Episode Transcript
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Speaker 1 (00:01):
Hello puzzlers. Let's start with a quick puzzle. This mini
puzzle is about creative ways to say never, like never
gonna happen. For instance, when hell freezes over, as in
I will drink strawberry hard Seltzer when hell freezes over.
Not true, I actually enjoy it. When pigs fly, I'll
(00:22):
watch the new Tim Allen sitcom when pigs Fly. That
is true. English has a lot of idioms for this.
You can also say it is a date May thirty first.
I'll sign back on to Twitter on May thirty first.
Here are three other ways to say it now. Two
of them are actual English language idioms and one I
(00:42):
made up. So the quiz is which one did I
make up? I will do that on the thirteenth day
of Christmas. I'll do that on Saint George's Day. I'll
do that on the second Tuesday of next week. Which
of those is a real fake date and which has
been used by actual people? The answer and more puzzling
puzzles after the break, Hello puzzlers, Welcome back to the
(01:12):
Puzzler Podcast The Confetti Cannon at your Puzzle Gender Revealed Party.
I'm your host, AJ Jacobs. I'm here with Chief puzzle
officer Greg Pliska, of course, Greg. Before the break, we
asked listeners which two idiomatic sayings are actual sayings and
which did I make up? They're all supposed to be
(01:33):
never gonna happen, right, That'll happen on the thirteenth day
of Christmas. That will happen on Saint George's Day, and
that'll happen on the second Tuesday of next week. And
your guess.
Speaker 2 (01:44):
Is h Saint George's Day the thirteenth of Christmas or
the second Tuesday.
Speaker 1 (01:52):
Day of next week.
Speaker 2 (01:54):
So I'm gonna think the second Tuesday of next week
sounds like a thing people would say, It's kind of
cute and funny. I George's Day makes literally no sense
to me, which is why I think it's real. And
I've known anything about Saint George's Day. But let's go
for that as being real. And therefore the first one,
which just sounds suspiciously made up, is not real.
Speaker 1 (02:18):
I can't fool Greg. I did it again. He did
it again. Yes, the thirteenth day of Christmas is made up.
Second Tuesday of next week is something some people have said. Okay,
same with Saint George's Day. I mean, it's more something
you might see in Dickens. But it is fair fair,
(02:39):
it is Saint George apparently is well. It was came
because Saint George is not a real saint, so it'll
happen on Saint never Day. But then it turns out
Saint George is a saint, so it's very confusing.
Speaker 2 (02:52):
Saint George and the dragon right right.
Speaker 1 (02:54):
So who knows. But at some point he was not
a saint, or someone thought he was not a saint. Anyway,
I bring this up.
Speaker 2 (03:02):
Yes, why would you bring this up?
Speaker 1 (03:04):
We have We are living on Saint George's day. We
are living on a day you never thought would happen,
because several weeks ago I gave part one to a puzzle,
and I said, we'll do part two someday that day.
You never to know.
Speaker 2 (03:21):
It's today when pigs fly here, we are zup and
past hell is frozen. The pigs are flying by it.
He second Tuesday of next.
Speaker 1 (03:30):
Week, dogs and cats living together, living together, as they
say in Ghostbusters. So this is the alphabet puzzle.
Speaker 2 (03:37):
If you're right, I remember how the alphabet goes.
Speaker 1 (03:42):
This puzzle. We took a word and added a letter
or the sound of a letter to the end of
those words create a new word. So we took the
word made, added the letter A, and you get may day.
So the clue as a housekeeper becomes a distress signal.
We went A through M, so now we're doing N
(04:03):
through Z. Are you ready?
Speaker 2 (04:05):
I am ready? All right. It's like a half marathon today, exactly. Okay.
Speaker 1 (04:10):
Add an N to the end of a glowing review
and it becomes a black bird.
Speaker 2 (04:17):
Ooh, that's a good one. That's a good one. As
in when Edgar Allan Poe's Raven was published, it got
rave reviews.
Speaker 1 (04:26):
Presumably exactly over you got.
Speaker 2 (04:29):
It rave to kayod And.
Speaker 1 (04:31):
Remember these are sometimes homophones. They're not always spelled exactly right.
