August 29, 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.
Speaker 2 (00:01):
Before we start puzzling today, I wanted to let you
know we are cooking up some big plans for the
puzzler community, and in order to ensure that it's what
you want, we need your input. So we've put together
a short survey which you can find in the show notes.
It's really quick, just three minutes, but it will be
(00:23):
a huge help in letting us know what you want
so that we can deliver just that.
Speaker 1 (00:30):
Thank you, Hello puzzlers.
Speaker 2 (00:33):
Let us start with a quick puzzle, and that is
what do these phrases have in common? Glassy eyes, plaited hair,
and forked tongue. So that's glassy eyes, plaited hair, and
forked tongue. What do they have in common? And actually
a little bonus? Is there another phrase you can think
(00:54):
of that fits that pattern? Perhaps someone who's ears stick
prominently out from their head? The answer and more puzzling
goodness after the break, Hello puzzlers, Welcome back to the
(01:14):
Puzzler Podcast. The always changing introduction to your daily puzzle podcast.
That is a very meta intro line and it is
courtesy of puzzler Brad macnamara. Thank you Brad, and Brad
wrote us, He said, I was thinking about how the
intro line is always a metaphor for the best part
(01:37):
of something, and how the intro line is one of
my favorite parts of the podcast. My name is AJ
Jacobs with Chief Puzzle Officer Greg Kliska. Before the break, Greg,
we had a little mini puzzle. What do these phrases
have in common? Glassy eyes, plated hair, and forked tongue?
Speaker 3 (01:54):
Any thoughts listen? Dishvase?
Speaker 1 (01:57):
Ah, I no.
Speaker 4 (02:01):
Plated?
Speaker 3 (02:01):
What is plated hair? Oh? Plated pl a I. So
it's a sanetic thing. I wrote it down.
Speaker 4 (02:10):
I wrote it down with the you know, the word
plate and I was like, plated hair, like if you've
got you're an armadillo style plates on your head. They're
all They're all phrases that are body parts preceded by UH.
Speaker 2 (02:25):
Dishware, dishware exactly, tableware. So plated hair, right plate, it
is the homophone for UH, the braided hair, plated, the
l A t E and fork tongue means to speak
out of both sides of your mouth, so like a hypocrite.
Speaker 3 (02:41):
And or if you're a snake, you just have a
fork right?
Speaker 1 (02:45):
So what about that?
Speaker 4 (02:46):
You were going for jug handle years.
Speaker 2 (02:49):
Exactly or jug eared sometimes.
Speaker 3 (02:52):
I also wrote down spoon bill.
Speaker 4 (02:57):
Yeah, if we're gonna not be human anthropocentric here, we're
going to allow other animals in.
Speaker 1 (03:04):
Don't species spoon bill.
Speaker 2 (03:06):
I also thought of one more was saucer eyed.
Speaker 1 (03:10):
Saucer eye.
Speaker 3 (03:10):
Oh yeah, yeah.
Speaker 2 (03:13):
But all of that has very little to do with
today's episode, except maybe you could say our listeners will
be saucer eyed with amazement at the content of the
show because it's a good one.
Speaker 1 (03:26):
I'm excited.
Speaker 2 (03:27):
It's puzzles generated by puzzlers at home. We got lots
of letters and we've been storing them up.
Speaker 4 (03:35):
Uh. It's a sort of so it's a sort of
inside the puzzle Lab, except it's just listener mail exactly.
Speaker 2 (03:42):
We got so much to cover, uh, and and please
send us more at the puzzler dot com just click
on send. So Senior Puzzler Andrea Schoenberg has been monitoring
the emails, the Instagram, the pneumatic tubes. What are we carrier,
pigeon and urea. What have you got for us today?
Speaker 5 (04:04):
Well, to start off, but we've got a couple of
excellent insights from friend of the show Peter Gordon, who
is also a great crossword constructor, as we know love Peter.
He wrote in about an intro puzzle where we asked,
what word has three pairs of double letters.
Speaker 3 (04:19):
In a row?
Speaker 1 (04:20):
Right like bookkeeper?
Speaker 2 (04:21):
I think?
Speaker 1 (04:22):
Was the answer? B oh oh kk e. Yes exactly. Okay, okay.
Speaker 5 (04:28):
So Peter emailed us that he actually did a crossword
in the Wall Street Journal decades ago that he called
double entry accounting with consecutive triple double letters like a bookkeeper.
Speaker 1 (04:40):
Got so by several decades.
Speaker 5 (04:42):
Yes, exactly, And I've got a few here to try
out on you and Greg if you want.
Speaker 2 (04:48):
All right, well I I've already seen him, so I'm
going to let Greg answer these.
Speaker 1 (04:53):
All right, but all right, yes I should.
Speaker 5 (04:55):
I should clarify all of these answers are to phrase.
It's not words. So here's your first clue, confectionery customer's weakness,
and it's two words.
Speaker 3 (05:07):
Oh that's a great.
Speaker 4 (05:08):
That's great because it's actually a very common thing. People
say it's two words, but it's not like a made
up loopy thing.
