July 17, 2025 • 21 mins
Hello, Puzzlers! Puzzling with us today: our very own Chief Puzzle Officer, Greg Pliska.
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. I say we start with a quick puzzle,
or maybe it's more better described as a riddle. It's
a question posed by the great comedian Stephen Wright, and
he said, what is another word for thesaurus? It's widely
attributed to Stephen Wright at least who knows. But the
challenge for you listeners for the next minute or so,
(00:23):
what is another word for thesaurus or even another phrase
for thesaurus? We will discuss this important issue in other
puzzling puzzles after the break. Hello puzzlers, Welcome back to
the Puzzler podcast the dead pan glance at the camera
(00:45):
in your puzzle mockumentary. I'm your host Ad jacobs On
here of course, with she puzzle officer Greg Kliska. Greg.
Before the break, we posed a classic question, a joke
from comedian Stephen Wright, and it is what is another
word for thesaurus? Do you have any thoughts?
Speaker 2 (01:04):
I have some reference books that are called like there's
one called word Finder, okay, that is that is actually
a thesaurus essentially, And there's also the I used to
have a when I was a kid, one of my
prize possessions in like fifth or sixth grade was the
(01:26):
Dictionary of Synonyms and Antonyms. Oh okay, is essentially a thesaurus.
And and I loved it. And somebody stole it. What
I've clearly never gotten over that. Yeah, just I you know,
just somebody took it and it.
Speaker 1 (01:39):
Was someone pill for it, some yeah, spirited it away.
Speaker 2 (01:44):
Yah? What else have you got? I mean? What? Well?
Speaker 1 (01:47):
First of all, let me just say I love that
you are such a nerd that one of your prize
possessions was a thesaurus.
Speaker 2 (01:53):
Yeah, I know, I'm such a nerd. No, a dictionary
of synonyms and antonyms please?
Speaker 1 (01:57):
Yes, not a thesaurus. Sorry. Yeah, well it's interesting. If
you put into thesaurus dot com thesaurus, it comes up
with all these words that I don't think are quite right.
Glossary is not right, lexicon. I went on Reddit to
see what they said, and there was several threads. One
I liked was samey wordy book, samey wordy book.
Speaker 2 (02:19):
Sure that's legit.
Speaker 1 (02:20):
Yeah, and then this one was a synonymiser was another
one an articulated dinosaur, which is like a grown worthy
but impressive play on words, because I guess article is
the dinosaurs soaurus, you.
Speaker 3 (02:36):
Know, I use the website one loook dot com often
to look up U string letter strings. You know, if
I want to find words that start with AJ blank
that you write all the words that start with AJ.
And they have what they called for a while a
reverse lookup function, which was essentially a thesaurus. Oh, you
(02:59):
sort of gave the meaning of something and all the
words related.
Speaker 2 (03:04):
To that meaning. But how they just call it thesaurus?
Speaker 1 (03:08):
Oh and what does that say? What does one look
dot com.
Speaker 2 (03:10):
Say, Oh, thesaurus, let's see thesaurus put that in there.
Synonym finder? Well yeah, at amal logicon.
Speaker 1 (03:22):
Oh, I like that.
Speaker 2 (03:23):
Book answers, a book of etymologies. It's not really uh
synonym finder. It actually highlights and says that's a that
is a synonym for thesaurus. And then the rest of
the answers it gives a related words.
Speaker 1 (03:39):
Right, yes, that was yeah. Well one last one I
throw out there was word hord word hord, h o
a r D word. But that's more like your vocabulary.
Speaker 2 (03:52):
That's more like a group of lexicographers invading your town.
Speaker 1 (03:56):
Dangerous.
Speaker 2 (03:59):
Horde.
Speaker 1 (04:00):
This was h O a r D. But today I
all bring all this up because today we have two puzzles,
one for me, one from you, and the one from
me is based on the souses or the sorori, I'm
not sure, but it is more about mis used the saurus,
the misuse of the souruses. Okay, because this is something
(04:22):
that I think has become quite newsy because I've seen
AI do it. When the Puzzler book came out, our book,
The Puzzler, there were a bunch of AI generated books
being sold on Amazon. It was crazy and annoying. What
they were called things like the Summary, a Summary of
the Puzzler, or a Guide to the Puzzler. And I
(04:44):
bought them, I wrote an article I reviewed them because
and they were crap. They were like twenty pages. But
what they did is they took our book and reoted synonyms.
But the synonyms were often totally wrong for the context
because AI was just plucking something out of the So
these rip off books, you'd have a sentence like my
wife and I took turns solving the puzzle, and it
(05:07):
would change it to my wife and I took gyrations
solving the puzzle, so sort of.
Speaker 2 (05:14):
Which you might have done. I can imagine you and
Julie spinning around the room yourself through.
Speaker 1 (05:22):
But it was not the meaning I had in the book.
