May 22, 2025 • 19 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. Let's start with a quick puzzle. Perhaps you
remember the delightful board game Battleship, and perhaps you remember
the commercials for that board game where a losing player
says you sunk my battleship or was it you sank
my battleship. So that's the first question. Did the losing
(00:23):
player and that commercial say you sunk my battleship or
you sank my battleship? And the second question related which
one of those is chromatically correct? You sunk my battleship
or you sank my battleship. The answers and more puzzling
goodness after the break, Hello puzzlers, Welcome back to the
(00:50):
Puzzler Podcast, the eleventh herb or spice in your puzzle
KFC Secret Recipe. I'm your host, Asia Jacobson. I'm here,
of course, with puzzle Officer Greg Pulisko. Greg. Before the break,
we asked whether the losing player in those famous commercials
for the board game Battleship did that person say you
sank my battleship or you sunk my battleship.
Speaker 2 (01:14):
I think we have to go to the tape. Do
we have tape?
Speaker 1 (01:16):
Can we we do have to. Well, what's your guest
before you know?
Speaker 2 (01:19):
These are classics. I don't know how. I mean, they
go way back. I remember them from my childhood. The
two kids on the dock is the one I remember
where the kid says, oh, you flummixed my battleship and
he falls backwards off the dock into the water. I
think it was you sank my battleship.
Speaker 1 (01:40):
Well, here's the crazy part. Get ready for the twist.
It's both different commercials had different ones. There was the
one you're talking about, was you sunk my battleship? But
there was one where it was two older men playing
battleship at an opera, and that one was you sank
(02:00):
my battleship.
Speaker 2 (02:01):
Wow.
Speaker 1 (02:02):
So the Mandela effect doesn't apply.
Speaker 2 (02:05):
Because it's everything. And Mandela effect is where people think
they are certain they remember something that never actually happened.
Speaker 1 (02:12):
Right, like Berenstein Bears versus the barren Stain Bears. Plus
it was a plot point in this season of Black Mirror.
Speaker 2 (02:21):
Uh spoiler alert, Yeah, just.
Speaker 1 (02:23):
A tiny, tiny spoiler. Now, the other question is which
is correct? Which is correct?
Speaker 2 (02:30):
Well, if you're an old man at the opera house,
the correct thing is to say sank, or if you're
a young boy on a dock, you say sunk.
Speaker 1 (02:36):
That is pretty much what it is. If you're really stodgy,
sank is the preferred, but most dictionaries say sunk is
also an acceptable version of the past tense. Technically, it's
sink his present tense. Sank is past tense, and sunk
is past participle, like when we arrived the boat had sunk,
(02:57):
But most people say sunk is also Okay, past tense.
I bring all this grammatical wackiness up because today it's
inside the Puzzle Lab where we give a peek at
the making of the puzzles. Puzzle News listener mail. So
we've got puzzle news from Greg coming up. But first
we have a puzzle today sent in by a guest,
(03:19):
and it is directly related to this whole sank sunk
sink situation we had. If you remember Adam Adam sang,
Adam sank, not Adam sunk. He's a great stand up comedian.
Speaker 2 (03:32):
It sounds like the answer to the question what happened
when the comedian tried to swim?
Speaker 1 (03:37):
Well, there you go, you guess the puzzle. Oh my god, Okay,
this was from our listener, Caitlyn Caitlyn Yang. Hello Caitlyn,
thanks for.
Speaker 2 (03:47):
Listening, Caaitland. Mind meld Yang. There it is the same
planet as Caitlyn Is.
Speaker 1 (03:53):
I love it, she said, Hello Puzzler team. Every time
I see the name Adam Sank, I notice it is
a complete sentence. Adam sank Sinking is what Adam did.
It reminds me of her old classmate named Ryan Chase Lee.
So if you put a comma after Ryan, then it's
like a little story Ryan Chase Lee. Now just for fun,
(04:17):
she wrote, yep, I tried to think of celebrity names
that are complete sentences. She gave an example of Brittany Spears.
Can you think of more? And we did?
Speaker 2 (04:27):
Of course we thought, of course we did. It reminds
me of Deliah love it album, which is three books
of the Bible of the Old Testament in order Joshua
judges ruth Ah.
Speaker 1 (04:39):
I love that. That's a nice sentence. All right, So
this one is a little less biblical. I will give
you a clue, and Greg and Andrea have to provide
the name slash sentence, and you can add words on
after the name if you want. So, if I said
new York based stand up comedian descended on water. That
(05:00):
would be Adam sank Adam sank okay, and then for
her Britney one, I might say this pop star impales
a sea bass while scuba diving, Britney spears or Britney
spears a fish. Okay, all right, are you ready?