Speaker 3 (05:15):
It's people use this phrase all the time.
Speaker 4 (05:18):
And if you hyphenated it and put an ed on it,
if you made it an adjective, it would feel more
like a single word.
Speaker 3 (05:25):
The answer is sweet tooth.
Speaker 5 (05:28):
Yes, perfect, double e, then double t, then double o.
Speaker 4 (05:32):
Right, and if you just said sweet toothed, that would
be you could make a case for that not having
a hyphen and being a single long word.
Speaker 3 (05:39):
Why not?
Speaker 1 (05:40):
So true?
Speaker 5 (05:41):
And yeah, let's make that case.
Speaker 3 (05:43):
Here we are, we can do it. We're the puzzler.
Speaker 5 (05:46):
Okay, here's the next one. Boy scouts actions, also two words,
but also a common.
Speaker 4 (05:51):
Phrase boy scouts. Oh oh yes, yes, it's something you
do if you're a boy scout. It's like in the
the kind of stereotypical thing. It's helping the little old
lady across the street. It's doing a good deed.
Speaker 5 (06:10):
Yes, perfect, All right. Here's another one. If you are
an excellent job candidate, you might have a blank, blank blank,
and it's three words.
Speaker 4 (06:20):
Excellent job candidate. Yes, you might have something resume, interview record,
excellent job candidates have never been a job candidate. I
know you might have a what's a good hint? Give
me some letters.
Speaker 5 (06:40):
Or the double Yeah. So one of two of the
double lettered pairings are across words. It's a three letter
word a two letter word. And then a five letter.
Speaker 4 (06:52):
Word right right, right, right?
Speaker 3 (06:54):
Oh that helps.
Speaker 4 (06:55):
Three letter word, two letter word, five letter word. You
have a something to something, Yeah, so a tea something
to office close to offer, a lot to offer.
Speaker 1 (07:10):
A lot to offer to offer. That's tricky. Uh, that's tricky,
all right.
Speaker 2 (07:17):
And then he also sent in one that was not
in that original Wall Street Journal puzzle, A.
Speaker 5 (07:23):
Popular way to gather during quarantine.
Speaker 4 (07:27):
Zoom meeting, zoom meeting.
Speaker 2 (07:31):
All right, well that was great, thank you, Peter. What
what else did you discover in the mail bank?
Speaker 1 (07:36):
Andrea?
Speaker 5 (07:37):
Right, well, several people also wrote in about our mini
puzzle involving words that you can make using only the
top row of the keyboard. Uh so our answer was typewriter,
which is kind of a very famous, well known one.
All those letters are on the top row of the keyboard,
the ro starting QW.
Speaker 2 (07:56):
E R, the quirky I.
Speaker 1 (07:59):
Oh ah, yes, yes, yeah, of course.
Speaker 5 (08:02):
So once again Peter Gordon was there to provide his
wisdom and gave us a list of legitimate words that
are in the Scrabble Dictionary. I also have some clues
to some of the words that Peter came up with.
If you want to give it a try, Greg.
Speaker 4 (08:19):
Okay, I'm looking at my keyboard as at health. All right.
Speaker 5 (08:26):
So the first one is a ten letter word. It's
a and it means a business owner.
Speaker 6 (08:34):
Business owner, pro prietor very good. That was me looking
at the letters to make sure they're all there, proprietor
very good.
Speaker 5 (08:44):
Okay. This means lasting forever, often in a legal sense,
like you could be banished.
Speaker 4 (08:50):
In blink, Oh god, I gotta got it in also
starts with a P perpetuity.
Speaker 5 (08:58):
Nice.
Speaker 4 (09:00):
Uh.
Speaker 5 (09:00):
This one is a clue too, of phrase, not a
word that is that you can find on the top room,
or you.
Speaker 3 (09:06):
Can make on the top room, right right.
Speaker 5 (09:08):
And it's the man who picked eight quarts of briny
vegetables in a famous ton twister.
Speaker 4 (09:16):
Wow, not cherry peppers, pickled pickled peppers.
Speaker 3 (09:23):
That would be Peter.
Speaker 1 (09:24):
Piper, Yes, exactly, and.
Speaker 3 (09:27):
Pepper could also be made with that, right.
Speaker 1 (09:29):
Oh good.
Speaker 2 (09:30):
One and eight quartz, by the way, that is that
is importantly eight quartz.
Speaker 3 (09:37):
Wow.
Speaker 4 (09:38):
I always thought a peck was smaller than that.
Speaker 3 (09:40):
That's a lot.
Speaker 1 (09:41):
He was busy.
Speaker 2 (09:42):
He was a busy picker.
Speaker 3 (09:44):
Wow.
Speaker 1 (09:45):
That's great, right.
Speaker 7 (09:46):
Well.
Speaker 5 (09:46):
We also had Gene Kent writing in she wrote in
to say that her daughter and her keep a file
of fun word stuff and one category that they actually
keep track of is one row on the keyboard words.
So she also wrote it with a huge list of
words that her and her daughter have amassed over the
years of words you can make with the top room.
