August 14, 2025 • 20 mins
Please take our membership survey! We want ideas and input! https://bit.ly/3ILfsz3
Hello, Puzzlers! Puzzling with us today: puzzle maker Ben Bass!
Join host A.J. Jacobs and his guests as they puzzle–and laugh–their way through new spins on old favorites, like anagrams and palindromes, as well as quirky originals such as “Ask AI” and audio rebuses.
Subscribe to The Puzzler podcast wherever you get your podcasts!
"The Puzzler with A.J. Jacobs" is distributed by iHeartPodcasts and is a co-production with Neuhaus Ideas.
Our executive producers are Neely Lohmann and Adam Neuhaus of Neuhaus Ideas, and Lindsay Hoffman of iHeart Podcasts.
The show is produced by Jody Avirgan and Brittani Brown of Roulette Productions.
Our Chief Puzzle Officer is Greg Pliska. Our associate producer is Andrea Schoenberg.
See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.
Mark as Played
Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:00):
Hello puzzlers.
Speaker 2 (00:01):
Before we start puzzling today, I wanted to let you
know we are cooking up some big plans for the
puzzler community, and in order to ensure that it's what
you want, we need your input. So we've put together
a short survey, which you can find in the show notes.
It's really quick, just three minutes, but it will be
(00:23):
a huge help in letting us know what you want
so that we can deliver just that.
Speaker 1 (00:30):
Thank you, Hello puzzlers.
Speaker 2 (00:33):
Let's start with a quick puzzle. What word can fill
in the blanks after these words angel blank, blow blank,
cat blank, and damsel blank? What word can follow angel, blow, cat,
and damsel It's the same word for all four the
answers and more puzzling goodness after the break, Hello puzzlers,
(01:04):
Welcome back to the Puzzler. The frosted tips on your puzzle,
nineties boy band Hairdoo. I'm your host, AJ Jacobs. Before
the break, I asked, what's a word that can fill
in the blanks in these four phrases? Angel, blank, blow blank,
cat blank, and damsel blank. The answer is fish, angelfish, blowfish, catfish, damselfish.
(01:26):
Turns out you can keep going down the alphabet all
the way from A to Z. I haven't even introduced
our guest, but Ben any guesses on what Z might
be the right.
Speaker 3 (01:37):
I was just thinking about what Z might be? Is
that a zebra fish?
Speaker 2 (01:40):
There is a zebra fish exactly you got that's Ben Vassil.
Introduce him in a moment, But just to close the loop,
I'm gonna really quickly go through the other eighteen or
so elephant fish, filefish, goldfish, hagfish, ice, jelly, help, lion, milk,
needle or paddle or in paddle both same synonyms, quill, razor,
(02:03):
sale or Swedish trigger, unicorn, velvet, wasp, yellow, and zebra.
Speaker 1 (02:09):
All right, we did it.
Speaker 2 (02:10):
People, And I bring this up for a very good reason.
Our guest, who you just heard from, is a puzzling legend,
and he has a very fishy last name, and that
is Bess. Welcome Ben Bass.
Speaker 3 (02:27):
Thanks AJ so glad to be back with you.
Speaker 2 (02:29):
We are delighted Ben. As I mentioned in the previous episode,
he was on He's written hundreds of puzzles. He is
the man behind the New York Times cryptogram, which is awesome.
It's also and he said, I can say this, it's
the best kept secret of the New York Times Games
section because it's print edition only, so you have to
(02:52):
go buy the print edition on Tuesday and Friday.
Speaker 3 (02:56):
Is that what it was Tuesday and Thursday next to
the crossword in the newsprint. And for those who aren't
confident puzzlers, I urge you to work on your skills,
but you can just read the answer on Wednesday and
Friday too.
Speaker 1 (03:08):
There you go.
Speaker 2 (03:09):
So he's in four times and the cryptogram is that
type of puzzle where it's a code. The letters are changed,
so I might be Q and P might be our.
It's very fun classic game. Now, of course I brought
up the fish because your last name is Bass before
(03:30):
we dive in no pun intended? What do you know
the etymology of your last name of Bass?
Speaker 3 (03:35):
I wish I did. I can only assume that are
on the turn of the previous century. It was maybe
Pisanovitch from the Old Country, Basilensky, wild guest, no idea.
I'm just glad that it didn't get bass. Yes, no
pun intended into something hard to spell?
Speaker 1 (03:51):
Got it?
Speaker 2 (03:51):
Yes, bass is nice And I found this was interesting.
When I was researching the word, I knew it was now,
and it's like, uh, you know both, it's the bass
as the fish. If there's also base as the you know,
the instrument. And I bring that up because it turns
out there are many animals, fish, birds, mammals whose names
(04:16):
are also verbs.
Speaker 4 (04:18):
Now.
Speaker 2 (04:18):
They come in two types, as you know, Ben, the
Some are derived actually from the animal. Like you can
think parrot, for instance, means to repeat because parrots repeat,
or badger. Badger means pester because they are a pestering animal.