So this puzzle is sort of like that is that
thesaurus misapplied, mad lived thesaurus whatever you want to call it.
I'm gonna give you just a handful of sayings or
maxims with the words changed to thesaurus synonyms, and you
have to tell me the original things. But I'll give
you an example. If it ain't penniless, don't neuter it.
(05:48):
If it ain't penniless, don't neuter it. And that is well,
it sounds like, you know.
Speaker 2 (05:52):
It ain't broke, don't fix it.
Speaker 1 (05:54):
Exactly, So broke is a synonym for penniless, and fix
like you know, dude, your cat.
Speaker 2 (06:01):
So if your cat has a trust fund, you got
to leave it.
Speaker 1 (06:04):
Alone, exactly, don't it. Well this and by the way,
I'll stress the ones that are synonyms. Not all of
the words will be synonyms. It'll be a selection, all right.
So for instance, well not for instance, this is a
real one. No forget. For instance, a watched weed never seethes,
(06:25):
a watched weed never see.
Speaker 2 (06:27):
Well that's true, of course, but it is a watched
pot never boils.
Speaker 1 (06:34):
That's correct, exactly. The finales justify the averages, the finales.
Speaker 2 (06:44):
The ends justify the means.
Speaker 1 (06:47):
That is correct also good good wisdom. Where there's a testament,
there's a thoroughfare. Where there's a testament, there's a thoroughfare that's.
Speaker 2 (06:57):
Like Bible boulevard or something. Right your testament, there's a thoroughfare.
Where there's a will, there's a way exactly.
Speaker 1 (07:08):
And this, by the way, inspired me. What is a
will versus a testament? According to the Internet, always reliable
will is about real property. I guess land and testament
is like personal property, like a valuable necklace. Now they're
used interchangeably. All right, just a couple more we got.
Don't noblemen you're scaredy cats before they devise.
Speaker 2 (07:34):
Before they devise, you could have also done before they
door in the top of a submarine.
Speaker 1 (07:40):
I thought about that. I couldn't find an easy word
for that, but yeah, that.
Speaker 2 (07:45):
Kind of it. Don't count your chickens before they hatch.
Speaker 1 (07:50):
Exactly, because a count can also be a nobleman. Chickens
scaredy cat and hatch a plan or devise a plan.
All right, we got two more. We got uh unintelligent
and beloved wins the tribe unintelligent and beloved wins the tribe.
Speaker 2 (08:08):
Isn't that the slogan of the TV show Survivor. I
think that's how the show works.
Speaker 1 (08:14):
Right, that is so interesting? That really does work?
Speaker 2 (08:18):
Yeah right, I mean.
Speaker 1 (08:19):
But it's also something else.
Speaker 2 (08:22):
Slow and steady wins the race.
Speaker 1 (08:25):
Exactly because slow can also be a synonym for unintelligent.
Steady is your beloved wins. I kept in there and
grace and tribe.
Speaker 2 (08:35):
Yes, that is so good. And you can actually I
can imagine an Ai doing all of this.
Speaker 1 (08:40):
Oh yeah, no, it's there. I mean AI is getting better.
Unfortunately or fortunately, I don't know which. So but for
the moment, I'm sure that there's a lot of this
going on.
Speaker 2 (08:49):
All right.
Speaker 1 (08:49):
Last one, we've got to walk out while the golf
club is fashionable. Walk out real, you got it? That one.
Speaker 2 (09:01):
One while the golf club is fashionable. I mean, that's
a good advice for tiger woods. Walk out while the
golf club is fashionable, strike yees walk out as a strike.
Strike while the iron is hot.
Speaker 1 (09:17):
That's right. Golf clubs sometimes called irons or woods, and
fashionable is hot. So there you go. You nailed it.
You know you're a thesaurus because you had one in
fifth grade.
Speaker 2 (09:26):
I did all pay it off was stolen, but I
had a chance to look at it before they took it.
Speaker 1 (09:33):
Are you well? That was just part one? You have
a puzzle for.
Speaker 2 (09:43):
Me, I do. Actually, I'm gonna I'm gonna ask Andrea
to Schoenberg to join us for this one.
Speaker 1 (09:49):
I need her.
Speaker 2 (09:50):
I always want because this is a This is in
honor of July seventeenth, which is World Emoji Day.
Speaker 1 (09:57):
Happy emojis? Do they need a day? I'm not sure?
Speaker 2 (10:00):
I mean, why not? Everything gets a day? Doesn't it? Right?
Speaker 1 (10:03):
Fair enough?
Speaker 2 (10:04):
And the actually a good question is why is July
seventeenth World Emoji Day?
Speaker 1 (10:09):
Great question.
Speaker 2 (10:10):
Apple introduced the iCal app on July seventeenth, two thousand
and two, and on your Apple devices at that time,
the little emoji for calendar was changed to show July
seventeenth as the default. So the Apple emoji, the emoji
on your Apple device was changed to a little calendar
(10:30):
emoji that showed seventeenth is the date. And then several
years later somebody said, hey, we should celebrate Emoji Day
on July seventeenth, and so.
