© 2024 254 North Front Street, Suite 300, Wilmington, NC 28401 | 910.343.1640
News Classical 91.3 Wilmington 92.7 Wilmington 96.7 Southport
Play Live Radio
Next Up:
0:00
0:00
0:00 0:00
Available On Air Stations
CAPE FEAR MEMORIAL BRIDGE CLOSURE: UPDATES, RESOURCES, AND CONTEXT

Two Words Enter, One Meaning Leaves

On-Air Challenge:You will be given a five-letter word and seven-letter word. Rearrange the letters of one of these words to get a synonym of the other. For example, if you are given "alloy" and "devoted," the answer would be "loyal," which is an anagram of "alloy."

Last Week's Challenge:Name a well-known singer. Drop the first and last letters of the singer's first name and you'll get the letters of a well-known company. Drop the first and last letters of the singer's last name, and you'll identify the logo that the company was classically known for. Who is the singer and what's the company?

Answer: The singer is Patti LaBelle. Drop the first and last letters from "Patti" to get the name of the company "AT&T." Drop the first and last letters from "LaBelle" to get AT&T's original logo, "a bell."

Winner: Ed Bernard of Concord, Mass.

Next Week's Challenge from the Grabarchuk family: Take 15 coins. Arrange them in an equilateral triangle with one coin at the top, two coins touching below, three coins below that, then four, then five. Remove the three coins at the corners so you're left with 12 coins. Using the centers of the 12 coins as points, how many equilateral triangles can you find by joining points with lines?

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).