Apparently at least that's their stereotype. But there are plenty
(04:40):
of homonyms for animals that are not derived, that are
just totally etymolic etymologically distinct. For instance, the bat, the bat,
the mammal and the bat. What you do in baseball,
you go your bat. So in this puzzle, the answer
is always going to be two words repeated, the animal
and the verb that happens to share the same words.
(05:03):
So for bat, I would say a clue like a
flying mammal steps up to home plate, and you, Ben Bass,
would say a bat bats. So that's the premise.
Speaker 3 (05:16):
Sounds great, And I got to say pretty flattering that
you took the time to tailor a puzzle to my name. AJ.
That just one of many things that makes you a
next level kind of podcast.
Speaker 2 (05:25):
The only reason we have you on Ben is because
we have a homonym for a last name. If you
are Ben Smith, might I'm just kidding, No.
Speaker 3 (05:33):
No, no, I thought it was. I thought it was
like a quid pro quo for you using some of
my New York Times material in your excellent book The Puzzler.
Speaker 2 (05:42):
We did, I know, thank you for lending that to us.
Speaker 1 (05:46):
Okay, here we go.
Speaker 2 (05:48):
A small bird gulps, A small bird gulps.
Speaker 3 (05:53):
A swallow swallows. That's it.
Speaker 2 (05:56):
Look at that so fast?
Speaker 3 (05:58):
All right, So I'm one for one and we're done.
Speaker 2 (06:00):
Go on, I'm ready to take it to keep going.
Speaker 3 (06:04):
If you I would do this with you all day. Agent,
all right.
Speaker 2 (06:07):
A shaggy Tibetan ox chatters.
Speaker 1 (06:11):
On and on, just gabs gabs, gabs.
Speaker 2 (06:14):
Yack yacks, A yak yacks, exactly. A bird of prey
sells its wares. It's health hawks hawk hawks exactly. A
mollusk punches, it's nemesis. It's a gastropod mollusk, a gastropod
mollusk without a shell. And it's very slow, and it
(06:39):
just crawls along. Oh, another hominem for this is like
a nickel or something you put in a uh slugs
us slug slugs exactly. Well, you know they have to
ratchet up, they have to get a little harder. I'm
a reed mammal closes an.
Speaker 1 (06:57):
Envelope securely seal seals nice.
Speaker 2 (07:02):
A young goat teases playfully.
Speaker 3 (07:05):
I think you had this one at young goat and
that would be a kid.
Speaker 1 (07:07):
Kids, that's true.
Speaker 2 (07:09):
You didn't need the rest of it all right now,
this is my favorite part of the puzzle, the complaining trio,
that's what I call it. There are three clues in
the row about complaining animals.
Speaker 3 (07:22):
One of them one of them I think I might have.
I don't want to be over confident. It means I'll
go one for three, so let me just relax.
Speaker 2 (07:30):
Well, I will say this I think is the hardest
part of the puzzle. I could have saved for laugh.
But it is a little tricky. Uh. A fresh water
fish complains. Fine's fault? Is that the one you were
thinking of?
Speaker 3 (07:43):
I was thinking of a carp. Carps all right, good
and sadly there's no wine. W h I Any animal
which is which is making me start to feel a
little nervous.
Speaker 2 (07:54):
I mean, there is. It is a homonym for the drink,
but not quite the right puzzle. A small plump bird,
a game bird grumbles and complains.
Speaker 3 (08:07):
Game bird.
Speaker 1 (08:07):
Now it's similar to Oh, it's not a quail quails.
Speaker 3 (08:12):
That's interesting, I thought, I mean, that's a different verb
than the one you're looking for, right.
Speaker 2 (08:16):
And it turns out quailing the verb is related to
quail quails. Apparently quail so but this one is not related.
But it does sound a little bit like my favorite
Marx brother, my favorite mustachio Marx brother.
Speaker 3 (08:33):
Oh is there well, mustach mustachio, and not groucho.
Speaker 1 (08:38):
It is groucho, I mean, is it well? Sounds like
got it?
Speaker 3 (08:42):
So you're you're talking about a grouse grouses.
Speaker 2 (08:45):
Exactly, a grouse grouses. That's it all right. Now this
one is even trickier, perhaps so uh so, just prepare yourself.
This is a small wading bird. That's w a d
I A small wading bird also complains angrily. This is
an angry complaint.
Speaker 3 (09:07):
I mean, a female dog's not going to get rid
of the answer.
Speaker 1 (09:11):
Let's keep a g rated, all right.
Speaker 2 (09:13):
This one yeah, it is this one, as I say,
very tricky. It's also a homonym for what's on the
side of a staircase.
Speaker 3 (09:22):
Oh, a rail rails, of course, I mean I was
you know, Egret Flamingo Heroin. They were not getting me.