Speaker 1 (10:39):
Yeah, clever, okay, I like it.
Speaker 2 (10:41):
So We're going to play a little category game using
the letters in the word emoji. Emoj There are some
two thousand or so emojis that have Unicode character identifiers,
so they should appear in most They should appear on
your Mac and your PC, in your phone and your
Android or whatever. Should all have these emojis available to you.
(11:04):
And here's the way it's gonna work. I'm gonna give
you a category that is in fact going to be
an emoji related category, and you have to come up
with something that starts with E, M, O, J and
I in that category. The first category is food and
drink emojis. So and every emoji, I should say, has
a short name. That's the official short name of the emoji, yep.
(11:27):
But it also has a lot of keywords associated it
with it, because the emoji can symbolize things other than
just what it is the short name of it. For example,
there is the grinning face, right, that's the official short
name of the kind of default smiley emoji is.
Speaker 1 (11:46):
Grinning, okay, but we don't have to guess that, which
is well.
Speaker 2 (11:49):
You can say, but it has a lot of keywords cheerful, grinning, happy, laugh, nice,
you know all of those. So I'm going to be
if you can get the short name that's, you know,
the the specific identifier for it, great, But if you
get close that's fine.
Speaker 1 (12:04):
All right. Well, I do have a food that starts
with E, and it I believe it does have some
symbolism beyond the literal, which is eggplant.
Speaker 2 (12:13):
Eggplant is the short name of that emoji. Absolutely, and
it is.
Speaker 1 (12:18):
Yes, it's used in adult texts.
Speaker 2 (12:20):
Sometimes there's gotta be all sorts of egg related ones.
Oh good one, yes, egg Absolutely egg is one of them.
And there's one more short name. It is a way
you a way we describe a portion of this food.
It's a it's usually considered a vegetable though it's corn
ear of corn.
Speaker 1 (12:40):
Very oh, very good. Okay, all right, what do you
got for m M? And this is food again?
Speaker 2 (12:45):
Okay, drink?
Speaker 1 (12:47):
There is the macaroni macaroni. Maybe that's too America minestrone.
That won't work. What's a what's a vegetable or fruit?
I feel there?
Speaker 2 (13:00):
Yeah, there's a couple of fruit be able to get
the melon melon is one, all right, man, mangoes the other.
And then there is a beverage. It's tea like macha.
It's not macha. Well it's mate, which might be pronounced macha,
and but mate is there looking for? There's also mooncake
(13:22):
really sure? Yeah? And meat on bone? Okay, so that yeah,
because there's some emoji of meat that's not on the bone,
and there's the meat on bone is an emoji? How
about oh, what do you got for?
Speaker 1 (13:32):
Oh? I should have been the orange the color, not
the fruit. Should they not have the fruit?
Speaker 2 (13:38):
I do not believe there is a straight up what
orange fruit emoji. Let's just take there's a you know
what it is. It's a tangerine. It could be also
considered an orange.
Speaker 1 (13:50):
Wow, the orange. They must be because they.
Speaker 2 (13:54):
Just There's two things that you put into into alcoholic
drinks into marchina of olive an onion and onion very good.
The other one is odin. Odin O d e n
is a skewer. The emoji is a skewer with three
little items on it, A little tango thing, a little
riicy thing.
Speaker 1 (14:14):
Anyway, Well, I like this because I feel it's very international,
so I'm learning a lot of like it's not very
American centric.
Speaker 2 (14:22):
Specifically Japanese emojis.
Speaker 1 (14:24):
Oh interesting emoji is a.
Speaker 2 (14:25):
Japanese word and a Japanese concept. All right, J. There
are no short named food and drink emojis that start
with J. But there are two that both represent this
particular thing.
Speaker 1 (14:40):
So not juice because that's too general.
Speaker 2 (14:43):
It is juice. The beverage box and the cup with
straw are both considered.
Speaker 1 (14:48):
I see, okay, very good, and that is that it.
Speaker 2 (14:51):
That's pretty much it. Okay, And what about imm.
Speaker 1 (14:58):
What about something in good summer? Perhaps ice cream? Ice cream,
ice cream cone?
Speaker 2 (15:06):
Yes, ice cream ice cream is exactly and that's it.
That's the one. And there's there's also an ice there's
also an ice allogy, that's food could count. So that's
your food and drink. It's very good.
Speaker 1 (15:19):
All right, this is good.
Speaker 2 (15:22):
Jump to another category. Let's do transportation or transportation related.
There's a two big categories of of emotions that are transportation, vehicles,
things or they related to one for one for good,
got elephant? Oh well, technically it's in the animal category
(15:49):
of I'm sure you could run across references. It has
to be. It has to be an actual emoji category
or not. I mean, let's see if we can the elevator.
