Q: There is a set of five five-letter words that vary by just their middle letter. If the middle is any letter from K through O, it makes a common word. However, no other letter can go in the middle to complete a word. What words are these?The first and last words are somewhat similar.
Edit: HOKEY and HOOEY are terms that both relate to nonsense.
A: HOKEY, HOLEY, HOMEY, HONEY, HOOEY
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ReplyDeleteOh, sorry.
DeleteOne of the five words can be rearranged to a word for something useful in games.
ReplyDeleteOnly one of the five words can be rearranged to a word, it would appear.
DeleteThree of the words are adjectives, one is a noun, and one can be a noun, but often isn’t.
ReplyDeleteMy answers are two adjectives exclusively and three multiple parts of speech.
DeleteThis comment has been removed by the author.
DeleteFascinating. I wonder if we have different solutions, or are using different dictionaries…
DeleteThere is a solution candidate that is excluded by the condition "no other letter can go in the middle"
DeleteThere is a case I'm aware of in which one of the "exclusive" adjectives can also function as a noun. More on Thursday.
DeleteThis would be a good puzzle on MLK day.
ReplyDeleteMaybe National Train Day, as well.
Delete(H.O. model trains)
DeleteIf you replace the middle letter with a "P", you'll have something that's not a real word, but is found in the Urban Dictionary.
ReplyDeleteSounds like a word not associated with urban dwelling.
Delete(Hopi.)
DeleteReplace the middle letter with another letter, to name both a World War II US Navy destroyer and a merchant ship sunk by a Japanese submarine in WWII.
ReplyDeleteOne of the words reminds me of a college.
ReplyDeleteThe words go together well with one of my first guesses.
ReplyDelete"Words that go together well" alludes to jan's early observation about someone's name being a permutation of the five non-pivotal letters.
DeleteOne of my initial attempts involved a member of a seafaring trio, but any connection there might have been to the real answer is crumbling.
Actually, make that four non-pivotal letters.
DeleteOne can be a term of endearment.
ReplyDeleteYep, I got the term of endearment!
DeleteI was thoroughly confused by the second sentence of the clue, but my hubby, who's not a puzzle person, understood it correctly. In my confused state, I was going for clack, cleck, click, clock, cluck. 🙄
ReplyDeleteMusical clue: 1969
Hmm. I would have said 1968.
DeleteI'm pretty sure I know what you're going for Lancek. I just thought I'd shake it up a bit.
DeleteOne of the words is a word that Americans use to mean the same thing as another word means in British English. But that other word has quite a different meaning in American dialect, so be careful!
ReplyDeleteNot quite a dizzy dance, but a challenge.
ReplyDeleteIf you take one of the words and put something that makes it in front, then it will sound like a name.
ReplyDeleteSome ants make honey. "Ant honey" sounds like Anthony.
DeleteThis is one of those puzzles that came to me quickly while enjoying my Sunday brunch.
ReplyDeleteOne of those words might describe any number of pastries that you might have enjoyed during brunch
DeleteIndeed. And a second word may have also contributed to my enjoyment.
DeleteI lived in San Francisco's Noe Valley for a little while in the 1990s. Other than that, I'm a New Yorker.
ReplyDeleteI didn't find love in SF, so I moved back to NYC, where I met my wife. True story - our first apartment in Brooklyn, we had an upstairs neighbor named Ellen Mendlow. She grew up loving the alphabet song, because Ellen Mendlow sounds like LMNO. But this puzzle is about KLMNO and not LMNOP.
DeleteBen, What part of Brooklyn? I'm originally from East Flatbush.
DeleteBut did you ever spoonerise FLATBUSH?
DeleteGreetings from another New Yorker!
DeleteBorn in The Bronx, later lived in Manhattan (20th Street), then New Hyde Park (Eastern Queens)
. B.Ch.E CCNY ’69, M.S.Mgmt RPI ‘72. Worked in CT, 1969-92, then on to VA, where I am retired.
I'm also from New York.
DeleteOr Ἀλωπεκή. One of those.
Alopece, eh? Funny coincidence, I'm old, too, but not that old, and I have alopecia.
DeleteAnd another: I saw two foxes today, just jogging alongside the road!
Deletereplace the middle letter by *two* letters and you can play a game. --Margaret G.
ReplyDeleteFor those here who put much faith in Wikipedia I would advise caution. On NPR this morning our local station, KUOW, reported that the Blue Angles began performing here in Seattle at our Seafair beginning in 1972. This is as false as can be. I googled to see where they got this nonsense from, and sure enough, there it was in Wikipedia.
