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CAPE FEAR MEMORIAL BRIDGE: Updates, resources, and context

This Puzzle Is One For The PROs

On-air challenge:Every answer is a familiar two-word phrase or name in which the first word starts with "P" and the second word starts with "RO." For example: For the clue, "A moving part of an automobile engine," the answer would be a "piston rod."

Last week's challenge from listener David Rosen, a member of the National Puzzlers' League:The name of something that you might see your doctor about is a two-word phrase. Three letters in each word. When these six letters are written without a space, a three-letter word can be removed from inside, and the remaining three letters in order also form a word. What's interesting is that the four three-letter words — the two in the original phrase, the one that was removed, and the one that remains — all rhyme. What is the original phrase?

Answer: "Dry eye" can be rearranged into the words "rye" and "dye."

Winner: Jim Wallace of Chandler, Ariz.

Next week's challenge:Name a sport in two words — nine letters in the first word, six letters in the last — in which all six vowels (A, E, I, O, U, and Y) are used once each. What is it?

Submit Your Answer

If you know the answer to next week's challenge, submit it here. Listeners who submit correct answers win a chance to play the on-air puzzle. Important: Include a phone number where we can reach you Thursday at 3 p.m. Eastern.

Copyright 2021 NPR. To see more, visit https://www.npr.org.

NPR's Puzzlemaster Will Shortz has appeared on Weekend Edition Sunday since the program's start in 1987. He's also the crossword editor of The New York Times, the former editor of Games magazine, and the founder and director of the American Crossword Puzzle Tournament (since 1978).