Speaker 1 (16:01):
Is that an escalator there's no elevator emoji now, yeah,
but oh no, I'm wrong.
Speaker 2 (16:12):
There is a symbol for elevator. I'll give you a
symbol elevator.
Speaker 1 (16:17):
All right. I'm not saying the much l eco part
of a part of a train. Oh all the engine
an engine engine, all right, very good.
Speaker 2 (16:28):
There's also specifically an electric train. All right. What do
you got for M transportation? M related transportation?
Speaker 1 (16:37):
What do you got? Motor motor, motor.
Speaker 2 (16:42):
Boat, motorcycle, motor boat, motorcycle, A couple more motor things.
Marine you got, motor boat, motorcycle. There's motor scooter okay,
motorized wheelchair.
Speaker 1 (16:58):
Good, very good.
Speaker 2 (16:59):
Not to be confused with the manual wheelchair, which also
has its own emode show.
Speaker 1 (17:04):
Yeah, they're different.
Speaker 2 (17:05):
Absolutely, I've got there's some others that you should be
able to get for m M for M yeah you
talked about on another episode, we talked about Disney's Magic Kingdom.
Speaker 1 (17:19):
Oh what is that called?
Speaker 2 (17:21):
The mode of transportation? Mono rail very good? And in
Paris you would ride the metro metro very good. Yeah,
there's also mountain cableway, mountain railway, mini bus, a few things.
What about for oh, what do you got for.
Speaker 1 (17:40):
Oh, this is a transportation starting with oh.
Speaker 2 (17:45):
So there is one object that is transportation related. It's
kind of fuel related, oil oil, oil drums. And then
there are four vehicles who that have various emojis, one
of which it can be described with an adjective for
(18:06):
what they look like, and that starts with oh. There
might be one that looks like it's coming towards.
Speaker 1 (18:12):
You, oncoming, oncoming, oncoming.
Speaker 2 (18:16):
There are official emojis for oncoming automobile, oncoming bus, oncoming
police car, and oncoming taxis.
Speaker 1 (18:23):
Wow, that's scary, all right.
Speaker 2 (18:25):
And for Jay and I these are tough. There's a
very common vehicle for jet.
Speaker 1 (18:31):
Jet plane, jet jet.
Speaker 2 (18:33):
Yeah, okay, there is no jetski emoji, but there is
a jet emoji, all right. And for I there is
no vehicle, but there is a transportation related image.
Speaker 1 (18:46):
Ice skates. Oh, that's a good one.
Speaker 2 (18:49):
Okay, I'll give you that one that sports I'm us
lateral thinking I think you laterally I give it to you.
I'll give it.
Speaker 1 (18:59):
That's the good puzzler. And you have seen your puzzler.
Speaker 2 (19:02):
Hures Going Ford was intersection, which is one of the
meanings of the traffic light emoji not intersectional.
Speaker 1 (19:09):
They don't have an emoji for that.
Speaker 2 (19:12):
You know they might.
Speaker 1 (19:15):
Well, this is great. I feel a little more qualified
now to send emojis. All right, so you have an
extra credit.
Speaker 2 (19:24):
I'm going to ask our listeners to come up with
places and buildings, not countries. Countries don't count, okay, because
there's a flag of every country and a lot of
territories and so on, so not the flag emojis. Just
places and buildings that have emojis, and there's at least
one starting with E M O J and I. Okay.
Speaker 1 (19:46):
And places you mean like cities or you mean like like.
Speaker 2 (19:52):
Well, place like Eiffel Tower might be that is not one,
but that that would be a building. There is no
Wiffle Tower. I'm surprised, but that would be uh that
could be in there. Yeah, absolutely, all right, fair enough,
I love it.
Speaker 1 (20:06):
Yeah, please send us in your answers that we love
to get feedback at the puzzler dot com and just
click on the link that says send us a note.
And in the meantime, while you're there, you can check
out the Puzzler Instagram feed, which is hat Hello Puzzlers.
We post new and original fun puzzles, all sorts of
(20:27):
other related content, and of course we will see you
here tomorrow for more puzzling puzzles that will puzzle you puzzlingly.
Speaker 2 (20:41):
Take puzzlers, it's Greg Pliska up from the Puzzle Lab.
But the extra credit answer from our previous episode. Rachel
Bloom joined us once again for a puzzle we called extensions,
where I took things that exist already and added ex
to them to make them even better. Your extra credit
clue was there. This is the American revolutionary who purportedly said,
(21:03):
I only regret that I have but one breath to
breathe out for my country. And that, of course is
not Bill Clinton. He had one breath to inhale for
his country. No, this was Nathan exhale. Nathan exhale, whether
you inhale or exhale, we hope you're doing it while
you're listening to the puzzler. Join us next time for
(21:25):
some more puzzling puzzles that will puzzle you puzzlingly.