Speaker 2 (05:16):
I'm ready. I'm gonna mind meld with Caitlin from the Future. Nice.
Speaker 1 (05:21):
Uh, thanks again, Caitlin. An English actor makes sure his
clothes have no wrinkles.
Speaker 2 (05:28):
Oh, very good. Yeah, Andrea, you nodded first, you go.
Speaker 1 (05:32):
Yeah. Jeremy Iron, Jeremy Iron exactly. A Baltimore born director
makes sure his flowers are hydrated in his garden.
Speaker 2 (05:43):
Oh yes, it's John Waters the plants.
Speaker 1 (05:46):
John Waters exactly. Now, this one was actually suggested by Caitlin,
and that is A co star of Rocky survives the
chaotic situation. A co star of Rocky survives the Tumult,
and he played Apollo Creed. You remember his name. He
(06:10):
recently died r ip.
Speaker 2 (06:12):
He survived what's the and what's the other part of
the clue? He survives the tumult.
Speaker 1 (06:17):
He survives a chaotic situation.
Speaker 2 (06:19):
He endures, he endures he maintains he does this to
the storm. Carl Weathers.
Speaker 1 (06:28):
Carl Weathers, exactly. We've got a raspy voiced singer bides
his time, a raspy Oh, Andrea, you know this one?
Speaker 2 (06:42):
Is it? Someone waits? It is Tom Waits.
Speaker 1 (06:45):
Tom Waits, famous San Francisco giant gets chummy with his fans.
Speaker 2 (06:54):
Went right back to Willie Mays, which is way too
old and not a verb.
Speaker 1 (07:02):
He's the famous home run hitter with an asterisk.
Speaker 2 (07:07):
Oh, Barry Bonds, Barry Bonds, exactly, all right, we got
two more we got oh, by the way, before I
forget Adam Sank has another.
Speaker 1 (07:17):
Little word playing it because he split up the atom
and it's a damn sink and you can.
Speaker 2 (07:24):
See exactly happen.
Speaker 1 (07:27):
That's right, I know it's all right. How about an
action star shoots villains from a long distance. An action
star shoots villains from a long distance.
Speaker 2 (07:41):
I know this one nice, exactly.
Speaker 1 (07:49):
All right. And then I'll end with a classic. An
old timey comedian sets his house aflame with his signature cigar.
An old time he can sets his house the flame
with his signature cigar.
Speaker 2 (08:05):
Yeah, I know this one, very old timey before before
my time even but not really. I mean he was
in O God. He was God in a bunch of
movies when we were younger, and but his time was
even before that. That's the great George Burns.
Speaker 1 (08:19):
George Burns down the house. Let's hope not all right?
Well you did wonderfully. I'm gonna give one extra credit
for the folks at home, and that is this novelist
made comments that will give rise to many differing opinions.
He writes popular romantic novels, and he is gonna make
(08:42):
these comments that will cause quite a bit of conversation.
And there are some others that are inappropriate, but I
won't even say them. I'm not even gonna say him
on the air.
Speaker 2 (08:54):
Don't even say them. I don't even think about them.
Speaker 1 (08:56):
And there are we can do it for another time.
There are ones that are homophone, ones that don't that
are not spelled, like like Shonda Rhymes, Edgar Rice Burrows,
Santa Claus.
Speaker 2 (09:07):
One of those three is not real.
Speaker 1 (09:10):
Sorry, there you go. Edgar Reis Burrows did not exist.
Oh and by the way, I'm sorry Kaitlin, I forgot
she sent in days after her initial ones. She was
very excited because she sent in one for Imagen Poots.
Imagen Poots, who is an English actress, started in twenty
(09:30):
eight weeks later, and Poots is I think more of
a British word for to pass wind. So Imagen, there
you go, Thank you, Caitlin.
Speaker 2 (09:40):
Did Kaitlin send us more ideas like that? Yeah? Like them?
Speaker 1 (09:51):
Now, Greg, you or me have we are moving to
the news portion of the Inside the Puzzle Lamps special episode.