(10:09):
So these words include quip, quote, trope, try, which coincidentally
is also something that all writers do.
Speaker 4 (10:17):
Well.
Speaker 1 (10:18):
Thank you, Jeane, very nice and your daughter well.
Speaker 5 (10:21):
Jane also said at the very end of her email,
I love your show and listen every day. You always
make me smile at least once, and often I go
faugh out loud, especially at your side comments Greg.
Speaker 1 (10:33):
And don't encourage him.
Speaker 2 (10:36):
Don't encourage him.
Speaker 5 (10:38):
In these days of horribleness. It is a treat, indeed,
to get in a smile or laugh.
Speaker 4 (10:44):
Thank you, puzzles will save the world, thesis of the
book in the podcast and everything else.
Speaker 5 (10:51):
Very nice letter.
Speaker 2 (10:58):
And then, Andrea, I think we have one more category
of letters.
Speaker 5 (11:04):
We've got a few interesting letters offering alternative answers to
our puzzles. So a little while ago we gave a
puzzle where we had three word clues to people with
three names. For example, one clue was elementary, my dear,
and that was cluing Arthur Conan Doyle, who wrote Sterlet combs.
Speaker 2 (11:26):
Right, So they both had three words. The clue had
three words and the answer, Arthur Conan Doyle had three words.
Speaker 5 (11:32):
Well, we had listener Brad McNamara Writen who actually gave
us today's intro frees and he wrote in that he was.
Speaker 1 (11:39):
Flabbergasted fla love that words.
Speaker 5 (11:43):
Yeah, yeah, he was flabbergasted at the extra credit clue
in that puzzle. So that day we gave an extra
credit once upon a and the answer we gave next
day was Hans Christian Anderson, most famous writer of fairy tales.
Speaker 2 (12:00):
Which all begin once upon so yeah, yeah, that makes sense.
Speaker 5 (12:04):
But Brad came up with his with an alternative answer
that is Edgar Allan poem because of the famous opening
line of the raven once upon a Midnight Dreary.
Speaker 2 (12:17):
That is so good, Brad, nicely done.
Speaker 3 (12:21):
Nice.
Speaker 4 (12:21):
I love when there's an alternate answer.
Speaker 2 (12:23):
All right, you win, you win the cash prize of
zero dollars.
Speaker 1 (12:29):
So well done. I like it.
Speaker 5 (12:32):
We also had David Roth from Kansas City, Missouri, right
in also about the three word puzzle specifically the clue
oh say.
Speaker 1 (12:40):
Can, Okay, which I was when I wrote that.
Speaker 2 (12:44):
Of course, I thought, now, who is at Francis Scott? Yes,
he wrote star Spangled Banner, which begins, oh say can.
But what was David's alternative answer?
Speaker 5 (12:58):
Well, he wrote that the clue so O say can
clearly clude the author of the lyrics to the Star
Spangled Banner, as you said, for it's a Scott key.
But he immediately also thought of the writer of the melody,
who was also actually a three word name, John Stafford Smith.
Speaker 3 (13:16):
Wow.
Speaker 2 (13:17):
Nicely done, David Roth. I love, and I also want
to thank David not just for writing in but for
sending me on a wonderful rabbit hole about the star
Spangled Banner. And Greg and Andrea you may know this,
but I knew it was based on a British tune.
And the British tune what they put new lyrics on
(13:39):
a practice, by the way, called contra factum. I feel
you would know that Greg, as.
Speaker 3 (13:44):
Think ancient old music term.
Speaker 2 (13:47):
Yes, so put new lyrics on an old song. The
song the British song from the seventeen hundreds was called
to a nacron in Heaven and a nacron.
Speaker 3 (13:58):
Is it pronounced a nacron or.
Speaker 2 (13:59):
An According to the Internet, which is always reliable, it's
an acron, so, but who knows it could be it
was ancient Greece, so who knows what they were saying,
But whoever it is, he was a Greek poet and
he was kind of a randy.
Speaker 1 (14:15):
He worked blue.
Speaker 2 (14:16):
Let's just say that he was all about sex and drinking.
And the lyrics of that original tune for the Star
Spangled Banner had lyrics. It was a body tune, that's
what they called it, a body tune, including the line
instead of oh say does that star Spangled banner yet wave?
(14:40):
Or Land of the Free and the Home of the
Brave instead of that it had And besides, I'll instruct
you like me to entwine the Myrtle of Venus with
Bacchus's vine, so that that's very racy for the seventeen
hundreds because it's sort of Myrtle of Venus, goddess of
(15:00):
sex and love, and Bacchus the drunken So it's sort
of like talking about love poems and drinking songs. But
also it's got a little bit of, you know, phallic imagery.
Speaker 4 (15:14):
With entwining your myrtle with someone else's vine.
Speaker 2 (15:18):
And that's so there you go. I thought that was
fascinating that our g rated star spangled banner was the greatest.
Speaker 3 (15:28):
About sex and wine.
Speaker 2 (15:29):
There you got the original anyway, So thank you, David.
