The Puzzler with A.J. JacobsHello, 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.
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. Let's start with a quick puzzle. What word comes before these words office modern, Malone, office modern Malone? The answer and more puzzling goodness after the break. Hello puzzlers, Welcome to the Puzzler Podcast, The Dealer's sixteen in your puzzle game of Blackjack. I'm your host Ajson. Thank you, Greg. I'm your host aj Jacobs, and I'm here with chief puzzle Officer Greg Flisko. Of course Greg. Before the break, we posed a little puzzle what word comes before office modern and Malone? And the answer might be bugsy bugsy bugsy office, buggsy.
Malone, Malone, Malone, uh modern?
Wait do you really not know?
I really don't know what comes before those three things? Office mind.
This is so exciting, folks.
This barely Chris front modern, front, Malone, Malone, post post office post the other thing post modern and post Malone. I just worked through like generations, right, I went through like my generation, all the way to Andrea's got to post malone. There you got to see malone and Moses Malone.
Well, I am so excited that it gave you a little bit of pause. You got it eventually, let me do That was exciting. Uh, and of course that is an honor of our guest this week, the great Alexander Pete Try, a columnist for the Washington Post. Malone, there we go, and uh, today is a very exciting day, people, because we're going to take a tour inside the puzzle Laft free tour where we'll see you'll see where the puzzle magic happens. We're gonna stop at the listener feedback counter, and we're going to go to the breaking news corner of the laboratory, and then we're going to and we're also going to take a look at the workbench where we with all the test tubes and such where we create this week's puzzles.
Let's be clear, it's a free tour, but there is a tip jar on the workbench, so as you come by, if you want to tip your tour guide, you're welcome to drop something in the jar well, or send us your tips, send us your comments, send us your input.
That's a great point, exactly, And the tip should be thirty percent, thirty five percent or forty percent. You ever noticed that seems like it's getting higher eighteen twenty all right, But anyway, our guest Alexander Petri. She spells her name the same way as the Petrie dish, which was Petri dish or oh, I always get that wrong.
Well, no, I didn't, that's that wrong. It's just a I think they're both valid pronunciation.
Well, I like your relativism. That is very kind, but yes, Petrie is the normal, the more common pronunciation. Anyway, Julius Petrie, the German chemist, is not related to Alexandra, but they do spell it similarly. So this puzzle is all about such things. The eponyms, people who share a name with an object. In this case, the clues will have people who are not actually those who the object was named for, but people you might know. So for Petri and Petrie, I might do Washington Post columnist Alexandra uses in the chemistry lab, which would be a Petrie Petri did't. No, God, try pet Petrie dish. Anyway.
What you're saying is the Washington Post is not named for post them alone.
I don't want we have to fact check that. And Andrea Schomberg, our associate puzzler, will get working on that while we finish this puzzle. Fortunately we don't have the pronunciation problem. All of these are all right. So first we've got the terminator's glass of lemonade and iced tea.
Might be the Wartzenegger's terminate. Wait, yes, Arnold Palmer, Arnold's Arnold Palmer.
That is the way I want you to phrase it. So Arnold's Arnold Palmer.
Got it? Oh, I see Arnold's Arnold Palmer. That's so I can't say the word Arnold Palmer for some reason. It's a tongue twister.
That is a tough one.
Yeah, that's why I always just ordered a half an half. Just let me have a half an half. I can't say that golfer name.
Speaking of that, Speaking of that, another drink, the tomato and vodka drink uh sipped by Rhoda's TV neighbor, Roada Morganstern's TV neighbor might be.
Uh, bloody Mary's bloody Mary. Mary Tyler were bloody Mary.
We can take out the Tyler Moore to make it clean. Mary's blood Mary, Mary's bloody Mary.
Uh.
How about the bump on the throat of the Kilo Wren actor the guy called driver.
That's Adams Adams Apple.
Exactly, Adams Adam's apple.
How to be fair, you really should be able to get the last you have to get the last name too, because otherwise I could just go, well, that's an Adam's apple. It has to be Adams Adams.