Speaker 2 (10:00):
It was old news. This old news. This is another
puzzle inspired by the American Crossrod Puzzle Tournament, which I
was at a while back. But we didn't talk about
this particular puzzle on that episode, and I wanted to
do a puzzle about it here. Now, if you haven't
solved your American Crossrod Puzzle Tournament puzzles at home, don't
listen to this. Skip ahead. But Joel Falliano created a
(10:24):
terrific puzzle with theme clues that all consisted of two
initials and then another word ah okay. So, for example,
one of the clues was am tuoner and it had
a question mark which lets you know this was something
funky was going on. Am tuner. Now, in a normal puzzle,
that might be a clue for like a five letter word.
(10:45):
That would be a.
Speaker 1 (10:47):
Something you twist on your rail.
Speaker 2 (10:50):
It could be four letter word, it could be dial
or AM tuner, could just be radio. Right, it'd be
a straightforward clue, but in this case it was a
much longer answer. The trick is that the second part,
the single word, was the clue for a thing that
has the initials of the first part. I'm lost, so
I figured I'll give you I'll explain it. So am
tuoner means you want some kind of tuner whose initials
(11:14):
are am.
Speaker 1 (11:16):
Okay, I'm SAMBI found again.
Speaker 2 (11:18):
Right, So the answer in this puzzle was auto mechanic.
Speaker 1 (11:22):
Okay. Oh wow, tricky. So are they not names of people?
Their names of jobs?
Speaker 2 (11:29):
They were No, they were all kind They could.
Speaker 1 (11:31):
Be anything, so they could be actual people.
Speaker 2 (11:34):
Could be actual people, could be titles, could just be nouns.
I mean, there's a whole range of of these from
the puzzle, from the crossword, and then a few more
than I can.
Speaker 1 (11:43):
All right, love it, Thank you, Joel and Greg.
Speaker 2 (11:45):
So it's it's tricky. You guys might want to work
together on this one. Andrea and an aj sense some
mean there's a tricky. Some of these have many alternate answers. Obviously,
if this was in a crossword, you figure out from
the other words that cross which the right one is.
But here's one. For example. This is from Joel's puzzle PG.
Speaker 1 (12:05):
Film okay TG film.
Speaker 2 (12:10):
So, so you're looking for a film whose initials.
Speaker 1 (12:12):
Ag polter Geist? Is that two words?
Speaker 2 (12:16):
No, it's two words?
Speaker 1 (12:18):
But you are very liberal? I wouldn't let me go.
How about you got anything better? Uh, Andrea? What do
you got?
Speaker 2 (12:27):
No? I can't think of anything. This is based on
a Tom Clancy novel, the sequel to Hunt for Red October.
Speaker 1 (12:35):
Oh. Patriot Games?
Speaker 2 (12:38):
Yes, Patriot Games very good. Other films Party Girls, Parent,
Parental Guidance, Playing God, but those are less I think,
well known than Patriot all right, here's another one.
Speaker 1 (12:53):
D C comment, Well, it could be yes, could be
a stand up comedian with the initials you see. So,
who do you got? Uh? Andrea? What it? Dudley Moore
is an M d M comic. How about Derrek? Dane Cook?
Speaker 2 (13:12):
Dane Cook, Dane Cook? Very good? Yes? Yes, Joel's answer
was Dan.
Speaker 1 (13:17):
I prefer Dana Carve. No offense to Dana Cook. But
also the dah yes, okay, good ones, it's what.
Speaker 2 (13:25):
Actually, yeah, all right, l A Times.
Speaker 1 (13:29):
So it is Times LA Times interesting? Uh so Times
could mean Era's epics, it could mean oh late afternoon.
Speaker 2 (13:42):
Times late afternoons. Very good.
Speaker 1 (13:45):
Yeah, I'll take it all right.
Speaker 2 (13:47):
Here's another one. This is one of my favorites, TV Land.
Speaker 1 (13:51):
So this could be a country or a sitting but
not tavoul Tavouli is not.
Speaker 2 (14:00):
Who's international code is TV? No, that's not it.
Speaker 1 (14:03):
How about Land TV by the Virgin Islands, the Virgin.
Speaker 2 (14:11):
Of the smallest continations in the world, the Vatican.
Speaker 1 (14:17):
Nice.
Speaker 2 (14:18):
How about TD celebration something you have in a football game,
the TD celebration. But you're looking for a celebration. Who's
initial day?
Speaker 1 (14:29):
How about Thanksgiving Day?
Speaker 2 (14:32):
Thanksgiving Day? Very good? Take that? How about PR man
p R.
Speaker 1 (14:37):
Well, that could be a lot anyone with the initials PR.
Speaker 2 (14:42):
Name a man, name a man.
Speaker 1 (14:45):
How about Pete Rose He's a man?
