June 27, 2025 • 19 mins
Hello, Puzzlers! Today, A.J. and Greg give you a little peek behind the curtain and take you on a tour of the Puzzle Lab.
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.
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"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.
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Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:01):
Hello puzzlers. Shall we start with a quick puzzle. Kombucha
Day is coming up, so Happy Kombucha Day to all
those who celebrate. In honor of that, we have a
kombucha themed puzzle For those who don't know. Kombucha is
a beverage essentially fermented tea, and it's made with what's
called a scoby sc o b y a scob and
(00:23):
this is a hunk of bacteria and yeast you put
in the tea to ferment it and it changes sugars
into carbon dioxide. Scoby is an achron that has nothing
to do with scooby do it. It's an acronym for
symbiotic culture of bacteria and yeast scob y. So my
question is, can you change two letters in the word
(00:46):
scoby to get another word that is an acronym word
involving liquid and gas. So take scoby, change two letters
anywhere in the word and get another common acronym or
something also involved liquid and gas. The answer and more
puzzling goodness after the break. Hello puzzlers, Welcome back to
(01:12):
the Puzzler Podcast. The White Guardinia Bhutaneer and your puzzle
prom Tuxito. I am your host, aj Jacobs. I'm here,
of course with she puzzle offter Greg Kuleiska Greg. Before
the break, we had an acronym based puzzle. The acronym
was SCOBE symbiotic culture of bacterian yeast used for kucha
(01:34):
t We asked, can you change two letters in scobe
and get another common acronym that also involves liquid and gas?
Did you have any theories?
Speaker 2 (01:44):
I love it. I is such a cool uh cool find.
I think it's because it's both. They're both you can
relate them both to liquid and gas. That's the key.
Speaker 1 (01:52):
Well, thank you, fu. Yeah, I love stumbling across puzzles
in the real world.
Speaker 2 (01:57):
Do you drink kombucha?
Speaker 1 (01:59):
I like, well, here's a confession before we reveal. I said,
Kombucha Day is coming up, which is technically true, but
it's not coming up fast. It's it's January fifteenth, so
we got some time to care. But I just learned
about the scoby from my kids science fair and I
was like, all right, I love this little wordplay, So
I'm gonna pretend that we're close to kombucha. Okay, I have,
(02:23):
I have tried it, but I'm not a fan. Are
you a fan?
Speaker 2 (02:26):
I haven't even tried it really, so I might be
a fan someday. It feels like the kind of thing
you would drink. You eat healthy, you drink like you know,
scoby marinated tea or something. Feels like something you do well.
Speaker 1 (02:38):
They yes, they are all about the health benefits, probiotic
all that, blah blah blah.
Speaker 2 (02:44):
Right, so, but not for you anyway. I do know
the other liquid gas related acronym. That would be scuba.
Speaker 1 (02:52):
That's right, scuba, which is of course.
Speaker 2 (02:55):
Self contained underwater breathing apparatus exactly, which is fun because
none of the common letters stand for the same thing,
right Scoby.
Speaker 1 (03:03):
Yeah, but you could. I suppose scuba dive in a
large vat of kombucha and get your scopy scubas first.
Speaker 2 (03:10):
True, more likely you would have some Scoby infused ka
after scuba.
Speaker 1 (03:15):
D is a little more real, better way to do it.
Speaker 2 (03:18):
But fine, you do you all right?
Speaker 1 (03:22):
Well, happy very early Kombucha Day. We have a Friday
Inside the Puzzle Lab episode for you today. This is
our Friday ritual where we take listeners behind the scenes
of the puzzle world. Today we have some great listener feedback.
Greg has some hot off the Presses Puzzle News, or
(03:43):
at least Lukewarm off the Presses, and he has written
an accompanying puzzle for us about it. I thought, though,
we could start with some listener feedback. Yes, this is
a friend of yours and a friend of the show,
Sammy Casanova. Oh, we love Sammy sat How do you
know Sammy?
Speaker 2 (04:00):
Uh, Sammy and I play from the Mystery on Mystery.
Speaker 1 (04:04):
Oh, so she's a hardcoreing our team up the great.
Speaker 2 (04:07):
She is a former Jeopardy and brilliantly former Jeopardy contestant. Right.