Hello puzzlers. I say we start with a quick puzzle,
or maybe it's more better described as a riddle. It's
a question posed by the great comedian Stephen Wright, and
he said, what is another word for thesaurus? It's widely
attributed to Stephen Wright at least who knows. But the
challenge for you listeners for the next minute or so,
(00:23):
what is another word for thesaurus or even another phrase
for thesaurus? We will discuss this important issue in other
puzzling puzzles after the break. Hello puzzlers, Welcome back to
the Puzzler podcast the dead pan glance at the camera
(00:45):
in your puzzle mockumentary. I'm your host Ad jacobs On
here of course, with she puzzle officer Greg Kliska. Greg.
Before the break, we posed a classic question, a joke
from comedian Stephen Wright, and it is what is another
word for thesaurus? Do you have any thoughts?
Speaker 2 (01:04):
I have some reference books that are called like there's
one called word Finder, okay, that is that is actually
a thesaurus essentially, And there's also the I used to
have a when I was a kid, one of my
prize possessions in like fifth or sixth grade was the
(01:26):
Dictionary of Synonyms and Antonyms. Oh okay, is essentially a thesaurus.
And and I loved it. And somebody stole it. What
I've clearly never gotten over that. Yeah, just I you know,
just somebody took it and it.
Speaker 1 (01:39):
Was someone pill for it, some yeah, spirited it away.
Speaker 2 (01:44):
Yah? What else have you got? I mean? What? Well?
Speaker 1 (01:47):
First of all, let me just say I love that
you are such a nerd that one of your prize
possessions was a thesaurus.
Speaker 2 (01:53):
Yeah, I know, I'm such a nerd. No, a dictionary
of synonyms and antonyms please?
Speaker 1 (01:57):
Yes, not a thesaurus. Sorry. Yeah, well it's interesting. If
you put into thesaurus dot com thesaurus, it comes up
with all these words that I don't think are quite right.
Glossary is not right, lexicon. I went on Reddit to
see what they said, and there was several threads. One
I liked was samey wordy book, samey wordy book.
Speaker 2 (02:19):
Sure that's legit.
Speaker 1 (02:20):
Yeah, and then this one was a synonymiser was another
one an articulated dinosaur, which is like a grown worthy
but impressive play on words, because I guess article is
the dinosaurs soaurus, you.
Speaker 3 (02:36):
Know, I use the website one loook dot com often
to look up U string letter strings. You know, if
I want to find words that start with AJ blank
that you write all the words that start with AJ.
And they have what they called for a while a
reverse lookup function, which was essentially a thesaurus. Oh, you
(02:59):
sort of gave the meaning of something and all the
words related.
Speaker 2 (03:04):
To that meaning. But how they just call it thesaurus?
Speaker 1 (03:08):
Oh and what does that say? What does one look
dot com.
Speaker 2 (03:10):
Say, Oh, thesaurus, let's see thesaurus put that in there.
Synonym finder? Well yeah, at amal logicon.
Speaker 1 (03:22):
Oh, I like that.
Speaker 2 (03:23):
Book answers, a book of etymologies. It's not really uh
synonym finder. It actually highlights and says that's a that
is a synonym for thesaurus. And then the rest of
the answers it gives a related words.
Speaker 1 (03:39):
Right, yes, that was yeah. Well one last one I
throw out there was word hord word hord, h o
a r D word. But that's more like your vocabulary.
Speaker 2 (03:52):
That's more like a group of lexicographers invading your town.
Speaker 1 (03:56):
Dangerous.
Speaker 2 (03:59):
Horde.
Speaker 1 (04:00):
This was h O a r D. But today I
all bring all this up because today we have two puzzles,
one for me, one from you, and the one from
me is based on the souses or the sorori, I'm
not sure, but it is more about mis used the saurus,
the misuse of the souruses. Okay, because this is something
(04:22):
that I think has become quite newsy because I've seen
AI do it. When the Puzzler book came out, our book,
The Puzzler, there were a bunch of AI generated books
being sold on Amazon. It was crazy and annoying. What
they were called things like the Summary, a Summary of
the Puzzler, or a Guide to the Puzzler. And I
(04:44):
bought them, I wrote an article I reviewed them because
and they were crap. They were like twenty pages. But
what they did is they took our book and reoted synonyms.
But the synonyms were often totally wrong for the context
because AI was just plucking something out of the So
these rip off books, you'd have a sentence like my
wife and I took turns solving the puzzle, and it
(05:07):
would change it to my wife and I took gyrations
solving the puzzle, so sort of.
Speaker 2 (05:14):
Which you might have done. I can imagine you and
Julie spinning around the room yourself through.
Speaker 1 (05:22):
But it was not the meaning I had in the book.
So this puzzle is sort of like that is that
thesaurus misapplied, mad lived thesaurus whatever you want to call it.