Speaker 2 (14:47):
Very sure that. Paul Robson and Paul Revere on my list.
And the one I like this one. I don't have
a great answer for it.
Speaker 1 (14:56):
CD player, Well, that could be an athlete or could
be a musician.
Speaker 2 (15:02):
Yeah, I've got a couple in that category. I feel
like there's going to be more contemporary ones that are
good that I didn't think of. And if you have one, folks,
send it in.
Speaker 1 (15:10):
Yes, exactly puzzler dot com. Just go there. That's the
easiest way to send this mail. So, c D, who
do you got? Who is an athlete or a musician?
That's CD Charles Charlie Day. He's a player of in
a sitcom, so.
Speaker 2 (15:28):
He's okay, okay, going for actors that could be a
definition of player. Sure. I was thinking of Charlie Daniels
or Clyde Drexler, the Great Basketball Nice? How about BB gun?
Speaker 1 (15:44):
A gun? Interesting? So a gun could be Uh.
Speaker 2 (15:49):
I've got two answers. One is really a single word,
but I'd accept it. The other is more of a
proper noun sounding thing that was used to just describe
a particular kind of gun.
Speaker 1 (16:03):
So these are in this case it's actually a gun.
It's not like a play on words of a gun.
Speaker 2 (16:08):
Not a play on words, Nope, it's like a big
birth like big Bertha. Yes, the what is that? World
War two or World War one?
Speaker 1 (16:17):
The big right, one of those?
Speaker 2 (16:19):
And then I was thinking of the firearm the blunderbuss, which.
Speaker 1 (16:23):
Isn't which is one word I think, but that is
a lovely it's a lovely word. Nonetheless.
Speaker 2 (16:29):
All right, I've got two more hr.
Speaker 1 (16:33):
Director okay, so director with the initials H R H.
Howard Rocks, Howard Howard Ramis Ramis.
Speaker 2 (16:51):
Harold Harold Ramis. Yes, I just came up with Howard
Kama Rock Howard Kama Rock. Very all right. Last one, Well,
this has a lot of possible answers.
Speaker 1 (17:01):
BS artist Okay, let's see be as artist again. An
artist can be a singer, it could be a painter.
Speaker 2 (17:11):
That's where I was leaning. I couldn't come up with
a you know, a fine artist, a painter or a
sculptor that I thought was notable enough, but definitely singers.
Speaker 1 (17:21):
All right, sing Britney Spears.
Speaker 2 (17:23):
There you go, Britney Spears a fish, perfect well done, It.
Speaker 1 (17:27):
All comes back, it all works. Closure. That's what we
call closure. Well, great job.
Speaker 2 (17:35):
You want a really hard one. You want a really
hard one.
Speaker 1 (17:38):
How about you do it as an extra credit?
Speaker 2 (17:41):
Okay, extra credit the hard one.
Speaker 1 (17:43):
B B King, B B King Okay, all right, yeah,
I'm not getting it, but and is it a literal king?
Or is it more like a metaphorical king literal literal
king literal. O.
Speaker 2 (17:56):
There's a metaphorical one that you could probably use to
but I'm going for the literal one.
Speaker 1 (18:01):
All right. I'm gonna think about that. And by the way,
while I'm thinking about it, I may go on the
Hello Puzzlers Instagram. Oh that Hello Puzzlers where we post
original puzzles and lots of other fun stuff. You can
can reach us there, and of course we'll meet here
tomorrow for more puzzling puzzles that will puzzle you puzzlingly.
Speaker 2 (18:28):
Hello Puzzlers, it's Greg Pliska, your chief puzzle officer and mixologist,
here with the extra credit answer from our previous episode.
That's right. We did a game called sock Fails with
Josh Molina because sock Fails is a typo of cocktails.
So we gave you the names of cocktails that had
(18:49):
a letter changed in each word in their name, and
you had to come up with Josh had to come
up with the actual cocktail name. One was punk lazy,
which feels like something a kind of mean teacher screams
at one of their students, but that's not what it is.
At all it is a Pink Lady, another delicious cocktail.
(19:11):
I hope you're enjoying a morning cocktail while you listen
to the Puzzler. Or actually, no, actually, I hope you're
enjoying an evening cocktail and listening to the Puzzler at
the end of the day. Or you're having your morning
coffee while you listen to us at the other end
of the day. But either way, we'll see you back
here tomorrow at any end of the day for some
more puzzling puzzles that will puzzle you puzzlingly.
