August 22, 2025 • 21 mins
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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.
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.
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Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:00):
Hello puzzlers. 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
(00:22):
it will be a huge help in letting us know
what you want so that we can deliver just that.
Thank you, Hello puzzlers. I thought maybe we should start
with a quick puzzle. I came up with this intro
puzzle while looking inside my refrigerator, specifically looking at a
(00:44):
package of butter which was made by Land oh Lakes
Lands Apostrophe Lakes, and it mainly wonder what other companies
have types of bodies of water in their name. Land
of Lakes has lakes, but are there any with words
like river or creek or sea or stream? You name it.
(01:05):
I will give a hint to two of the answers.
One is a brand known for its cranberry juice. Oh,
Gregg's annoyed because that's the one he had.
Speaker 2 (01:16):
You just give a clue. You didn't give it away,
that's right.
Speaker 1 (01:18):
I did it. Another is an online auction site, and
that one involves a little bit of wordplay, which of
course is encouraged on the Puzzler. Oh and I have
a bonus question for this puzzle. Can you name a
brand that contains not one, but two bodies of water
in its name? Two bodies of water combined. The hint
is it makes a it makes fancy jets for fancy people.
(01:42):
The answers and more puzzling goodness after the break, Hello, puzzlers,
welcome back to the Puzzler podcast The Mischievous Smile on
your puzzle.
Speaker 2 (01:58):
La boo boo.
Speaker 1 (01:59):
That's from our Thank you, Andrea. I am your host,
AJ Jacobs, and of course I'm here with Chief puzzle
Officer Greg Fliska. Greg. Before the break, we asked if
puzzlers could come up with brands or companies that have
bodies of water in their names, like Lando Lake's butter.
I gave a couple of hints. One is a brand
known for Cranberry juice.
Speaker 2 (02:21):
Any thoughts, Yes, yes, yes, yes, that's Ocean Spray.
Speaker 1 (02:25):
That is Ocean Spray. Another is an online auction site.
Speaker 2 (02:30):
Now I like this one. This one is eBay.
Speaker 1 (02:34):
That's correct.
Speaker 2 (02:35):
Right, I like it.
Speaker 3 (02:36):
I don't know where the bay in the name doesn't
have anything to do with the body of water, I
don't think now.
Speaker 1 (02:42):
I thought I didn't look it up, But don't auctions
have bays. Isn't that like you bid on the bay?
Or is that maybe?
Speaker 2 (02:50):
Maybe? Maybe?
Speaker 3 (02:51):
Or maybe that's shopping at Ikea? I can never remember which,
right is that when you go to like shelf bay
twenty four shelf good? Yeah, get out your giant heavy
thing that you can't lift.
Speaker 2 (03:03):
Yeah. And I know your other one because I wrote
it down right before you clute it.
Speaker 1 (03:08):
Oh, I give you full credit.
Speaker 2 (03:10):
Then golf stream, Yeah.
Speaker 1 (03:12):
Golf stream, isn't it. I loved that. That was two
bodies of water, a golf and a stream.
Speaker 2 (03:18):
I've got another one. I got a couple others I
want to hear well.
Speaker 3 (03:21):
I wrote down open sea, open sea, which is the
NFT listing site.
Speaker 1 (03:29):
Oh is that open as right?
Speaker 2 (03:32):
Yeah?
Speaker 1 (03:33):
Oh it is interesting, Okay, I've never heard of that.
Speaker 3 (03:36):
I'm sure there are a ton that have sea and
them that are all ocean related c related things, which
is less interesting. But when I wrote down seagrums, Oh,
that's a good one, which.
Speaker 2 (03:47):
Is good, right, yeah, exactly.
Speaker 3 (03:48):
I had the same responsible because they're the body of
water is not being used as the body of water,
right right.
Speaker 1 (03:55):
I like that, And I'm very impressed because I had, like,
you know, twenty minutes to Google and everything, so and
I didn't come up any others before.
Speaker 2 (04:03):
I didn't. Did you get any river ones?
Speaker 1 (04:06):
No, I mean I obscure places that I had not
heard of. But the ones that I came.
Speaker 3 (04:12):
Up with Brookstone, Brookstone, Brookstone Nice or Brooks Brothers both, that's.
Speaker 1 (04:17):
The one I have had, Brooks Brothers. Well, I only
have two more. One is Ponds the skin Care very
nice good and sound Cloud, which is a website and
sound of course as a body of water.
Speaker 3 (04:31):
I thought you were going to claim that cloud was
a body of water, which I thought, Well, that's a
good I.
Speaker 2 (04:35):
Like it contains water, it's made of water vapor.
Speaker 1 (04:39):
Yeah, it's a body all right. I like where you're going. Well,
this puzzle, as you shall see, relates to something later
in the episode, so please stay during for that, right regardless,
this episode is an exciting one, as they all are.
We're going inside the puzzle lab. We're going to take
you deep into the world of puzzles. We've got news.
(05:00):
We've got listener feedback, with one letter that vindicates us
and one that does not. So But first, Greg, you've
been monitoring the Puzzle newsticker for the latest puzzle news.
Please tell us what you have got.
Speaker 3 (05:14):
This is about a new book that's out. It's called
Face with Tears of Joy by an author named Keith
Houston or Houston I'm not sure, but I'm guessing Houston.
And it's subtitled A Natural History of Emoji.
