NPR Sunday Puzzle (Apr 25, 2010): Name Two Birds...

NPR Sunday Puzzle (Apr 25, 2010): Name Two Birds...:

Q: Name a famous person whose first name is seven letters long and ends with the name of a bird, and whose last name is also seven letters but starts with the name of a bird. Hint: One of these birds is the general name for the bird, and the other is a specific type of bird. Who is it?

Finally a nicely constructed puzzle with enough clues to confirm your answer, but not too many that they give it away. Are the bird names long or short? Is this person part of history? Or part of the present time? Not wanting to ruin the puzzle, I'm steping out of giving a clue this week and leave it to you to ponder.

Edit: If you read the last word of each question you get short/history/time --> A Brief History of Time. Also, I deliberately misspelled step(p)ing because that's what is left after removing the birds from his name.

A: stepHEN HAWKing

NPR Sunday Puzzle (Apr 18, 2010): A Tale of Two Countries

NPR Sunday Puzzle (Apr 18, 2010): A Tale of Two Countries:

Q: Name a country in six letters. Change two consecutive letters in it to one letter to get the name of another country. What countries are these?

Here's a related puzzle sent to me by Gillog Lautomy, "Name a country in seven letters. Change three consecutive letters in it to one letter to get the name of another country. What countries are these?"

Edit: The hint was the "name" Gillog Lautomy. You can insert the country names to form 4 words (gilGUY/ANAlog lauGH/ANAtomy).

A: GUYANA --> GHANA

P.S. The answer to the bonus puzzle is LIBERIA --> LIBYA.

NPR Sunday Puzzle (Apr 11, 2010): Is it Thanksgiving Yet?

NPR Sunday Puzzle (Apr 11, 2010): Is it Thanksgiving Yet?:

Q: Name something you might order in a restaurant — two words, eight letters all together, with four letters in the first word and four letters in the last. Drop the last letter. The remaining seven letters will read backward and forward the same.

Man, I've got turkey on the brain, and it's only April. If you think turkey too, I'm sure it will pan out.

Edit: There were a few clues in my short post. "Man I've got turkey" sounds like "Manavgat, Turkey" which is near "Side". A little more obvious is that Thanksgiving dinner usually consists of turkey and numerous side dishes. Finally, dishpan and outside contain the words "dish" and "side". What is left is "pan out". I hope those hints weren't too obvious and didn't give it away.

A: SIDE DISH --> SIDEDIS

NPR Sunday Puzzle (Apr 4, 2010): Death and Taxes

NPR Sunday Puzzle (Apr 4, 2010): Death and Taxes:

Q: Think of a 15-letter word that is spelled without using any of the letters T, A, X, E or S. And it means how Stephen King writes.

Every Sunday I feel the pressure to come up with a solution to the puzzle and then post a good clue as quickly as possible. Other times I can't figure it out and just have to rely on others to post their hints. I guess that's just the way it is.

Edit: My hints were "pressure" (as in blood pressure) and "way" (as in curds and "whey")

A: BLOODCURDLINGLY
Some have proposed blood-chillingly as an alternate answer, but most sources have it hyphenated

NPR Sunday Puzzle (Mar 28, 2010): The Name's the Same

NPR Sunday Puzzle (Mar 28, 2010): The Name's the Same:

Q: What 6 letter word beginning with the letter 'S' would be the same if it started with 'TH?'

So I was thinking I should have words like SOUGHT and THOUGHT, or SINNER and THINNER. But those aren't the same in the end. I'm open to any hints...

Edit: Indeed I did have "open" as my hidden hint. The puzzle intentionally tried to mislead us into thinking we were looking for synonyms. You'll notice I didn't put this puzzle in the synonym category however.

A: SESAME --> THE SAME

NPR Sunday Puzzle (Mar 21, 2010): Know your Animals

NPR Sunday Puzzle (Mar 21, 2010): Know your Animals:

Q: Take the plural name of one animal and the singular name of another animal. Say the two words out loud one after the other and you'll name a country. What are the animals, and what is the country?

See, I knew Will Shortz would put his years as a crossword puzzle editor to good use and come up with something interesting...

Edit: My hint was "knew" which is another homonym for the first animal and the first part of the country. Also, both words are the type of words that crossword puzzle solvers have seen often, so I mentioned that as an additional hint.

A: GNUS + ELAND = NEW ZEALAND

NPR Sunday Puzzle (Mar 14, 2010): Tasty Opposites

NPR Sunday Puzzle (Mar 14, 2010): Tasty Opposites:

Q: Think of two words that are opposites, beginning with the letters 'H' and 'M.' Change the 'H' to an 'M.' Say the result out loud, and you'll have the name of something nice to eat. What is it?

At least this week's challenge doesn't involve anagrams. (However, if you miss them and want to hear some more, listen to the on-air puzzle; it's all about anagrams.) Just like a couple weeks ago, I think the wording of the puzzle is a little misleading. If you want something nice to eat, don't take a small bite. You want the whole thing.

Edit: My hint was "some more" as in "s'more"

A: HARSH + MELLOW --> MARSHMALLOW

NPR Sunday Puzzle (Mar 7, 2010): Messing up the Receiving Line

NPR Sunday Puzzle (Mar 7, 2010): Messing up the Receiving Line:

Q: Take the phrase 'Receiving Line'. Rearrange these 13 letters to name a common profession

Okay, before I say something rude, isn't this about the 6th anagram puzzle this year? Really Will, can't you construct an interesting NPR puzzle that doesn't involve anagrams? And what's up with the NPR site? Where's the link to the puzzle on the NPR puzzle page? You know, I don't think I'm even going to bother supplying a hint this week.

Edit: not rude = civil, construct = engineer

A: RECEIVING LINE --> CIVIL ENGINEER

NPR Sunday Puzzle (Feb. 28, 2010): Name Those TV Shows

NPR Sunday Puzzle (Feb. 28, 2010): Name Those TV Shows:

Q: Name an animal in two syllables. Add an S at the end of the first syllable, and you'll get the name of an old TV show. The second syllable, phonetically, is the name of a current TV show. What animal is this?

This puzzle is really easy if you interpret it correctly and really hard if you don't. The primary actors on the old TV show were born about the same time as the main actor on the current TV show.

Edit: I initially read the puzzle and thought the S was inserted between the first and second syllables to form the name of the old TV show. When I focused more on the second syllable, all of a sudden I figured out my mistake and came up with the answer.

A: Chipmunk --> CHiPs and Monk

NPR Sunday Puzzle (Feb. 21, 2010): Anagramming Brooklynite

NPR Sunday Puzzle (Feb. 21, 2010): Anagramming Brooklynite:

Q: Take this word: Brooklynite. Rearrange these 11 letters to get the names of two world capitals. What are they?

Talk about déjà vu. Didn't we just have a puzzle involving anagrams?

Edit: Last week's answer involved troops fighting in a war. Déjà vu should have led you to think of experiencing a second war as in World War II, where the U.S. fought Germany and Japan. I had intended for deja to be another clue for the internet domains of Germany (.de) and Japan (.ja) except the correct domain is .jp. Oops!

A: Brooklynite --> Berlin + Tokyo