Hello, Puzzlers! Puzzling with us today: author, journalist, and podcaster Stephen J. Dubner of Freakonomics fame!
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 Chat GPT” and audio rebuses.
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Hello, puzzle ours, Welcome to the Puzzler Podcast, the Floating marshmallows in your steaming mug of puzzle hot cocoa. I'm your host, AJ Jacobs, and today's guest is the legendary if I can say that, Stephen Dovner, author, journalist and host of Freakonomics Radio. Welcome Stephen, Thank you, AJ.
Very happy to be here with you.
We are delighted to have you, and we have written for you. You're here all week. But our first puzzle is based on the name Freakonomics because I love the book, I love the radio show, and I love the name. And just for people, the benighted souls who don't know Freakonomics, great book about it was about the hidden side of everything, so from sumo wrestling to drug dealing, the sort of science and data behind that. Is that an accurate assessment?
Sure? Yeah, this sounds good. By the way, nice use of benighted.
Thanks.
I threw it out there really good. I didn't know what that meant. I had to look it up. I thought it meant that I had that it means. I thought benighted is what happens when someone makes you a name. But it's not at all. It's in a state of piti pitiful or contemptible, intellectual or moral ignorance. So nice, all right, you already gave me a gift today of teaching me of vocapular word. I'm just going to write that down.
Yes, So in our puzzle, we are going to do the same thing you did to economics. We are going to freakify it. We are going to add the letters f R to the front of words. We're going to add the FR. And I'll give you a clue, and the answer is going to be a sentence that includes the original word and the FR version.
So for instance, or the answer that I provide will be a full sentence.
You're saying, that's right, Wow, give you an example, give you an example?
It all all?
Yeah, I'm clear. If you're picnic in Paris is disturbed by little insects, then you might have a have blank in blank, So the answer would be you might have.
I might have ants in France.
Exactly there it is, and it might be fanatic and like that, so it might not be the exact same word. Are you ready for the real ones?
I don't know. I mean, what if I'm not then.
Will hang up right now. I'm okay with that. I'll see your bluff.
I very much want to be ready, but I don't know. Do you ever really feel you're ready for anything?
No, which is good.
That is good.
I think we can make it better.
So I am similarly unready. Let's go.
If you are at a McDonald's and you're looking at a side order, you might have a blank on the blank, blank on the blank.
If I'm at McDonald's looking at a side order, I might have fries, French fries on the on my mind, French fries.
Now you have the fries. You got that, remember the you gotta.
Take the blank I'm looking for right, Oh, I might have my eyes on the fries, eyes on the fries. Very inspiring, it's an inspiring Yeah.
All right. How about this one. If you have sixteen pounds of cargo on your truck, you have blank, tons of blank, blank tons of blank.
That would be eight tons of freight exactly.
And can I fact check myself right now? Because cargo is actually for ships and freight is for trucks. I looked it up because I was unsure, but yeah, what.
What's what's s cargo?
Then? Well, what about flotsham and jetson. I didn't know that, but now I have a pneumonic THINGK.
So, what's the difference between flots and jetsum.
Well, I'm glad you asked. Jetsum is intentionally jettisoned cargo and flats is just randomly unintentionally jettisen. So jet jettison, Jet jettison.
Let me make some I'm learning so much between benighted and flotsam and jetson. Okay, all right, that's what we're here for.
Yeah, we're in competition with you, Steven. We're teaching people to How about this one. If a star of Real Housewives of New York, first named Bethany wears a dress that only goes down to her shins, you might see blank of blank, might see the blank of blank. I'm guessing from your face you're not a huge Real Housewives of New York fan, is what I'm.
I have heard of it. I have heard of it, and this.
Is probably the most famous of the Real Housewives. She's like old school. She was one of the first.
This isn't so. I know that there was a recent addition in New York that had an outlier in a woman who Jenna Lions. It is not her, so it's not that season. Even this is from you.
This is early. Well how about this work backwards works.
We'll work it out. We'll work it.
Yeah, it gets engineered.
Give me the clue again. You mentioned there's Bethany.
Bethany.
Is Bethany relevant to the answer.
Oh yeah, Bethany is the first name of this real housewife.
Oh so I should know her last name or something.
And then if you if she's wearing a dress that only goes down to her shins, then you're gonna see the blank of blank.
So is this pornographic? The answer so not. It is very g rated if it goes the shins. I'm seeing her knees, even lower ankles, ankle I'm seeing I'm seeing, uh, just one ankle and a Frankel ankle. That's her last name, Frank seeing an ankle of Frankel exactly.
And she's a business woman. I mean, you could have her on for Economics with I'm saying this with no irony because she's trying to unionize reality show stars and she is in a fight with the head of Bravo, Andy Cohen.
That is interesting.
All right, we got one more. If there is a baseball official who calls balls and strikes and she happens to be a dowdy dresser, I might have a blank who is a blank?
I've got an ump who is a frump?
That's it just rolls right out. And did you know here's one I want to see if you write this down. Trump is gender specific. It is only you cannot have a male FROMP. It's a which I find offensive. I think there should be male FROMS, non binary froms, like W. It's a great word. Why should it be specific? Two?
I love that you're offended by a word that is derogatory only toward a group of which you are not. But you know, go for it.
That is a social justice move and I feel passionate about Well, we loved it. Thank you and thank you for writing Fakonomics and having the show. And people can hear that wherever they get their podcasts. I assume they do.
Wherever you get this fine podcast, you can also get Freakonomics Radio.
Yeah, wonderful. And before we wrap up, as always a puzzle for the puzzlers at home, an extra credit if an artist whose name starts with mc he happens to be famous for his never ending staircases. If he wakes up from a nap, then you might have a blank. Who is blank?
That's a nice one. I promise not to divulge the answer, even though my little brain is working on it, but I will. Can I give one clue to the listeners?
I would love it.
It's not EMC Hammer.
That is good to know.
Who's my first thought?
Yeah?
Sure, I mean, if we being honest, he is an artist.
Puzzlers, please don't forget to subscribe to the Puzzler podcast and I'll meet you here tomorrow for more puzzling puzzles that will puzzle you puzzlingly.
Hello puzzlers. Greg Blisker here with the extra credit answer from our previous show. On that show, we were playing political insults with Andy Burrowitz. These are all famous insults from the world of politics, and the extra credit insult we gave you was the General doesn't know any more about politics than a pig knows about Sunday. And if you figured this one out, you recognize that the general is probably Dwight David Eisenhower, and that is Harry S. Truman talking about his opponent Dwight David Eisenhower, hope you enjoyed. We'll see you next time.