Speaker 5 (15:34):
I also want to say that David also came up
with the Edgar Allan Poe alternative, so I'll also give
him extra credit for that. And he ends us email
saying thank you to everyone at the Puzzler for bringing
many hours of joy to my daily commute, which is
very thank you.
Speaker 1 (15:54):
Thank you.
Speaker 4 (15:55):
Sorry you have a multi hour daily commute exactly.
Speaker 5 (16:00):
The three word puzzle was not the only puzzle that
we got multiple answers from listeners for. We also have
this listener who wrote in about our I Rhymes puzzle
that we did with Juliana Pace.
Speaker 2 (16:13):
So I rhymes, which I we love those. They're the
ones that look like they should be rhymes.
Speaker 1 (16:18):
But are not.
Speaker 2 (16:19):
Like lemon demon lammon, they both and em on, but
they don't rhyme.
Speaker 3 (16:26):
What's up with that?
Speaker 1 (16:27):
Yeah?
Speaker 5 (16:27):
Yes, So we got a letter from Rebecca Randon Jeram
who's a friend of the show. She writes, Hello, AJ
and Greg and Andrea and a somewhat sad example of
self validation. I pride myself on almost always solving the
extra credit puzzle. Imagine my frustration therefore, and yesterday slash
(16:48):
today's extra credit. The clue for which was clothes that
are used to hide someone's identity on a big ship
or big ship journey. The answer Greg gave was voyage camouflage. Well, this,
of course works. I would posit that an even better
answer is cruise disguise. A four letter rhyme is better
than a three letter rhyme, right now.
Speaker 2 (17:08):
That okay, Well that is great, And by the way,
I don't think a sad self validation at all. I
think that's very that's very wonderful.
Speaker 3 (17:18):
So yeah, I like it better too.
Speaker 4 (17:20):
Because voyage and camouflage are both from the French. Voyage camouflage,
I mean, it's sort of less interesting than cruise disguise,
which feel further apart than voyage and camouflage.
Speaker 2 (17:33):
Well, this is a puzzle because here's the crazy part.
When I wrote that clue clothes used to hide someone's
identity on a big ship, I actually meant cruise disguise.
But when you gave the answer, it had become Voyage camouflage.
Speaker 3 (17:52):
Oh so you're blaming me.
Speaker 2 (17:54):
I'm not blaming anyone.
Speaker 1 (17:56):
I'm throwing it.
Speaker 2 (17:58):
I you know what, love the alternative answers, but my
question is who was it? Was it? Actually it's my
fault because I didn't put the answer in.
Speaker 3 (18:09):
I'm guessing it's me. I think I probably saw the clue.
I thought of the answer voyage camouflage. I did it
as the extra credit. And there we are.
Speaker 2 (18:18):
And then you spawned all of this excitement from the
listeners because I think we got.
Speaker 4 (18:22):
We got the spawn of excitement, the spawner of excitement.
Speaker 2 (18:27):
Because we got I've got several. Eric Guss wrote in
with the same solution. Thank you, Eric and Peter Gordon,
friend of the show. He also was a cruise disguiser,
so that was was very exciting. Please do it again, Greg,
please give all the answers. Well, that was excellent. We
have more, but we're gonna save them for another another show.
(18:49):
Thank you, Andrea, and thank you to all of our
listeners who wrote in and all of those who didn't.
So have a great weekend. If you are looking for
more fun puzz content, please check out our Instagram feed
at Hello Puzzlers where we post original puzzles and other
fun stuff, and of course we will meet you here
(19:09):
on Monday for more puzzling puzzles that will puzzle you puzzlingly.
Speaker 4 (19:19):
Hello Puzzlers, it's Greg Plis go up from the Puzzle
Lab with the extra credit answer from our previous episode.
AJ and I did a game called Animal Mashups where
we took a two different animals and mashed them together,
kind of in the style of Italian brain rot. Your
extra credit clue was this. This is a common flatfish
(19:42):
often found on restaurant menus. Its flesh is white, but
it has brightly colored wings and antennae antennas antenna antennae.
It has more than one antenna. It is a halla butterfly,
a halibut and a butterfly.
Speaker 3 (20:00):
All right, thanks for playing.
Speaker 4 (20:01):
With us and we'll catch you here next time. Thanks
for playing along with the team here at the Puzzler
with Aj Jacobs. I'm Greg Pliska, your chief puzzle officer.
Our executive producers are Neelie Lohman and Adam Neuhouse of
New House Ideas and Jonathan Strickland of iHeart Podcasts.
Speaker 3 (20:21):
The show is produced by.
Speaker 4 (20:23):
Jody Abergan and Britney Brown of Roulette Productions, with production
support from Claire Bitdegar Curtis. Our senior puzzler is Andrea Schoenberg.
Speaker 7 (20:33):
The Puzzler with Aj Jacobs is a co production with
New House Ideas and is distributed by Chaste Paradist. Let's
Chase c A ste No It's not Rear Angel distributed
by iHeart Podcast.
Speaker 4 (20:49):
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 is 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
(21:09):
puzzler dot com.
Speaker 3 (21:11):
See you there,
Hello puzzlers.
