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 Shiny Blanket at the end of your puzzle marathon. I am your host, AJ Jacobs, and joining me today is our very own chief puzzle Officer, Greg Pliska, who has been down in his puzzle lab cooking up some new ways to stump me.
Hello Greg, Hello AJ, and hello puzzlers.
So Greg, what do you have for me and the puzzlers today?
Well, today, AJ, I have a puzzle that I call off with their Heads.
The Alice in Wonderland, inspired often actly Gotcha.
Which is appropriate.
We know Lewis Carroll contribute a lot to the puzzling world, but in this case it's not so much a puzzle inspired by Carol as it is by one of his characters to play the Red Queen, beheading some words and turning them into new words. So I'll give you a clue to a two word phrase where the second word is a beheadmant of the first. So, for example, I might say admire President Eisenhower, as said in a famous campaign slogan, Yes, I like Ike like Ike. Right, you take the first word, remove the first letter, and that gives you the second word.
Fantastic. I think I got it.
Don't worry.
No words were actually harmed in the making of this game, although down in the puzzle lab we have a lot of mice that turned into ice.
Okay, well, that does sound like a little bit of a ped of violation, but we'll forgive you.
We'll hope the puzzle lab is off limits.
Fair enough.
No real harm is done in the lab, gotcha? All right, here's your first clue ready. A special edition of a magazine made entirely of Kleenex.
Hmmm, all right, so special edition of a magazine. I'm guessing that's going to be issue, and Kleenex is a trademarked name for tissue. So issue, tissue, tissue.
Issue, tissue, it's the tissue issue, that's right, tissue.
I like it. That's that doesn't sound very child friendly.
That's not very practical, like the Atlantic Monthly.
The tissue issue. You read it once and it falls apart in your hands.
That's right, all right, here's your here's another clue for you. Levitate above like a drone or a helicopter.
Mm okay, levitate above like a drone or a helicopter. So I was initially thinking float but that is I don't there's no float.
Float float doesn't really work, right, you got it?
So levitate above would be like a helicopter or a drone would be hover.
Over there, you go over, very good.
Very good. All right, I'm feeling okay, I haven't humiliated myself yet.
Feeling good, all right, all right, here's here's a third one for you. Which of you owns these stockings? Or a dramatic reading that one? Oh okay, which of you owns these stockings? These stockings?
Well, now I would think it for which of you is like who or whose?
And this one is.
Interesting because I think when you behead who's you get a whole different pronunciation. So that's a little trick. Whose hose?
Whose hose is exactly right?
Yes?
Excellent?
Yes?
And actually hover over is also slightly different pronunciation and the previous one. That's part of what makes some of these later ones get tricky is exactly that they're not just two rhyming words. They are two words that change. When you take away the first letter, some of the pronunciation changes. And that's part of what I look for when I'm making these. It's think that things that are a little more tricky than just mice and ice.
You are a devious person.
That's my job down in the lab.
That's right, all right, here's one that, in fact is a little more devious, legal term for when a resident of Madagascar or Manhattan is defamed or insulted publicly.
Ah, all right, well Madagascar in Manhattan. They are both. They're not in the same continent, but they are both islands. So what if it were island slander or islander slander? Is exactly that slander slander.
Interesting, nice example of the pronunciation totally changing.
When you take away that first.
Letter, love it great one?
All right, well, do you think you can handle a three parter.
I'll give it a shot.
You're gonna have to.
Behead this thing twice. Then you're gonna take off another lesson.
I say, okay, all right, it seems cruel, but I'll try it.
Yeah. That's how we are in the puzzle lab. Cruel but fair.
Here you go, when a cafeteria carrier gets loose and fires a laser beam in a random direction.
Okay, so cafeteria carrier. I was originally thinking, who works in a cafeteria, but then I decided it's probably an object so a tray.
Yeah.
Then with trey, I'm feeling pretty good. You got a ray. And then I was thinking a tray ray A that would be like a Canadian but stray tray ray.
A stray tray ray.
Yes, it's gotten loose, it's stray, it's a cafeteria carrier and it's firing the laser beam a ray.
Excellent.
All right, well done, AJ, you got all those.
Yeah, I mean I last week I humiliated myself with one of yours, so I feel somewhat redeemed. Thank you for this. I love these puzzles. And by the way, I'm very excited because there is a relevant piece of trivia that I just learned last week. I was watching the ken Burns documentary on jazz, and early in the nineteen hundreds it wasn't called jazz. It was called jazz jass, but some mischievous prankster people like yourself kept erasing the J on the signs, so as you can you know what it is, felled.
I see where we're going.
And then so they were like, all right, here's our solution. We'll change it to jazz with two z's because as is not as funny. So there you go. It had a huge effect on modern pop culture.
This and you didn't make an ass of yourself exactly.
All right, Well, thank you, Greg. That was super fun. Greg. Do we have an extra credit for the folks at home.
Yes, I've got another three parter three parts be head meant so you chop the first letter off twice.
Really you get three words.
Here's your clue. A beer named for an old and trite story.
A beer named for an old and trite story.
That's the one.
I actually don't know it.
I don't Yeah, listen next episode and I'll give you the answer.
Excellent. All right, Yes, puzzlers, please subscribe to the Puzzler Podcast and we'll see you here tomorrow for more puzzling puzzles that will puzzle you puzzling.
Hello puzzlers, Greg Pliska, your chief puzzle officer, coming up from the lab to give you the answer to the extra credit from our previous episode. We played a game with Beaumani Jones that we call Big Foul Sports Teams where we change one letter in the name of a sports team a name of the Big four sports teams actually to get a new team name. The same way changed Big Four to Big foul. Here was the clue we gave you. This Northwest NBA team has a two word name, so the Big Foul version changes one letter in each part of that name. It's a group of players that arrives late and says that it's the railroad's fault. Those of you who know your NBA teams know that we're talking about the Northwest NBA team, the Portland Trailblazers, But we're changing one letter in each of the team's name to get the Portland train blamers, Train blamers. The train arrives late and they say it's the railroad's fault. But we won't blame you if you listen to the Puzzler late early. As long as you listen often, Thanks for listening, 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 Neuhouse 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 Rhapsodic Taste. No No, That's iHeart Podcast.
I meant to rearrange the letters.
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,