Speaker 1 (05:28):
No, I want to read that. Yeah, I am very
interested in emojis.
Speaker 2 (05:32):
There's an excerpt on the website long.
Speaker 3 (05:34):
Reads, and it begins with a reference to the twenty
fifteen OED Word of the Year, which was the little emoji,
the face with Tears of Joy.
Speaker 2 (05:46):
It's called It's a Little Face with tears.
Speaker 3 (05:49):
Which is one of the most popular emojis in the world.
Still right, still, and Houston or Houston writes for emoji
to be blessed in this way by the Oeed was
remarkable enough, but it also invited a question if the
Little Face with Tears of Joy was a word, did
that make emoji a language?
Speaker 1 (06:10):
Oh? Good?
Speaker 3 (06:11):
Yeah, So you know his book is all about the
history of emoji and the question of is it a language.
Speaker 2 (06:18):
There are lots of fun emoji based puzzles we could do.
Speaker 3 (06:21):
But few of them are really useful on the In audio,
you know, you can do film titles or plots summed
up with a bunch of emoji.
Speaker 2 (06:29):
That's a very fun one. You see a lot.
Speaker 3 (06:31):
And he actually mentions an example of one man's effort
to translate all of Moby Dick. He called it emoji
Dick into emoji.
Speaker 1 (06:41):
Oh, I gotta get that.
Speaker 3 (06:43):
It's a you know, it's a rather hubristic exercise.
Speaker 2 (06:47):
It's kind of impossible to do.
Speaker 3 (06:49):
But he does give for every the author does for
every sentence, and Moby Dick has a little emoji that
sums it up.
Speaker 1 (06:56):
A friend of mine, Martin Bodick, Hei Martin, he wrote
the emoji Hagada so on on passover Jewish people read
the story of the escape from Egypt, and his was
entirely in emojisre.
Speaker 2 (07:11):
You go, that's crazy.
Speaker 3 (07:12):
Well, every emoji has what's known as a short name.
It's the official Unicode desicated designated short name for that
emoji like face with tears of joy. Obviously, emojis have
lots of meaning. Each one can mean a lot of
different things. But there's a short name for everyone. So
the game we're gonna play today is a this, that
(07:34):
or the other game. I'm gonna give you something.
Speaker 2 (07:36):
You tell me whether it's an emoji short name okay,
a famous Internet meme, or the title of an album
of the.
Speaker 1 (07:46):
Year, aha, album of the year. All right, all right,
I'm very nervous because I'm weak on music and I'm
not the strongest emoji or yeah.
Speaker 3 (08:00):
Bit well, for example, the example that got here, if
I said the Suburbs, that is an Arcade Fire album,
that one album of the year.
Speaker 1 (08:11):
Okay, I didn't know that. There you go.
Speaker 3 (08:14):
Kamala Coconut is the name of a meme. That's the
famous one. What we're saying, you think you just fell
out of a coconut tree. And Sunrise over Mountains is
the name of a short name of an emogent.
Speaker 1 (08:27):
Okay, So all right, I might be able to puzzle
it out. You know what, though, I'm going to call in,
uh someone who actually uses emojis in her text, which
is Andrea Schoenberg or scior puzzler. Are you ready to
help me? Andre? I?
Speaker 4 (08:43):
Yes, I think I'm going to let you struggle first,
because that would amuse our listeners and also mean, and
then when you really need it, I think I think
I'll be pretty okay at this game.
Speaker 1 (08:56):
All right there, that's good, all right, I'm ready to
struggle a little bit.
Speaker 2 (09:00):
Your first clue, Your first one is Tapestry.
Speaker 1 (09:04):
Tapestry, I do know that? Isn't that an album? I
don't know who sings it? Like Fleetwood mag No, that's Tusk.
I don't know, but it feels like an album to me.
Speaker 2 (09:14):
An album? Correct? It is a Carol King album?
Speaker 1 (09:17):
Carol King? Okay, yep.
Speaker 2 (09:19):
How about Distracted Boyfriend?
Speaker 1 (09:22):
Oh? That one? I do know. That's the Yeah, that's
the famous photo of the guy checking the woman out.
Speaker 3 (09:32):
One woman and he's looking over at the other one,
and that's gotten so many great memes on that one.
Speaker 2 (09:38):
How about no jacket required?
Speaker 1 (09:41):
Oh, no jacket required?
Speaker 5 (09:44):
That one?
Speaker 1 (09:44):
I don't know. I don't know. It's a meme and
I don't see it as an emoji, So I'm gonna
guess that it's a Well is it? Andrea? Who's if
it is an album? Who is this? Do you know?
Speaker 2 (09:57):
No?
Speaker 4 (09:57):
I don't know. That's the way I'm also very on music,
but I'm good on memes and emojis.
Speaker 1 (10:04):
I don't know.
Speaker 4 (10:04):
I feel it does not sound like a meme to me.
Speaker 1 (10:07):
Me too. Okay, so we're gonna get an album.
Speaker 3 (10:10):
Yep, it's a Phil Collins album from nineteen eighty six,
way before.
Speaker 2 (10:14):
So you should know that.
Speaker 1 (10:15):
I should know that.
Speaker 2 (10:18):
What about what about sign of the Horns?
Speaker 1 (10:22):
Sign of the Horn? Well? Could I feel it? It
could definitely be like a heavy metal thing, but I
I do go aren't there isn't there like a little
emoji smiley face with horns, like a devil horns? So
that would be my guess? What do you think? Andre?
