Hello, Puzzlers! Puzzling with us today: comedian Negin Farsad, host of "Fake The Nation"
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.
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.
Hello, Puzzlers, Welcome to the Puzzler Podcast, the eighteen cent Spotify Royalty for your Grammy winning hit Puzzle Song was that you? Greg? Did you write that as a musician? I think you did.
I don't know if I did, but I know the feelings.
Okay are I am your host AJ Jacobs and today's guest is the wonderful Nagheine Farsade, comedian, writer, director and host of the Fake the Nation podcast. Welcome Nagein.
Hello, so great to be here.
We are delighted you have puzzled with us this week. And Nageane, you are part of a very cool club that you might know about. It is peoples whose last names break down into two different words, specifically two three words, so you, for you, it's far and sad, which are not adjectives that come to mind when I think of you. But anyway, you are part of this club. And I'm going to give you clues to other people who are in this club, other people who have two three letter words making up that our last name, and then you will hopefully get it and get the first name as well from that. Okay, So the first one is a beloved singer, so her last name is six letters and two three letter words. The first word is a good score in golf. The second is two thousand pounds. So put those together a good score in golf two thousand pounds, and you might get a good score.
Oh god, I don't remember golf. Golf birdie, something about a birdie.
No, no, this is your.
Trying to cut, something about putting.
You got the right word, you got the right first letter. Okay, it is you're trying to shoot, or you go above this or below this. You're above playing. If you're really good, you're a b par pr Okay, So you got that, and then great.
This is coming from zero knowledge of golf. So that is impressive.
Nicely done myself, very impressive.
Okay, But it's a musician.
This is a musician's name, a beloved singer country and Western singer. So par But then the second word in her last name two thousand pounds. What's that? Two thousand pounds?
Two thousand pounds? Is that a ton or something?
It is not a par ton, par ton, par ton, Oh, par ton, Dolly Barton, exactly, you got it?
Say hey, you know, I only it is embarrassing. I feel like I only vaguely knew that a pun that a ton, that a pun that a ton was two thousand pounds.
I have a feeling and maybe Andre can, our associate puzzler, can look this up, because isn't there like a British metric ton. It's a little confusing. So so no judgments, no judgments.
Well, if you stopped me on the street and asked me how many pounds are in a ton, I would have I don't know that I would have said two thousand.
Yeah, well it is possible. It is only one type of ton. So we are going to get back to the listeners with that important information. In the meantime, are you ready for your second yes? Please? All right, this is a person. The person is a former network newscaster. A former network newscaster. Huh so his last name is going to be six letters and the first three are beloved, Subway past pizza. Do you remember New York's favorite mascot, the pizza blank Rat? Yes, rat, pizza Rat. Okay, so rat is the first part of his last name. Then the second word is well this was This is one of my favorite movies. I do love this movie. It's a twenty thirteen movie with Joaquin Phoenix where he falls in love with an Ai voiced by Scarlett Johansson. Do you remember that movie?
Oh my god.
Yes, And now that we have Ai, it's closer and closer to a reality.
Oh you be her exactly? Name is So it's Dan rather, Dan rather exactly. You got it.
I love the idea that we were mispronouncing it the whole time, and it was Dan rat Her.
It's true. He was just too polite to correct us.
July.
He's a good guy. Are you ready for for your next six letter?
Yes?
Two word club member? All right, this person is a singer. Greg Pliska has a ton of information about ton. All right, Well, come on in, Greg, we need your expertise on ton.
All right.
Well, you know what I did as I do down here in the lab is I looked at a dictionary and here you go. I'm ready and this is going to confuse the hell out of you. So a ton is a unit equal to twenty long hundredweight or two and forty pounds.
That's in England. In the United States, it's twenty short hundredweight or two thousand pounds. That's the US, Canada, in South Africa. It's also the unit of internal capacity for ships equal to one hundred cubic feet, also the volume of a long ton of weight of seawater used in reckoning the displacement of ships, and equal to thirty five cubic feet. A unit of volume for cargo freight, usually.
Reckoned at forty cubic feet, a unit of quantity for timber equal to four hundred and eighty board feet, and a unit of capacity equal to the cooling effect of a ton of ice melting in twenty four hours.
Why come on, tons, people.
I want to say that that's too many things, that it is a.
Problem with language.
I will say that the fifth definition I'm looking at Mirriam Webster right now, the fifth definition A great quantity.
Well, that's say that one covers that covers, yeah, two thousand forty. But yeah, I mean it seems I mean we were talking English is crazy. I mean this this is a measurement, like you're supposed to know what a measurement is. That kind of helps, like say your ship doesn't sink and this is all over the wonder.
You're I just hope everyone's using the same one of those fifty three definitions, right, that's my only hope.
My guess is the Titanic did not sink because of the iceberg. It's because like they were using British tons and they were using American tons and it was like a big comedy.