Hello puzzlers. Let's start with a quick puzzle. Perhaps you
remember the delightful board game Battleship, and perhaps you remember
the commercials for that board game where a losing player
says you sunk my battleship or was it you sank
my battleship. So that's the first question. Did the losing
(00:23):
player and that commercial say you sunk my battleship or
you sank my battleship? And the second question related which
one of those is chromatically correct? You sunk my battleship
or you sank my battleship. The answers and more puzzling
goodness after the break, Hello puzzlers, Welcome back to the
(00:50):
Puzzler Podcast, the eleventh herb or spice in your puzzle
KFC Secret Recipe. I'm your host, Asia Jacobson. I'm here,
of course, with puzzle Officer Greg Pulisko. Greg. Before the break,
we asked whether the losing player in those famous commercials
for the board game Battleship did that person say you
sank my battleship or you sunk my battleship.
Speaker 2 (01:14):
I think we have to go to the tape. Do
we have tape?
Speaker 1 (01:16):
Can we we do have to. Well, what's your guest
before you know?
Speaker 2 (01:19):
These are classics. I don't know how. I mean, they
go way back. I remember them from my childhood. The
two kids on the dock is the one I remember
where the kid says, oh, you flummixed my battleship and
he falls backwards off the dock into the water. I
think it was you sank my battleship.
Speaker 1 (01:40):
Well, here's the crazy part. Get ready for the twist.
It's both different commercials had different ones. There was the
one you're talking about, was you sunk my battleship? But
there was one where it was two older men playing
battleship at an opera, and that one was you sank
(02:00):
my battleship.
Speaker 2 (02:01):
Wow.
Speaker 1 (02:02):
So the Mandela effect doesn't apply.
Speaker 2 (02:05):
Because it's everything. And Mandela effect is where people think
they are certain they remember something that never actually happened.
Speaker 1 (02:12):
Right, like Berenstein Bears versus the barren Stain Bears. Plus
it was a plot point in this season of Black Mirror.
Speaker 2 (02:21):
Uh spoiler alert, Yeah, just.
Speaker 1 (02:23):
A tiny, tiny spoiler. Now, the other question is which
is correct? Which is correct?
Speaker 2 (02:30):
Well, if you're an old man at the opera house,
the correct thing is to say sank, or if you're
a young boy on a dock, you say sunk.
Speaker 1 (02:36):
That is pretty much what it is. If you're really stodgy,
sank is the preferred, but most dictionaries say sunk is
also an acceptable version of the past tense. Technically, it's
sink his present tense. Sank is past tense, and sunk
is past participle, like when we arrived the boat had sunk,
(02:57):
But most people say sunk is also Okay, past tense.
I bring all this grammatical wackiness up because today it's
inside the Puzzle Lab where we give a peek at
the making of the puzzles. Puzzle News listener mail. So
we've got puzzle news from Greg coming up. But first
we have a puzzle today sent in by a guest,
(03:19):
and it is directly related to this whole sank sunk
sink situation we had. If you remember Adam Adam sang,
Adam sank, not Adam sunk. He's a great stand up comedian.
Speaker 2 (03:32):
It sounds like the answer to the question what happened
when the comedian tried to swim?
Speaker 1 (03:37):
Well, there you go, you guess the puzzle. Oh my god, Okay,
this was from our listener, Caitlyn Caitlyn Yang. Hello Caitlyn,
thanks for.
Speaker 2 (03:47):
Listening, Caaitland. Mind meld Yang. There it is the same
planet as Caitlyn Is.
Speaker 1 (03:53):
I love it, she said, Hello Puzzler team. Every time
I see the name Adam Sank, I notice it is
a complete sentence. Adam sank Sinking is what Adam did.
It reminds me of her old classmate named Ryan Chase Lee.
So if you put a comma after Ryan, then it's
like a little story Ryan Chase Lee. Now just for fun,
(04:17):
she wrote, yep, I tried to think of celebrity names
that are complete sentences. She gave an example of Brittany Spears.
Can you think of more? And we did?
Speaker 2 (04:27):
Of course we thought, of course we did. It reminds
me of Deliah love it album, which is three books
of the Bible of the Old Testament in order Joshua
judges ruth Ah.
Speaker 1 (04:39):
I love that. That's a nice sentence. All right, So
this one is a little less biblical. I will give
you a clue, and Greg and Andrea have to provide
the name slash sentence, and you can add words on
after the name if you want. So, if I said
new York based stand up comedian descended on water. That
(05:00):
would be Adam sank Adam sank okay, and then for
her Britney one, I might say this pop star impales
a sea bass while scuba diving, Britney spears or Britney
spears a fish. Okay, all right, are you ready?