Speaker 4 (10:40):
There's I mean, there's lots of emojis that could involve horns,
But that's a weird It sounds like a weird term.
What would be the sign of the horns?
Speaker 1 (10:49):
True? True?
Speaker 4 (10:50):
I think it's an album?
Speaker 1 (10:52):
All right? We differ.
Speaker 2 (10:55):
Well, one of you is right?
Speaker 1 (10:57):
Which one?
Speaker 2 (10:58):
It is?
Speaker 3 (10:58):
An emoji a hand, it's a little hand making the
heavy metal sign of the horns with.
Speaker 1 (11:04):
The first, so it's not the horn that makes more sense?
Speaker 2 (11:11):
All right? All right? How about faith?
Speaker 1 (11:16):
Well? Was that I feel that might have been I
don't know. It wasn't the George George Michael.
Speaker 4 (11:23):
George Michael, Yeah.
Speaker 2 (11:25):
George Michael album is correct? How about this is fine?
Speaker 1 (11:38):
Oh, this is fine.
Speaker 2 (11:42):
Short name of an emoji, and that's.
Speaker 1 (11:44):
The tricky I think that's the trickiest one so far,
because it could be like a face with like sort
of a straight line for a smile. It could be
I mean, for all I know, I don't think. I
don't think it's a song an album because it's not
a very exciting name for an album. Like you wouldn't
call an album something like mediocre. It would like go
(12:06):
to the street. So I would say either an emoji
or a meme. But I don't know which it's.
Speaker 4 (12:13):
It's I'm I'm sure you the name. You probably don't
know the name, but I'm sure you're familiar with this meme.
It's a very famous meme for for the times we're
living for the past decade.
Speaker 2 (12:26):
Dogs sitting in a room that's on fire in the
dog is fine?
Speaker 1 (12:32):
Yeah, Okay, I have seen that. Yes, yes, it's very
very calm and very soothing.
Speaker 2 (12:37):
All right, your last one, Your last one is money
mouth face.
Speaker 1 (12:43):
Oh well, I think there is an emoji with like
a tongue, a dollar bill tongue and dollar bill dollar
sign eyes. Is that right, Andrea? Did I make that's right? Yeah?
Speaker 2 (12:55):
And specifically a face with money is its mouth? I
mean you know.
Speaker 3 (12:59):
It's you brought me a companion to the money with
wings money mouth face you put them together means something.
Speaker 1 (13:05):
Well, thank you, Greg for that education. That was edutainment
at its finest. But we're not done. We have some
listener letters. And Andrea, you have been monitoring the email,
the dms, the faxes, the telex machine.
Speaker 4 (13:20):
What have you got today? We have two letters, So
the first one is from Cheryl Jensen. She writes, I
had to smile during the Ariana Benzi episode with Rachel
Bloom when aj used OK Donner as a clue, referring
to one of the Santa's reindeer. Donner is the party
of people who ate each other. Don dur with a
(13:41):
D is the reindeer or is it? I decided I'd
better check my facts and other word obsessed people might
be interested in what I found. In the original eighteen
twenty three account of a visit from Saint Nicholas, Clement
Seymour named two of the reindeer donder and blix.
Speaker 6 (13:58):
Them that under okay, Yeah, yeah, thunder du and d
e r.
Speaker 1 (14:03):
Likelin oh yes from the office, Yeah okay.
Speaker 4 (14:08):
And blixum with an M as in mary at the end.
Speaker 1 (14:12):
Oh okay. So it's looking bad for me now because
we got dunder. I'm I'm on the ropes. Then what happens?
Speaker 5 (14:20):
Uh?
Speaker 4 (14:21):
These words come from Dutch roots meeting thunder and lightning.
Speaker 1 (14:25):
Oh, very good, dounder great.
Speaker 4 (14:27):
Dane chrises for speedy flying ruminants true.
Speaker 1 (14:30):
True.
Speaker 4 (14:31):
In an early twentieth century poetry anthology, editor Edmund Clarence
Stedman changed the spelling to the Dutch donder and German blitzen.
Speaker 1 (14:41):
I'm still in travel, though Donder is not donner. What's
going to happen next? Well?
Speaker 4 (14:47):
By the time Jeene Autry say his Christmas classic in
nineteen forty nine, Donner had become a widely used sation,
so AJ had relalidated Donner is in one of Santa's reindeer.
Despite my autocorrect and morbidly insustain he ought to be dinner.
Ah love the puzzler. Thank you Cheryl Jensen for the
(15:09):
great letter.
Speaker 1 (15:10):
Ah, I loved it, and yes, I feel very relieved.
About the Donner don Der Dunder. All right, so you
have one other letter for us, Andrea.
Speaker 4 (15:22):
Yes, we also have a letter from friend of the
show Ken Miller in New Mexico.
Speaker 1 (15:26):
Thank you Ken.
Speaker 4 (15:28):
He wrote in about the mid Atlantic puzzle we did
a few episodes ago.
Speaker 1 (15:32):
Oh yeah, so this one just to refresh the memory.
This was from Andrea Schomberg. Thank you, Andrea. A lovely
little puzzle that asks what do these three things have
in common? Catherine Hepburn's accent, an article halfway through the
monthly news magazine edited by Jeffrey Goldberg, and the island
of verm Utah verm u Dah not verm Utah. The
(15:54):
answer was they are all mid Atlantic, a mid Atlantic accent.