Speaker 1 (04:12):
I noticed she's a professional quilter beautiful quilts, and she
had some excellent insights. She has written in before, but
today is a doozy. Here's what she wrote. She said,
I loved the episode about country puns, so you gave one,
and I gave a little intro that was for Sarah
Spain and she writes the puzzle in the beginning really
(04:34):
got me thinking. She was referring to a challenge we
had to find words contained in country names. So Spain
is pain. You've got to take off the S or
spa if you tug off the I in and she
or mad and Madagascar. Uh, Nada in Canada, but she
(04:56):
she went further. She we asked for suggestions and she
came through with a whole bunch of clues related to
country names, but even more of a twist. So I'm
going to give you these twisty puzzles.
Speaker 2 (05:10):
Uh.
Speaker 1 (05:11):
And the first the first challenge is name countries that
start with common men's names. And Andrea senior puzzler, Andrea Schomberg.
You can weigh in if you feel inspired. So I'm
looking for countries that start with common names, such as
(05:31):
Philippines starts with phil or Philip even.
Speaker 2 (05:35):
So that was the one I had.
Speaker 1 (05:40):
That's my that's Michael.
Speaker 2 (05:42):
Do we accept Chad?
Speaker 1 (05:43):
That's funny.
Speaker 2 (05:44):
That is yes, the whole name is a man's name.
It has to be male names.
Speaker 1 (05:49):
That's what I mean. I don't want to gender stereotype.
So well, I was thinking fran and France brand can
be short for you know, France one, so you can
make it.
Speaker 2 (06:02):
And there are people named Frank who spell it with
a sea, so that.
Speaker 1 (06:05):
Could work too. And this was not even on her list.
She because I think she has a life, so she
didn't go through all of them.
Speaker 2 (06:11):
But I was also going to say Romania. Roman of
course is Roman Coppola.
Speaker 1 (06:18):
I was just reading about him, Tim Moore, Tim.
Speaker 2 (06:22):
And wow tm more lest Is the is the other
name for East.
Speaker 1 (06:29):
You got it.
Speaker 2 (06:30):
Well done, that's good.
Speaker 1 (06:32):
There's there's another one in Africa, a large country in
Africa where Obama was not born despite rumors.
Speaker 2 (06:41):
Very good.
Speaker 1 (06:42):
There's one that is.
Speaker 2 (06:44):
Oh, I got one. Another one Algeria. Great one starts with.
Speaker 1 (06:48):
Al Yeah, not on the list as well. This is great.
There's two countries that start with sort of an Italian
name or Italian nickname. Sometimes it's a.
Speaker 2 (07:00):
One is Luigia Marx brother movie.
Speaker 1 (07:04):
Yeah, exactly, it's it's the most famous champagne brand has
this as its first three letters as well.
Speaker 3 (07:13):
Not in Moway, the other most famous one o the
other most famous champagne brand.
Speaker 2 (07:21):
Two words, oh oh oh, dom like Dominican Republican, Dominica.
Speaker 1 (07:27):
Exactly, well done. All right, I'm gonna throw out the
other couples that they're probably more Sam and Samoa and
Guy in Guyana. All right, Well, Sammy, cool Sam. That's
just part one. Sammy's not done with the Philippines. Oh
Okay points out that the name Philippines contains not one
(07:49):
but two Greek letters by bye and pie. You just said,
are there other countries that also contain a Greek letter?
So this one is harder for me. I wasn't in fraternity.
That always helps. But even just since this is hard,
I'll even just take one one from each of you.
If you have it, I have Chai in China.
Speaker 2 (08:12):
Very good. Exactly. There's gotta be a country with moo
or new in it.
Speaker 1 (08:19):
There is a new it's a sort of an obscure country.
It has a very famous no offense. That's it. And
there's also Mexico with the zi xiz the pie there.
Speaker 2 (08:37):
That's all we.
Speaker 1 (08:38):
Got, all right, one more from well, actually, let's do
a lightning ground. She has a fun lightning ground.
Speaker 2 (08:46):
All right.
Speaker 1 (08:46):
This is a country that starts with the name of
a Disney princess, and it's it's over two words. That's
a little hint. It's over two words.
Speaker 2 (08:56):
Okay, interesting, interesting, interesting, Mawana mulan.
Speaker 1 (09:02):
Bell a little farther back, not I. It's not between
the base and the more modern ones. It is, uh,
you gotta look at that, all right. What about a
(09:23):
country that contains a species of bird, a species of
bird and it's in the middle. I'll give you that.
And it's an African nation. I'll give you that.
Speaker 2 (09:36):
It Isswana.
Speaker 1 (09:37):
Wow, look at that brain nicely done. All right, you
two are on fire. How about this one. I don't
know my TV shows as much, but this is a
country that starts with the name of a Star Wars show,
a Star.