Speaker 2 (00:01):
Before we start puzzling today, I wanted to let you
know we are cooking up some big plans for the
puzzler community, and in order to ensure that it's what
you want, we need your input. So we've put together
a short survey which you can find in the show notes.
It's really quick, just three minutes, but it will be
(00:23):
a huge help in letting us know what you want
so that we can deliver just that.
Speaker 1 (00:30):
Thank you, Hello puzzlers.
Speaker 2 (00:33):
Let us start with a quick puzzle, and that is
what do these phrases have in common? Glassy eyes, plaited hair,
and forked tongue. So that's glassy eyes, plaited hair, and
forked tongue. What do they have in common? And actually
a little bonus? Is there another phrase you can think
(00:54):
of that fits that pattern? Perhaps someone who's ears stick
prominently out from their head? The answer and more puzzling
goodness after the break, Hello puzzlers, Welcome back to the
(01:14):
Puzzler Podcast. The always changing introduction to your daily puzzle podcast.
That is a very meta intro line and it is
courtesy of puzzler Brad macnamara. Thank you Brad, and Brad
wrote us, He said, I was thinking about how the
intro line is always a metaphor for the best part
(01:37):
of something, and how the intro line is one of
my favorite parts of the podcast. My name is AJ
Jacobs with Chief Puzzle Officer Greg Kliska. Before the break, Greg,
we had a little mini puzzle. What do these phrases
have in common? Glassy eyes, plated hair, and forked tongue?
Speaker 3 (01:54):
Any thoughts listen? Dishvase?
Speaker 1 (01:57):
Ah, I no.
Speaker 4 (02:01):
Plated?
Speaker 3 (02:01):
What is plated hair? Oh? Plated pl a I. So
it's a sanetic thing. I wrote it down.
Speaker 4 (02:10):
I wrote it down with the you know, the word
plate and I was like, plated hair, like if you've
got you're an armadillo style plates on your head. They're
all They're all phrases that are body parts preceded by UH.
Speaker 2 (02:25):
Dishware, dishware exactly, tableware. So plated hair, right plate, it
is the homophone for UH, the braided hair, plated, the
l A t E and fork tongue means to speak
out of both sides of your mouth, so like a hypocrite.
Speaker 3 (02:41):
And or if you're a snake, you just have a
fork right?
Speaker 1 (02:45):
So what about that?
Speaker 4 (02:46):
You were going for jug handle years.
Speaker 2 (02:49):
Exactly or jug eared sometimes.
Speaker 3 (02:52):
I also wrote down spoon bill.
Speaker 4 (02:57):
Yeah, if we're gonna not be human anthropocentric here, we're
going to allow other animals in.
Speaker 1 (03:04):
Don't species spoon bill.
Speaker 2 (03:06):
I also thought of one more was saucer eyed.
Speaker 1 (03:10):
Saucer eye.
Speaker 3 (03:10):
Oh yeah, yeah.
Speaker 2 (03:13):
But all of that has very little to do with
today's episode, except maybe you could say our listeners will
be saucer eyed with amazement at the content of the
show because it's a good one.
Speaker 1 (03:26):
I'm excited.
Speaker 2 (03:27):
It's puzzles generated by puzzlers at home. We got lots
of letters and we've been storing them up.
Speaker 4 (03:35):
Uh. It's a sort of so it's a sort of
inside the puzzle Lab, except it's just listener mail exactly.
Speaker 2 (03:42):
We got so much to cover, uh, and and please
send us more at the puzzler dot com just click
on send. So Senior Puzzler Andrea Schoenberg has been monitoring
the emails, the Instagram, the pneumatic tubes. What are we carrier,
pigeon and urea. What have you got for us today?
Speaker 5 (04:04):
Well, to start off, but we've got a couple of
excellent insights from friend of the show Peter Gordon, who
is also a great crossword constructor, as we know love Peter.
He wrote in about an intro puzzle where we asked,
what word has three pairs of double letters.
Speaker 3 (04:19):
In a row?
Speaker 1 (04:20):
Right like bookkeeper?
Speaker 2 (04:21):
I think?
Speaker 1 (04:22):
Was the answer? B oh oh kk e. Yes exactly. Okay, okay.
Speaker 5 (04:28):
So Peter emailed us that he actually did a crossword
in the Wall Street Journal decades ago that he called
double entry accounting with consecutive triple double letters like a bookkeeper.
Speaker 1 (04:40):
Got so by several decades.
Speaker 5 (04:42):
Yes, exactly, And I've got a few here to try
out on you and Greg if you want.
Speaker 2 (04:48):
All right, well I I've already seen him, so I'm
going to let Greg answer these.
Speaker 1 (04:53):
All right, but all right, yes I should.
Speaker 5 (04:55):
I should clarify all of these answers are to phrase.
It's not words. So here's your first clue, confectionery customer's weakness,
and it's two words.
Speaker 3 (05:07):
Oh that's a great.
Speaker 4 (05:08):
That's great because it's actually a very common thing. People
say it's two words, but it's not like a made
up loopy thing.
Speaker 3 (05:15):
It's people use this phrase all the time.