I'm gonna give you just a handful of sayings or
maxims with the words changed to thesaurus synonyms, and you
have to tell me the original things. But I'll give
you an example. If it ain't penniless, don't neuter it.
(05:48):
If it ain't penniless, don't neuter it. And that is well,
it sounds like, you know.
Speaker 2 (05:52):
It ain't broke, don't fix it.
Speaker 1 (05:54):
Exactly, So broke is a synonym for penniless, and fix
like you know, dude, your cat.
Speaker 2 (06:01):
So if your cat has a trust fund, you got
to leave it.
Speaker 1 (06:04):
Alone, exactly, don't it. Well this and by the way,
I'll stress the ones that are synonyms. Not all of
the words will be synonyms. It'll be a selection, all right.
So for instance, well not for instance, this is a
real one. No forget. For instance, a watched weed never seethes,
(06:25):
a watched weed never see.
Speaker 2 (06:27):
Well that's true, of course, but it is a watched
pot never boils.
Speaker 1 (06:34):
That's correct, exactly. The finales justify the averages, the finales.
Speaker 2 (06:44):
The ends justify the means.
Speaker 1 (06:47):
That is correct also good good wisdom. Where there's a testament,
there's a thoroughfare. Where there's a testament, there's a thoroughfare that's.
Speaker 2 (06:57):
Like Bible boulevard or something. Right your testament, there's a thoroughfare.
Where there's a will, there's a way exactly.
Speaker 1 (07:08):
And this, by the way, inspired me. What is a
will versus a testament? According to the Internet, always reliable
will is about real property. I guess land and testament
is like personal property, like a valuable necklace. Now they're
used interchangeably. All right, just a couple more we got.
Don't noblemen you're scaredy cats before they devise.
Speaker 2 (07:34):
Before they devise, you could have also done before they
door in the top of a submarine.
Speaker 1 (07:40):
I thought about that. I couldn't find an easy word
for that, but yeah, that.
Speaker 2 (07:45):
Kind of it. Don't count your chickens before they hatch.
Speaker 1 (07:50):
Exactly, because a count can also be a nobleman. Chickens
scaredy cat and hatch a plan or devise a plan.
All right, we got two more. We got uh unintelligent
and beloved wins the tribe unintelligent and beloved wins the tribe.
Speaker 2 (08:08):
Isn't that the slogan of the TV show Survivor. I
think that's how the show works.
Speaker 1 (08:14):
Right, that is so interesting? That really does work?
Speaker 2 (08:18):
Yeah right, I mean.
Speaker 1 (08:19):
But it's also something else.
Speaker 2 (08:22):
Slow and steady wins the race.
Speaker 1 (08:25):
Exactly because slow can also be a synonym for unintelligent.
Steady is your beloved wins. I kept in there and
grace and tribe.
Speaker 2 (08:35):
Yes, that is so good. And you can actually I
can imagine an Ai doing all of this.
Speaker 1 (08:40):
Oh yeah, no, it's there. I mean AI is getting better.
Unfortunately or fortunately, I don't know which. So but for
the moment, I'm sure that there's a lot of this
going on.
Speaker 2 (08:49):
All right.
Speaker 1 (08:49):
Last one, we've got to walk out while the golf
club is fashionable. Walk out real, you got it? That one.
Speaker 2 (09:01):
One while the golf club is fashionable. I mean, that's
a good advice for tiger woods. Walk out while the
golf club is fashionable, strike yees walk out as a strike.
Strike while the iron is hot.
Speaker 1 (09:17):
That's right. Golf clubs sometimes called irons or woods, and
fashionable is hot. So there you go. You nailed it.
You know you're a thesaurus because you had one in
fifth grade.
Speaker 2 (09:26):
I did all pay it off was stolen, but I
had a chance to look at it before they took it.
Speaker 1 (09:33):
Are you well? That was just part one? You have
a puzzle for.
Speaker 2 (09:43):
Me, I do. Actually, I'm gonna I'm gonna ask Andrea
to Schoenberg to join us for this one.
Speaker 1 (09:49):
I need her.
Speaker 2 (09:50):
I always want because this is a This is in
honor of July seventeenth, which is World Emoji Day.
Speaker 1 (09:57):
Happy emojis? Do they need a day? I'm not sure?
Speaker 2 (10:00):
I mean, why not? Everything gets a day? Doesn't it? Right?
Speaker 1 (10:03):
Fair enough?
Speaker 2 (10:04):
And the actually a good question is why is July
seventeenth World Emoji Day?
Speaker 1 (10:09):
Great question.
Speaker 2 (10:10):
Apple introduced the iCal app on July seventeenth, two thousand
and two, and on your Apple devices at that time,
the little emoji for calendar was changed to show July
seventeenth as the default. So the Apple emoji, the emoji
on your Apple device was changed to a little calendar
(10:30):
emoji that showed seventeenth is the date. And then several
years later somebody said, hey, we should celebrate Emoji Day
on July seventeenth, and so.