Speaker 2 (09:52):
Wars show, and it's then what else is there to say?
You got let's go the second season. It just came out.
It's fresh, fresh on the dome, tip of mind. All right.
Speaker 1 (10:07):
Last last one is country or countries. There are a
couple that contain within it the name of another country.
Speaker 2 (10:15):
Classic Romania and Omane, the great ones, right, I think
that that and the other.
Speaker 1 (10:23):
There's one other that's really good. And then a couple that.
Speaker 3 (10:26):
Are in Nigeria that.
Speaker 2 (10:32):
The capital of Albania is Taranta and that contains Iran
in it. Oh.
Speaker 1 (10:39):
I give you no points.
Speaker 2 (10:40):
For that, no points for that.
Speaker 1 (10:42):
There's one. There's a two African nations.
Speaker 2 (10:46):
There's one that's one inside the other.
Speaker 1 (10:49):
Right four letters is the smaller one.
Speaker 3 (10:53):
Imagine not Togo Chad, the other Africa a nation with
for letters Chad Togo. Uh, there's only one more.
Speaker 2 (11:08):
Molly and Somalia.
Speaker 1 (11:10):
They got it exactly well done. All right, you guys
flew through Sammy wonderful job. Puzzle loved it. But Greg,
we're not done.
Speaker 2 (11:22):
We're not done.
Speaker 1 (11:29):
It's Friday, so you we're going to talk about puzzle news.
So you have a news item for us.
Speaker 2 (11:36):
Yeah, and really it's not a news item. It's a blog,
a recent blog post.
Speaker 1 (11:40):
Okay, those recent.
Speaker 2 (11:43):
Named James Summers s O M. E. R. S. Who
is a writer and programmer based in New York. You
can find this article on his blog site jsummers dot
net slash blog slash dictionary and it's titled you're probably
using the wrong dictionary words right, and you've been reading
(12:04):
the dictionary.
Speaker 1 (12:05):
That's right, but the one all right? Well, I think
it depends on your purpose in dictionaries. Different dictionaries have
different But we won't get into the philosophy before you
tell us what he said.
Speaker 2 (12:16):
The gist of his article is that our current dictionaries
are bland and colorless, okay, and that older dictionaries had
more style and panache.
Speaker 1 (12:25):
Interesting does he eat?
Speaker 2 (12:27):
Well? Here's how he opens the essay. He says, the
way I thought you used the dictionary was that you
looked up words you've never heard of or who sense
you're unsure of. You would never look up an ordinary
word like example, or sport or magic, because all you'll
learn is what it means and that you already know.
Speaker 1 (12:46):
Right, okay, good, right?
Speaker 2 (12:47):
But he points out that the entry forward like sport
in the dictionary that's on his computer is really pedestrian sport,
an activity involving physical exertion and skill in which an
individual or team competes against another, uh for entertainment. Blah
blah blah. Fine, that you know, we all know what
that means. It's not that interesting. He then cites an
(13:07):
essay from John McPhee, the author, where McPhee says he
uses his dictionary to punch up the language in his
essays interesting and it literally, McFee says, to replace shopworn
words and phrases with stuff that sings and summers is like,
what are you kidding me? My dictionary doesn't anything that
sings in it, right, It's got these pedestrian definitions. McPhee
(13:31):
gives an example of having the word sport in an essay,
goes to his dictionary, which defines sport as a diversion
of the field, and then he uses that phrase in
his essay, which is.
Speaker 1 (13:45):
Beautiful and you're talking like field as in grass field,
or like yeah, okay, yeah, that's fun.
Speaker 2 (13:52):
Imagic thing. I engaged in some in a diversion of
the field. That's beautiful.
Speaker 1 (13:58):
That's what America does on Sunday, they have the version
of the field.
Speaker 2 (14:02):
But that's not what our dictionaries do anymore. So Summers
figured out that McPhee was using probably using Noah Webster's
eighteen twenty eight dictionary.
Speaker 1 (14:10):
Oh interesting, or perhaps.
Speaker 2 (14:12):
There's a revised on a Bridge Webster that's from nineteen
thirteen that includes a lot of the twenty eight edition,
and Summers dust some digging finds how to get this
dictionary and actually shows you how you can use it
on your computer.
Speaker 1 (14:26):
Interesting, okay, I'll check that out.
Speaker 2 (14:28):
So it's very cool.