Speaker 2 (04:35):
It's just the sound of the lesson sound looking for Yeah,
it's all phonetic. Okay.
Speaker 1 (04:39):
Oh, now you say you know the alphabet, So I'm
gonna make it super tricky and not tell you the
next letter. You're just gonna have to guess what comes.
Speaker 2 (04:47):
Out after N. Okay, Okay, I'm concentrating.
Speaker 1 (04:50):
This is add a letter to a New York team
and you get a type of female singer.
Speaker 2 (04:57):
Oh, this is not a NIXO that's not it's a Mets,
the New York Mets, my favorite baseball team, and Metso
as a mezzo soprano.
Speaker 1 (05:06):
That's it, I got. I did it for you so.
Speaker 2 (05:09):
I could have made a sentence the Metso saying the
national anthem at the Mets game today.
Speaker 1 (05:14):
It's probably true at some point, Yeah, for sure, A
type of milk becomes a word for a revealing outfit.
Speaker 2 (05:23):
Oh. I had to think about the letter for me exactly.
Speaker 1 (05:26):
That's why I did it to me.
Speaker 2 (05:28):
Is the nesk. Oh, A type of milk would be
skim milk and a skimpy outfit, as in, if you
drink lots of skim milk, you'll always fit into your
skimpy outfits.
Speaker 1 (05:39):
Thank you for telling a little story, adding a little
A donkey a donkey, donkey, donkey becomes off kilter.
Speaker 2 (05:49):
Oh, that's very good. I find it very uncomfortable to
ride upon an ass because my saddle is always askew.
Speaker 1 (06:00):
Of these little short stories, you are correct, ass, and
this cue a beauty mark becomes a tooth.
Speaker 2 (06:06):
Oh yep. I was at the dentist who remarked on
the attractive mole I had while he drilled into my molar.
Speaker 1 (06:15):
There you go. Ah, that's a very positive story. Balloon
filler becomes a rich woman. Balloon filler becomes a rich woman.
Speaker 2 (06:25):
So it's not gas or helium at her at her
inheritance party, the heiress filled all the balloons with air.
Speaker 1 (06:36):
That's it.
Speaker 2 (06:36):
Although actually she hired someone else to fill all the balloons.
Speaker 1 (06:39):
Right, and I think an heiress would actually use helium
as opposed to regular air. But sure, suspend disbelief. Something
on a fish becomes something filled with remorse.
Speaker 2 (06:53):
Oh oh, this is a different sort of tale. Right,
so let's see because he had that's a tough one,
the tough one. Tough one. Now in fish court, if
you uh don't, if you don't use your gills, you
(07:14):
will be found guilty. That makes your sense gill and
guilty harder to figure out how fish are guilty and
what it has to do with their gills.
Speaker 1 (07:21):
But well, you know, we can listeners as always. Please
send a short story at the puzzler dot com sign
in and we love to get emails. A type of
diagram becomes an event space.
Speaker 2 (07:37):
Oh I was on tea again and I was there
was like, it's a Starbucks coffee size. It's not. It's
I thought about that right at the conference venue. We
needed large whiteboards to draw all of our ven diagrams.
Speaker 1 (07:51):
Now that one makes sense. That's very nice, all right.
The color of some parts of the brain becomes a
word before train or boat.
Speaker 2 (08:03):
Sure. When I am eating sheep, Uh, when I'm eating
gray sheep brain, I like to cover it with gravy.
Speaker 1 (08:15):
Yeah, delicious.
Speaker 2 (08:16):
In fact, there's not enough gravy that you could put
on the sheep brain to get me to eat it.
You gotta admit.
Speaker 1 (08:22):
I just went on a trip with my food loving
son and they had crab brains as a sauce on
one of the dishra brains.
Speaker 2 (08:31):
I have to be so tiny.
Speaker 1 (08:32):
I know you have a lot of crabs to make
a crab. Yeah, exactly, all right, you know what you
mentioned W. I am going to skip W for now
and go right to X. Another brain one Soto mayors
workplace becomes a part of the brain.
Speaker 2 (08:50):
Oh workplace, I was thinking, Sonya, and I know you
want her workplace right. So the Supreme Court, every member
of this Supreme Court has to use their cortex to
properly think about the cases.
