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, where we ladle out your daily puzzle soup. I'm your host, A J. Jacobs, and I am here with Chief puzzle Officer Greg Pliska.
Hello, Greg, Hey J.
I'm glad to be here. You know, I've been down in the puzzle lab where I have a lot of dictionaries. I've got ten or twelve dictionaries and encyclopedias and alexicons of strange and wonderful words. And so today's puzzle is actually dug out of all those tomes. It's the puzzle is called which is it cricket position or Carpenter's Tool.
Well, now, I did read the encyclopedia for my first book, so I should get one hundred percent.
You're going to nail this, Yes, this is you got.
Exercise, will not even bother Right, it's the end of the episode. Thanks everybody a jail.
Yeah, it would be true if I didn't forget ninety nine point nine percent of it. But let's give it a shot. Let's give it a shot. So wait, it's cricket versus what was the other one?
Carpenter's tool?
So I'm going to give you the name of an item, and you tell us whether it's a fielding position in the game of cricket or a carpenter's tool.
Okay, I'll give it. I've never seen a game of cricket. I hear they last like a month and a half, but I'll give it a shot.
That's what makes this that's what makes this makes this fun.
All right, your first one is silly point.
Silly point, I'm going to have to say, you know, sometimes cricket does look silly. No offense to our British and Indian listeners, but I'm going to say that sounds like a cricket a cricket position.
You would be correct.
That is a position in cricket, and it's actually someone who stands close to the batsman. And it's called silly because that would be a foolish thing to do, stand close to the person who's about to whack the ball at you.
So so we could sell point.
We could call our catchers in baseball a silly point as well.
Exactly, they're standing there, sitting right behind the batter. It would be more like if if we had a fielder stand right in front of the battle. I see that that would be kind of the silly point. It'd be right there, right, all right, here's your next one.
Cat's paw, cats paw, All right, Well, I know a bear's claw is pastry, but that's a whole other puzzle.
It's a whole different puzzle.
I'm gonna cricket position or a carpentry tool.
I'm just gonna get I'm gonna say carpentry tool.
Oh, you are correct.
Yes, it's a it's a metal hand tool that you used to extract nails. So it looks kind of like a crowbar, but with that forked end and you can pull the nails out with it.
So hammers do have a cat's paw on the end.
I don't know if that's the same term, but yes, it's like that thing on the other side.
Of a of a hammer.
Got it, all right, here's another one for you.
End nippers end and.
Nipper nippers and interesting. All right, I'll just.
Play that position in cricket or you're going to get it out of the garage and go to work.
Well, either way, I love the phrase, and nippers nippers is a funny little collection of sounds. I'm going to have to say that's also a carpentry tool.
Wow, you are very good at this, that is correct, similar to pincers or similar to pliers, right, but with more force at the point. So also good at pulling nails out or putting more force on an object our end nippers.
So that encyclopedia I read is paying off or I'm just being totally lucky, which is the actual situation.
Let's try Let's try this one. How about sweeper.
Cover sweeper cover all right, or it could be it could be either way. I mean, I don't know. I'm feeling like Harry Potter had something like called the sweeper, didn't it. So I'm going to.
Say position in quidditch, right, very different.
From well, I feel it's in the same area. So I'm gonna say, I'm gonna say cricket.
Well, you would be correct once again. Sweeper cover, shit, I actually be fooled. You think it's like a thing you put over your broom or something. It's a deep fielding defensive position. So kind of the opposite of the silly point. Right, you're way out in the field, you're the sweeper cover, and you're out there to kind of roam around and catch the ball when it's batted.
Well, you've done very well today. Aj.
I think the encyclopedia helped you, or maybe you're a secret fan of cricket, I don't know.
And carpentry tools, both of them are my passion.
Shall I give the listeners a bonus?
I think?
So, you know, let's let's give them two this week. One is a cricket position and one is a carpentry tool. And these are cow corner and chalk line.
Ow corner and chalk line.
And chalk line. Which is which?
All right, puzzlers, think on that, and please don't forget to subscribe to the Puzzler podcast and I'll meet you here tomorrow for more puzzling puzzles that will puzzle you puzzlingly.
Hello, puzzlers.
Chief puzzle Officer Greg Pliska here to give you the extra credit answer from our previous episode, we played Retronyms with Stephen J. Dubner, in which every answer was a retronym, a word that had to be invented once a new thing was invented. So, for example, acoustic guitar didn't have to be invented until the electric guitar appeared, and then we needed a term to go back to the acoustic guitar. So in this case we talked about how electronic versions of documents forced us to come up with this term, and that term is hard copy, because of course, before we had electronic versions, all the copies made were in fact hard or physical copies. Thanks for playing with us, and we look forward to playing with you again on our next episode. 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 Neuhaus of New House Ideas and Lindsay Hoffman of iHeart Podcasts. The show is produced by Jody Abergan and Britney 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 disc Catastrophe. No wait, that's rearrange the letters. 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,