Speaker 1 (14:29):
I mean, it does remind me. There's when I read
the Encyclopedia for a book, the Encyclopedia Britannica, there's a
similar feeling that the nineteen eleven Britannica is super literary.
They had writers, they had famous writers in their fields,
like Houdini wrote about magic, Freud wrote about psychoanalysis, and
a lot of them were very literary. I mean, it
(14:52):
is incredibly outdated and racist, so it's not something I
would recommend, right, But yes, people claim it's it's more beautiful, right.
Speaker 2 (15:02):
It has a point of view, it has a you know,
it has a style to it. So that was very cool,
and it led me to thinking, you know, I have
about fifty reference books in my house, actual you know,
hard copy book books, and including a bunch of Webster
and Merriam Webster's Dictionary. But I don't have this rare
in eighteen twenty eight edition. I have the nineteen twenty
(15:24):
two Collegiate, which by then has already started getting rid
of some of the colorful more you know, poetic language
and you know, getting getting less more prosaicss poetic. But
I did pull out two fun dictionaries. One is a
thing called Missus Burns Dictionary of Unusual, Obscure and Preposterous Words.
(15:45):
Love that it was a compiled by Josepha heifitz Berne,
who was actually a concert pianist but liked collecting funky words.
Speaker 1 (15:54):
And when did this come out?
Speaker 2 (15:56):
This is let's pull this out right here. This is
it's from nineteen seventy four.
Speaker 1 (16:02):
Okay, so it's been around.
Speaker 2 (16:04):
It's been around, right, and it's more just kind of
fun odd ball words. So what I thought i'd do
with this one is just flip through. Give me a
letter of the.
Speaker 1 (16:11):
Alphabet, Andrea, what to give? Give us a letter? Why?
Speaker 2 (16:16):
Why? Well, because I want you to pick a letter
so we can play the game. All right, letter. Why
do you know the word yestreen yes, t r e e.
Speaker 1 (16:27):
N yes, stream yes, stream Nope, I give up unless
Andrea knows it.
Speaker 2 (16:34):
No, it's an older word for last night?
Speaker 1 (16:38):
Oh last night?
Speaker 2 (16:40):
What did thou do? Yes? Stream?
Speaker 1 (16:43):
Yes, dream because I guess yesterday, and yes it's yes,
yes dream. I would think yes dreave yesterreave might be yes,
but yeah, I love it. Anyway, I thought that was Halloween.
Oh yes, yeah, he's got it. That's a fun dictionary.
Speaker 2 (17:02):
Yeah.
Speaker 1 (17:03):
Well, you know, I love my reference books, so I'll
talk about them all day long. But we do have
to go. Thank you, Greg, Andrea and Sammy and also
all Obscure dictionaries have a great weekend. Check out our
Instagram feed at Hello Puzzlers, where we post original puzzles
like visual puzzles, other fun stuff, and we will meet
(17:27):
you here on Monday for more puzzling puzzles that will
puzzle you puzzling.
Speaker 2 (17:37):
Hey puzzlers, it's Greg Pliska. We had ridiculous crime here
a second time to play a game we called cap
cape Caper, where your answer is three words, each of
which has one letter added from the previous word. So
your extra credit clue was when the tailor stuck a
blank in the hot blank blouse, she accidentally pricked her
(17:59):
blank finger. What is that while the tailor stuck a
pin in the hot pink blouse and accidentally pricked her
pinky finger. Of course, pinky can be spelled pi n
k i E or in this case p I n
k y. So everyone take care of your pinky fingers
and come join us again next time on the Puzzler.
(18:25):
Thanks for playing along with the team here at the
Puzzler with Aj Jacobs. I'm Greg Pliska, your chief puzzle officer.