Speaker 2 (05:16):
I'm ready. I'm gonna mind meld with Caitlin from the Future. Nice.
Speaker 1 (05:21):
Uh, thanks again, Caitlin. An English actor makes sure his
clothes have no wrinkles.
Speaker 2 (05:28):
Oh, very good. Yeah, Andrea, you nodded first, you go.
Speaker 1 (05:32):
Yeah. Jeremy Iron, Jeremy Iron exactly. A Baltimore born director
makes sure his flowers are hydrated in his garden.
Speaker 2 (05:43):
Oh yes, it's John Waters the plants.
Speaker 1 (05:46):
John Waters exactly. Now, this one was actually suggested by Caitlin,
and that is A co star of Rocky survives the
chaotic situation. A co star of Rocky survives the Tumult,
and he played Apollo Creed. You remember his name. He
(06:10):
recently died r ip.
Speaker 2 (06:12):
He survived what's the and what's the other part of
the clue? He survives the tumult.
Speaker 1 (06:17):
He survives a chaotic situation.
Speaker 2 (06:19):
He endures, he endures he maintains he does this to
the storm. Carl Weathers.
Speaker 1 (06:28):
Carl Weathers, exactly. We've got a raspy voiced singer bides
his time, a raspy Oh, Andrea, you know this one?
Speaker 2 (06:42):
Is it? Someone waits? It is Tom Waits.
Speaker 1 (06:45):
Tom Waits, famous San Francisco giant gets chummy with his fans.
Speaker 2 (06:54):
Went right back to Willie Mays, which is way too
old and not a verb.
Speaker 1 (07:02):
He's the famous home run hitter with an asterisk.
Speaker 2 (07:07):
Oh, Barry Bonds, Barry Bonds, exactly, all right, we got
two more we got oh, by the way, before I
forget Adam Sank has another.
Speaker 1 (07:17):
Little word playing it because he split up the atom
and it's a damn sink and you can.
Speaker 2 (07:24):
See exactly happen.
Speaker 1 (07:27):
That's right, I know it's all right. How about an
action star shoots villains from a long distance. An action
star shoots villains from a long distance.
Speaker 2 (07:41):
I know this one nice, exactly.
Speaker 1 (07:49):
All right. And then I'll end with a classic. An
old timey comedian sets his house aflame with his signature cigar.
An old time he can sets his house the flame
with his signature cigar.
Speaker 2 (08:05):
Yeah, I know this one, very old timey before before
my time even but not really. I mean he was
in O God. He was God in a bunch of
movies when we were younger, and but his time was
even before that. That's the great George Burns.
Speaker 1 (08:19):
George Burns down the house. Let's hope not all right?
Well you did wonderfully. I'm gonna give one extra credit
for the folks at home, and that is this novelist
made comments that will give rise to many differing opinions.
He writes popular romantic novels, and he is gonna make
(08:42):
these comments that will cause quite a bit of conversation.
And there are some others that are inappropriate, but I
won't even say them. I'm not even gonna say him
on the air.
Speaker 2 (08:54):
Don't even say them. I don't even think about them.
Speaker 1 (08:56):
And there are we can do it for another time.
There are ones that are homophone, ones that don't that
are not spelled, like like Shonda Rhymes, Edgar Rice Burrows,
Santa Claus.
Speaker 2 (09:07):
One of those three is not real.
Speaker 1 (09:10):
Sorry, there you go. Edgar Reis Burrows did not exist.
Oh and by the way, I'm sorry Kaitlin, I forgot
she sent in days after her initial ones. She was
very excited because she sent in one for Imagen Poots.
Imagen Poots, who is an English actress, started in twenty
(09:30):
eight weeks later, and Poots is I think more of
a British word for to pass wind. So Imagen, there
you go, Thank you, Caitlin.
Speaker 2 (09:40):
Did Kaitlin send us more ideas like that? Yeah? Like them?
Speaker 1 (09:51):
Now, Greg, you or me have we are moving to
the news portion of the Inside the Puzzle Lamps special episode.
