2² x 863. Adding the unique prime factors gives 865.

Another possible order is 5234. Its prime factorization is 2 x 2617. Adding the prime factors gives 2619.

A: If you just take the prime factorization of 2025, you have the answer.
3⁴ x 5² = 2025, or 5² x 3⁴ = 2025.

Note: You could also just use 25 in place of 5²
(3⁴ x 25 or 25 x 3⁴).

I'm sorry to everyone for the times I had to use my moderator powers.

One comment I hated to delete was the one about the sum of the cubes of the first 9 integers. (1³ + 2³ + 3³ + ... + 8³ + 9³ = 2025). It also included the related fact that the sum of the first 9 integers squared gets the same result (1 + 2 + 3 + ... + 8 + 9)² = 2025.

This is actually true for the first 'n' integers that the sum of the cubes is the square of the sum. (1³ + 2³ + 3³ + ... + n³) = (1 + 2 + 3 + ... + n)².
This is known as Nicomachus's theorem