Speaker 2 (09:28):
There, Yes, a rail rails. A rail is a small
waiting bird. It's not something that you know. You don't say, hey,
look look there's a rail. But if you're a birder,
then that is a real animal. All right, we got
a couple more. Now we're going to go back to
let so you don't have to rail against my clues
(09:49):
or grouse. These ones are more fair. A flat fish
plays hockey, goes onto the ice and plays some.
Speaker 1 (09:58):
Hockey, skates skates exactly.
Speaker 2 (10:01):
A dairy animal intimidates cow cows exactly. How about another?
This is a fish like your name. This is a
freshwater fish that rests on a branch, not roosts or
or just a bar. Uh, something that that fish don't do,
(10:28):
but but birds are known to do. It's one letter
off from Georgia's fruit, one letter off from Georgia's famous
of course, A perch purchase, A perch purchase exactly. By
(10:51):
the way, I'm suspecting you have done what over five
hundred of the cryptograms?
Speaker 1 (10:58):
Is that right?
Speaker 3 (10:59):
I have? Yeah, two a week since early in the
COVID pandemic, got an email from Will Shorts asking if
I wanted the gig, and of course I was thrilled
that he thought of me. Big day for me, and yeah,
so two a week for actually April twenty first of
twenty twenties when I started.
Speaker 2 (11:16):
Wow, So hundreds of them, and the answers are all
they're funny jokes that you've made up, quotes, or sometimes
just weird fun trivia. So I imagine you've had some
animal trivia, maybe not about perches or rails, but are
(11:39):
there a couple that come to mind?
Speaker 3 (11:41):
Oh? There are plenty. Yeah. I try to do about
half jokes and quips and half pieces of trivia, and
you know they are all over the map. But just
because you asked for some animal trivia, I searched for
a sort of tagged these things in categories and just
in the nature stuff. Yeah, there are plenty. Let me
throw a few out there and see what you like. Right.
While there are many four legged animals, only the elephant
(12:03):
has four forward facing.
Speaker 1 (12:05):
Knees, I did not know.
Speaker 3 (12:08):
These are all items that will shortz Or sam Azerski
of the New York Times spelling be liked, so come
preapproved to some degree.
Speaker 2 (12:15):
I approved as well, So just count me in that trio.
Speaker 3 (12:18):
All right. I'll keep going. Despite their murderous reputation, most
piranhas feed on dead animals or plants.
Speaker 2 (12:26):
I love that because that's the same with vultures. They
have a terrible reputation, but they're actually cleaning up, the
cleaning up and preventing disease. So thank you vultures. Thank
you piranhas and spiders.
Speaker 3 (12:39):
Throw them in there too. So many people can't wait
to kill them. They eat the animals that bite us.
Very few spider species will will bite a human being.
There are friends not unlike the EB White Book.
Speaker 2 (12:53):
You might remember, I do, I do, yes, all right,
that's good, all right, thank you, Thank you spiders.
Speaker 3 (12:59):
Right, I'll keep going. A mimic octopus cannot only change color,
but actually impersonate other marine animals.
Speaker 2 (13:08):
AI lo look at that. Get them on Saturday Night Live.
Get them a gig that sounds like that could be
very funny.
Speaker 3 (13:16):
Given its low terminal velocity and hard exoskeleton. An ant
can fall from any height and walk away.
Speaker 2 (13:24):
Wow, So that they're more like you know, the cat
always lands on its feet. It's actually an ant is
more more accurate. Okay, good to know.
Speaker 3 (13:34):
Okay. Pigeons that have gotten covered and transported in isolation
can still fly home from over one thousand miles away.
Speaker 2 (13:43):
Oh man, And they again have a bad reputation, the
power pigeons. But is it because how do they do that?
Isn't it magnetic or something? They have a magnetic sense.
Speaker 3 (13:53):
I have no idea, but it really is incredible. I mean,
I mean, I apparently it makes sense of what direction
they went in and for how long. I mean, I
would think a pigeon traveling in a car and a
pigeon traveling in a plane might have little sense of
the difference. But right, the proof's in the results.
Speaker 2 (14:10):
So now pigeons should drive the bus. For those who
who like the Moe Williams kid books, do you know
that book?
Speaker 1 (14:19):
It's fantastic.
Speaker 3 (14:20):
I'm very familiar. Here's another one for you. Some Portuguese
libraries keep bats on staff. They prey on bugs that
might harm rare books.
Speaker 2 (14:31):
Look what I love about these is they're all resurrecting
the bad reputation of some of these animals. So you
are doing a service to mother nature.
Speaker 1 (14:41):
Thank you.
Speaker 3 (14:42):
Then, if there's a bat trap in your house, it
is frantically trying to leave. It is not trying to
attack you.
Speaker 1 (14:47):
Good.
Speaker 2 (14:48):
Yes, I don't have one right now, but in the
future I may so thank you.
Speaker 3 (14:52):
Well aja bat bats. You never know what's going to happen.
That's right.
Speaker 2 (14:57):
Well you did great, Ben.
Speaker 3 (14:58):
Oh yeah, I great, Like five out of nine is
fifty five percent or failing.