Apple, Right, I feel all right, I'll throw you the I'll throw you the last name. In fact, someone I have to get the last name, all right. I'm not gonna give you the last name.
No, make it harder, all right, fair, don't give me. In fact, don't even give me the clues. I'll just guess something.
All right. I'm not gonna listen. This is former Supreme Court Justices chocolate bar.
Sure it's delicious. It's not named for her. It's the Ruth Bader Ginsburg's baby Ruth.
That is it Ruth or Baby Ruth.
Bader Ginsburg, which would be a fun mash up. Baby Ruth Bader gins Oh.
She would be. I'm sure she was cute and brilliant at the same time.
She was absolutely sweet and sweet.
And baby Ruth I believe named after Grover Cleveland's daughter.
Not Ruth was Grover cle Cleveland's daughter.
Yes, that's the takeaway from today's episode. I hope, Okay, just a couple more we have got Oh, how about a good place stars graph of normal distribution.
A good place for you. But rafh of normal distribution is Kristen Bell's Bell curve.
Nailed it exactly, all right. Two more, we've got what a west World stars chewy cookies a west World, I give you another whole show.
I watched that. Yeah, I loved Westworld.
I thought you didn't watch TV.
No, I watched TV just not funny TV, good play it never west World. Yeah, bloody, violent, dystopian perfect. Uh wait, it's a chewy.
Cookie, chewy fruit filled cookie.
Oh god, who is? Then they're talking about the woman who's the main star.
I don't think she's the main star. She won a Best Supporting as.
Oh oh yes, Sandy fig Newton. She's changed the.
Yeah, I believe it's away Tandy Way.
Yeah, she changed the right. She used to be Sandy t h A d I E. And she put the W back in, which is her birth name. And now it's tanned away. I believe. Well.
I never said ads instructed, I never said her name, so an go to you.
It was. It was always pronounced Tandy before that, and now it's tanned away Tandy Way.
But Newton is still Newton, Yes.
And still the fig of Fig.
Newton fame, so it's still all right.
Uh.
Last one the star of Beverly Hills Cops. Fold out furniture, hold out furniture.
You've gone from very contemporary like post Malone and Tandy Way Newton to very not contemporary with Eddie Murphy's Murphy Bed.
You got it. And by the way, Beverly Hills Cop three was last year.
So fair Field Fairpoint starring that old guy Eddie Murphy is the Does the Murphy bed? Do Murphy bed still exist?
That's a great question. I thought about that when I was writing it.
I think they do. Actually, at Mohunk Mountain House where we go every year, Will Schwartz's room is one of the rooms that has a Murphy bed in it. Interest holds right up into the wall.
That is cool. Well, that seems like a place that might have it because that was built in like whatever.
Nineteen to the nineteenth century.
Right, Yes, Uh, I've looked. I love it. People go to the Wonderful Word World of World. I always mess up the title, but I love it. Wonderful World of Words hosted by Greg Pliska in When is November? November? All right? Well, that was our first stop. We have another stop another Okay, this one is We got a letter, or I did more specifically. It was from my friend Kevin Kelly, who is a wonderful, brilliant man co founder of Wired magazine, and he told me he likes puzzles, and he told me about something I had never heard of, but researching it, it turns out to be quite famous. He said, have you ever looked into anguish languish? Anguish languish? And I had not. But it was a sort of a fake language created an English professor around nineteen forty and it became a meme, like a whatever they call memes back then. It was actually in the first issue of Sports Illustrated in nineteen fifty four. Yeah, and it is where you take words and uh, but change all the words, but they kind of sound Andrea, you did some research and found a couple of examples. So what do you got?
Yes, so this is a story called Ladle rat rotten hut.
So lad let's just do that like soup, Ladle rat rotten hut.
Oh?
Okay, I see.
It say it quickly or within a little bit of an action.
I don't think I could say it quickly I don't think that's whyttenhut.
Well, that's good. You kind of maybe need like an accident Swedish accent.
I'm doing a rotten hood.
They make fun of me for my sweetish accent.
With little red riding hood.
All right, I'm gonna speak this as best as I can.
Yeah, speak speech, I pray these all right.