The article in Atlantic Magazine and Bermuda, which is in
the Atlantic Ocean. And if I recall, Gregg did not
think Bermuda was exactly mid Atlantic. It's closer to the
Americas than to Africa or Europe, so not quite mid atlantic.
(16:15):
I think. I offered that Azores might be another option.
So what did can say?
Speaker 4 (16:22):
Great? So Ken decided to figure out what island is
in fact the most mid Atlantic of them all. So
he did this using what he calls the highly scientific
method of going to Google Maps and using the measured
distance tool to find the closest coastline on the west
and east.
Speaker 1 (16:40):
Nice.
Speaker 4 (16:41):
So here are Ken's very scientific findings. So if you
break down the distances into percentages, with fifty percent being
exactly midway, Bermuda is nineteen percent across the Atlantic going
from east to west, and eighty one percent across from
the west coast of Africa.
Speaker 6 (16:59):
So not so not so mid not so mid would
are you anything in the middle in the middle and
mid Atlantic encompasses anything that's in the middle.
Speaker 1 (17:09):
Viewing there you go, it could be eight or two.
Speaker 2 (17:13):
Come on there, that means just to just to an
island is mid Atlantic? Then by your definite definitely come
on now, all right, all.
Speaker 4 (17:20):
Right, part these metrics. Then Bermuda is definitely a loser
because Flora's Island in the a and the Azores does
much better. It's sixty three percent across the Atlantic.
Speaker 1 (17:30):
Sixty three okay.
Speaker 4 (17:32):
So pretty good, not bad, not bad.
Speaker 2 (17:34):
Uh.
Speaker 4 (17:34):
And then Ken goes on to say that he found
the most mid Atlantic island of them all to be
Tristan dak Kunha and I astologize Decuna. Yeah, I apologize
for butchering any pronunciation. Tristan de Kunya is in the
Southern Atlantic. It's a British overseas territory with two hundred
(17:55):
and fifty inhabitants. It's near the island of Saint Heleno
where Napoleon was exiled, and it is officially fifty across
the Atlantic.
Speaker 5 (18:05):
Three.
Speaker 4 (18:06):
Yeah, that's pretty mid for halfway between Brazil and Namibia.
Speaker 1 (18:11):
Love it all right, So now we know for the
next time we do that exact same puzzle, we will
use Tristan the Cuna And thank you Ken. That can
out of any other anything else to say.
Speaker 4 (18:26):
Uh he just at then said, as always, the puzzler
remains the Lord Howe Island in my puzzle bucket list. Itinerary.
Speaker 2 (18:33):
Ah. I like that very nice. I think we need
a puzzler site visit to Tristan Tokuna just to check
it out. Is it really?
Speaker 1 (18:44):
That's yes, We're going to have our next off site there.
Our next it's got me.
Speaker 2 (18:48):
One city on it called Edinburgh of the Seven Seas.
Speaker 1 (18:52):
That's so poetic. I love it. Yeah. And of course
Kent's Ocean Puzzle letter relates to the initial puzzle bodies
of water, so it all comes full circle.
Speaker 2 (19:04):
It's like you planned it that way.
Speaker 1 (19:06):
It is almost as if I did. Thank you, Greg,
Thank you Andrea, Thank you listeners. And of course, if
you want even more fun puzzles, check out our Instagram
feeds at Hello Puzzlers, where we post original puzzles and
visual puzzles and all sorts of fun puzzle content, and
we will meet you here on Monday for more puzzling
(19:29):
puzzles that will puzzle you puzzlingly.
Speaker 5 (19:37):
Hello puzzlers, it's Greg Pliska, your chief puzzle officer, here
with the extra credit answer. From our previous episode, we
had Marisha Pestle with us to talk about her great
book Darkly and all the fun games that she imagines
in that book, and we played a game with her
that we called Name that board game. I gave her
a section of the rules of a board game and
(19:58):
she had to tell us what game it was. And
here is your extra credit clue.
Speaker 2 (20:01):
It was this. You must move the robber to a
new hecks, steal one random resource card from a player
who has a building on that hex. That of course
is Settlers of Katan or Settlers of katan, depending on
how you pronounce it. We're glad that you're here, and
we're glad you're doing puzzles with us, and we'll catch
you next time. Thanks for playing along with the team
(20:28):
here at The Puzzler with Aj Jacobs. I'm Greg Pliska,
your chief puzzle Officer.
Speaker 3 (20:33):
Our executive producers are Neelie Lohman and Adam Neuhouse of
New House Ideas and Jonathan Strickland of iHeart Podcasts.
Speaker 2 (20:41):
The show is.
Speaker 3 (20:41):
Produced by Jody Afragan and Britney Brown of Roulette Productions,
with production.
Speaker 2 (20:45):
Support from Claire Bidegar Curtis. Our senior puzzler is Andrea Schoenberg.
The Puzzler with Aj Jacobs is a co production with
New House Ideas and is distributed by Chaste Paradist. That's
chased a ste No, It's not rearrange. It distributed by
iHeart podcast.
Speaker 3 (21:08):
If you want to know more about puzzling puzzles, please
check out the book The Puzzler by Aj Jacobs, a
history of puzzles 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.