Speaker 4 (05:18):
And if you hyphenated it and put an ed on it,
if you made it an adjective, it would feel more
like a single word.
Speaker 3 (05:25):
The answer is sweet tooth.
Speaker 5 (05:28):
Yes, perfect, double e, then double t, then double o.
Speaker 4 (05:32):
Right, and if you just said sweet toothed, that would
be you could make a case for that not having
a hyphen and being a single long word.
Speaker 3 (05:39):
Why not?
Speaker 1 (05:40):
So true?
Speaker 5 (05:41):
And yeah, let's make that case.
Speaker 3 (05:43):
Here we are, we can do it. We're the puzzler.
Speaker 5 (05:46):
Okay, here's the next one. Boy scouts actions, also two words,
but also a common.
Speaker 4 (05:51):
Phrase boy scouts. Oh oh yes, yes, it's something you
do if you're a boy scout. It's like in the
the kind of stereotypical thing. It's helping the little old
lady across the street. It's doing a good deed.
Speaker 5 (06:10):
Yes, perfect, All right. Here's another one. If you are
an excellent job candidate, you might have a blank, blank blank,
and it's three words.
Speaker 4 (06:20):
Excellent job candidate. Yes, you might have something resume, interview record,
excellent job candidates have never been a job candidate. I
know you might have a what's a good hint? Give
me some letters.
Speaker 5 (06:40):
Or the double Yeah. So one of two of the
double lettered pairings are across words. It's a three letter
word a two letter word. And then a five letter.
Speaker 4 (06:52):
Word right right, right, right?
Speaker 3 (06:54):
Oh that helps.
Speaker 4 (06:55):
Three letter word, two letter word, five letter word. You
have a something to something, Yeah, so a tea something
to office close to offer, a lot to offer.
Speaker 1 (07:10):
A lot to offer to offer. That's tricky. Uh, that's tricky,
all right.
Speaker 2 (07:17):
And then he also sent in one that was not
in that original Wall Street Journal puzzle, A.
Speaker 5 (07:23):
Popular way to gather during quarantine.
Speaker 4 (07:27):
Zoom meeting, zoom meeting.
Speaker 2 (07:31):
All right, well that was great, thank you, Peter. What
what else did you discover in the mail bank?
Speaker 1 (07:36):
Andrea?
Speaker 5 (07:37):
Right, well, several people also wrote in about our mini
puzzle involving words that you can make using only the
top row of the keyboard. Uh so our answer was typewriter,
which is kind of a very famous, well known one.
All those letters are on the top row of the keyboard,
the ro starting QW.
Speaker 2 (07:56):
E R, the quirky I.
Speaker 1 (07:59):
Oh ah, yes, yes, yeah, of course.
Speaker 5 (08:02):
So once again Peter Gordon was there to provide his
wisdom and gave us a list of legitimate words that
are in the Scrabble Dictionary. I also have some clues
to some of the words that Peter came up with.
If you want to give it a try, Greg.
Speaker 4 (08:19):
Okay, I'm looking at my keyboard as at health. All right.
Speaker 5 (08:26):
So the first one is a ten letter word. It's
a and it means a business owner.
Speaker 6 (08:34):
Business owner, pro prietor very good. That was me looking
at the letters to make sure they're all there, proprietor
very good.
Speaker 5 (08:44):
Okay. This means lasting forever, often in a legal sense,
like you could be banished.
Speaker 4 (08:50):
In blink, Oh god, I gotta got it in also
starts with a P perpetuity.
Speaker 5 (08:58):
Nice.
Speaker 4 (09:00):
Uh.
Speaker 5 (09:00):
This one is a clue too, of phrase, not a
word that is that you can find on the top room,
or you.
Speaker 3 (09:06):
Can make on the top room, right right.
Speaker 5 (09:08):
And it's the man who picked eight quarts of briny
vegetables in a famous ton twister.
Speaker 4 (09:16):
Wow, not cherry peppers, pickled pickled peppers.
Speaker 3 (09:23):
That would be Peter.
Speaker 1 (09:24):
Piper, Yes, exactly, and.
Speaker 3 (09:27):
Pepper could also be made with that, right.
Speaker 1 (09:29):
Oh good.
Speaker 2 (09:30):
One and eight quartz, by the way, that is that
is importantly eight quartz.
Speaker 3 (09:37):
Wow.
Speaker 4 (09:38):
I always thought a peck was smaller than that.
Speaker 3 (09:40):
That's a lot.
Speaker 1 (09:41):
He was busy.
Speaker 2 (09:42):
He was a busy picker.
Speaker 3 (09:44):
Wow.
Speaker 1 (09:45):
That's great, right.
Speaker 7 (09:46):
Well.
Speaker 5 (09:46):
We also had Gene Kent writing in she wrote in
to say that her daughter and her keep a file
of fun word stuff and one category that they actually
keep track of is one row on the keyboard words.
So she also wrote it with a huge list of
words that her and her daughter have amassed over the
years of words you can make with the top room.
(10:09):
So these words include quip, quote, trope, try, which coincidentally
is also something that all writers do.