Speaker 1 (10:39):
Yeah, clever, okay, I like it.
Speaker 2 (10:41):
So We're going to play a little category game using
the letters in the word emoji. Emoj There are some
two thousand or so emojis that have Unicode character identifiers,
so they should appear in most They should appear on
your Mac and your PC, in your phone and your
Android or whatever. Should all have these emojis available to you.
(11:04):
And here's the way it's gonna work. I'm gonna give
you a category that is in fact going to be
an emoji related category, and you have to come up
with something that starts with E, M, O, J and
I in that category. The first category is food and
drink emojis. So and every emoji, I should say, has
a short name. That's the official short name of the emoji, yep.
(11:27):
But it also has a lot of keywords associated it
with it, because the emoji can symbolize things other than
just what it is the short name of it. For example,
there is the grinning face, right, that's the official short
name of the kind of default smiley emoji is.
Speaker 1 (11:46):
Grinning, okay, but we don't have to guess that, which
is well.
Speaker 2 (11:49):
You can say, but it has a lot of keywords cheerful, grinning, happy, laugh, nice,
you know all of those. So I'm going to be
if you can get the short name that's, you know,
the the specific identifier for it, great, But if you
get close that's fine.
Speaker 1 (12:04):
All right. Well, I do have a food that starts
with E, and it I believe it does have some
symbolism beyond the literal, which is eggplant.
Speaker 2 (12:13):
Eggplant is the short name of that emoji. Absolutely, and
it is.
Speaker 1 (12:18):
Yes, it's used in adult texts.
Speaker 2 (12:20):
Sometimes there's gotta be all sorts of egg related ones.
Oh good one, yes, egg Absolutely egg is one of them.
And there's one more short name. It is a way
you a way we describe a portion of this food.
It's a it's usually considered a vegetable though it's corn
ear of corn.
Speaker 1 (12:40):
Very oh, very good. Okay, all right, what do you
got for m M? And this is food again?
Speaker 2 (12:45):
Okay, drink?
Speaker 1 (12:47):
There is the macaroni macaroni. Maybe that's too America minestrone.
That won't work. What's a what's a vegetable or fruit?
I feel there?
Speaker 2 (13:00):
Yeah, there's a couple of fruit be able to get
the melon melon is one, all right, man, mangoes the other.
And then there is a beverage. It's tea like macha.
It's not macha. Well it's mate, which might be pronounced macha,
and but mate is there looking for? There's also mooncake
(13:22):
really sure? Yeah? And meat on bone? Okay, so that yeah,
because there's some emoji of meat that's not on the bone,
and there's the meat on bone is an emoji? How
about oh, what do you got for?
Speaker 1 (13:32):
Oh? I should have been the orange the color, not
the fruit. Should they not have the fruit?
Speaker 2 (13:38):
I do not believe there is a straight up what
orange fruit emoji. Let's just take there's a you know
what it is. It's a tangerine. It could be also
considered an orange.
Speaker 1 (13:50):
Wow, the orange. They must be because they.
Speaker 2 (13:54):
Just There's two things that you put into into alcoholic
drinks into marchina of olive an onion and onion very good.
The other one is odin. Odin O d e n
is a skewer. The emoji is a skewer with three
little items on it, A little tango thing, a little
riicy thing.
Speaker 1 (14:14):
Anyway, Well, I like this because I feel it's very international,
so I'm learning a lot of like it's not very
American centric.
Speaker 2 (14:22):
Specifically Japanese emojis.
Speaker 1 (14:24):
Oh interesting emoji is a.
Speaker 2 (14:25):
Japanese word and a Japanese concept. All right, J. There
are no short named food and drink emojis that start
with J. But there are two that both represent this
particular thing.
Speaker 1 (14:40):
So not juice because that's too general.
Speaker 2 (14:43):
It is juice. The beverage box and the cup with
straw are both considered.
Speaker 1 (14:48):
I see, okay, very good, and that is that it.
Speaker 2 (14:51):
That's pretty much it. Okay, And what about imm.
Speaker 1 (14:58):
What about something in good summer? Perhaps ice cream? Ice cream,
ice cream cone?
Speaker 2 (15:06):
Yes, ice cream ice cream is exactly and that's it.
That's the one. And there's there's also an ice there's
also an ice allogy, that's food could count. So that's
your food and drink. It's very good.
Speaker 1 (15:19):
All right, this is good.
Speaker 2 (15:22):
Jump to another category. Let's do transportation or transportation related.
There's a two big categories of of emotions that are transportation, vehicles,
things or they related to one for one for good,
got elephant? Oh well, technically it's in the animal category
(15:49):
of I'm sure you could run across references. It has
to be. It has to be an actual emoji category
or not. I mean, let's see if we can the elevator.