Speaker 2 (10:00):
It was old news. This old news. This is another
puzzle inspired by the American Crossrod Puzzle Tournament, which I
was at a while back. But we didn't talk about
this particular puzzle on that episode, and I wanted to
do a puzzle about it here. Now, if you haven't
solved your American Crossrod Puzzle Tournament puzzles at home, don't
listen to this. Skip ahead. But Joel Falliano created a
(10:24):
terrific puzzle with theme clues that all consisted of two
initials and then another word ah okay. So, for example,
one of the clues was am tuoner and it had
a question mark which lets you know this was something
funky was going on. Am tuner. Now, in a normal puzzle,
that might be a clue for like a five letter word.
(10:45):
That would be a.
Speaker 1 (10:47):
Something you twist on your rail.
Speaker 2 (10:50):
It could be four letter word, it could be dial
or AM tuner, could just be radio. Right, it'd be
a straightforward clue, but in this case it was a
much longer answer. The trick is that the second part,
the single word, was the clue for a thing that
has the initials of the first part. I'm lost, so
I figured I'll give you I'll explain it. So am
tuoner means you want some kind of tuner whose initials
(11:14):
are am.
Speaker 1 (11:16):
Okay, I'm SAMBI found again.
Speaker 2 (11:18):
Right, So the answer in this puzzle was auto mechanic.
Speaker 1 (11:22):
Okay. Oh wow, tricky. So are they not names of people?
Their names of jobs?
Speaker 2 (11:29):
They were No, they were all kind They could.
Speaker 1 (11:31):
Be anything, so they could be actual people.
Speaker 2 (11:34):
Could be actual people, could be titles, could just be nouns.
I mean, there's a whole range of of these from
the puzzle, from the crossword, and then a few more
than I can.
Speaker 1 (11:43):
All right, love it, Thank you, Joel and Greg.
Speaker 2 (11:45):
So it's it's tricky. You guys might want to work
together on this one. Andrea and an aj sense some
mean there's a tricky. Some of these have many alternate answers. Obviously,
if this was in a crossword, you figure out from
the other words that cross which the right one is.
But here's one. For example. This is from Joel's puzzle PG.
Speaker 1 (12:05):
Film okay TG film.
Speaker 2 (12:10):
So, so you're looking for a film whose initials.
Speaker 1 (12:12):
Ag polter Geist? Is that two words?
Speaker 2 (12:16):
No, it's two words?
Speaker 1 (12:18):
But you are very liberal? I wouldn't let me go.
How about you got anything better? Uh, Andrea? What do
you got?
Speaker 2 (12:27):
No? I can't think of anything. This is based on
a Tom Clancy novel, the sequel to Hunt for Red October.
Speaker 1 (12:35):
Oh. Patriot Games?
Speaker 2 (12:38):
Yes, Patriot Games very good. Other films Party Girls, Parent,
Parental Guidance, Playing God, but those are less I think,
well known than Patriot all right, here's another one.
Speaker 1 (12:53):
D C comment, Well, it could be yes, could be
a stand up comedian with the initials you see. So,
who do you got? Uh? Andrea? What it? Dudley Moore
is an M d M comic. How about Derrek? Dane Cook?
Speaker 2 (13:12):
Dane Cook, Dane Cook? Very good? Yes? Yes, Joel's answer
was Dan.
Speaker 1 (13:17):
I prefer Dana Carve. No offense to Dana Cook. But
also the dah yes, okay, good ones, it's what.
Speaker 2 (13:25):
Actually, yeah, all right, l A Times.
Speaker 1 (13:29):
So it is Times LA Times interesting? Uh so Times
could mean Era's epics, it could mean oh late afternoon.
Speaker 2 (13:42):
Times late afternoons. Very good.
Speaker 1 (13:45):
Yeah, I'll take it all right.
Speaker 2 (13:47):
Here's another one. This is one of my favorites, TV Land.
Speaker 1 (13:51):
So this could be a country or a sitting but
not tavoul Tavouli is not.
Speaker 2 (14:00):
Who's international code is TV? No, that's not it.
Speaker 1 (14:03):
How about Land TV by the Virgin Islands, the Virgin.
Speaker 2 (14:11):
Of the smallest continations in the world, the Vatican.
Speaker 1 (14:17):
Nice.
Speaker 2 (14:18):
How about TD celebration something you have in a football game,
the TD celebration. But you're looking for a celebration. Who's
initial day?
Speaker 1 (14:29):
How about Thanksgiving Day?
Speaker 2 (14:32):
Thanksgiving Day? Very good? Take that? How about PR man
p R.
Speaker 1 (14:37):
Well, that could be a lot anyone with the initials PR.
Speaker 2 (14:42):
Name a man, name a man.
Speaker 1 (14:45):
How about Pete Rose He's a man?