Speaker 2 (15:05):
You are so hard on yourself.
Speaker 1 (15:07):
Yes, I don't.
Speaker 2 (15:08):
I mean, first of all, people should know because I
do this all the time. It is much harder when
you're when the microphone is in front of you and
you realize that there are gonna be thousands of people listening.
I screw up all the time. So I hope I'm
modeling as they say in parenting, that it's okay not
to get everything immediately.
Speaker 3 (15:30):
Yeah, well, I'm probably too vain, but I think it's
it's better for the show. If Joe Puzzle from The
New York Times comes on and struggles as opposed to
look at this show off just dropping answers like he's
you know some you know, like trivia solving robot.
Speaker 2 (15:45):
Well, there you go, and it is. Yes, it's better
for the for the puzzling world in general. And also
a lot of them you did get immediately, so you
have the range, you know sometimes and I think that's
a good lesson for people. Well that was great. I'm
going to end with one as an extra credit, which
is a designer dog that draws random patterns. A designer
(16:13):
dog drawing random patterns, and that we will talk about tomorrow.
But in the meantime, check out the cryptograms. But Ben,
you have other puzzling goodness that you can share. Tell
people where they can find more of your puzzle content.
Speaker 3 (16:31):
Sure. I stream crosswords solo and with guests, sometimes with
just the down clues, which turns it into like a
Wheel of Fortune exercise. But of particular note, AJ last
weekend I was a judge in the American Crossword Puzzle
Tournament in Stamford, Connecticut, nearly seeing you on the way there.
And we do a wrap up show every year where
(16:52):
I bring in some sort of higher profile folks from
the tournament and by the time this airs, folks can
find that, along with my other stuff on my twitch channel,
which is twitch dot tv slash, Ben Bass and beyond.
Speaker 1 (17:07):
I love it.
Speaker 2 (17:08):
I love it. It's a very puzzly name for a
Twitch channel. You do something called Connect.
Speaker 1 (17:15):
What's it?
Speaker 2 (17:15):
Only Connect?
Speaker 3 (17:16):
Wait?
Speaker 1 (17:16):
What's the name?
Speaker 3 (17:17):
Yeah, there's an ajau yourself have played it on our channel.
We play. There's a British game show called Only Connect,
very popular in the UK and also on YouTube here
in the US. The New York Times Connections game that
many of us are familiar with was inspired by one
of the four rounds in an Only Connect episode. The
game is so popular here in the US there's actually
(17:39):
a league that I play in, as do many other puzzlers,
and we play those games on my Twitch channel every
couple weeks. Thank you so much for jumping in bravely.
By the way, when we had you on recently.
Speaker 2 (17:50):
Oh well, listen you you say that you wish you
had gotten all of them immediately. I got exactly zero
of the Only Connect because they are like super hard
and it's a game that is super fun, but you've
got to play it a bunch to really get your
(18:11):
mind into it. So I highly recommend checking it out
on Ben's channel, but also you can see it on
YouTube the actual British show. Well, thank you, Ben, we
loved having you and of course we also we don't
have a Twitch channel, but we have a Instagram feed
at Hello Puzzlers where we post original puzzles and we
(18:35):
will be back tomorrow with more puzzling puzzles that will
puzzle you puzzlingly.
Speaker 4 (18:46):
Hey Puzzlers. Greg Pliska here up from the Puzzle Lab
with your extra credit from our previous episode. Emily Flake
joined us once again for some cartoon puzzles and I
have to say this was a lot of fun. I
hope you enjoyed it. I'd love to hear what you thought,
because it was tricky. Cartoons are visual, and in this case,
I had to describe the cartoon and then give the
caption with a blank and Emily and AJ tried to
(19:08):
guess what belonged in that blank. So for your extra credit,
I described a scene where a it's a baby's nursery
and the baby is standing up in its crib and
the father has come in. He's in his shorts and
T shirt. He's clearly been in bed. He's very bleary eyed,
you know, dragged out of bed, and he's walked in
and he's standing there by the crib and the baby's
(19:28):
looking up at him, and the caption is this is embarrassing.
I don't even remember blank, this is embarrassing. I don't
even remember what I was crying about. I think that's
a terrific cartoon, you know, it's one of those absurd things.
Of course, the baby doesn't speak like that, and so
(19:49):
that's funny. And then of course, any of you who
are parents have ever gone to deal with a crying
baby in the middle of the night, You know how
exhausted and confused you are. Imagine the little child saying
that to you, this is embarrassing. I don't even remember
what I was crying about. Well, we are so happy
that you're joining us, and we look forward to playing
some puzzles with you next time. Super thanks to Emily
(20:12):
and Gratitude for The New Yorker for publishing so many
great cartoons and posting their favorites on Instagram. Go check
them out, have a good laugh, and we'll see you
next time.
Hello puzzlers.
Speaker 2 (00:01):
Before we start puzzling today, I wanted to let you
know we are cooking up some big plans for the
puzzler community, and in order to ensure that it's what
you want, we need your input. So we've put together
a short survey, which you can find in the show notes.
