"Consecutive Branch" w/ A.J. & Greg

Published Dec 15, 2023, 9:00 AM

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 Chat GPT” 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.

Hello, puzzlers. Welcome to the Puzzler Podcast, the crisp cool underside of your daily puzzle pillow. I'm your host, A J. Jacobs, and I am here with our chief puzzle Officer, Greg Plisko.

Welcome Greg, Thank you, Aj. It's great to be here once again.

I am delighted to have you and I hear from our producers that you have a puzzle for me. Aj. Jacobs.

Now I just came up to say hi, that's it. See ya.

Now, of course I have a puzzle. I'm calling this one the Consecutive Branch. It's inspired by a book called Making the Alphabet Dance by Ross Eckler, which is itself inspired by another book by Dimitri Borgmann called Language on Vacation. I don't know if you know them, but they're both great kind of touchstones for lovers of words and word play.

Now writing them down or you know what, I'll listen to this again and then write it down.

That's good. That's why we're here.

Is a podcast you can come back and listen anytime. But before we get into the game, a travel question. Have you ever spent time in Oslo?

I've always wanted to, but I've never had the pleasure.

No, nor have I.

But I did discover on the map a small street in the north part of Oslo that I think we should visit a little puzzler sponsored trip to Norway.

All right, it sounds beautiful. What's there? What's there?

Oh?

What's there?

Is a street, a little street called Hayre Stuveyan Street, which is interesting for word puzzlers.

Do you want to figure out.

Why hair Stuveyne hair Stuveyan.

It's spelled h.

E I E R s t u v e I E N.

Well, it does have a lot of owls, which would be nice for a long cross where. But I didn't notice that there's like an S t u V or s t u v W in there.

There was, there's an.

R S t u v in the middle of it. That's exactly right. There are very few words or even proper nouns in the world that have five consecutive English alphabet letters in them, and that is Oh.

I love it. I love it. I know that there is that word like abbasidarian abisidarian meaning alphabetical, a pretentious way to say alphabetical. Yep, but I think that's a B E, not ABC. It would be cool if it was like, yes, they have a B C D E. Well, you know it's where it does have. Actually all of them is apicatef t jeckelmannopqrstuflex's.

That famous big bird song. That's right.

So that's like the ultimate yeah, which.

Would just end the game right there.

Yeah, you say that exactly.

But there's a more common English word that's got a four letter string in it. That's the theatrical term for someone who's prepared to go on in a role if the regularly scheduled actor has to take the night off.

So in the play, if the guy someone is it's understudy.

Understudy, understudy.

That's s T t U R s t U. Okay, nice unusual.

Find four consecutive English English uh love it letters. So we're going to play this game in a little unusual way. Instead of me just quizzing you, you're going to give me two consecutive letters of the alphabet, anyones you want, and then I'll give you a clue to a word or phrase that has those two letters.

Back to back.

Okay, Obviously we're not going to do all twenty five possible pairs today. We'll save some for another episode, but go ahead and pick one to start.

Is anyone all right? All right? Now, I'm just trying to strategize. Do I want to go with obscure ones or like like EF will have a lot?

Yeah, it would be less interesting. I'd have thousands of things to choose one from. So yeah, go for some of the more difficult.

All right. What about k L KL k L.

Is a very good pair of letters. There's quite a few words with KL. The one I'm cluing for you today is the kind of audience member we hope we don't have our puzzler.

Line exactly, or that we do. Maybe we like interaction hecklers.

Hecker heckler is exactly.

It's got a KL right now. There are quite a few words of that form, heckler and buckler and knuckle and ankle.

Give me another pair.

What about uh u v u v u v.

Less common in English words that have uv in them. But here's a nice one, A memento from a trip like our trip to Norway.

A souvenir s O U v yn I E R Yes, exactly what this one. I'll go ahead, go ahead.

I was just saying, let's do a few more.

Than well, I don't this one. I don't know. I know one product that has a PQ, but I'm not sure. So you got what is what is PEA gimme of PQ, So I'll give you a PQ.