Speaker 2 (14:47):
Very sure that. Paul Robson and Paul Revere on my list.
And the one I like this one. I don't have
a great answer for it.
Speaker 1 (14:56):
CD player, Well, that could be an athlete or could
be a musician.
Speaker 2 (15:02):
Yeah, I've got a couple in that category. I feel
like there's going to be more contemporary ones that are
good that I didn't think of. And if you have one, folks,
send it in.
Speaker 1 (15:10):
Yes, exactly puzzler dot com. Just go there. That's the
easiest way to send this mail. So, c D, who
do you got? Who is an athlete or a musician?
That's CD Charles Charlie Day. He's a player of in
a sitcom, so.
Speaker 2 (15:28):
He's okay, okay, going for actors that could be a
definition of player. Sure. I was thinking of Charlie Daniels
or Clyde Drexler, the Great Basketball Nice? How about BB gun?
Speaker 1 (15:44):
A gun? Interesting? So a gun could be Uh.
Speaker 2 (15:49):
I've got two answers. One is really a single word,
but I'd accept it. The other is more of a
proper noun sounding thing that was used to just describe
a particular kind of gun.
Speaker 1 (16:03):
So these are in this case it's actually a gun.
It's not like a play on words of a gun.
Speaker 2 (16:08):
Not a play on words, Nope, it's like a big
birth like big Bertha. Yes, the what is that? World
War two or World War one?
Speaker 1 (16:17):
The big right, one of those?
Speaker 2 (16:19):
And then I was thinking of the firearm the blunderbuss, which.
Speaker 1 (16:23):
Isn't which is one word I think, but that is
a lovely it's a lovely word. Nonetheless.
Speaker 2 (16:29):
All right, I've got two more hr.
Speaker 1 (16:33):
Director okay, so director with the initials H R H.
Howard Rocks, Howard Howard Ramis Ramis.
Speaker 2 (16:51):
Harold Harold Ramis. Yes, I just came up with Howard
Kama Rock Howard Kama Rock. Very all right. Last one, Well,
this has a lot of possible answers.
Speaker 1 (17:01):
BS artist Okay, let's see be as artist again. An
artist can be a singer, it could be a painter.
Speaker 2 (17:11):
That's where I was leaning. I couldn't come up with
a you know, a fine artist, a painter or a
sculptor that I thought was notable enough, but definitely singers.
Speaker 1 (17:21):
All right, sing Britney Spears.
Speaker 2 (17:23):
There you go, Britney Spears a fish, perfect well done, It.
Speaker 1 (17:27):
All comes back, it all works. Closure. That's what we
call closure. Well, great job.
Speaker 2 (17:35):
You want a really hard one. You want a really
hard one.
Speaker 1 (17:38):
How about you do it as an extra credit?
Speaker 2 (17:41):
Okay, extra credit the hard one.
Speaker 1 (17:43):
B B King, B B King Okay, all right, yeah,
I'm not getting it, but and is it a literal king?
Or is it more like a metaphorical king literal literal
king literal. O.
Speaker 2 (17:56):
There's a metaphorical one that you could probably use to
but I'm going for the literal one.
Speaker 1 (18:01):
All right. I'm gonna think about that. And by the way,
while I'm thinking about it, I may go on the
Hello Puzzlers Instagram. Oh that Hello Puzzlers where we post
original puzzles and lots of other fun stuff. You can
can reach us there, and of course we'll meet here
tomorrow for more puzzling puzzles that will puzzle you puzzlingly.
Speaker 2 (18:28):
Hello Puzzlers, it's Greg Pliska, your chief puzzle officer and mixologist,
here with the extra credit answer from our previous episode.
That's right. We did a game called sock Fails with
Josh Molina because sock Fails is a typo of cocktails.
So we gave you the names of cocktails that had
(18:49):
a letter changed in each word in their name, and
you had to come up with Josh had to come
up with the actual cocktail name. One was punk lazy,
which feels like something a kind of mean teacher screams
at one of their students, but that's not what it is.
At all it is a Pink Lady, another delicious cocktail.
(19:11):
I hope you're enjoying a morning cocktail while you listen
to the Puzzler. Or actually, no, actually, I hope you're
enjoying an evening cocktail and listening to the Puzzler at
the end of the day. Or you're having your morning
coffee while you listen to us at the other end
of the day. But either way, we'll see you back
here tomorrow at any end of the day for some
more puzzling puzzles that will puzzle you puzzlingly.
Hosts And Creators
Greg Pliska
A.J. Jacobs
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