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 Enigmatic Smile on your Puzzler Mona Lisa, I am your host, A J. Jacobs. First off, thanks to listener Rebecca Ranninger in California for suggesting that introductory phrase. Thank you, Rebecca, and please send in yours. I love them. I am here as always with Chief Puzzle Officer Greg Pliska.
Welcome Greg, Thank you Ajay, and thanks as well to Rebecca for that. I love when listeners sending ideas for the opening. What do we even call that? The opening? Tidbit? The opening?
They I don't know what is the appetizer.
The appetizer it is itself is the amuse boosh.
There you goat, which I think we've actually used a moose boosh on as an intro. So it all comes together. Well, this puzzles. As you know, as CPO, you write many of our puzzles, but you are also chief Puzzle Solver and so in that capacity today I have a puzzle that I wrote. And this puzzle occurred to me a few nights ago when I was reading Charles Dickens and I was reading as Charles I did, I've gotten into it I need fiction. I've decided fiction at night. I need fiction at night. The nonfiction gets me too amped up.
So I was going to ask, do you read since you write nonfiction, right, do you find that you read a lot of nonfiction as well?
Well? I do during the day, but I've decided at night I'm going fiction and I love it. So this was in Charles Dickens. I'm reading along and I see the word moped, and I'm like, wait a second, I did not know they had mopeds in the nineteen century London.
And then.
Exactly well, but I read it again, of course, and I, oh, it's moped as in the past tense of mope to be dejected. So they did not have motorized or horse drawn scooters in David Copperfield. Uh. But it gave me an idea for puzzles, because that's the way my brain nowadays works. And I thought, are there other words where you gain a syllable and a different meaning based on how you say the word.
Okay, so these are sort of they're not like I rhymes, They're more like.
The like they're almost the exact same word, but depending on how you say them, they are totally different. Although I will I. Oh, there is.
I can't remember what it is now, but it is. They're not homographs. Maybe they've spelled the same.
Oh that's good, that.
Might be it.
All right, well i'm here.
My job is not only to solve the puzzles, but to interrupt you at every turn. Do you know where the word mopeped comes from?
Well, I would think it's motorized and ped is feet because you have like so maybe it's like a flintstones thing. What is it?
It is? It is, it's got a portmanteau of motor and pedal, except it's from the Swedish words motor and ped dollar. However you produce it because the guy who journalist in Sweden who coined it to refer to a you know, a vehicle that had an engine, basically a bicycle with an engine, so it was a motorized pedal bicycle.
Yeah, if a bicycle and a motorcycle had a baby, it might be a yeah exactly, I love.
It, and it would it would have moped around.
It would be very sad because it's like, I'm not a motorcycle. I'm just but anyway, these are words like that. But I will say I couldn't find a lot that were pure, so I had to do some that had accent marks. So a lot of these are sort of in the expose expose. These are all the answers are two words. One of the words is naked. One has an accent possibly, or it doesn't or it doesn't a lot of these, you know, sometimes they have an accent, sometimes they don't. That is the puzzle, and it is a lot of these phrases, as often on the puzzler, are fanciful, so you might not hear them in real life. But the first one, actually you might, because this is when you start your curriculum vtie again.
Oh that's very good. I like that. I like that. Curriculum vtie is also known as a resume, so this should be to resume your resume.
Exactly, all right? You ready for the next sure?
Sure, although I am I'm immediately curious if the word resume in French probably comes from something similar to resume to to resum up your life.
Interesting, but carry on, well, I think few of these will have that, but you can tell me, uh, this is a spy in the factory that makes chocolate chili sauce.
Then there's only one such factory exactly.
I think.
Actually, a very delicious Mexican sauce. This is the Molay mole.
It is the Molay mole, exactly. And by the way, for foodies, I'm sorry I called it a chocolate chili sauce because on the Internet it remonstrates me or scolds me. Chocolate is just one part of it. Air is tomato, sesame seed cloves. But you know, chocolate gets all the publicity.
Yeah, but that's I mean, come on, we ketchup is a tomato sauce, though there's other things in ketchup.
All right, Well, you're gonna get the mole.
I'm gonna letters send the militia is coming after me, exactly, Melee, well, good one, all right.
Next, this is someone whose bald head is made of chopped chicken liver.