Our executive producers are Neelie Lohman and Adam Neuhouse of
New House Ideas and Jonathan Strickland of iHeart Podcasts. The
show is produced by Jody Afragan and Britney Brown of
Roulette Productions, with production support from Claire Bitegar Curtis. Our
(18:47):
senior puzzler is Andrea Schoenberg. The Puzzler with AJ Jacobs
is a co production with New House Ideas and is
distributed by Rooticized Past. No No, No No. It's a
rearrange that it's distributed by iHeart Podcasts. If you want
to know more about puzzling puzzles, please check out the
book The Puzzler by AJ Jacobs, a history of puzzles
(19:09):
that The New York Times called fun and funny. It
features an original puzzle hunt by Yours Truly and is
available wherever you get your books and puzzlers. For all
your puzzling needs, go visit the puzzler dot com. See
you there,
Hello puzzlers. Shall we start with a quick puzzle. Kombucha
Day is coming up, so Happy Kombucha Day to all
those who celebrate. In honor of that, we have a
kombucha themed puzzle For those who don't know. Kombucha is
a beverage essentially fermented tea, and it's made with what's
called a scoby sc o b y a scob and
(00:23):
this is a hunk of bacteria and yeast you put
in the tea to ferment it and it changes sugars
into carbon dioxide. Scoby is an achron that has nothing
to do with scooby do it. It's an acronym for
symbiotic culture of bacteria and yeast scob y. So my
question is, can you change two letters in the word
(00:46):
scoby to get another word that is an acronym word
involving liquid and gas. So take scoby, change two letters
anywhere in the word and get another common acronym or
something also involved liquid and gas. The answer and more
puzzling goodness after the break. Hello puzzlers, Welcome back to
(01:12):
the Puzzler Podcast. The White Guardinia Bhutaneer and your puzzle
prom Tuxito. I am your host, aj Jacobs. I'm here,
of course with she puzzle offter Greg Kuleiska Greg. Before
the break, we had an acronym based puzzle. The acronym
was SCOBE symbiotic culture of bacterian yeast used for kucha
(01:34):
t We asked, can you change two letters in scobe
and get another common acronym that also involves liquid and gas?
Did you have any theories?
Speaker 2 (01:44):
I love it. I is such a cool uh cool find.
I think it's because it's both. They're both you can
relate them both to liquid and gas. That's the key.
Speaker 1 (01:52):
Well, thank you, fu. Yeah, I love stumbling across puzzles
in the real world.
Speaker 2 (01:57):
Do you drink kombucha?
Speaker 1 (01:59):
I like, well, here's a confession before we reveal. I said,
Kombucha Day is coming up, which is technically true, but
it's not coming up fast. It's it's January fifteenth, so
we got some time to care. But I just learned
about the scoby from my kids science fair and I
was like, all right, I love this little wordplay, So
I'm gonna pretend that we're close to kombucha. Okay, I have,
(02:23):
I have tried it, but I'm not a fan. Are
you a fan?
Speaker 2 (02:26):
I haven't even tried it really, so I might be
a fan someday. It feels like the kind of thing
you would drink. You eat healthy, you drink like you know,
scoby marinated tea or something. Feels like something you do well.
Speaker 1 (02:38):
They yes, they are all about the health benefits, probiotic
all that, blah blah blah.
Speaker 2 (02:44):
Right, so, but not for you anyway. I do know
the other liquid gas related acronym. That would be scuba.
Speaker 1 (02:52):
That's right, scuba, which is of course.
Speaker 2 (02:55):
Self contained underwater breathing apparatus exactly, which is fun because
none of the common letters stand for the same thing,
right Scoby.
Speaker 1 (03:03):
Yeah, but you could. I suppose scuba dive in a
large vat of kombucha and get your scopy scubas first.
Speaker 2 (03:10):
True, more likely you would have some Scoby infused ka
after scuba.
Speaker 1 (03:15):
D is a little more real, better way to do it.
Speaker 2 (03:18):
But fine, you do you all right?
Speaker 1 (03:22):
Well, happy very early Kombucha Day. We have a Friday
Inside the Puzzle Lab episode for you today. This is
our Friday ritual where we take listeners behind the scenes
of the puzzle world. Today we have some great listener feedback.
Greg has some hot off the Presses Puzzle News, or
(03:43):
at least Lukewarm off the Presses, and he has written
an accompanying puzzle for us about it. I thought, though,
we could start with some listener feedback. Yes, this is
a friend of yours and a friend of the show,
Sammy Casanova. Oh, we love Sammy sat How do you
know Sammy?
Speaker 2 (04:00):
Uh, Sammy and I play from the Mystery on Mystery.
Speaker 1 (04:04):
Oh, so she's a hardcoreing our team up the great.
Speaker 2 (04:07):
She is a former Jeopardy and brilliantly former Jeopardy contestant. Right.
Speaker 1 (04:12):
I noticed she's a professional quilter beautiful quilts, and she
had some excellent insights. She has written in before, but
today is a doozy. Here's what she wrote. She said,
I loved the episode about country puns, so you gave one,
and I gave a little intro that was for Sarah
Spain and she writes the puzzle in the beginning really
(04:34):
got me thinking. She was referring to a challenge we
had to find words contained in country names. So Spain
is pain. You've got to take off the S or
spa if you tug off the I in and she
or mad and Madagascar. Uh, Nada in Canada, but she
(04:56):
she went further. She we asked for suggestions and she
came through with a whole bunch of clues related to
country names, but even more of a twist. So I'm
going to give you these twisty puzzles.
