Q: Name a foreign make of automobile. Cross out several letters in its name. The remaining letters, reading in order from left to right, will spell a food that comes from the country where the car is made. What is the country, and what is the food?I'm going to have to go dark this week since we're going on vacation. Please moderate yourselves and play nicely with each other.
A: Mitsubishi --> sushi (both from Japan)
NPR Sunday Puzzle (Jul 28, 2013): What Does NPR Stand For?: Q: In three words, name a product sold mainly to women that has the initials N-P-R. The answer is a common phrase.My wife's first answer: Nipple Piercing Ring. Okay, just forget I said that.
A: Nail Polish Remover
I have several answers that will work, but they all start with the same four-letter word. Each of the four answers meet the puzzle criteria. If I'm correct, the three-syllable word has an anagram that is not three syllables.A: Think of a three-syllable word in four letters, add two letters and rearrange everything to become a two-syllable word in six letters. Then add two more letters and scramble them to get a one syllable word in eight letters.
A: A few possible answers:
IDEA --> REPAID --> SPRAINED
IDEA --> DETAIN --> STRAINED
IDEA --> TIRADE --> STRAINED
IDEA --> REPAID --> TRAIPSED
NPR Sunday Puzzle (Jul 14, 2013): Organizing the Clothes Closet: Q: The phrase "clothes closet" describes a place to keep your clothes. What's interesting about the phrase is that all the letters of the second word are found inside the first one. Think of another two-word phrase that names a place to keep clothes, in which all the letters of the second word are found inside the first. The first word of the phrase has nine letters, and the second word has six. What common phrase is this?You don't need an additional hint from me since the puzzle provides plenty of clues. The answer is not "roughened ground" or "ephemeral hamper" though.
A: Underwear Drawer
NPR Sunday Puzzle (Jul 7, 2013): Country Mix-up: Q: Rearrange the letters of INDIA + BELARUS to name two other countries. What are they?The capitals of the resulting countries are about 3,000 miles apart, and neither contains the letter "E".
A: LIBERIA + SUDAN
NPR Sunday Puzzle (Jun 30, 2013): Truck Part / FEMA Spoonerism Puzzle: Q: Next week's challenge involves a spoonerism, in which you reverse the initial consonant sounds in one phrase to make another phrase. For example, if you spoonerize "light rain," you get "right lane." Name part of a truck in two words; spoonerize it, and you'll name something FEMA uses. What is it?Remove the third letter from "something FEMA uses", swap the letters before and after it to describe an action that can result in disaster for some.
A: MUD FLAP --> FLOOD MAP
NPR Sunday Puzzle (Jun 23, 2013): Words with Unusual Properties II: Q: Write down these five words:When my computer is not crashing and is able to filter my word grids, it does a most capable job. Anyway, at the moment it has about 800 words, possibly with some as long as 11 letters but I can't check them until it is done calculating.
"aide," "heart," "tough," "gelatin" and "emanate." There is something very unusual they have in common. What is it? And what's another word with this property?
A: The property that the five words share is that if you move the first letter to the end, another word is formed.
aide --> idea
heart --> earth
tough --> ought
gelatin --> elating
emanate --> manatee
Here are a few words that also share this property:
dangle --> angled
echoic --> choice
height --> eighth
ramble --> ambler
revoke --> evoker
stable --> tables --> ablest (chain of 3 words)
yowler --> owlery
tangelo --> angelot
trundle --> rundlet
dalliance --> allianced
dunpickle --> unpickled
lethologica --> ethological
NPR Sunday Puzzle (Jun 16, 2013): Words with Unusual Properties: Q: Write down these five words: "mate," "peck," "miss," "pot" and "blunder." There is something very unusual they have in common. What is it? And, can you name one other word with the same property?The hard part will not be figuring out the pattern but finding another word. But even that shouldn't be difficult if you have a good list. The really hard thing will be to provide a clue that doesn't give things away and since I can't think of one, I'll just say, "Happy Father's Day!"
A: The property that these words share is that you can replace their first vowel with any of the standard 5 vowels (a, e, i, o, u) to create a valid word:
mate --> mate, mete, mite, mote, mute
peck --> pack, peck, pick, pock, puck
miss --> mass, mess, miss, moss, muss
pot --> pat, pet, pit, pot, put
blunder --> blander, blender, blinder, blonder, blunder
A few possible answers using common words.
bad, bed, bid, bod, bud
bag, beg, big, bog, bug
last, lest, list, lost, lust
pap, pep, pip, pop, pup
patting, petting, pitting, potting, putting
If you allow some latitude with archaic words:
blathering, blethering, blithering, blothering, bluthering
slathering, slethering, slithering, slothering, sluthering
If you take the initials in the name of the main character and change them to one earlier and one later in the alphabet, you get the initials of the actor that played that character. And I'm sure you can find another similarity between the character name, actor name and the movie title.Q: Name a movie in two words — five letters in each word. Both words start with vowels. Take one letter in the first word, move it two spaces later in the alphabet, and rearrange the result. You'll get the second word in the movie's title. What movie is it?
A: AFTER EARTH (2013)
Q: Can you name three common three-letter words that are all synonyms and which together consist of nine different letters of the alphabet? Here's a hint: The letters A and O are not used.Merl Reagle is one of my favorite puzzle constructors, so I can't add much to this puzzle. If I have the right words, you can rearrange the nine letters to form a pair of words that could be considered synonyms.
A: BUG, IRK, VEX