Speaker 2 (21:30):
See you there,
Hello puzzlers. 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
(00:22):
it will be a huge help in letting us know
what you want so that we can deliver just that.
Thank you, Hello puzzlers. I thought maybe we should start
with a quick puzzle. I came up with this intro
puzzle while looking inside my refrigerator, specifically looking at a
(00:44):
package of butter which was made by Land oh Lakes
Lands Apostrophe Lakes, and it mainly wonder what other companies
have types of bodies of water in their name. Land
of Lakes has lakes, but are there any with words
like river or creek or sea or stream? You name it.
(01:05):
I will give a hint to two of the answers.
One is a brand known for its cranberry juice. Oh,
Gregg's annoyed because that's the one he had.
Speaker 2 (01:16):
You just give a clue. You didn't give it away,
that's right.
Speaker 1 (01:18):
I did it. Another is an online auction site, and
that one involves a little bit of wordplay, which of
course is encouraged on the Puzzler. Oh and I have
a bonus question for this puzzle. Can you name a
brand that contains not one, but two bodies of water
in its name? Two bodies of water combined. The hint
is it makes a it makes fancy jets for fancy people.
(01:42):
The answers and more puzzling goodness after the break, Hello, puzzlers,
welcome back to the Puzzler podcast The Mischievous Smile on
your puzzle.
Speaker 2 (01:58):
La boo boo.
Speaker 1 (01:59):
That's from our Thank you, Andrea. I am your host,
AJ Jacobs, and of course I'm here with Chief puzzle
Officer Greg Fliska. Greg. Before the break, we asked if
puzzlers could come up with brands or companies that have
bodies of water in their names, like Lando Lake's butter.
I gave a couple of hints. One is a brand
known for Cranberry juice.
Speaker 2 (02:21):
Any thoughts, Yes, yes, yes, yes, that's Ocean Spray.
Speaker 1 (02:25):
That is Ocean Spray. Another is an online auction site.
Speaker 2 (02:30):
Now I like this one. This one is eBay.
Speaker 1 (02:34):
That's correct.
Speaker 2 (02:35):
Right, I like it.
Speaker 3 (02:36):
I don't know where the bay in the name doesn't
have anything to do with the body of water, I
don't think now.
Speaker 1 (02:42):
I thought I didn't look it up, But don't auctions
have bays. Isn't that like you bid on the bay?
Or is that maybe?
Speaker 2 (02:50):
Maybe? Maybe?
Speaker 3 (02:51):
Or maybe that's shopping at Ikea? I can never remember which,
right is that when you go to like shelf bay
twenty four shelf good? Yeah, get out your giant heavy
thing that you can't lift.
Speaker 2 (03:03):
Yeah. And I know your other one because I wrote
it down right before you clute it.
Speaker 1 (03:08):
Oh, I give you full credit.
Speaker 2 (03:10):
Then golf stream, Yeah.
Speaker 1 (03:12):
Golf stream, isn't it. I loved that. That was two
bodies of water, a golf and a stream.
Speaker 2 (03:18):
I've got another one. I got a couple others I
want to hear well.
Speaker 3 (03:21):
I wrote down open sea, open sea, which is the
NFT listing site.
Speaker 1 (03:29):
Oh is that open as right?
Speaker 2 (03:32):
Yeah?
Speaker 1 (03:33):
Oh it is interesting, Okay, I've never heard of that.
Speaker 3 (03:36):
I'm sure there are a ton that have sea and
them that are all ocean related c related things, which
is less interesting. But when I wrote down seagrums, Oh,
that's a good one, which.
Speaker 2 (03:47):
Is good, right, yeah, exactly.
Speaker 3 (03:48):
I had the same responsible because they're the body of
water is not being used as the body of water,
right right.
Speaker 1 (03:55):
I like that, And I'm very impressed because I had, like,
you know, twenty minutes to Google and everything, so and
I didn't come up any others before.
Speaker 2 (04:03):
I didn't. Did you get any river ones?
Speaker 1 (04:06):
No, I mean I obscure places that I had not
heard of. But the ones that I came.
Speaker 3 (04:12):
Up with Brookstone, Brookstone, Brookstone Nice or Brooks Brothers both, that's.
Speaker 1 (04:17):
The one I have had, Brooks Brothers. Well, I only
have two more. One is Ponds the skin Care very
nice good and sound Cloud, which is a website and
sound of course as a body of water.
Speaker 3 (04:31):
I thought you were going to claim that cloud was
a body of water, which I thought, Well, that's a
good I.
Speaker 2 (04:35):
Like it contains water, it's made of water vapor.
Speaker 1 (04:39):
Yeah, it's a body all right. I like where you're going. Well,
this puzzle, as you shall see, relates to something later
in the episode, so please stay during for that, right regardless,
this episode is an exciting one, as they all are.
We're going inside the puzzle lab. We're going to take
you deep into the world of puzzles. We've got news.
(05:00):
We've got listener feedback, with one letter that vindicates us
and one that does not. So But first, Greg, you've
been monitoring the Puzzle newsticker for the latest puzzle news.
Please tell us what you have got.
Speaker 3 (05:14):
This is about a new book that's out. It's called
Face with Tears of Joy by an author named Keith
Houston or Houston I'm not sure, but I'm guessing Houston.
And it's subtitled A Natural History of Emoji.
Speaker 1 (05:28):
No, I want to read that. Yeah, I am very
interested in emojis.