It's really quick, just three minutes, but it will be
(00:23):
a huge help in letting us know what you want
so that we can deliver just that.
Speaker 1 (00:30):
Thank you, Hello puzzlers.
Speaker 2 (00:33):
Let's start with a quick puzzle. What word can fill
in the blanks after these words angel blank, blow blank,
cat blank, and damsel blank? What word can follow angel, blow, cat,
and damsel It's the same word for all four the
answers and more puzzling goodness after the break, Hello puzzlers,
(01:04):
Welcome back to the Puzzler. The frosted tips on your puzzle,
nineties boy band Hairdoo. I'm your host, AJ Jacobs. Before
the break, I asked, what's a word that can fill
in the blanks in these four phrases? Angel, blank, blow blank,
cat blank, and damsel blank. The answer is fish, angelfish, blowfish, catfish, damselfish.
(01:26):
Turns out you can keep going down the alphabet all
the way from A to Z. I haven't even introduced
our guest, but Ben any guesses on what Z might
be the right.
Speaker 3 (01:37):
I was just thinking about what Z might be? Is
that a zebra fish?
Speaker 2 (01:40):
There is a zebra fish exactly you got that's Ben Vassil.
Introduce him in a moment, But just to close the loop,
I'm gonna really quickly go through the other eighteen or
so elephant fish, filefish, goldfish, hagfish, ice, jelly, help, lion, milk,
needle or paddle or in paddle both same synonyms, quill, razor,
(02:03):
sale or Swedish trigger, unicorn, velvet, wasp, yellow, and zebra.
Speaker 1 (02:09):
All right, we did it.
Speaker 2 (02:10):
People, And I bring this up for a very good reason.
Our guest, who you just heard from, is a puzzling legend,
and he has a very fishy last name, and that
is Bess. Welcome Ben Bass.
Speaker 3 (02:27):
Thanks AJ so glad to be back with you.
Speaker 2 (02:29):
We are delighted Ben. As I mentioned in the previous episode,
he was on He's written hundreds of puzzles. He is
the man behind the New York Times cryptogram, which is awesome.
It's also and he said, I can say this, it's
the best kept secret of the New York Times Games
section because it's print edition only, so you have to
(02:52):
go buy the print edition on Tuesday and Friday.
Speaker 3 (02:56):
Is that what it was Tuesday and Thursday next to
the crossword in the newsprint. And for those who aren't
confident puzzlers, I urge you to work on your skills,
but you can just read the answer on Wednesday and
Friday too.
Speaker 1 (03:08):
There you go.
Speaker 2 (03:09):
So he's in four times and the cryptogram is that
type of puzzle where it's a code. The letters are changed,
so I might be Q and P might be our.
It's very fun classic game. Now, of course I brought
up the fish because your last name is Bass before
(03:30):
we dive in no pun intended? What do you know
the etymology of your last name of Bass?
Speaker 3 (03:35):
I wish I did. I can only assume that are
on the turn of the previous century. It was maybe
Pisanovitch from the Old Country, Basilensky, wild guest, no idea.
I'm just glad that it didn't get bass. Yes, no
pun intended into something hard to spell?
Speaker 1 (03:51):
Got it?
Speaker 2 (03:51):
Yes, bass is nice And I found this was interesting.
When I was researching the word, I knew it was now,
and it's like, uh, you know both, it's the bass
as the fish. If there's also base as the you know,
the instrument. And I bring that up because it turns
out there are many animals, fish, birds, mammals whose names
(04:16):
are also verbs.
Speaker 4 (04:18):
Now.
Speaker 2 (04:18):
They come in two types, as you know, Ben, the
Some are derived actually from the animal. Like you can
think parrot, for instance, means to repeat because parrots repeat,
or badger. Badger means pester because they are a pestering animal.
Apparently at least that's their stereotype. But there are plenty
(04:40):
of homonyms for animals that are not derived, that are
just totally etymolic etymologically distinct. For instance, the bat, the bat,
the mammal and the bat. What you do in baseball,
you go your bat. So in this puzzle, the answer
is always going to be two words repeated, the animal
and the verb that happens to share the same words.
(05:03):
So for bat, I would say a clue like a
flying mammal steps up to home plate, and you, Ben Bass,
would say a bat bats. So that's the premise.
Speaker 3 (05:16):
Sounds great, And I got to say pretty flattering that
you took the time to tailor a puzzle to my name. AJ.
That just one of many things that makes you a
next level kind of podcast.
Speaker 2 (05:25):
The only reason we have you on Ben is because
we have a homonym for a last name. If you
are Ben Smith, might I'm just kidding, No.
Speaker 3 (05:33):
No, no, I thought it was. I thought it was
like a quid pro quo for you using some of
my New York Times material in your excellent book The Puzzler.
Speaker 2 (05:42):
We did, I know, thank you for lending that to us.
Speaker 1 (05:46):
Okay, here we go.