ReplyDeleteThe Blue Angles were formed in April 24, 1946, more than a year after I was born in Seattle and raised in the Wedgwood Neighborhood where I watched them fly over from at least 1950. And just to follow up a bit. Some years ago I googled my neighborhood to see what Wikipedia had to say, and it says all the houses in this 5 square planned 'hood sold for $5,000 each. I tried to correct both of these incorrect "facts" but the program will not let me. My parents purchased our house there in November 1942 for $6,000, and I am certain the larger two story houses went for even more than that. And, yes, I have the deed to prove it.
When I took Geometry, we were never taught about any Blue Angles.
DeleteWell, Wikipedia isn't Right -- I trust SDB on this. They're obviously being obtuse.
DeleteThanks, Ben. That puts a new angel on the head of that pin.
DeleteThis is turning into acute thread!
DeleteThe rival high school team here painted a giant "BEAT ANGLES" sign on the high school brick entryway.
DeleteMaybe they were fans of obtuse angles, er, angels?
Oooooh, was that rival team the Picts? If so it all becomes clear!
DeleteYou're being reflex(ively) (a)cute again, Crito.
DeleteUPDATE:
DeleteI just received an email from NPR and another from a prominent NW historian that I was correct:
"Mark: Nothing wrong with your memory. The Blue Angels flew over Seafair and hydro races from 1952-58 according to the newspapers. There were a couple of visits to Seafair (1964) and summer airshows in Everett (1960) and McChord Air Force base (1966), but Seafair flights resumed more regularly again in 1972. And I think I just heard them go over! Happy Seafair.— Knute
Sent from my iPhone
Knute Berger
Editor-at-Large & Host, Mossback’s Northwest
AND:
"Hi Mark,
Thanks for writing. It seems we made a mistake in how we phrased that. We meant to say that the Blue Angels have been a part of Seafair since 1972. But they performed in Seattle in other capacities before that.
We apologize for the misunderstanding.
Zaki Hamid
Director of Community Engagement"
While I am confident I have the intended answer, there is a sixth word that is informal but legal in US scrabble fitting this pattern, with a different letter in the middle.
ReplyDeleteSkydiveboy, have you ever done any BASE jumping?
ReplyDeleteNo! And I have no respect for both it and bungee jumping. Most of those who BASE often are now dead, including my chief S/L instructor when I operated Desert Skydiving DZ near Buckley, AZ. He dis 2 base jumps; both on El Capitan. He eventually went back to do another and died. I believe he is still the last to die on El Cap doing a base jump.
DeleteThat post may be a bit misleading. He did 2 base jumps total on separate occasions. He died on the second one. Jeff Christman is his name.
DeleteIMPROPERLY LOADED CHUTE BLAMED IN JUMPER'S DEATH
DeletePublished: Oct 22, 1996, 12:00 a.m. MDT
By Deseret News
A man parachuting illegally off a rock formation in Yosemite National Park fell to his death, apparently because his chute was loaded improperly, a park official said.
Jeff Christman, 42, of Arizona narrowly missed hitting two rock climbers sleeping on a ledge of the 7,569-foot granite monolith called El Capitan, Yosemite spokesman Scott Gediman said."We think that his parachute was loaded backwards, and when he deployed his chute he was spun around and sent into the side of the wall," Gediman said.
Two of Christman's friends successfully jumped off El Capitan just prior to his death. The Park Service arrested the group's members, four men and two women, and charged them with misdemeanors involving the jumps. [END]
His chute was not installed backwards!!! This is typical nonsense either told to the media or put out by a DZ owner in order to protect himself from litigation. He had a habit of 'trash packing' that I am sure caused this malfunction that would have been easily corrected on a normal skydive. Line twists are not uncommon, and you just kick your way out of them. The kicking makes your body turn. Line twists are not considered a malfunction, but something that happens sometimes and is no big deal.
Shades of lotion, motion, notion, ocean, potion.
ReplyDeleteBetween solving Wordle and figuring out the answer to this puzzle, it's all about 5-letter words today!
ReplyDeleteI'm reminded of a certain Freudian concept...
ReplyDelete(un-homely, unheimlich)
DeleteSarah Palin may disagree
ReplyDeleteOnly three of the words rhyme with each other
ReplyDeleteThis comment has been removed by the author.
ReplyDeleteSweet puzzle. I'm reminded of a different movie about the animal kingdom that was much less well-received by the critics than Zootopia
ReplyDeleteBy the way, it was actually a little bit of news to me that the last of the five words was a word, let alone a common one.