Speaker 1 (16:01):
Is that an escalator there's no elevator emoji now, yeah,
but oh no, I'm wrong.
Speaker 2 (16:12):
There is a symbol for elevator. I'll give you a
symbol elevator.
Speaker 1 (16:17):
All right. I'm not saying the much l eco part
of a part of a train. Oh all the engine
an engine engine, all right, very good.
Speaker 2 (16:28):
There's also specifically an electric train. All right. What do
you got for M transportation? M related transportation?
Speaker 1 (16:37):
What do you got? Motor motor, motor.
Speaker 2 (16:42):
Boat, motorcycle, motor boat, motorcycle, A couple more motor things.
Marine you got, motor boat, motorcycle. There's motor scooter okay,
motorized wheelchair.
Speaker 1 (16:58):
Good, very good.
Speaker 2 (16:59):
Not to be confused with the manual wheelchair, which also
has its own emode show.
Speaker 1 (17:04):
Yeah, they're different.
Speaker 2 (17:05):
Absolutely, I've got there's some others that you should be
able to get for m M for M yeah you
talked about on another episode, we talked about Disney's Magic Kingdom.
Speaker 1 (17:19):
Oh what is that called?
Speaker 2 (17:21):
The mode of transportation? Mono rail very good? And in
Paris you would ride the metro metro very good. Yeah,
there's also mountain cableway, mountain railway, mini bus, a few things.
What about for oh, what do you got for.
Speaker 1 (17:40):
Oh, this is a transportation starting with oh.
Speaker 2 (17:45):
So there is one object that is transportation related. It's
kind of fuel related, oil oil, oil drums. And then
there are four vehicles who that have various emojis, one
of which it can be described with an adjective for
(18:06):
what they look like, and that starts with oh. There
might be one that looks like it's coming towards.
Speaker 1 (18:12):
You, oncoming, oncoming, oncoming.
Speaker 2 (18:16):
There are official emojis for oncoming automobile, oncoming bus, oncoming
police car, and oncoming taxis.
Speaker 1 (18:23):
Wow, that's scary, all right.
Speaker 2 (18:25):
And for Jay and I these are tough. There's a
very common vehicle for jet.
Speaker 1 (18:31):
Jet plane, jet jet.
Speaker 2 (18:33):
Yeah, okay, there is no jetski emoji, but there is
a jet emoji, all right. And for I there is
no vehicle, but there is a transportation related image.
Speaker 1 (18:46):
Ice skates. Oh, that's a good one.
Speaker 2 (18:49):
Okay, I'll give you that one that sports I'm us
lateral thinking I think you laterally I give it to you.
I'll give it.
Speaker 1 (18:59):
That's the good puzzler. And you have seen your puzzler.
Speaker 2 (19:02):
Hures Going Ford was intersection, which is one of the
meanings of the traffic light emoji not intersectional.
Speaker 1 (19:09):
They don't have an emoji for that.
Speaker 2 (19:12):
You know they might.
Speaker 1 (19:15):
Well, this is great. I feel a little more qualified
now to send emojis. All right, so you have an
extra credit.
Speaker 2 (19:24):
I'm going to ask our listeners to come up with
places and buildings, not countries. Countries don't count, okay, because
there's a flag of every country and a lot of
territories and so on, so not the flag emojis. Just
places and buildings that have emojis, and there's at least
one starting with E M O J and I. Okay.
Speaker 1 (19:46):
And places you mean like cities or you mean like like.
Speaker 2 (19:52):
Well, place like Eiffel Tower might be that is not one,
but that that would be a building. There is no
Wiffle Tower. I'm surprised, but that would be uh that
could be in there. Yeah, absolutely, all right, fair enough,
I love it.
Speaker 1 (20:06):
Yeah, please send us in your answers that we love
to get feedback at the puzzler dot com and just
click on the link that says send us a note.
And in the meantime, while you're there, you can check
out the Puzzler Instagram feed, which is hat Hello Puzzlers.
We post new and original fun puzzles, all sorts of
(20:27):
other related content, and of course we will see you
here tomorrow for more puzzling puzzles that will puzzle you puzzlingly.
Speaker 2 (20:41):
Take puzzlers, it's Greg Pliska up from the Puzzle Lab.
But the extra credit answer from our previous episode. Rachel
Bloom joined us once again for a puzzle we called extensions,
where I took things that exist already and added ex
to them to make them even better. Your extra credit
clue was there. This is the American revolutionary who purportedly said,
(21:03):
I only regret that I have but one breath to
breathe out for my country. And that, of course is
not Bill Clinton. He had one breath to inhale for
his country. No, this was Nathan exhale. Nathan exhale, whether
you inhale or exhale, we hope you're doing it while
you're listening to the puzzler. Join us next time for
(21:25):
some more puzzling puzzles that will puzzle you puzzlingly.
Hosts And Creators
Greg Pliska
A.J. Jacobs
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