Speaker 1 (09:05):
That is an arguable statement. I'm not sure, factually that
checks out for some of the members.
Speaker 2 (09:11):
But they're supposed to use their quartet.
Speaker 1 (09:14):
They're supposed to a ghost's favorite word. Oh, I'm going
to skip why, We'll come back to Dian Why. Well,
a ghost's favorite word becomes something with a lot of spirits.
So a ghost's favorite word becomes something.
Speaker 2 (09:29):
Oh I got it? I was so. Yes, if a
ghost says boo to you, you will go drink a
lot to recover and become very boozy.
Speaker 1 (09:42):
That is it?
Speaker 2 (09:42):
Yeah, you might, you might chaboozy.
Speaker 1 (09:48):
I don't know what chaboo is, but yes, you're right.
Speaker 2 (09:51):
All right.
Speaker 1 (09:51):
Now we come to the two problematic ones. Why in
w I think I figured out why with a little hack,
which is, take an underwater boat, add a letter, and
you get an underwater train. But you have to say
it with a Cockney accent. That's the trip.
Speaker 2 (10:11):
So is the underwater boat a submarine or just a sub?
Just the sub and then a sub Subwhy? Sub? Why
I've gotta get on the subwy today?
Speaker 1 (10:21):
Exactly? I feel like I'm in I'm in my fair lady.
Have I been transported to the.
Speaker 2 (10:27):
Set as good as Dick van Dyke in.
Speaker 1 (10:32):
In Mary Poppins, Yeah, who we love amazing. He's still
it was the.
Speaker 2 (10:38):
Only why you could come up with interesting.
Speaker 1 (10:40):
Well, there was I think four why, but it's such
an obscure word. All right, lad The W was a killer.
We're going to end with a W. But it was
a killer because it is so I have I want
people to come and tell me how to do this.
I had like packs that don't work. One is the
CBS logo becomes a big bet, which is not even
(11:04):
a word, it's a phrase.
Speaker 2 (11:06):
So I W I W Yeah, okay, right, that's that's
the best you could probably do. I mean W is Yeah,
all right, we did it.
Speaker 1 (11:17):
We made it to the end of the marathon. Maybe
I'll give a quick extra credit so that when you
give yours, you can do yours. Since I couldn't figure
out W, I did come up with a second U,
so we have double us adult males become a list
(11:37):
of food adult males.
Speaker 2 (11:39):
Good, good morning? All right, So that is it.
Speaker 1 (11:43):
That's my puzzle, Gregg. Do you have something for me?
Perhaps I do for you.
Speaker 2 (11:54):
Not only is today Saint George's Day, it also is siblings.
In the US and Canada, many people celebrate siblings Day
on April tenth. It was founded by a woman named
Claudia Evert in nineteen ninety five to commemorate her brother
and sister who had died at a young age. Introduced
into the congressional record by New York Congresswoman Carolyn Maloney
(12:18):
in nineteen ninety seven, Claudia Evert put together a foundation
that raises money. So it's actually a good you know,
kind of to raise money for people, I guess for
people who lost their siblings or maybe anyway, it's a
very nice, very nice thing to have. So it's Siblings Day.
So in honor of Siblings Day, I'm going to give
(12:38):
you a sentence with two blanks in it. One of
the blanks is a word starting with bro bro, and
the other is a word starting with sis sis.
Speaker 1 (12:49):
All right, fun and Happy Siblings Day to my sibling Beryl.
Speaker 2 (12:54):
Yeah, I have three siblings, so happy siblings Day to
all of them out in California.
Speaker 1 (12:58):
I kind of made you do that.
Speaker 2 (13:00):
You forced me into that one, but it's fine, you know,
honor our sibling. So one is a bro word. One
is a cis word or or phrase word a phrase.
Here's your first one? Did Michelangelo use blank or narrow
strokes when painting the blank.
Speaker 1 (13:17):
Oh, very good, very good. I think I got it,
because the opposite of narrow is broad.
Speaker 2 (13:22):
Yep.
Speaker 1 (13:23):
And he is well known for painting the Sistine Chapel.
Speaker 2 (13:27):
Yes, very good, Bro and Sis. All right, here's another one.
In Greek mythology, Blank pushed a boulder up a hill
over and over, and his endless complaints were like a
blank record.