So here's the here's an excerpt, a quick excerpt from little Red ragging Hood rotten hood.
Wants pond term there worsted, little goal, ho lift, wetter, murder inner later, cordage, honor, itch offer, lodge, doc floorist.
It makes perfect sense. We really need to put this up on Instagram for people to see. Great point, Hello puzzlers, because you really need to see the words as well as hear them.
Right, And if I could translate, so wants pawn term wants pawd term is once upon a time there worsted, little girl, gull is little girl. So you get the idea. But yeah, so check it out on our Instagram feet. But Greg, you are saying that.
Yeah, this has become kind of a puzzle trope. I see it. You see it all the time at the MIT Mystery Hunt, which is kind of the you know the decathlon Olympics. What are we're gonna call it of the puzzle world where you take words like that and you string them together and then you if you say them in a kind of garbled way, it reveals something else. I went and looked through the archive. There's a puzzle from two thousand and two. Actually, when my team C Tech Astronomy ran the Mystery Hunt. Roger Barkin wrote this puzzle and the way there are a series of clues. I'll give them to you. These are all things that are in the same category. Oh okay, okay. So the first one was gnashing, like gnashing your teeth algae okra fake. And those are now that's that is one thing in the category they're for. These they're all the same category. That's the first one is nashing algae okra fake.
God. So that's like a little sentence or a phrase that I put.
That's like a phrase.
All right, So wait, nashing one more time.
Nashing algae okra fake.
Do you know it? Andrea, have you got it? I'm gonna okay, read a sty just read a sky.
Just readers digest.
Oh nice, So nashing algae okra fake.
National Geography gegraphic good do Ski pang pang waiting for good doo ski pang good ski pang.
Go dusky ping good house. You are good at this, Andrea, I.
Love three Ause, mope, Holly ten.
I got that one. I'm gonna say it to redeem myself Cosmopolitan Cosmopolitan.
Now, the way this worked in the puzzle, each of those actually had an extra word in it, so you had the words. You actually had gnashing, support, algaeographa, Oh Boy, Rita, sty silly, just Godowski, Pang, stray, and gos, Mope, Holly ten Dead. You were supposed to figure out they were all magazines. Take out the extra words, which were support, silly, stray, and dead. And that's a fifth thing in the category supports Sports illustrated.
Oh boy, where this was first publisher. Oh my god, Wow nailed it. Oh that is great, And that is very mit mystery hunt that they would it's not hard enough, even though it is incredibly hard ten they make it even hard well.
And that group is just one of twelve or fourteen groups. There was one that was like things music related terms, famous explorers and so on. So there are all these groups and you've had to solve all this, and then the final result got you something else and I don't even remember how it all works out, but there you go.
That is so fun. And actually they I believe it is on the old Internet, like you can look for it and maybe we'll post a link to it, because there are archives of every mit mystery Hunt puzzle. Is that right?
Yeah? Yeah, there's a great mystery Hunt puzzle index that a guy named whose nickname is dev Dev Joe Joe Dee vincentis I think keeps you know, has where he's indexed all the puzzles by type of puzzle and who wrote them, and you can look them all up. But we can post a link for sure.
Fantastic. All right, We've got one more stop on the puzzle left, and that is the breaking puzzle news corner I have this week. I've been monitoring it. And there is a book that came out a couple of months ago called There's a Treasure Inside, and it was by a children's book author named John Collins Black, who also apparently is a bitcoin millionaire, and it was a book where it contained clues to five treasure chests buried in the real world somewhere in America. Totaling about two million dollars. And I found out about it because I was looking at what are the top one hundred books on Amazon, and this was at the time number three of all books. So he did sell some copies, hopefully enough to bankroll his two million dollar fries. But this is I talk about it in our book The Puzzler, that this is a this is a john that's been around for decades. I one of my first memories of puzzles was the book Masquerade, which came out in nineteen seventy nine by a British artist Kit Williams, and it's it's got these wonderful, crazy illustrations and poems, and it was a clue to a hidden golden rabbit somewhere in England. It was it was buried, and it caused a mania. It was Hilaire. People were like arrested for trespassing. They were digging up gardens. So I'm gonna give two facts about Masquerade, and you tell me what you think might be real. Okay, That's that's how we're gonna puzzle it up, all right. So Kit Williams got thousands of letters and terrifying packages such as a disembodied, blood covered plastic hand from a fan or so called fan. Second fact or fake fact. One author made half a million dollars selling a book called Secrets of Masquerade that promised to help you find the treasure. So which one is true?