Speaker 2 (05:48):
A small bird gulps, A small bird gulps.
Speaker 3 (05:53):
A swallow swallows. That's it.
Speaker 2 (05:56):
Look at that so fast?
Speaker 3 (05:58):
All right, So I'm one for one and we're done.
Speaker 2 (06:00):
Go on, I'm ready to take it to keep going.
Speaker 3 (06:04):
If you I would do this with you all day. Agent,
all right.
Speaker 2 (06:07):
A shaggy Tibetan ox chatters.
Speaker 1 (06:11):
On and on, just gabs gabs, gabs.
Speaker 2 (06:14):
Yack yacks, A yak yacks, exactly. A bird of prey
sells its wares. It's health hawks hawk hawks exactly. A
mollusk punches, it's nemesis. It's a gastropod mollusk, a gastropod
mollusk without a shell. And it's very slow, and it
(06:39):
just crawls along. Oh, another hominem for this is like
a nickel or something you put in a uh slugs
us slug slugs exactly. Well, you know they have to
ratchet up, they have to get a little harder. I'm
a reed mammal closes an.
Speaker 1 (06:57):
Envelope securely seal seals nice.
Speaker 2 (07:02):
A young goat teases playfully.
Speaker 3 (07:05):
I think you had this one at young goat and
that would be a kid.
Speaker 1 (07:07):
Kids, that's true.
Speaker 2 (07:09):
You didn't need the rest of it all right now,
this is my favorite part of the puzzle, the complaining trio,
that's what I call it. There are three clues in
the row about complaining animals.
Speaker 3 (07:22):
One of them one of them I think I might have.
I don't want to be over confident. It means I'll
go one for three, so let me just relax.
Speaker 2 (07:30):
Well, I will say this I think is the hardest
part of the puzzle. I could have saved for laugh.
But it is a little tricky. Uh. A fresh water
fish complains. Fine's fault? Is that the one you were
thinking of?
Speaker 3 (07:43):
I was thinking of a carp. Carps all right, good
and sadly there's no wine. W h I Any animal
which is which is making me start to feel a
little nervous.
Speaker 2 (07:54):
I mean, there is. It is a homonym for the drink,
but not quite the right puzzle. A small plump bird,
a game bird grumbles and complains.
Speaker 3 (08:07):
Game bird.
Speaker 1 (08:07):
Now it's similar to Oh, it's not a quail quails.
Speaker 3 (08:12):
That's interesting, I thought, I mean, that's a different verb
than the one you're looking for, right.
Speaker 2 (08:16):
And it turns out quailing the verb is related to
quail quails. Apparently quail so but this one is not related.
But it does sound a little bit like my favorite
Marx brother, my favorite mustachio Marx brother.
Speaker 3 (08:33):
Oh is there well, mustach mustachio, and not groucho.
Speaker 1 (08:38):
It is groucho, I mean, is it well? Sounds like
got it?
Speaker 3 (08:42):
So you're you're talking about a grouse grouses.
Speaker 2 (08:45):
Exactly, a grouse grouses. That's it all right. Now this
one is even trickier, perhaps so uh so, just prepare yourself.
This is a small wading bird. That's w a d
I A small wading bird also complains angrily. This is
an angry complaint.
Speaker 3 (09:07):
I mean, a female dog's not going to get rid
of the answer.
Speaker 1 (09:11):
Let's keep a g rated, all right.
Speaker 2 (09:13):
This one yeah, it is this one, as I say,
very tricky. It's also a homonym for what's on the
side of a staircase.
Speaker 3 (09:22):
Oh, a rail rails, of course, I mean I was
you know, Egret Flamingo Heroin. They were not getting me.
Speaker 2 (09:28):
There, Yes, a rail rails. A rail is a small
waiting bird. It's not something that you know. You don't say, hey,
look look there's a rail. But if you're a birder,
then that is a real animal. All right, we got
a couple more. Now we're going to go back to
let so you don't have to rail against my clues
(09:49):
or grouse. These ones are more fair. A flat fish
plays hockey, goes onto the ice and plays some.
Speaker 1 (09:58):
Hockey, skates skates exactly.
Speaker 2 (10:01):
A dairy animal intimidates cow cows exactly. How about another?
This is a fish like your name. This is a
freshwater fish that rests on a branch, not roosts or
or just a bar. Uh, something that that fish don't do,
(10:28):
but but birds are known to do. It's one letter
off from Georgia's fruit, one letter off from Georgia's famous
of course, A perch purchase, A perch purchase exactly. By
(10:51):
the way, I'm suspecting you have done what over five
hundred of the cryptograms?
Speaker 1 (10:58):
Is that right?
Speaker 3 (10:59):
I have? Yeah, two a week since early in the
COVID pandemic, got an email from Will Shorts asking if
I wanted the gig, and of course I was thrilled
that he thought of me. Big day for me, and yeah,
so two a week for actually April twenty first of
twenty twenties when I started.