ReplyDeleteMusical clue: Chuck Berry
ReplyDeleteChuck only topped the Billboard chart once, and it was not an original song, but a cover of a Dave Bartholomew novelty song.
DeleteHokey Wolf had a sidekick.
I sit in my living room reading a book and occasionally look up and see my large globe by the fireplace. Usually when I do this I am amazed at the amount of land on our planet and how little I really know of it. I just a moment ago was doing the same and looked up to where I had recently rotated my globe and noticed there was almost no ocean water north of the equator where the map was visible. I got up and turned it upside down and was a bit surprised at how little land is in the southern hemisphere. I then googled to inform myself of the percentages. While I have always known the earth is mostly water, about 3/4, this really made it more evident to me that while the land mass is vast and difficult for us to fully comprehend, the water mass must be much more so. And this made me consider the recently released photos of military jets filming UAP flying over the seas and then entering at great speed. What are we missing here? It seems to me there cannot be so much ocean water covering our planet with us really having any real knowledge of what is happening beneath our eyes. I believe we are all in for a big surprise one day.
ReplyDeleteThat’s pretty profound. And, yes, it occurred to me to call it deep
DeleteThis meme reminds me of this puzzle.
ReplyDeletejan, from soup to nuts, A to Z, alpha to omega, that's terrific!
DeleteMusical clue: 1953.
ReplyDeleteHegseth's recent attempt to reframe Iran conflict U.S. deaths is really full of bologna. Reminds me of Nam news spinning and nightly news reports of 10 u.s. casualties vs. 125 enemy Vietcong as if those comparative numbers made things better.
ReplyDeleteIt should be obvious why the US is not a member of the International Criminal Court.
Delete"The Bite of Seattle is a major summer food tradition founded in July 1982 by local restaurant owner Alan Silverman to help businesses during a tough economic time. It started at Green Lake Park and moved to the Seattle Center in 1986, growing into a massive festival with hundreds of vendors."
ReplyDeleteIt used to be all we had to worry about while attending this yearly event was food poisoning, but now we must also fear lead poisoning too.
Listening to NPR is for me becoming increasingly irritating due to the butchering of our English language, which I happen to love. Not the butchering; the language. With apologies to Edgar Rice Burroughs, one does not begin a sentence with the word, Me.
ReplyDeleteSounds to me that now every sentence, at least most of them, begin: "So, . . . "
DeleteStarting sentences with the word "so" got under the skin of Harry Shearer to the point that he would devote a segment of his radio show every few months to clips of interviewees starting their answers with "so." It's possible not to notice how common it is--I didn't--but once you do it becomes annoying.
DeleteThe verbal tic that drives me nuts is when interviewees repeat the words of the question as an affirmative response--as if they didn't have anything to say so they merely parrot what they have been asked. This is probably attributable in most cases to nerves on the part of people not used to speaking for the record, but you hear some people who talk for a living do it too.
My big peeve is when the interviewee says "That's a great question!" It seems like 98% say that before answering. Not just on the radio, but in real life too.
Delete"Thanks so much for joining us." "Thanks so much for having me." I'm always reminded of Brave New World.
DeleteSlow to the party today but I got there!
ReplyDeleteOur 3 day, 103 degree weather finally broke today and rain is coming. We are severely rationing H2O here and lawns are crispy and trees are thirsty.
The 4 letters that don't change do get rearranged, correct?
ReplyDeleteNo.
DeleteNo. Except for the middle letter, all 5 words have the same letters in the same order.
DeleteEasy puzzle for your enjoyment:
ReplyDeleteWhat does America fear more than fascism?
SDB, I know you're waiting for a pun answer. But reality for me is the Orange one in the White House.
DeleteNo, not a pun answer. What America fears more than fascism is recognizing it and calling it out.
DeleteI'd give my right arm to be ambidextrous.
ReplyDeleteI'm teaching myself to be ambidextrous. I'm halfway there! On the other hand, I've got a lot to learn.
DeleteSince we've spent time lately in the cornfields of both Nebraska and Kansas lately, I thought about becoming ambidextrose, using corn sugars from both states.
DeleteBut, being from New England originally, I will stick with maple syrup as my favorite sugar and viscous amber liquid. 😄
Far more of the corn of Kansas and Nebraska is used for ethanol, another popular liquid used in what Blaine identified as yet another popular liquid a couple of weeks ago.