Speaker 2 (05:10):
Uh.
Speaker 1 (05:11):
And the first the first challenge is name countries that
start with common men's names. And Andrea senior puzzler, Andrea Schomberg.
You can weigh in if you feel inspired. So I'm
looking for countries that start with common names, such as
(05:31):
Philippines starts with phil or Philip even.
Speaker 2 (05:35):
So that was the one I had.
Speaker 1 (05:40):
That's my that's Michael.
Speaker 2 (05:42):
Do we accept Chad?
Speaker 1 (05:43):
That's funny.
Speaker 2 (05:44):
That is yes, the whole name is a man's name.
It has to be male names.
Speaker 1 (05:49):
That's what I mean. I don't want to gender stereotype.
So well, I was thinking fran and France brand can
be short for you know, France one, so you can
make it.
Speaker 2 (06:02):
And there are people named Frank who spell it with
a sea, so that.
Speaker 1 (06:05):
Could work too. And this was not even on her list.
She because I think she has a life, so she
didn't go through all of them.
Speaker 2 (06:11):
But I was also going to say Romania. Roman of
course is Roman Coppola.
Speaker 1 (06:18):
I was just reading about him, Tim Moore, Tim.
Speaker 2 (06:22):
And wow tm more lest Is the is the other
name for East.
Speaker 1 (06:29):
You got it.
Speaker 2 (06:30):
Well done, that's good.
Speaker 1 (06:32):
There's there's another one in Africa, a large country in
Africa where Obama was not born despite rumors.
Speaker 2 (06:41):
Very good.
Speaker 1 (06:42):
There's one that is.
Speaker 2 (06:44):
Oh, I got one. Another one Algeria. Great one starts with.
Speaker 1 (06:48):
Al Yeah, not on the list as well. This is great.
There's two countries that start with sort of an Italian
name or Italian nickname. Sometimes it's a.
Speaker 2 (07:00):
One is Luigia Marx brother movie.
Speaker 1 (07:04):
Yeah, exactly, it's it's the most famous champagne brand has
this as its first three letters as well.
Speaker 3 (07:13):
Not in Moway, the other most famous one o the
other most famous champagne brand.
Speaker 2 (07:21):
Two words, oh oh oh, dom like Dominican Republican, Dominica.
Speaker 1 (07:27):
Exactly, well done. All right, I'm gonna throw out the
other couples that they're probably more Sam and Samoa and
Guy in Guyana. All right, Well, Sammy, cool Sam. That's
just part one. Sammy's not done with the Philippines. Oh
Okay points out that the name Philippines contains not one
(07:49):
but two Greek letters by bye and pie. You just said,
are there other countries that also contain a Greek letter?
So this one is harder for me. I wasn't in fraternity.
That always helps. But even just since this is hard,
I'll even just take one one from each of you.
If you have it, I have Chai in China.
Speaker 2 (08:12):
Very good. Exactly. There's gotta be a country with moo
or new in it.
Speaker 1 (08:19):
There is a new it's a sort of an obscure country.
It has a very famous no offense. That's it. And
there's also Mexico with the zi xiz the pie there.
Speaker 2 (08:37):
That's all we.
Speaker 1 (08:38):
Got, all right, one more from well, actually, let's do
a lightning ground. She has a fun lightning ground.
Speaker 2 (08:46):
All right.
Speaker 1 (08:46):
This is a country that starts with the name of
a Disney princess, and it's it's over two words. That's
a little hint. It's over two words.
Speaker 2 (08:56):
Okay, interesting, interesting, interesting, Mawana mulan.
Speaker 1 (09:02):
Bell a little farther back, not I. It's not between
the base and the more modern ones. It is, uh,
you gotta look at that, all right. What about a
(09:23):
country that contains a species of bird, a species of
bird and it's in the middle. I'll give you that.
And it's an African nation. I'll give you that.
Speaker 2 (09:36):
It Isswana.
Speaker 1 (09:37):
Wow, look at that brain nicely done. All right, you
two are on fire. How about this one. I don't
know my TV shows as much, but this is a
country that starts with the name of a Star Wars show,
a Star.