Speaker 1 (13:40):
Ah okay, very good, very good. I believe you're talking
about sissyfis. If that's a hard one, that's a hard
oneis And he was a broken record, broken record, which
is like basically a reference to technology that existed at
the time.
Speaker 3 (13:57):
Of the.
Speaker 2 (14:00):
Are no, Now you're like a broken MP three player
exactly broken Spotify? And one more, Bro and Sis. One
the most famous reviewers in the history of blank television
are probably Blank and Ebert.
Speaker 1 (14:16):
Ah. I think that is a true statement, which is,
I believe it's broadcast television the way they used to
do it, and Siskel and Ebert, sis Sis Now it's
Ebert and Robert or maybe but.
Speaker 2 (14:29):
Yes, uh Siskel. Yes, wasn't even broadcaster. Were they on cable?
Now they were on they were on broadcast TV before
there was cable.
Speaker 1 (14:38):
Yeah, yeah, no, I think they. I think they were
syndicated as something.
Speaker 2 (14:42):
That I do. Have a couple of bro pairs. Oh good,
the sis is hard. They're not that many common words
that start with sis that aren't sister or related to sister.
A couple of bro pairs. These are both bros. New
York's most famous street. Blank runs from Battery Place all
the way through the Black and further north to Sleepy Hollow.
Speaker 1 (15:04):
Oh interesting, All right, Well I know the street. I'm
pretty confident about the street, which is Broadway, and it
runs all the way through the b r Burroughs, almost
as it is a burrow. Oh, all the way through
the Bronx. I see, very good. Or Brooklyn. There's also Brooklyn.
(15:26):
But well, yeah, that's not the word. I'm correct.
Speaker 2 (15:28):
Don't mention that. Don't mention that borough. It's coming up later.
Speaker 1 (15:31):
Oh okay, I never heard that.
Speaker 2 (15:32):
I never heard that ever thought of that. And one more,
one of the planet's largest herbivores, the blank probably ate
prehistoric blank something most kids won't do well.
Speaker 1 (15:46):
I think this is the Brontosaurus, is what they which
I believe since I'm reading the dictionary bronch is the
thunder means thunder like the thunder lizard. Nice. I'm using
that to stall because I can't remember the second part.
Speaker 2 (16:06):
Well, it's a prehistoric blank. Something an herbivore would eat.
A vegetable that kids don't often eat.
Speaker 1 (16:13):
Oh okay, not Brussels sprouts, but broccoli.
Speaker 2 (16:17):
Broccoli. You gotta start with bro exactly, although ironically my
daughter only eats broccoli.
Speaker 1 (16:23):
Yeah, my kids are broccoli eaters too.
Speaker 2 (16:24):
Yeah, she eats no other vegetables. Really, broccoli is hers. Well,
very good. I also have an extra credit for the listeners.
And it's a threesome. There are three bros in this sense,
three brothers, three bros in the burrow of blank. Some
people have to sweep the stoops of their blank using
(16:45):
a blank.
Speaker 1 (16:47):
Okay, very nice. It's a nice, nice picture, just like
you did with your with your letters. You paint a
picture and it's a true story.
Speaker 2 (16:57):
All right.
Speaker 1 (16:57):
Well, everyone, while you're thinking about those, you can maybe
check out our Instagram feed, which is at Hello Puzzlers
and it's super fun. It's got new puzzles, visual puzzles,
all sorts of news nuggets, and of course we will
see you here tomorrow for more puzzling puzzles that will
(17:18):
puzzle you puzzlingly.
Speaker 3 (17:24):
Hey puzzlers, it's Greg Pliska up from the Puzzle Lab
with the extra credit answer from our previous episode. Karen
Puzzles joined us for a game we called Bizarro Household Items,
and basically aj took common household items and made them a.
Speaker 2 (17:42):
Bizarro world items. So your extra critic clue was this
Jerry's of Florida, which is kind of the opposite the
bizarro world version of what toothpaste? That would be Tom's
of Maine, because Tom and Jerry are two characters and
Florida is of the opposite south of Maine in the north.
(18:03):
Go brush your teeth twice a day and do puzzles
every morning with us here on the Puzzler Podcast.