Speaker 2 (05:32):
There's an excerpt on the website long.
Speaker 3 (05:34):
Reads, and it begins with a reference to the twenty
fifteen OED Word of the Year, which was the little emoji,
the face with Tears of Joy.
Speaker 2 (05:46):
It's called It's a Little Face with tears.
Speaker 3 (05:49):
Which is one of the most popular emojis in the world.
Still right, still, and Houston or Houston writes for emoji
to be blessed in this way by the Oeed was
remarkable enough, but it also invited a question if the
Little Face with Tears of Joy was a word, did
that make emoji a language?
Speaker 1 (06:10):
Oh? Good?
Speaker 3 (06:11):
Yeah, So you know his book is all about the
history of emoji and the question of is it a language.
Speaker 2 (06:18):
There are lots of fun emoji based puzzles we could do.
Speaker 3 (06:21):
But few of them are really useful on the In audio,
you know, you can do film titles or plots summed
up with a bunch of emoji.
Speaker 2 (06:29):
That's a very fun one. You see a lot.
Speaker 3 (06:31):
And he actually mentions an example of one man's effort
to translate all of Moby Dick. He called it emoji
Dick into emoji.
Speaker 1 (06:41):
Oh, I gotta get that.
Speaker 3 (06:43):
It's a you know, it's a rather hubristic exercise.
Speaker 2 (06:47):
It's kind of impossible to do.
Speaker 3 (06:49):
But he does give for every the author does for
every sentence, and Moby Dick has a little emoji that
sums it up.
Speaker 1 (06:56):
A friend of mine, Martin Bodick, Hei Martin, he wrote
the emoji Hagada so on on passover Jewish people read
the story of the escape from Egypt, and his was
entirely in emojisre.
Speaker 2 (07:11):
You go, that's crazy.
Speaker 3 (07:12):
Well, every emoji has what's known as a short name.
It's the official Unicode desicated designated short name for that
emoji like face with tears of joy. Obviously, emojis have
lots of meaning. Each one can mean a lot of
different things. But there's a short name for everyone. So
the game we're gonna play today is a this, that
(07:34):
or the other game. I'm gonna give you something.
Speaker 2 (07:36):
You tell me whether it's an emoji short name okay,
a famous Internet meme, or the title of an album
of the.
Speaker 1 (07:46):
Year, aha, album of the year. All right, all right,
I'm very nervous because I'm weak on music and I'm
not the strongest emoji or yeah.
Speaker 3 (08:00):
Bit well, for example, the example that got here, if
I said the Suburbs, that is an Arcade Fire album,
that one album of the year.
Speaker 1 (08:11):
Okay, I didn't know that. There you go.
Speaker 3 (08:14):
Kamala Coconut is the name of a meme. That's the
famous one. What we're saying, you think you just fell
out of a coconut tree. And Sunrise over Mountains is
the name of a short name of an emogent.
Speaker 1 (08:27):
Okay, So all right, I might be able to puzzle
it out. You know what, though, I'm going to call in,
uh someone who actually uses emojis in her text, which
is Andrea Schoenberg or scior puzzler. Are you ready to
help me? Andre? I?
Speaker 4 (08:43):
Yes, I think I'm going to let you struggle first,
because that would amuse our listeners and also mean, and
then when you really need it, I think I think
I'll be pretty okay at this game.
Speaker 1 (08:56):
All right there, that's good, all right, I'm ready to
struggle a little bit.
Speaker 2 (09:00):
Your first clue, Your first one is Tapestry.
Speaker 1 (09:04):
Tapestry, I do know that? Isn't that an album? I
don't know who sings it? Like Fleetwood mag No, that's Tusk.
I don't know, but it feels like an album to me.
Speaker 2 (09:14):
An album? Correct? It is a Carol King album?
Speaker 1 (09:17):
Carol King? Okay, yep.
Speaker 2 (09:19):
How about Distracted Boyfriend?
Speaker 1 (09:22):
Oh? That one? I do know. That's the Yeah, that's
the famous photo of the guy checking the woman out.
Speaker 3 (09:32):
One woman and he's looking over at the other one,
and that's gotten so many great memes on that one.
Speaker 2 (09:38):
How about no jacket required?
Speaker 1 (09:41):
Oh, no jacket required?
Speaker 5 (09:44):
That one?
Speaker 1 (09:44):
I don't know. I don't know. It's a meme and
I don't see it as an emoji, So I'm gonna
guess that it's a Well is it? Andrea? Who's if
it is an album? Who is this? Do you know?
Speaker 2 (09:57):
No?
Speaker 4 (09:57):
I don't know. That's the way I'm also very on music,
but I'm good on memes and emojis.
Speaker 1 (10:04):
I don't know.
Speaker 4 (10:04):
I feel it does not sound like a meme to me.
Speaker 1 (10:07):
Me too. Okay, so we're gonna get an album.
Speaker 3 (10:10):
Yep, it's a Phil Collins album from nineteen eighty six,
way before.
Speaker 2 (10:14):
So you should know that.
Speaker 1 (10:15):
I should know that.
Speaker 2 (10:18):
What about what about sign of the Horns?
Speaker 1 (10:22):
Sign of the Horn? Well? Could I feel it? It
could definitely be like a heavy metal thing, but I
I do go aren't there isn't there like a little
emoji smiley face with horns, like a devil horns? So
that would be my guess? What do you think? Andre?