Speaker 4 (10:17):
Well.
Speaker 1 (10:18):
Thank you, Jeane, very nice and your daughter well.
Speaker 5 (10:21):
Jane also said at the very end of her email,
I love your show and listen every day. You always
make me smile at least once, and often I go
faugh out loud, especially at your side comments Greg.
Speaker 1 (10:33):
And don't encourage him.
Speaker 2 (10:36):
Don't encourage him.
Speaker 5 (10:38):
In these days of horribleness. It is a treat, indeed,
to get in a smile or laugh.
Speaker 4 (10:44):
Thank you, puzzles will save the world, thesis of the
book in the podcast and everything else.
Speaker 5 (10:51):
Very nice letter.
Speaker 2 (10:58):
And then, Andrea, I think we have one more category
of letters.
Speaker 5 (11:04):
We've got a few interesting letters offering alternative answers to
our puzzles. So a little while ago we gave a
puzzle where we had three word clues to people with
three names. For example, one clue was elementary, my dear,
and that was cluing Arthur Conan Doyle, who wrote Sterlet combs.
Speaker 2 (11:26):
Right, So they both had three words. The clue had
three words and the answer, Arthur Conan Doyle had three words.
Speaker 5 (11:32):
Well, we had listener Brad McNamara Writen who actually gave
us today's intro frees and he wrote in that he was.
Speaker 1 (11:39):
Flabbergasted fla love that words.
Speaker 5 (11:43):
Yeah, yeah, he was flabbergasted at the extra credit clue
in that puzzle. So that day we gave an extra
credit once upon a and the answer we gave next
day was Hans Christian Anderson, most famous writer of fairy tales.
Speaker 2 (12:00):
Which all begin once upon so yeah, yeah, that makes sense.
Speaker 5 (12:04):
But Brad came up with his with an alternative answer
that is Edgar Allan poem because of the famous opening
line of the raven once upon a Midnight Dreary.
Speaker 2 (12:17):
That is so good, Brad, nicely done.
Speaker 3 (12:21):
Nice.
Speaker 4 (12:21):
I love when there's an alternate answer.
Speaker 2 (12:23):
All right, you win, you win the cash prize of
zero dollars.
Speaker 1 (12:29):
So well done. I like it.
Speaker 5 (12:32):
We also had David Roth from Kansas City, Missouri, right
in also about the three word puzzle specifically the clue
oh say.
Speaker 1 (12:40):
Can, Okay, which I was when I wrote that.
Speaker 2 (12:44):
Of course, I thought, now, who is at Francis Scott? Yes,
he wrote star Spangled Banner, which begins, oh say can.
But what was David's alternative answer?
Speaker 5 (12:58):
Well, he wrote that the clue so O say can
clearly clude the author of the lyrics to the Star
Spangled Banner, as you said, for it's a Scott key.
But he immediately also thought of the writer of the melody,
who was also actually a three word name, John Stafford Smith.
Speaker 3 (13:16):
Wow.
Speaker 2 (13:17):
Nicely done, David Roth. I love, and I also want
to thank David not just for writing in but for
sending me on a wonderful rabbit hole about the star
Spangled Banner. And Greg and Andrea you may know this,
but I knew it was based on a British tune.
And the British tune what they put new lyrics on
(13:39):
a practice, by the way, called contra factum. I feel
you would know that Greg, as.
Speaker 3 (13:44):
Think ancient old music term.
Speaker 2 (13:47):
Yes, so put new lyrics on an old song. The
song the British song from the seventeen hundreds was called
to a nacron in Heaven and a nacron.
Speaker 3 (13:58):
Is it pronounced a nacron or.
Speaker 2 (13:59):
An According to the Internet, which is always reliable, it's
an acron, so, but who knows it could be it
was ancient Greece, so who knows what they were saying,
But whoever it is, he was a Greek poet and
he was kind of a randy.
Speaker 1 (14:15):
He worked blue.
Speaker 2 (14:16):
Let's just say that he was all about sex and drinking.
And the lyrics of that original tune for the Star
Spangled Banner had lyrics. It was a body tune, that's
what they called it, a body tune, including the line
instead of oh say does that star Spangled banner yet wave?
(14:40):
Or Land of the Free and the Home of the
Brave instead of that it had And besides, I'll instruct
you like me to entwine the Myrtle of Venus with
Bacchus's vine, so that that's very racy for the seventeen
hundreds because it's sort of Myrtle of Venus, goddess of
(15:00):
sex and love, and Bacchus the drunken So it's sort
of like talking about love poems and drinking songs. But
also it's got a little bit of, you know, phallic imagery.
Speaker 4 (15:14):
With entwining your myrtle with someone else's vine.
Speaker 2 (15:18):
And that's so there you go. I thought that was
fascinating that our g rated star spangled banner was the greatest.
Speaker 3 (15:28):
About sex and wine.
Speaker 2 (15:29):
There you got the original anyway, So thank you, David.
