Q: Name a well-known U.S. city in six letters. Drop the first and fourth letters so the remaining four letters, in order, will name another well-known U.S. city. What cities are these?Would it help if I gave the hint Fraxinus?
Hint: The two cities are in adjoining states.
A: FRESNO (California) --> RENO (Nevada)
Think of two terms that mean 'to divulge information.' Write them one after the other with no spaces between words. The result is a nine-letter word for a card that you might hold in a card game. What card is it?I must admit I've been a little pre-occupied getting ready for our trip so I didn't add a post earlier. We'll be gone by the time Thursday rolls around, so I won't be entering this week. But feel free to discuss it here. Incidentally, do you know where we are going? I wonder if it was inspired by a recent puzzle...
Q: Take 'tire' and 'exhaust.' They're both things a car has. But as verbs, in a non-car sense, they're synonyms. The challenge is to name 2 articles of apparel, things to wear, each with 4 letters, and as verbs, in a non-apparel sense, the 2 words are synonyms. What words are they?No hints are necessary, just pay attention to the example Will gave.
A: BELT and SOCK
Q: Take the name Kevin Kline. The first and last names both have five letters. Written in capital letters — KEVIN KLINE — each name consists of exactly 13 straight lines and no curves.Though I could have probably figured this out the "normal" way, I approached this programmatically. I took a couple of lists of celebrity names (first and last) and put them in a spreadsheet. I modified a function I had created earlier to count vowels and instead made it count the number of strokes (I = 1, LTVX = 2, AFHKNYZ = 3, EMW = 4, everything else = 1000). I then filtered the list down to 5 letter names each with 14 strokes (39 first names and 44 last names). As it turned out, only one name fit the puzzle... I should have seen that sooner.
Name a well-known TV personality with five-letter first and last names. Each name contains exactly 14 straight lines and no curves. Who is this?
A: VANNA WHITE
Q: Think of one word that starts with 'te' and another word that starts with 'st' — and they're synonyms. Hint: The 'te' word has two syllables; the 'st' word has one.Anyone else worried that there might be several possible answers this week? I always hated when teachers had one answer in mind on a test that was worded such that there could be several potential answers. On the other hand, it must be hard as a teacher to design a test so it accurately measures whether students understood the material that was taught. Oh well, we'll see at the end of the week if we passed or failed this test.
A: As I mentioned, there are numerous good answers. The two pairs I liked the most were:
TENSION and STRESS
TEMPEST and STORM
Check the comments to see other choices.
Q: Think of a famous TV personality with five letters in the first name and four letters in the last name. Change the first letter of this celebrity's first name to M. Drop the first letter of the last name. Read the result in order, and it will spell something this person is famously known for doing many times. Who is this person?This may not be much help, but the celebrity has played the role of a step-sister...
A: LARRY KING --> MARRYING
Q: Take 'Indian wrestle,' rearrange the 13 letters to get three words that are all related. What are they? Hint: The word lengths are five, four and four letters, respectively.We'll have to see whether or not people can restrain themselves from giving obvious clues. Personally, I don't have time to provide a good clue because I'm off to Chicago for a couple weeks and haven't finished packing. P.S. If anyone is thinking of a certain common phrase, the puzzle answer would be misquoting it.
A: SLEET, WIND, RAIN
Q: Think of a famous person whose first and last names both have seven letters. Only two different consonants appear in this full name, each used more than once. Out of the 14 letters in the name, 13 of them appear in the first half of the alphabet, A-M. Who is this person?I'm so sorry guys... I dropped the ball on getting the puzzle posted on Sunday. For anyone that wants some hints, look to the comments in the prior puzzle post. I must admit that my initial attempts to figure this puzzle out were hampered by my method. I had a list of common first names pulled from census data and I filtered them by the rules above (no more than 2 consonants, vowels "aei" with possibly one extra from the set "ou"). It came up with mostly female names like Cecilia and Lucille. I now see why my method was doomed to fail.
A: GALILEO GALILEI