And someone else just thought they were talking about something being a lot, so nobody knew.
I'm glad exactly make things more confusing, thank you?
Yes, that all right? So this next one, this person is a singer, a well known singer. The first word in his last name is a body part associated with Tina Turner and the Rockets.
Okay, so first, the first word is a body part associated with Tina Turner and the Rockets, specifically like legs.
Yes, or the singular since it's only three letters leg, okay, leg. And the second word is it's a word that often follows bitter, rear, back, dead, or weak. So the bitter blank rear, blank blank back.
Yeah, yeah, I'm gonna say end. And the musician is John Legend.
John Legend, exactly, you got it? Very good? Nice, that was.
Yeah, the bitter end. That's a good. That's a good.
I wonder if he's ever played the bitter end. That would make me look more clever than I am.
Oh I feel like playing the Bitter End in New York City is a write of passage, so.
He probably did. Maybe that can be an In addition, he must have Yeah, all right, well should we do one more?
Let's do it?
All right, let's do our second newscaster. I'm gonna do a second newscaster.
Well the newscaster.
This one is a more current news caster. This is the first part of his last name. A sound that a dove makes. A dove makes this sound.
And this is a tough What is a dove?
They do? They coop, they do coup exactly. Okay, you often say things with a question mark when it's fully on it. Uh, so you got.
I get. It's one of those things that I don't I never I haven't thought about for several years, that what they call the sound a dove makes. So I'm surprised I was able to summon that.
Okay, dead and when you're when you're talking to your daughter about animal sounds, that's another good one for your for your roster.
And when I and when I passed this, you know, mortal coil, my final thought will be the sound of dove.
Makes I hope, so I hope that we put that.
We'll think back to this very moment.
It's important information, all right. So you got coup and then the second word is, uh, the the P and mph, the p and mph.
So okay, the p and mph, which is like PubL.
Blick no, no, as when you're in a car and you're you can't go over sixty mph.
Oh mph, oh oh oh. I thought it was you were talking about a master's in public health.
For the record, That's what I thought. You are hilarious. You are way too smart. That's the problem. You're way too.
Educated, was my first my first thing. Okay, so you're not talking about that degree, you're talking about miles per hour.
Okay, Sadly, you've got Coop Cooper, that's right, a CNN wait newscaster, Oh Anderson Cooper and Cooper Egg exactly.
Yes, the Silver Fox, Silver News.
Now wait, what was the P and masters of public public? So it's coup.
Public public, mass public health.
I love that.
I know it's like Coop public. That doesn't make any sense to me, but it has to be public. He's simply talking about it in massa's of public Health.
Well, you have definitely given very good publicity for those people. Pursuing Masters of Public Health. It's very it's a good degree, folks.
I have an MPa, which is a Master's of Public Administration.
Oh my godness, why.
I think about that?
Yeah, very good. Okay, well you did fantastic with that one public per thing notwithstanding, and we loved, we loved having you as a puzzler on the show. We are so glad you came. And we hope that you've gotten over your fear of puzzles.
Oh, I'm actually just surprised and craving more so. Yes, I feel like I have gotten over my fear of puzzles.
All right, well we'll have you back. And for the puzzlers at home, we do have an extra credit. We do have an extra credit, which is this person is an actor, and the first part of his last name is a dish served at many Christmas dinners, and the second part is a word you might find before repute equipped or mannered. Okay, so a main dish at Christmas dinner plus a word before repute equipped or mannered. Tune in next time to get the answer, and don't forget to subscribe to the Puzzler podcast and fake the nation. You can do them both. In like less than ten seconds. One last bit of puzzler news. My new book, The Year of Living Constitutionally, is coming out soon May seventh. It's about the puzzle of democracy. I attempt to follow the original meaning of the Constitution from seventeen eighty nine. We are talking muskets, quill pens, quartering soldiers. The pre publication reviews have been very kind. Kirkus calls it marvelously witty and wise, and who am I to disagree? So please pre order The Year of Living Constitutionally if you can. It helps a huge amount for the success of the book because it lets bookstores know to feature it and get ready for some Constitution theme puzzles coming soon. And we will meet you here tomorrow for more puzzling puzzles. They will puzzle you puzzlingly.
Hello puzzlers. Greg Pliska here up from the Puzzle Lab with the extra credit answer from our previous episode, we played Core Competence with Nigeine Farsad.
This is a.
Puzzle where every word ends with the sound core, and we clude it both as the word that it is and fancifully as if it were a genre of music. Your extra credit clue was tricky. It is this a beast with the body of a lion, the tale of a scorpion and the head of a man or music all about underwater rays. That of course is manticore m A n t I co o r e. That's a mythical beast with those body parts. But if you spell it m A n t A and add core to it, then it's a genre of music all about manta rays. I hope you listen to Manticre, have a manticore, enjoy Manticre's and bring your mant core with you when you listen to the Puzzler.