This is actually a dictionary two word phrase that is in many dictionaries. Uh, and it's the it's the test that you weren't expecting.

Oh, okay, good. So it's not one where I think because map quest is the only thing I could come up with.

That was my other one. Yeah, the first That was my other one. I was going to clue, but the what was the what was the one? I gave you the test you're not expecting.

Which is what I'm doing right now.

A pop quiz A pop quiz exactly. That is a dictionary phrase.

But it's two words to get the PQ next to each other.

Well, let's stick with the q alex and go with QR, all right.

So there is in some English dictionaries there is a word which is another term for the Hebrew Bible or Tanakh. Oh interest you see, it's derived from Hebrew and it's got a QR in it.

Well, this is embarrassing. I wrote a whole book about the Hebrew Bible, and now I'm blanking, hold on, hold on. So it's not the Tanak, it's not the Torah. It's not the.

Because it's the whole Bible, beyond just the Torah. Oh, Hebrew Bible. Interesting, Okay, it's a it's a very obscure word starts with an m M.

I'm sure we've got listeners who know this word.

Yes, and yeah, please forgive me, my my fellow Jews, for for blanking on the what is it? What is it?

The word is mikra m i q r.

A And is there any other q R that's it?

Not? I mean, that was the one that seemed the most palatable. Uh, you know, I don't think there are any others in an on a Bridge dictionary. I had another one, which is not a dictionary term. But it's the Congressional Act that authorized our invasion to topple Suddam Hussein's government.

Oh, it's a two word phrase. Interesting, it was it wasn't it operation? Oh? I don't remember the Russian operation?

Was it a desert storm? Right?

Right?

That's Iraq Iraq resolution?

Interesting? Okay, right now, all right, I definitely got did not get either of them, Well, should we do one more.

And let me do I think we should do an extra credit.

Okay, great, yeah, do an extra credit.

So I'm gonna give our listeners wysey for extra credit. And this is a term for the conjunction of celestial bodies like that scene in the early scenes of two thousand and one A Space Odyssey.

Yeah, that's wyz whysey? All right? Well, thank you, Greg. That was super fun. I wish I could come up with an AB word to describe it. It was absolutely fabulous. How's that.

That's two ab words. That's well done.

Thank you.

I didn't even mean that. And please, puzzlers, don't forget to subscribe to the Puzzler podcast and I'll meet you here tomorrow for some more puzzling puzzles that will puzzle you puzzlingly.

Hello, puzzlers, this is Chief Puzzle Officer Greg Pliska here to share with you the extra credit answer from our previous show. We played the Book of Vice with Peter Segel, author of the Book of Vice. But in our game we were cluing phrases that begin with VII and end with CE. Here's the extra credit clue we gave you in the film Casablanca. This is the country that officially controls the city. When vice occurs, they round up the usual suspects, and the answer, of course is viscy France, vic France, vichy France. I hope you all got that one, and I hope you all join us again soon. Thanks for playing along with the team here at The Puzzler. I'm Greg Pliska, your chief puzzle Officer. Our executive producers are Neelie Lohman and Adam Neuhaus of New House Ideas and Lindsay Hoffman of iHeart Podcasts. The show is produced by Jody Abergan and Brittany Brown of Roulette Productions. Our associate producer is Andrea Schoenberg. The Puzzler with AJ Jacobs is a co production with New House Ideas and is distributed by Sacred host Peta No You Know, Rearrange the Letters distributed by iHeart Podcasts. If you want to know more about puzzling puzzles, please check out the book The Puzzler by AJ Jacobs, a history of puzzles that The New York Times called fun and funny. It features an original puzzle hunt by Yours Truly and is available wherever you get your books and puzzlers. For all your puzzling needs, go visit the puzzler dot com.

See you there,

The Puzzler with A.J. Jacobs

Finally, your daily puzzle fix—in audio form! Every day, New York Times bestselling author A.J. Jaco 
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