Speaker 4 (10:40):
There's I mean, there's lots of emojis that could involve horns,
But that's a weird It sounds like a weird term.
What would be the sign of the horns?
Speaker 1 (10:49):
True? True?
Speaker 4 (10:50):
I think it's an album?
Speaker 1 (10:52):
All right? We differ.
Speaker 2 (10:55):
Well, one of you is right?
Speaker 1 (10:57):
Which one?
Speaker 2 (10:58):
It is?
Speaker 3 (10:58):
An emoji a hand, it's a little hand making the
heavy metal sign of the horns with.
Speaker 1 (11:04):
The first, so it's not the horn that makes more sense?
Speaker 2 (11:11):
All right? All right? How about faith?
Speaker 1 (11:16):
Well? Was that I feel that might have been I
don't know. It wasn't the George George Michael.
Speaker 4 (11:23):
George Michael, Yeah.
Speaker 2 (11:25):
George Michael album is correct? How about this is fine?
Speaker 1 (11:38):
Oh, this is fine.
Speaker 2 (11:42):
Short name of an emoji, and that's.
Speaker 1 (11:44):
The tricky I think that's the trickiest one so far,
because it could be like a face with like sort
of a straight line for a smile. It could be
I mean, for all I know, I don't think. I
don't think it's a song an album because it's not
a very exciting name for an album. Like you wouldn't
call an album something like mediocre. It would like go
(12:06):
to the street. So I would say either an emoji
or a meme. But I don't know which it's.
Speaker 4 (12:13):
It's I'm I'm sure you the name. You probably don't
know the name, but I'm sure you're familiar with this meme.
It's a very famous meme for for the times we're
living for the past decade.
Speaker 2 (12:26):
Dogs sitting in a room that's on fire in the
dog is fine?
Speaker 1 (12:32):
Yeah, Okay, I have seen that. Yes, yes, it's very
very calm and very soothing.
Speaker 2 (12:37):
All right, your last one, Your last one is money
mouth face.
Speaker 1 (12:43):
Oh well, I think there is an emoji with like
a tongue, a dollar bill tongue and dollar bill dollar
sign eyes. Is that right, Andrea? Did I make that's right? Yeah?
Speaker 2 (12:55):
And specifically a face with money is its mouth? I
mean you know.
Speaker 3 (12:59):
It's you brought me a companion to the money with
wings money mouth face you put them together means something.
Speaker 1 (13:05):
Well, thank you, Greg for that education. That was edutainment
at its finest. But we're not done. We have some
listener letters. And Andrea, you have been monitoring the email,
the dms, the faxes, the telex machine.
Speaker 4 (13:20):
What have you got today? We have two letters, So
the first one is from Cheryl Jensen. She writes, I
had to smile during the Ariana Benzi episode with Rachel
Bloom when aj used OK Donner as a clue, referring
to one of the Santa's reindeer. Donner is the party
of people who ate each other. Don dur with a
(13:41):
D is the reindeer or is it? I decided I'd
better check my facts and other word obsessed people might
be interested in what I found. In the original eighteen
twenty three account of a visit from Saint Nicholas, Clement
Seymour named two of the reindeer donder and blix.
Speaker 6 (13:58):
Them that under okay, Yeah, yeah, thunder du and d
e r.
Speaker 1 (14:03):
Likelin oh yes from the office, Yeah okay.
Speaker 4 (14:08):
And blixum with an M as in mary at the end.
Speaker 1 (14:12):
Oh okay. So it's looking bad for me now because
we got dunder. I'm I'm on the ropes. Then what happens?
Speaker 5 (14:20):
Uh?
Speaker 4 (14:21):
These words come from Dutch roots meeting thunder and lightning.
Speaker 1 (14:25):
Oh, very good, dounder great.
Speaker 4 (14:27):
Dane chrises for speedy flying ruminants true.
Speaker 1 (14:30):
True.
Speaker 4 (14:31):
In an early twentieth century poetry anthology, editor Edmund Clarence
Stedman changed the spelling to the Dutch donder and German blitzen.
Speaker 1 (14:41):
I'm still in travel, though Donder is not donner. What's
going to happen next? Well?
Speaker 4 (14:47):
By the time Jeene Autry say his Christmas classic in
nineteen forty nine, Donner had become a widely used sation,
so AJ had relalidated Donner is in one of Santa's reindeer.
Despite my autocorrect and morbidly insustain he ought to be dinner.
Ah love the puzzler. Thank you Cheryl Jensen for the
(15:09):
great letter.
Speaker 1 (15:10):
Ah, I loved it, and yes, I feel very relieved.
About the Donner don Der Dunder. All right, so you
have one other letter for us, Andrea.
Speaker 4 (15:22):
Yes, we also have a letter from friend of the
show Ken Miller in New Mexico.
Speaker 1 (15:26):
Thank you Ken.
Speaker 4 (15:28):
He wrote in about the mid Atlantic puzzle we did
a few episodes ago.
Speaker 1 (15:32):
Oh yeah, so this one just to refresh the memory.
This was from Andrea Schomberg. Thank you, Andrea. A lovely
little puzzle that asks what do these three things have
in common? Catherine Hepburn's accent, an article halfway through the
monthly news magazine edited by Jeffrey Goldberg, and the island
of verm Utah verm u Dah not verm Utah. The
(15:54):
answer was they are all mid Atlantic, a mid Atlantic accent.