DeleteDon't put maple syrup in your gas tank. If you smell maple syrup in your car, either your groceries or your engine coolant is leaking. But there's no gas tank at all in a Maple Majestic.
Wait, but maple syrup's sugar is sucrose, right?
DeleteI know a little sugar chemistry but I am shockingly ignorant about the... culinary properties. Gustatory. If I substitute dextrose (aka glucose) for the sucrose in a brownie recipe, will the brownies taste different? In what way?
I always thought Mable Stirrup was a cowgirl.
DeleteSpeaking of Nebraska and sugar, I just this moment learned, from my granddaughters' "Weird But True USA", that Kool-Aid was invented in Nebraska, and was originally called "Fruit Smack".
DeleteAnd Crito, sucrose is sweeter than glucose.
DeleteRoses are red and violets are purple
DeleteSugar is sweet and so is maple surple
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pg9YGmmPX6w
HOKEY HOLEY HOMEY HONEY HOOEY
ReplyDelete"Slow to the party" as in HOKEY POKEY.
I enjoyed the sugary ambidextrose discussion. Of course, besides maple syrup, another viscous, sweet, amber liquid is HONEY.
Indeed, Nebraska has plenty of dextrose in those cornfields but it also has Sand Hill Cranes migrating in the Sand Hills of western and central NE in spring and autumn. The Sand Hills are remarkably similar to Cape Cod dunes, complete with beach grasses. There's even a town called Wellfleet!
HOKEY, HOLEY, HOMEY, HONEY, HOOEY
ReplyDeleteMy Hint: I posted at the end of last week's blog that this was a sweet puzzle. Honey is sweet. "Bee here now."
HOKEY, HOLEY, HOMEY, HONEY, HOOEY
ReplyDelete> Anagram the common letters to name an actor.
Michelle YEOH, 2023 Best Actress Oscar winner
> Replace the middle letter with another letter, to name both a World War II US Navy destroyer and a merchant ship sunk by a Japanese submarine in WWII.
USS Hovey (DD-208/DMS-11), SS Richard Hovey
> I'd give my right arm to be ambidextrous.
You put your right arm in, etc. The HOKEY Pokey: That's what it's all about!
I wrote, “One of the five words can be rearranged to a word for something useful in games.” That’s a HOYLE (from Edmond Hoyle, as in “according to Hoyle”), an authoritative book of game rules.
ReplyDeleteHOKEY HOLEY HOMEY HONEY HOOEY
ReplyDeleteI mentioned growing up in New York City and then living in San Francisco's Noe Valley, because the local Bagel place on 24th St. was called HOLEY BAGEL
But I didn't find love in SF and moved back to New York, where I met my HONEY.
My clue was:
ReplyDeleteOne of the words is a word that Americans use to mean the same thing as another word means in British English. But that other word has quite a different meaning in American dialect, so be careful!
'Homely' is what British people say to mean what we mean by 'Homey'. But when an American says 'homely' that means something rather different, and derogatory.
(I know there's a newer meaning for 'homey' too!)
hokey, holey, homey, honey, hooey
ReplyDeleteHOKEY, HOLEY, HOMEY, HONEY, HOOEY. (My hint, which Blaine removed, said that the first three letters of the last word are reminiscent of a puzzle from a few weeks ago. The answer to the June 21 puzzle was SCREECH OWL.)
ReplyDeleteHokey, Holey, Homey, Honey, and Hooey
ReplyDeleteHokey, holey, and homey are adjectives, honey is a noun, and, while hooey can be a noun, it is often an interjection.
My Fellow-And-Female Blainesvillians:
ReplyDeleteOur friend Nodd, ironically, continually creates stimulating and challenging puzzles that will never cause solvers to "nod-off.
Take this week's edition of Puzzleria, for example. His "Nodd ready for prime time" puzzle-package features puzzles titled: "Greek To Me (by R. Cane); What’s In A (Sur)name? (parts 1 2, & 3); Animal Instinct; Nobody Does It Better; (and the ever-popular) Poetry Corner, by Anna Graham."
We plan to upload Puzzleria! very soon this very afternoon.
Also on our menus this week are:
~ a Schpuzzle of the Week titled “Shapeliness! Synonymy! Assembly!”
~ an Anti-Saloon League Hors d’Oeuvre titled “There’s 3 T’s (but no ‘Sousey’ Seas) in ‘Teetotal,’”
~ an Amphibious Appetizer titled “Aircrafts & Criminal Courts,”
~ a Non-Repetitive Dessert titled “Creature matures, makes a move!” and...