Speaker 5 (15:34):
I also want to say that David also came up
with the Edgar Allan Poe alternative, so I'll also give
him extra credit for that. And he ends us email
saying thank you to everyone at the Puzzler for bringing
many hours of joy to my daily commute, which is
very thank you.
Speaker 1 (15:54):
Thank you.
Speaker 4 (15:55):
Sorry you have a multi hour daily commute exactly.
Speaker 5 (16:00):
The three word puzzle was not the only puzzle that
we got multiple answers from listeners for. We also have
this listener who wrote in about our I Rhymes puzzle
that we did with Juliana Pace.
Speaker 2 (16:13):
So I rhymes, which I we love those. They're the
ones that look like they should be rhymes.
Speaker 1 (16:18):
But are not.
Speaker 2 (16:19):
Like lemon demon lammon, they both and em on, but
they don't rhyme.
Speaker 3 (16:26):
What's up with that?
Speaker 1 (16:27):
Yeah?
Speaker 5 (16:27):
Yes, So we got a letter from Rebecca Randon Jeram
who's a friend of the show. She writes, Hello, AJ
and Greg and Andrea and a somewhat sad example of
self validation. I pride myself on almost always solving the
extra credit puzzle. Imagine my frustration therefore, and yesterday slash
(16:48):
today's extra credit. The clue for which was clothes that
are used to hide someone's identity on a big ship
or big ship journey. The answer Greg gave was voyage camouflage. Well, this,
of course works. I would posit that an even better
answer is cruise disguise. A four letter rhyme is better
than a three letter rhyme, right now.
Speaker 2 (17:08):
That okay, Well that is great, And by the way,
I don't think a sad self validation at all. I
think that's very that's very wonderful.
Speaker 3 (17:18):
So yeah, I like it better too.
Speaker 4 (17:20):
Because voyage and camouflage are both from the French. Voyage camouflage,
I mean, it's sort of less interesting than cruise disguise,
which feel further apart than voyage and camouflage.
Speaker 2 (17:33):
Well, this is a puzzle because here's the crazy part.
When I wrote that clue clothes used to hide someone's
identity on a big ship, I actually meant cruise disguise.
But when you gave the answer, it had become Voyage camouflage.
Speaker 3 (17:52):
Oh so you're blaming me.
Speaker 2 (17:54):
I'm not blaming anyone.
Speaker 1 (17:56):
I'm throwing it.
Speaker 2 (17:58):
I you know what, love the alternative answers, but my
question is who was it? Was it? Actually it's my
fault because I didn't put the answer in.
Speaker 3 (18:09):
I'm guessing it's me. I think I probably saw the clue.
I thought of the answer voyage camouflage. I did it
as the extra credit. And there we are.
Speaker 2 (18:18):
And then you spawned all of this excitement from the
listeners because I think we got.
Speaker 4 (18:22):
We got the spawn of excitement, the spawner of excitement.
Speaker 2 (18:27):
Because we got I've got several. Eric Guss wrote in
with the same solution. Thank you, Eric and Peter Gordon,
friend of the show. He also was a cruise disguiser,
so that was was very exciting. Please do it again, Greg,
please give all the answers. Well, that was excellent. We
have more, but we're gonna save them for another another show.
(18:49):
Thank you, Andrea, and thank you to all of our
listeners who wrote in and all of those who didn't.
So have a great weekend. If you are looking for
more fun puzz content, please check out our Instagram feed
at Hello Puzzlers where we post original puzzles and other
fun stuff, and of course we will meet you here
(19:09):
on Monday for more puzzling puzzles that will puzzle you puzzlingly.
Speaker 4 (19:19):
Hello Puzzlers, it's Greg Plis go up from the Puzzle
Lab with the extra credit answer from our previous episode.
AJ and I did a game called Animal Mashups where
we took a two different animals and mashed them together,
kind of in the style of Italian brain rot. Your
extra credit clue was this. This is a common flatfish
(19:42):
often found on restaurant menus. Its flesh is white, but
it has brightly colored wings and antennae antennas antenna antennae.
It has more than one antenna. It is a halla butterfly,
a halibut and a butterfly.
Speaker 3 (20:00):
All right, thanks for playing.
Speaker 4 (20:01):
With us and we'll catch you here next time. Thanks
for playing along with the team here at the Puzzler
with Aj Jacobs. I'm Greg Pliska, your chief puzzle officer.
Our executive producers are Neelie Lohman and Adam Neuhouse of
New House Ideas and Jonathan Strickland of iHeart Podcasts.
Speaker 3 (20:21):
The show is produced by.
Speaker 4 (20:23):
Jody Abergan and Britney Brown of Roulette Productions, with production
support from Claire Bitdegar Curtis. Our senior puzzler is Andrea Schoenberg.
Speaker 7 (20:33):
The Puzzler with Aj Jacobs is a co production with
New House Ideas and is distributed by Chaste Paradist. Let's
Chase c A ste No It's not Rear Angel distributed
by iHeart Podcast.
Speaker 4 (20:49):
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 is 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
(21:09):
puzzler dot com.
Speaker 3 (21:11):
See you there,
Hosts And Creators
Greg Pliska
A.J. Jacobs
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