Speaker 2 (11:16):
Wow, So hundreds of them, and the answers are all
they're funny jokes that you've made up, quotes, or sometimes
just weird fun trivia. So I imagine you've had some
animal trivia, maybe not about perches or rails, but are
(11:39):
there a couple that come to mind?
Speaker 3 (11:41):
Oh? There are plenty. Yeah. I try to do about
half jokes and quips and half pieces of trivia, and
you know they are all over the map. But just
because you asked for some animal trivia, I searched for
a sort of tagged these things in categories and just
in the nature stuff. Yeah, there are plenty. Let me
throw a few out there and see what you like. Right.
While there are many four legged animals, only the elephant
(12:03):
has four forward facing.
Speaker 1 (12:05):
Knees, I did not know.
Speaker 3 (12:08):
These are all items that will shortz Or sam Azerski
of the New York Times spelling be liked, so come
preapproved to some degree.
Speaker 2 (12:15):
I approved as well, So just count me in that trio.
Speaker 3 (12:18):
All right. I'll keep going. Despite their murderous reputation, most
piranhas feed on dead animals or plants.
Speaker 2 (12:26):
I love that because that's the same with vultures. They
have a terrible reputation, but they're actually cleaning up, the
cleaning up and preventing disease. So thank you vultures. Thank
you piranhas and spiders.
Speaker 3 (12:39):
Throw them in there too. So many people can't wait
to kill them. They eat the animals that bite us.
Very few spider species will will bite a human being.
There are friends not unlike the EB White Book.
Speaker 2 (12:53):
You might remember, I do, I do, yes, all right,
that's good, all right, thank you, Thank you spiders.
Speaker 3 (12:59):
Right, I'll keep going. A mimic octopus cannot only change color,
but actually impersonate other marine animals.
Speaker 2 (13:08):
AI lo look at that. Get them on Saturday Night Live.
Get them a gig that sounds like that could be
very funny.
Speaker 3 (13:16):
Given its low terminal velocity and hard exoskeleton. An ant
can fall from any height and walk away.
Speaker 2 (13:24):
Wow, So that they're more like you know, the cat
always lands on its feet. It's actually an ant is
more more accurate. Okay, good to know.
Speaker 3 (13:34):
Okay. Pigeons that have gotten covered and transported in isolation
can still fly home from over one thousand miles away.
Speaker 2 (13:43):
Oh man, And they again have a bad reputation, the
power pigeons. But is it because how do they do that?
Isn't it magnetic or something? They have a magnetic sense.
Speaker 3 (13:53):
I have no idea, but it really is incredible. I mean,
I mean, I apparently it makes sense of what direction
they went in and for how long. I mean, I
would think a pigeon traveling in a car and a
pigeon traveling in a plane might have little sense of
the difference. But right, the proof's in the results.
Speaker 2 (14:10):
So now pigeons should drive the bus. For those who
who like the Moe Williams kid books, do you know
that book?
Speaker 1 (14:19):
It's fantastic.
Speaker 3 (14:20):
I'm very familiar. Here's another one for you. Some Portuguese
libraries keep bats on staff. They prey on bugs that
might harm rare books.
Speaker 2 (14:31):
Look what I love about these is they're all resurrecting
the bad reputation of some of these animals. So you
are doing a service to mother nature.
Speaker 1 (14:41):
Thank you.
Speaker 3 (14:42):
Then, if there's a bat trap in your house, it
is frantically trying to leave. It is not trying to
attack you.
Speaker 1 (14:47):
Good.
Speaker 2 (14:48):
Yes, I don't have one right now, but in the
future I may so thank you.
Speaker 3 (14:52):
Well aja bat bats. You never know what's going to happen.
That's right.
Speaker 2 (14:57):
Well you did great, Ben.
Speaker 3 (14:58):
Oh yeah, I great, Like five out of nine is
fifty five percent or failing.
Speaker 2 (15:05):
You are so hard on yourself.
Speaker 1 (15:07):
Yes, I don't.
Speaker 2 (15:08):
I mean, first of all, people should know because I
do this all the time. It is much harder when
you're when the microphone is in front of you and
you realize that there are gonna be thousands of people listening.
I screw up all the time. So I hope I'm
modeling as they say in parenting, that it's okay not
to get everything immediately.
Speaker 3 (15:30):
Yeah, well, I'm probably too vain, but I think it's
it's better for the show. If Joe Puzzle from The
New York Times comes on and struggles as opposed to
look at this show off just dropping answers like he's
you know some you know, like trivia solving robot.
Speaker 2 (15:45):
Well, there you go, and it is. Yes, it's better
for the for the puzzling world in general. And also
a lot of them you did get immediately, so you
have the range, you know sometimes and I think that's
a good lesson for people. Well that was great. I'm
going to end with one as an extra credit, which
is a designer dog that draws random patterns. A designer
(16:13):
dog drawing random patterns, and that we will talk about tomorrow.
But in the meantime, check out the cryptograms. But Ben,
you have other puzzling goodness that you can share. Tell
people where they can find more of your puzzle content.