Speaker 2 (09:52):
Wars show, and it's then what else is there to say?
You got let's go the second season. It just came out.
It's fresh, fresh on the dome, tip of mind. All right.
Speaker 1 (10:07):
Last last one is country or countries. There are a
couple that contain within it the name of another country.
Speaker 2 (10:15):
Classic Romania and Omane, the great ones, right, I think
that that and the other.
Speaker 1 (10:23):
There's one other that's really good. And then a couple that.
Speaker 3 (10:26):
Are in Nigeria that.
Speaker 2 (10:32):
The capital of Albania is Taranta and that contains Iran
in it. Oh.
Speaker 1 (10:39):
I give you no points.
Speaker 2 (10:40):
For that, no points for that.
Speaker 1 (10:42):
There's one. There's a two African nations.
Speaker 2 (10:46):
There's one that's one inside the other.
Speaker 1 (10:49):
Right four letters is the smaller one.
Speaker 3 (10:53):
Imagine not Togo Chad, the other Africa a nation with
for letters Chad Togo. Uh, there's only one more.
Speaker 2 (11:08):
Molly and Somalia.
Speaker 1 (11:10):
They got it exactly well done. All right, you guys
flew through Sammy wonderful job. Puzzle loved it. But Greg,
we're not done.
Speaker 2 (11:22):
We're not done.
Speaker 1 (11:29):
It's Friday, so you we're going to talk about puzzle news.
So you have a news item for us.
Speaker 2 (11:36):
Yeah, and really it's not a news item. It's a blog,
a recent blog post.
Speaker 1 (11:40):
Okay, those recent.
Speaker 2 (11:43):
Named James Summers s O M. E. R. S. Who
is a writer and programmer based in New York. You
can find this article on his blog site jsummers dot
net slash blog slash dictionary and it's titled you're probably
using the wrong dictionary words right, and you've been reading
(12:04):
the dictionary.
Speaker 1 (12:05):
That's right, but the one all right? Well, I think
it depends on your purpose in dictionaries. Different dictionaries have
different But we won't get into the philosophy before you
tell us what he said.
Speaker 2 (12:16):
The gist of his article is that our current dictionaries
are bland and colorless, okay, and that older dictionaries had
more style and panache.
Speaker 1 (12:25):
Interesting does he eat?
Speaker 2 (12:27):
Well? Here's how he opens the essay. He says, the
way I thought you used the dictionary was that you
looked up words you've never heard of or who sense
you're unsure of. You would never look up an ordinary
word like example, or sport or magic, because all you'll
learn is what it means and that you already know.
Speaker 1 (12:46):
Right, okay, good, right?
Speaker 2 (12:47):
But he points out that the entry forward like sport
in the dictionary that's on his computer is really pedestrian sport,
an activity involving physical exertion and skill in which an
individual or team competes against another, uh for entertainment. Blah
blah blah. Fine, that you know, we all know what
that means. It's not that interesting. He then cites an
(13:07):
essay from John McPhee, the author, where McPhee says he
uses his dictionary to punch up the language in his
essays interesting and it literally, McFee says, to replace shopworn
words and phrases with stuff that sings and summers is like,
what are you kidding me? My dictionary doesn't anything that
sings in it, right, It's got these pedestrian definitions. McPhee
(13:31):
gives an example of having the word sport in an essay,
goes to his dictionary, which defines sport as a diversion
of the field, and then he uses that phrase in
his essay, which is.
Speaker 1 (13:45):
Beautiful and you're talking like field as in grass field,
or like yeah, okay, yeah, that's fun.
Speaker 2 (13:52):
Imagic thing. I engaged in some in a diversion of
the field. That's beautiful.
Speaker 1 (13:58):
That's what America does on Sunday, they have the version
of the field.
Speaker 2 (14:02):
But that's not what our dictionaries do anymore. So Summers
figured out that McPhee was using probably using Noah Webster's
eighteen twenty eight dictionary.
Speaker 1 (14:10):
Oh interesting, or perhaps.
Speaker 2 (14:12):
There's a revised on a Bridge Webster that's from nineteen
thirteen that includes a lot of the twenty eight edition,
and Summers dust some digging finds how to get this
dictionary and actually shows you how you can use it
on your computer.
Speaker 1 (14:26):
Interesting, okay, I'll check that out.
Speaker 2 (14:28):
So it's very cool.
Speaker 1 (14:29):
I mean, it does remind me. There's when I read
the Encyclopedia for a book, the Encyclopedia Britannica, there's a
similar feeling that the nineteen eleven Britannica is super literary.