~ eight riffs of this week's NPR Puzzle Challenge (including six composed by "one terrific riffer," Nodd!) titled “Cornball moth-eaten comfy sweetie balderdash!”
So, stop by and solve... No No-Doz Required!
Lego...
HOKEY, HOLEY, HOMEY, HONEY, and HOOEY.
ReplyDeleteLast Sunday I said, “One can be a term of endearment.” Honey, will you take out the trash?
HOKEY, HOLEY, HOMEY, HONEY, HOOEY
ReplyDeleteSorry, but I’m a bit late to the party. It’s been a busy day.
“Not quite a dizzy dance” was hinting at the hokey-pokey….and so was “1953,” the year that Ray Anthony, now 104 years old and the last surviving member of the Glenn Miller Orchestra, released “The Hokey-Pokey” and turned the dance into a national craze.
Generally, the first two words are exclusively adjectives, except that in the usually hyphenated phrase “hokey-pokey” the word “hokey” functions as part of a compound noun. Depending on use and context, the last three words are functionally flexible. “Homey” is both an adjective and a slang noun; “honey” is an adjective, a verb, and a noun; and “hooey” can be either an interjection or a noun.
"One of the words reminds me of a college." That was a reference to the Virginia Tech Hokies.
ReplyDeleteI was thinking of Mt. Holyoke.
DeleteThis clue bothered me because HOSEY also exists as an informal slang word which is both in Collins and also legal in Scrabble.
ReplyDeletehttps://www.collinsdictionary.com/us/dictionary/english/hosey
My posts:
ReplyDelete- “This is one of those puzzles that came to me while enjoying my Sunday brunch.” This referred to bagels, donuts, etc that are holey (as Curtis added on to), along with the honey added to my morning tea.
- “By the way, it was actually a little bit of news to me that the last of the five words was a word, let alone a common one” - I’m not sure hooey is a common word but this clue referred to “Huey” Lewis and the News.
Indeed, "pokey" leads to the solution candidate that I mentioned, excluded by (and presumably responsible for) the condition "no other letter can go in the middle". I am not vouching for the wordiness of these:
ReplyDeletepogey
pokey
poley
pomey
poney
pooey
posey
Musical clue: 1969 ~ I was going for the song "Sugar, Sugar" recorded by the Archies, a fictional band from Archie Comics. It begins with "Sugar, oh honey, honey, you are my candy girl...." In late 1969, it topped both Billboard's Hot 100 (4 weeks) and the UK Singles Chart (8 weeks), ranking #1 for the year in both America and the UK. It is the most successful bubblegum pop single of all time, and is widely regarded as the epitome of the genre. Who knew!?
ReplyDeleteMy follow-up of 1968 was a reference to the Bobby Goldsboro hit “Honey,” a cloying but very popular song that charted #1 for several weeks. I believe Scarlett knew what I meant.
DeleteHOKEY, HOLEY, HOMEY, HONEY, HOOEY
ReplyDeleteBasically I got it after just looking up five-letter words with a K in the middle. Once I saw HOKEY, the rest just fell into place!
pjbProbablyWon'tBeAsLuckyTryingToDoAllThe"Riff-Off"EntreesOnPuzzleria!ThisWeek(JustCheckedACoupleOfHoursAgo!)
An excellent article about who is really profiting from AI rather than "democratizing skill." I highly recommend "Medium" as well. For $5 a month, the compilation of articles is always spot on and worth MANY times the five bucks:
ReplyDeletehttps://medium.com/@shahadilh18/ai-doesnt-democratize-skill-it-redistributes-who-profits-from-it-57bd46873e8e
"Trump cancels new strikes on Iran for now, claiming a deal to end the war is taking shape
ReplyDeletePresident Trump said the emerging deal "would include the Immediate, Complete, and Total OPENING OF THE HORMUZ STRAIT, and an end to Iran's nuclear threat." He added that Israel has agreed to join the U.S. in the commitment to try to complete the agreement."
Isn't this exciting news!? I'm sure glad I am not gullible, but I did get so excited that I almost forgot to renew my Flat Earth Society membership.
This week's online challenge comes from Michael Schwartz, of Florence, Ore. Think of a type of exercise equipment in three syllables. Remove the two middle letters and you'll name a means of transportation. What words are these?
ReplyDeleteSolved, and now back to bed.
DeleteCongratulations, Clark a pseudonym!
DeleteCongrats Blainesvillager Michael Schwartz!
ReplyDeleteHappy August y'all!
Rearrange the letters in the means of transportation to get
ReplyDeleteanother transportation related word.