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 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 Pedia Light for your puzzle hangover. I am your host, A J. Jacobs, and I am here with Chief Puzzle Officer Greg Pliska, who has joined us. He's come over from the R and D wing of Puzzler HQ to stump me to tease my brain with one of his creations.
Welcome Greg, Thank you Aga, I'm glad I've been upgraded from the basement javing.
Well, we're doing so well.
I figure right the puzzle the Puzzler Compound at a non disclosed location in Maine. I love doing these with you. This is This is a puzzle, a puzzle tipe called odd one Out, one of my favorites and kind of a thing you've done in other puzzles as well. It's basically where you have a list of things and one of them doesn't belong, and you have to identify which one doesn't belong, and in the purest form of the puzzle, the odd one out has the opposite property of whatever.
The others have in common.
So, as an example, here's four clues harring Cross, Grange and Rhode Island.
Oh interesting, I feel those are all birds of some sort.
No, no, just phrases harring cross, grange, and Rhode Island.
Oh. Interesting, there's a word.
There's a word that comes before three of them and after one of them.
Oh okay, oh I like that. Okay, So harring bone is what coming up.
With skull and crossbones would be interesting, But then grange bone Rhode Island bone.
It doesn't right.
Herring the word before herring pickled.
No, well, I like with the people at home.
Pickled grange pickled Rhode Island it comes before herring, cross and grange.
Well you you had told me something about a Rhode Island red.
Rhode Island red.
Yes, it's a famous kind of rooster or chicken rather so Rhode Island red.
I mean it's famous, more famous.
The more we do the everyone's going to know the Rhode Island red.
So yeah, okay, I got it. It's red. So red comes before and after.
Red, herring, red cross, the famous athlete red, Grange and then Rhode Island red.
Like it?
I like it. That was tricky. But my son, when he was three, he would give me the trickiest which one doesn't belong because he would all give me two items. He would be like, which doesn't belong the lamp or the boat, And I'd be like, I don't know the lamp. He's like, no, you idiot. The boat, of course, of course. Very uh. It was very difficult fear it out.
Truly either of them would be correct in that case.
Right, I think you could make an argument for either one. Yeah, but he had in his mind. So all right, well let me see if I can do better than that and better than the red one.
All right, here's your first one. Pneumonia, coop, co up, coup, psyche, and pterodactyl.
Yeah.
Sometimes it helps to write these down. Pneumonia, coop, psyche, and pterodactyl.
Damn it. I was hoping it would come immediately, and it is not.
All right, but well, if you've written them down, you might see it.
Oh, very nicely, yep, I got it, all.
Right, ye pterodactyl, what do you got?
They all have a silent pe, but one of them has it at the end.
That's right, Ku has a silent P at the end, where all the others have a silent p at the beginning.
Very good, Well, thank you. I needed a tiny hint, but not a huge hint.
I'll take it. I'll take it this one, This one you won't have to write down. Oh, okay, Poland spring, yeah, Brussels, Brussels sprouts, okay, London broil, yeah, Stockholm syndrome.
I love it. I am gonna say the outlier is Poland spring now.
And why would you say that?
Well, all of the others are cities, and yes, Poland is a country, right, you.
Know there's a specifically European capital cities, and that is a European country, Poland. So Brussels, London, and Stockholm. Although I noticed when I read it you could also say Stockholm syndrome is the odd one out because the other three are things you can eat or drink.
Ah, very good, that's true.
In fact, there's a version of this game where you try to create four things, each of which could be the odd one out.
Oh I like that.
I like that, but that's not what we're doing today.
I also like because I always, I'd say, for half my life, I thought it was Brussel sprouts for some reason. So it's nice to hear the s in there. Brussels sprouts exactly. Often forgotten.
All right, I'm here, here's another one for you. Corkscrew queueing qu eu ei n G night shade and strengths.
Strengths.
Okay, uh interesting.
Definitely helps to write this one down queueing queuing q u e u i n G.
Q u e u e I n G. Sorry, night shade and strengths.
I like how you pronounced strengths. That is very clear. I like that. Well you say it's it's important to write it down, which probably means to have something to do with the words, not necessarily the meanings like the.
Very good, so fool. So now first puzzle.
Well, I had a theory that they were compound words because there's quirkscrew and night shade, but then that totally fell apart when you got to the other two. Can I do which two don't belong?
Because then your son's game, all.
Right, then we have Then I was like, well, there's some weird g things going on with night shade and strengths. But that doesn't track all right, So now I'm gonna have to go back corkscrew.
To It does not have to do with the meaning, It does not have to do with the sound. It has to do with the spelling.
Oh, by the way, I got it, I got one. I got one. It's not the one you thought of, but it still works, so I'm gonna take full credit. They are all two syllable words, except for strengths, which is one syllable. Nailed it.
Okay, that's one possible interpretation.
Yes, thank you, you said. It's not it's the spelling. It does spelling.
It has to do with the spelling for the letters in the word rather than the sound or the meaning.
Oh, I see there's ones with a lot of consonants in a row, and then there's one with a lot of vowels in a row.
Specifically, I have consonants in a row in corkscrew, night shade, and strengths, but five vowels in a row for queueing.
That's great. I love it. Mine is just as good, but yours.
Is absolutely all right.
We'll do one more.
Okay, good taj mahall, yes, sir, egregious, m Baja California, and majestic.
Hmmm, do I have to write these down?
It doesn't hurt if you look at them. It surely doesn't have anything to do with the meaning of taj mahall, egregious, Baja California or majestic.
Well, I will say there's a lot of j's going on, which is my A lot of j's in my name. And the j's are pronounced in three different ways. So there's a ah for baha and then a majestic. So could it be just as simple as that they all have the all of them have interesting pronunc.
Why you noticed the js.
Well, there's one that doesn't have a J, which is egregious.
It's explained why you cotton down to the js quickly?
Oh, it is the third letter of each of them. That's true too, It is true, so I get full credit the J.
What's the letter before the J?
Oh, there's always an A. There's always an A, so oh, a J. That's me. And the other one is greg. Very clever, very clever. I don't think you're egregious, by the way, but I do think I'm majestic.
You are majestic, sure, So yes that ma Baja California and majestic have aj in them. Egregious has greg in it, and.
Here we are.
That's it. That was a great one. And it's also very interesting to me that they all had different pronunciations of the J. I give my sell full credit for that.
For noticing that absolutely these.
Were fantastic as always. Thank you, Greg, almost as good as my sons. Do you have an extra credit for I.
Do have an extra credit for the for the listeners. It's a tricky one, I hope. Here are your four clues Delaware, Hawaii, Minnesota, and West Virginia.
Hmm, okay once again.
Delaware, Hawaii, Delaware, Hawaii, Minnesota, West Virginia. All right, any of them. Three of them have something in common and the fourth one has the opposite.
Ohsh let's talk after because I have some theories. They're not good, they're just theories. Well, thank you, Greg, and thank you at home, puzzlers or in the car. Don't forget to subscribe to the Puzzler podcast and we will meet you here tomorrow for more puzzling puzzles that will puzzle you puzzlingly, Puzzlers.
This is Greg Pliska, your chief puzzle Officer. I'm very happy to be here to share the extra credit answer from our previous show. We played with Bethany joy Len's actress and songwriter and singer. We gave you songs that have body.
Parts in the title.
For your extra credit, we played you this audio clip. That's right, you all recognize the song under my Thumb. I hope you enjoyed playing along with us, and I hope you'll play with us once again.