Wow?
Is false?
They both can and should be true. I'm gonna go. You know, the one thing I think I know about Masquerade is that people got in trouble for like digging up people's backyards looking for this thing. So I'm going to go with the first one about him getting all kinds of weird mail and a disembodied hand.
You would be correct.
There we go, say always go with the disembodied hand.
I don't know if that's a great rule of life, but it is in this case, right here on the puzzler.
Always go with the disembodied hand.
All right, I'll give you one more. Even though there are a bunch of these armchair treasure hunts, we can talk about them another time, but I'll give you one more, which was another book that came out about three years later, inspired by Masquerade. It was sort of the American version of Masquerade, and it was called The Secret nineteen eighty two. It was by Byron Priests or Price, I can't remember. And he hid he buried twelve treasures around America and Canada, and he clued them with twelve cryptic poems and twelve cryptic paintings. So I'm going to give you two facts and I'll see if I can stump you with this one. And just as background, I think that three or four of these treasures have been found so far, but the rest are still out there and it's very active. There are people still on the internet, still still working on this, working away all right. So the cask the treasure in Boston was found by a construction worker underneath home plate in a baseball field that was getting demolished. So that's fact one. Fact two, the New Orleans treasure was found by a spring break vacationer right outside the boundary of Anne Rice's mansion. So which of those do you think?
Wow, I mean, they both seem plausible. I'm going to go with number one. Again. No, there's no disembodied hand involved, but it seems like a likely, you know place. It seems like a more accessible location than outside Anne Rice's mansion in New Orleans. But I don't know.
You tell me, well, would it help if I said it was outside the boundaries of her proll you.
Did say that. I just you know, I still think it'd be a little suspect to be digging around outside Anne Rice's.
Yeah, right, Yes, I couldn't get you. So there you go. Yes, it was a whole hilarious ordeal where they were digging up doing construction on this baseball field and he got there just in time to tell the construction worker, Hey, keep an eye out for it. Uh and uh. So there you go. But the other ones are still out there. If you have nothing else going on at all in your life.
And if you find one, remember you heard about it here on the Puzzler.
Yeah, give us a little tip.
Jar is right next to the workbench.
All right, exactly, All right. Well that was it. That was our tour of the Puzzle Lab. So while you're waiting for the next episode, please check out our Instagram feed where we have original puzzles. It's at Hello Puzzlers, and we will see you here on Monday for more puzzling puzzles that will puzzling puzzling.
Use Tay Puzzlers. It's your chief puzzle Officer, Greg Pliska here with the extra credit answer from our previous show, A Little Game, AJ and I all based upon trademarked words, trademarked product names that have become common words genericized terms in the English language. Your extra credit clue was this invented by Swiss engineer George de Mestrol or George de Mestral. This common fastener is a portmanteau from the French words for hooked velvet. Those words are vellure and crochet, and the product is velcrow. Yes, velcrow is still a trademarked term, but a very common hooked fastener that you can find on all kinds of clothing and other products. Thanks for playing here at the Puzzler. We are the velcrow in your puzzle expandable pants. Thanks for wearing your expandable pants, and we'll see here next time. Thanks for playing along with the team here at the Puzzler with AJJ. Jacobs. I'm Greg Pliska, your chief puzzle Officer. Our executive producers are Neelie Lohman and Adam Newhouse of New House Ideas and Lindsay Hoffman of iHeart Podcasts. The show is produced by Jody Averragan and Brittany Brown of Roulette Productions, with production support from Claire Bidegar Curtis. Our associate producer is Andrea Schoenberg. The Puzzler with AJ Jacobs is a co production with New House Ideas and is distributed by Heed Pathos Rats New Noah rearrange that it's 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, b