I love this. I've noticed the same thing with this word. It's it's a person with a pate, a potte peate.
Exactly, a potte pet which pot can be spelled without the h the accent, but it is sometimes with the accent.
All right.
This is pink wine that has ascended into the air. Pink wine that has ascended into the air.
Actually, how when I drink the pink wine, I ascend into the air. It's the rose.
Rose, the rose rose. Exactly.
Again, these are good, But I think the mole one and the pate one and the rose one are probably not cognate, like the two words don't come from the same exactly.
Yes, I have a feeling there is no other cognates. This is a cognate free puzzle. People with the possible exception of razume resume all right, well this one. And by the way, I looked up what rose is in case it came up. And what I love is true rose is They just leave the dark grape skins in for a little to give it a tinge. And this was on some food website. The simple mixing of red wine and white wine to impart color is discouraged in most wine growing regions, especially France, where it is forbidden by law. So do not go to France and to mix your red and white wine. You'll be thrown in the bastille, yes.
As you should be, and you'll have pot smushed upon your pate.
Exactly, all right. This is for the purpose of rice wine. For the purpose of rice wine.
Ah, Yes, for the sake of sake. Exactly what food and beverage in this puzzle age? Did you write this while you were hungry? And rose and sake? There is?
Well, there is one other food related one. I'm going to go for it now, just so we're on a roll. And then I've got some non food ones, okay, to finish us off. All right. This last food one is a spouse who joins you for a South American herbal drink.
Oh oh, this is good. I'd like this one too. I actually had some of this when I was in South America, but I was not with my mate when I had the mate exactly.
And Mate solo.
It's some of the order at Starbucks. I'll have the Mate solo.
All right. I got two more for you, because again there's a very limited number of words.
I was just reminded as you were doing this about the French British pronunciation of words. They take the word file at the French word filet and they say fill it right right, just to be contrary, just to establish the kind of we're on this side of the channel and we're going to pronounce the t. And then you take all these all these words we say with an a like like uh. Now, I don't have a good example, but we we tend to British tend to make the a's rounder than we do, right, except in the word pasta where they say pasta.
Oh, just because they want to say we're not.
Italian, that's what. Anyway, that was a tangent talking about all these foods and philet, philet came to mind.
And so like the Napoleonic Wars are not over, they are still going on in language. Yep, sorry, all right. Two more. This is a metallic fabric that is uninspiring or dull.
Oh yeah, it's I mean big l for this one. It is the lame La May, the lame lam.
May exactly lam May. I always thought it's sort of a disco disco like you know, it's metallic fiber rapped in nylon or spandex.
It sounds it sounds like dragware too, like this. Oh yeah, especially when it's like, oh honey, that is the most lame La May. Right. I just hear that being announced a Studio fifty four or something.
There you go, all right. Last one is this is to work someone who works still at bending their knees in ballet. They would be.
They would be, uh, they would.
We're talking about plea exactly, plea. They would be ply to ply.
Someone who plies. I was trying to the singular apply is p l y and that wouldn't work. So I was trying to get the right form of the word. I like that.
No, you got it, You got it.
That was it.
I mean, I searched. I low, I've got one for extra credits. I got one that might work.
Might not.
I'm not even going to give it to you. It was a group of people who volunteer to take care of chicken enclosures, a coop co op.
I like that it requires a hyphen usually or that that, but it's not aum lot and that when it functions there it's a diacrisis or something like that.
I did look up. I love those names of the diacritical. Mark likes to use.
It a lot.
Oh yeah, like co operate.
Yes exactly. They insist on putting this that is hilarious.
Yeah, all right, Well I that I'm going to give the extra credit in a moment. But I just wanted to throw a couple of things at you, because while researching this puzzle, I stumbled upon a website with Dickensian vocabulary. These are the words very good and Charles Dickenson. This is sort of an extra bonus puzzle. I'm going to give you three words, and you tell me what you think they might have meant in the Dickens books. All right, a Belcher? Have you heard of a Belcher?
Belcher? Well, I've got several in my family. But that's how you want to use them. And this is not a proper name.
It's not like no lowercase belcher Belcher. I mean it is a it is named after a person, so but it is not it.
Is a Can you use it in a sentence?
Sure? I sneezed, and thankfully I had my Belcher in my blazer.