The article in Atlantic Magazine and Bermuda, which is in
the Atlantic Ocean. And if I recall, Gregg did not
think Bermuda was exactly mid Atlantic. It's closer to the
Americas than to Africa or Europe, so not quite mid atlantic.
(16:15):
I think. I offered that Azores might be another option.
So what did can say?
Speaker 4 (16:22):
Great? So Ken decided to figure out what island is
in fact the most mid Atlantic of them all. So
he did this using what he calls the highly scientific
method of going to Google Maps and using the measured
distance tool to find the closest coastline on the west
and east.
Speaker 1 (16:40):
Nice.
Speaker 4 (16:41):
So here are Ken's very scientific findings. So if you
break down the distances into percentages, with fifty percent being
exactly midway, Bermuda is nineteen percent across the Atlantic going
from east to west, and eighty one percent across from
the west coast of Africa.
Speaker 6 (16:59):
So not so not so mid not so mid would
are you anything in the middle in the middle and
mid Atlantic encompasses anything that's in the middle.
Speaker 1 (17:09):
Viewing there you go, it could be eight or two.
Speaker 2 (17:13):
Come on there, that means just to just to an
island is mid Atlantic? Then by your definite definitely come
on now, all right, all.
Speaker 4 (17:20):
Right, part these metrics. Then Bermuda is definitely a loser
because Flora's Island in the a and the Azores does
much better. It's sixty three percent across the Atlantic.
Speaker 1 (17:30):
Sixty three okay.
Speaker 4 (17:32):
So pretty good, not bad, not bad.
Speaker 2 (17:34):
Uh.
Speaker 4 (17:34):
And then Ken goes on to say that he found
the most mid Atlantic island of them all to be
Tristan dak Kunha and I astologize Decuna. Yeah, I apologize
for butchering any pronunciation. Tristan de Kunya is in the
Southern Atlantic. It's a British overseas territory with two hundred
(17:55):
and fifty inhabitants. It's near the island of Saint Heleno
where Napoleon was exiled, and it is officially fifty across
the Atlantic.
Speaker 5 (18:05):
Three.
Speaker 4 (18:06):
Yeah, that's pretty mid for halfway between Brazil and Namibia.
Speaker 1 (18:11):
Love it all right, So now we know for the
next time we do that exact same puzzle, we will
use Tristan the Cuna And thank you Ken. That can
out of any other anything else to say.
Speaker 4 (18:26):
Uh he just at then said, as always, the puzzler
remains the Lord Howe Island in my puzzle bucket list. Itinerary.
Speaker 2 (18:33):
Ah. I like that very nice. I think we need
a puzzler site visit to Tristan Tokuna just to check
it out. Is it really?
Speaker 1 (18:44):
That's yes, We're going to have our next off site there.
Our next it's got me.
Speaker 2 (18:48):
One city on it called Edinburgh of the Seven Seas.
Speaker 1 (18:52):
That's so poetic. I love it. Yeah. And of course
Kent's Ocean Puzzle letter relates to the initial puzzle bodies
of water, so it all comes full circle.
Speaker 2 (19:04):
It's like you planned it that way.
Speaker 1 (19:06):
It is almost as if I did. Thank you, Greg,
Thank you Andrea, Thank you listeners. And of course, if
you want even more fun puzzles, check out our Instagram
feeds at Hello Puzzlers, where we post original puzzles and
visual puzzles and all sorts of fun puzzle content, and
we will meet you here on Monday for more puzzling
(19:29):
puzzles that will puzzle you puzzlingly.
Speaker 5 (19:37):
Hello puzzlers, it's Greg Pliska, your chief puzzle officer, here
with the extra credit answer. From our previous episode, we
had Marisha Pestle with us to talk about her great
book Darkly and all the fun games that she imagines
in that book, and we played a game with her
that we called Name that board game. I gave her
a section of the rules of a board game and
(19:58):
she had to tell us what game it was. And
here is your extra credit clue.
Speaker 2 (20:01):
It was this. You must move the robber to a
new hecks, steal one random resource card from a player
who has a building on that hex. That of course
is Settlers of Katan or Settlers of katan, depending on
how you pronounce it. We're glad that you're here, and
we're glad you're doing puzzles with us, and we'll catch
you next time. Thanks for playing along with the team
(20:28):
here at The Puzzler with Aj Jacobs. I'm Greg Pliska,
your chief puzzle Officer.
Speaker 3 (20:33):
Our executive producers are Neelie Lohman and Adam Neuhouse of
New House Ideas and Jonathan Strickland of iHeart Podcasts.
Speaker 2 (20:41):
The show is.
Speaker 3 (20:41):
Produced by Jody Afragan and Britney Brown of Roulette Productions,
with production.
Speaker 2 (20:45):
Support from Claire Bidegar Curtis. Our senior puzzler is Andrea Schoenberg.
The Puzzler with Aj Jacobs is a co production with
New House Ideas and is distributed by Chaste Paradist. That's
chased a ste No, It's not rearrange. It distributed by
iHeart podcast.
Speaker 3 (21:08):
If you want to know more about puzzling puzzles, please
check out the book The Puzzler by Aj Jacobs, a
history of puzzles 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.
Speaker 2 (21:30):
See you there,
Hosts And Creators
Greg Pliska
A.J. Jacobs
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