Speaker 3 (16:31):
Sure. I stream crosswords solo and with guests, sometimes with
just the down clues, which turns it into like a
Wheel of Fortune exercise. But of particular note, AJ last
weekend I was a judge in the American Crossword Puzzle
Tournament in Stamford, Connecticut, nearly seeing you on the way there.
And we do a wrap up show every year where
(16:52):
I bring in some sort of higher profile folks from
the tournament and by the time this airs, folks can
find that, along with my other stuff on my twitch channel,
which is twitch dot tv slash, Ben Bass and beyond.
Speaker 1 (17:07):
I love it.
Speaker 2 (17:08):
I love it. It's a very puzzly name for a
Twitch channel. You do something called Connect.
Speaker 1 (17:15):
What's it?
Speaker 2 (17:15):
Only Connect?
Speaker 3 (17:16):
Wait?
Speaker 1 (17:16):
What's the name?
Speaker 3 (17:17):
Yeah, there's an ajau yourself have played it on our channel.
We play. There's a British game show called Only Connect,
very popular in the UK and also on YouTube here
in the US. The New York Times Connections game that
many of us are familiar with was inspired by one
of the four rounds in an Only Connect episode. The
game is so popular here in the US there's actually
(17:39):
a league that I play in, as do many other puzzlers,
and we play those games on my Twitch channel every
couple weeks. Thank you so much for jumping in bravely.
By the way, when we had you on recently.
Speaker 2 (17:50):
Oh well, listen you you say that you wish you
had gotten all of them immediately. I got exactly zero
of the Only Connect because they are like super hard
and it's a game that is super fun, but you've
got to play it a bunch to really get your
(18:11):
mind into it. So I highly recommend checking it out
on Ben's channel, but also you can see it on
YouTube the actual British show. Well, thank you, Ben, we
loved having you and of course we also we don't
have a Twitch channel, but we have a Instagram feed
at Hello Puzzlers where we post original puzzles and we
(18:35):
will be back tomorrow with more puzzling puzzles that will
puzzle you puzzlingly.
Speaker 4 (18:46):
Hey Puzzlers. Greg Pliska here up from the Puzzle Lab
with your extra credit from our previous episode. Emily Flake
joined us once again for some cartoon puzzles and I
have to say this was a lot of fun. I
hope you enjoyed it. I'd love to hear what you thought,
because it was tricky. Cartoons are visual, and in this case,
I had to describe the cartoon and then give the
caption with a blank and Emily and AJ tried to
(19:08):
guess what belonged in that blank. So for your extra credit,
I described a scene where a it's a baby's nursery
and the baby is standing up in its crib and
the father has come in. He's in his shorts and
T shirt. He's clearly been in bed. He's very bleary eyed,
you know, dragged out of bed, and he's walked in
and he's standing there by the crib and the baby's
(19:28):
looking up at him, and the caption is this is embarrassing.
I don't even remember blank, this is embarrassing. I don't
even remember what I was crying about. I think that's
a terrific cartoon, you know, it's one of those absurd things.
Of course, the baby doesn't speak like that, and so
(19:49):
that's funny. And then of course, any of you who
are parents have ever gone to deal with a crying
baby in the middle of the night, You know how
exhausted and confused you are. Imagine the little child saying
that to you, this is embarrassing. I don't even remember
what I was crying about. Well, we are so happy
that you're joining us, and we look forward to playing
some puzzles with you next time. Super thanks to Emily
(20:12):
and Gratitude for The New Yorker for publishing so many
great cartoons and posting their favorites on Instagram. Go check
them out, have a good laugh, and we'll see you
next time.
Hosts And Creators
Greg Pliska
A.J. Jacobs
Popular Podcasts
Stuff You Should Know
If you've ever wanted to know about champagne, satanism, the Stonewall Uprising, chaos theory, LSD, El Nino, true crime and Rosa Parks, then look no further. Josh and Chuck have you covered.
My Favorite Murder with Karen Kilgariff and Georgia Hardstark
My Favorite Murder is a true crime comedy podcast hosted by Karen Kilgariff and Georgia Hardstark. Each week, Karen and Georgia share compelling true crimes and hometown stories from friends and listeners. Since MFM launched in January of 2016, Karen and Georgia have shared their lifelong interest in true crime and have covered stories of infamous serial killers like the Night Stalker, mysterious cold cases, captivating cults, incredible survivor stories and important events from history like the Tulsa race massacre of 1921. My Favorite Murder is part of the Exactly Right podcast network that provides a platform for bold, creative voices to bring to life provocative, entertaining and relatable stories for audiences everywhere. The Exactly Right roster of podcasts covers a variety of topics including historic true crime, comedic interviews and news, science, pop culture and more. Podcasts on the network include Buried Bones with Kate Winkler Dawson and Paul Holes, That's Messed Up: An SVU Podcast, This Podcast Will Kill You, Bananas and more.
The Joe Rogan Experience
The official podcast of comedian Joe Rogan.