Pocket handkerchief, Yes, handkerchief, but.
Not just it's a blue handkerchief with white spots, named for well known boxer gentleman Jim Belcher, who carried one.
That's you know, who knew that a specifically patterned handkerchief had its own special name exactly.
I mean maybe he was sponsored. Maybe it's like the Nike and Lebron or you know, it's like he was sponsored by the blue handkerchief white spot.
But it became a generic term it's it's like not a capital lowercase lowercase J. You're sporting a very fine belcher today, exactly the pasta please.
All right, this one has a different meaning now than what it was then knock up to knock up.
Yes, it does not mean to impregnate. Often unintentionally, it means to visit, to go visit someone.
Well, this it could be according to this website, it's the knocker uppers, the people who banged on your door or window to wake you up.
Oh oh, that's very interesting. I've heard I've heard people use it. Yeah, we're gonna go knock him up. I mean we're gonna go visit him. We're going to go knock on his door and see if he's there.
Interesting. Well, it's sort of in the genre of make love, which which Dickens uses all the time, like which sounds so naughty, But in that time it was just wooing or courting. So I'm just making love when I uh.
There's there's one I love when British English and American English, you know, get mixed around. Because I was doing a workshop with a guy who used the word jobbies to refer to sort of things, you know, like yeah, get me a bunch of those jobbies over there. And apparently the Brits we were working with thought that word meant turds.
Oh boy, yeah, why.
Do you get him all those little turds? What is he talking about?
Interesting? Well, when I when my first book came out, my son was a baby and we went to England to part as part of the tour, and we told the babysitter, you know, he does get very upset sometimes at nights, and just give him a pacifier. She nods her head, she has no idea.
You know.
We came back, we called. She called me in the middle of my speech, like your baby is freaking out, and we're like, did you give him the passes? She's like, I don't know what a pacifier is and it was a dummy. We should have said give him the dummy. So that is an example of two land separated by common language.
The other one that I remember happened to me when I was on tour with a band in the UK. We were staying in a couple of us had to share a room that had only one bed in it. So before we went to the gig, we called down to the desk and we said we need a cot an extra cot in our room. And we went to the show and we came back and in the room there was a playpen like a little baby you know, a little baby sleeper playpin.
Because that was you have to sleep that.
No, I think we called and said, actually we met another small bed and there was a different word they wanted.
Interesting, not the word they were looking for. All right, I got one more yes, which is a chairman, a chairman or chairman, the person who gets the chairs, similar chair the men who carry the sedan chair. So these are I mean, it's a literal chairman, a chairman. And and by the way, when I was researching my book on the Constitution, it does turn out Ben Franklin arrived at the Constitutional Convention in a Sadaian chair carried by prisoners, by Pennsylvania prisoners, which is not the not his best move, He's my favorite, not a good look. I love Ben Franklin, but this was, I would say, one of his few faux pads. Yeah, because it's like, you know, we're gonna found this country based on the idea of freedom. Here I am in a sedan chair like Marie Antoinette carried. But listen, he did a lot of good. All right, well that they're a lot more. You did very well. You know you're dickens.
I have I also have an answer to the I looked up those two dots the way the New Yorker used, Oh yeah yeah, called it diarysus I said, diacrisis or diarysus d I A R E. S I s diarysus I give you.
I give you full credit, and then the X the resume, resume will have to wait for maybe at the extra credit you can tell people about that mystery. Well, fantastic. As always, I have a one for the puzzlers at home. Here is your extra credit puzzle. An ancient soccer cheer, an ancient soccer cheer, especially as said by perhaps a Southern person, a Southern United States person. Thank you everyone, and come back to hear the answer to all those mysteries. And if you have just a minute less than a minute, please consider rating us on your favorite podcast platform, and we will meet you here tomorrow for more puzzling puzzles that will puzzle you puzzlingly.
Hey puzzlers, Greg Bliska here up from the puzzle left with the extra credit answer from our previous episode, David Kwang joined us for a puzzle we called King Kwong, where we take a common phrase and change one of the K sounds to a kW sound. We gave you the extra credit clue an underwater ecosystem where lots of fights and spats occur, and that, of course is a quarrel reef, not a coral reef, but a quarrel reef. We have no quarrel with you here at the puzzler, so we look forward to playing among the chorl next time.