The level of difficulty in this week's puzzle is just right.Q: Think of a means of transportation in seven letters. Change the fifth letter to a U and read the result backward. You'll get a common Latin word followed by its English synonym. What words are these?
A: DOGSLED --> DEUS, GOD
Again, Will has given us a "number" puzzle that doesn't expect any math knowledge.Q: Spell out the numbers from 13 to 20 -- THIRTEEN, FOURTEEN, FIFTEEN, SIXTEEN, SEVENTEEN, EIGHTEEN, NINETEEN, TWENTY. Select one letter from each word, in order, to name another number. No anagramming is necessary. What number is it?
A: INFINITY
I got it on the fourth try.Q: Think of a famous movie villain. Insert one letter to get the brand name of a household product. Then change one letter of the product to get the last name of another famous movie villain. Who are the characters, and what is the product?
A: DR. NO, DRANO, DRAGO
It was worded differently, but we've seen this wordplay twice before.Q: 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?
A: TRAMPOLINE, TRAMLINE
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.
A: HOKEY, HOLEY, HOMEY, HONEY, HOOEY
Change the penultimate letter in the film title to an R and rearrange. The result is a plural for something else that can move and consume food.Q: Take the name of a popular 21st-century film with animals, in eight letters. Remove the first and last letters, then change one of the remaining six letters to a C, to spell a plural word for certain animals. What words are these?
A: ZOOTOPIA, OCTOPI
Take the hyphenated term and add the letters M and R. Rearrange to get something you don't want to see in your food.Q: Name two words that are opposites. They share a single letter. Remove that shared letter from each word, put a hyphen between the two resulting words and you'll get a term you sometimes see in food ads. What words are these?
A: SLOW, FAST --> LOW-FAT
Normally I'd have something to add here, but today it's the opposite.Q: Name something in 10 letters that's found in a kitchen. Drop its sixth letter to name something on a keyboard. Then drop the new word's fifth letter to name something no one wants to get. What words are these?
A: BACKSPLASH, BACKSLASH, BACKLASH
Clue: DolourQ: Name a classic song with a two-word title. Drop the first letter. Add an R after the new first letter. The result will be the names of two countries one after the other. What song is this?
A: PIANO MAN --> IRAN, OMAN
Q: Think of a famous female singer (eight and four letters, respectively). The first syllable of her first name, the second syllable of her first name backward and the last name forward again are all verbs associated with human desire. Who is this singer?Rearrange all the letters in her name to get an instrument and a type of belt.
A: COURTNEY LOVE --> COURT, YEN, LOVE
Q: Name a famous actor of the past, seven letter first name and seven letter last name. Remove three consecutive letters from his last name and the remaining letters in order will be the well known lead character from a long running series of films. What actor and character are these?Rearrange the letters of the actor and you'll get an animal and a fruit.
A: CHARLIE CHA(PLI)N --> CHARLIE CHAN
Q: Think of a popular film franchise with many sequels. Hidden in consecutive letters inside its name is a place mentioned multiple times in the Bible. Replace that place with a single letter and you'll name a Major League Baseball team. What franchise and team are these?I was just reading about Dorothea Waley Singer who spent time arranging and cataloguing all medical and scientific manuscripts in Great Britain and Northern Ireland from the Middle Ages to the early modern era. I don't know why I mention that, but I'll explain on Thursday.
A: T(HE AVEN)GERS --> TIGERS
Q: Name an animal whose first five letters in order spell a religious figure. And if you change the animal's next-to-last letter, its last five letters in order will spell another religious figure. What animal is this?Is this a joke? So easy!
A: RABBIT --> RABBI, ABBOT
Q: Think of a popular movie of the past decade. Change the last letter in its title. The result will suggest a lawsuit between two politicians of the late 20th century — one Republican and one Democrat. What's the movie and who are the people?Maybe we should focus on what the politicians had in common rather than their differences?
A: FORD V. FERRARI --> FORD V. FERRARO
There was no actual lawsuit between these two.
It's not a Ford Tempo or Hyundai Sonata. Maybe I'm not smart enough to figure this out this week?Q: Think of a musical instrument. Add two letters at the end, and you'll get the names of two popular automobile models reading left to right. What musical instrument is this?
A: ACCORDION --> (Honda) ACCORD, (Hyundai) IONIQ
Remove two consecutive letters that are an element, rearrange the remaining letters to name part of another animal.Q: Name an animal. The first five letters of its name spell a place where you may find it. The last four letters of this animal will name another animal -- but one that would ordinarily not be found in this place. What animals are these?
A: STALLION --> STALL, LION
Q: Name something you don't want to have at night using two words (3,5). Shift each of the letters of the second word nine spaces later in the alphabet. If your count reaches the end of the alphabet, continue counting from the start. The result will name a famous singer.
A: BAD SLEEP --> BAD BUNNY
Take the even letters of the second word and rearrange to name something associated with this --> ❤️Q: A man said to a friend: "I'm thinking of a 9-letter word that contains my name, Ian ("I-A-N"), embedded somewhere inside it. If you replace my 3-letter name with your 4-letter name, you'll get a familiar word in 10 letters." What are the two words, and what is the name of Ian's friend?
A: APPL(IAN)CE --> APPL(ESAU)CE
Take the letters in the longer phrase. Replace the middle letter with a T and rearrange to get something else that can work against weightloss.Q: Name something in 7 letters that's designed to help you lose weight. Insert the letters EP somewhere inside this word to get a two-word phrase naming things that are likely to add weight. What words are these?
A: PILATES --> PIE PLATES
I'm a little annoyed that the example doesn't follow the order of operations and instead must be performed left to right. It would have to be (1 + 23) ÷ 4 x 5 x 67 - 8 + 9 to work correctly in most calculators.Q: This week's challenge is a numerical one. Take the nine digits -- 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9. You can group some of them and add arithmetic operations to get 2011 like this: 1 + 23 ÷ 4 x 5 x 67 - 8 + 9. If you do these operations in order from left to right, you get 2011. Well, 2011 was 15 years ago. Can you group some of the digits and add arithmetic symbols in a different way to make 2026? The digits from 1 to 9 need to stay in that order. Will knows of two different solutions, but you need to find only one of them.
A: 12 x 34 x 5 - 6 - 7 + 8 - 9 = 2026 | PEMDASor L to R
(1 + 2) x 3 x 4 x 56 - 7 + 8 + 9 = 2026 | L to R
(1 x 2 + 34) x 56 - 7 + 8 + 9 = 2026 | L to R
(12 - 3) x 4 x 56 - 7 + 8 + 9 = 2026 | L to R
1 + 2 + 345 x 6 - 7 x 8 + 9 = 2026 | PEMDAS
Note: As suspected, the intended solutions followed PEMDAS without parentheses and the whole "left to right" example was a confusing red herring introduced by Will