They had writers, they had famous writers in their fields,
like Houdini wrote about magic, Freud wrote about psychoanalysis, and
a lot of them were very literary. I mean, it
(14:52):
is incredibly outdated and racist, so it's not something I
would recommend, right, But yes, people claim it's it's more beautiful, right.
Speaker 2 (15:02):
It has a point of view, it has a you know,
it has a style to it. So that was very cool,
and it led me to thinking, you know, I have
about fifty reference books in my house, actual you know,
hard copy book books, and including a bunch of Webster
and Merriam Webster's Dictionary. But I don't have this rare
in eighteen twenty eight edition. I have the nineteen twenty
(15:24):
two Collegiate, which by then has already started getting rid
of some of the colorful more you know, poetic language
and you know, getting getting less more prosaicss poetic. But
I did pull out two fun dictionaries. One is a
thing called Missus Burns Dictionary of Unusual, Obscure and Preposterous Words.
(15:45):
Love that it was a compiled by Josepha heifitz Berne,
who was actually a concert pianist but liked collecting funky words.
Speaker 1 (15:54):
And when did this come out?
Speaker 2 (15:56):
This is let's pull this out right here. This is
it's from nineteen seventy four.
Speaker 1 (16:02):
Okay, so it's been around.
Speaker 2 (16:04):
It's been around, right, and it's more just kind of
fun odd ball words. So what I thought i'd do
with this one is just flip through. Give me a
letter of the.
Speaker 1 (16:11):
Alphabet, Andrea, what to give? Give us a letter? Why?
Speaker 2 (16:16):
Why? Well, because I want you to pick a letter
so we can play the game. All right, letter. Why
do you know the word yestreen yes, t r e e.
Speaker 1 (16:27):
N yes, stream yes, stream Nope, I give up unless
Andrea knows it.
Speaker 2 (16:34):
No, it's an older word for last night?
Speaker 1 (16:38):
Oh last night?
Speaker 2 (16:40):
What did thou do? Yes? Stream?
Speaker 1 (16:43):
Yes, dream because I guess yesterday, and yes it's yes,
yes dream. I would think yes dreave yesterreave might be yes,
but yeah, I love it. Anyway, I thought that was Halloween.
Oh yes, yeah, he's got it. That's a fun dictionary.
Speaker 2 (17:02):
Yeah.
Speaker 1 (17:03):
Well, you know, I love my reference books, so I'll
talk about them all day long. But we do have
to go. Thank you, Greg, Andrea and Sammy and also
all Obscure dictionaries have a great weekend. Check out our
Instagram feed at Hello Puzzlers, where we post original puzzles
like visual puzzles, other fun stuff, and we will meet
(17:27):
you here on Monday for more puzzling puzzles that will
puzzle you puzzling.
Speaker 2 (17:37):
Hey puzzlers, it's Greg Pliska. We had ridiculous crime here
a second time to play a game we called cap
cape Caper, where your answer is three words, each of
which has one letter added from the previous word. So
your extra credit clue was when the tailor stuck a
blank in the hot blank blouse, she accidentally pricked her
(17:59):
blank finger. What is that while the tailor stuck a
pin in the hot pink blouse and accidentally pricked her
pinky finger. Of course, pinky can be spelled pi n
k i E or in this case p I n
k y. So everyone take care of your pinky fingers
and come join us again next time on the Puzzler.
(18:25):
Thanks for playing along with the team here at the
Puzzler with Aj Jacobs. I'm Greg Pliska, your chief puzzle officer.
Our executive producers are Neelie Lohman and Adam Neuhouse of
New House Ideas and Jonathan Strickland of iHeart Podcasts. The
show is produced by Jody Afragan and Britney Brown of
Roulette Productions, with production support from Claire Bitegar Curtis. Our
(18:47):
senior puzzler is Andrea Schoenberg. The Puzzler with AJ Jacobs
is a co production with New House Ideas and is
distributed by Rooticized Past. No No, No No. It's a
rearrange that it's distributed by iHeart Podcasts. If you want
to know more about puzzling puzzles, please check out the
book The Puzzler by AJ Jacobs, a history of puzzles
(19:09):
that The New York Times called fun and funny. It
features an original puzzle hunt by Yours Truly and is
available wherever you get your books and puzzlers. For all
your puzzling needs, go visit the puzzler dot com. See
you there,
Hosts And Creators
Greg Pliska
A.J. Jacobs
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