NPR puzzle synopsis for 2014-08-10

[Richard Renner]

Synopsis of
NPR Weekend Edition puzzle
Linda Wertheimer (subbing for Rachel Martin) and Will Shortz
2014-08-10

The Current Challenge (given 2014-08-03) came from listener Ben Bass of Chicago. Take the name of a modern-day country. Add an A and rearrange the letters to name a group of people who used to live in the area of this country. Who are they? The answers are Netherlands and Neanderthals.

Linda reported about 350 answers.

The on-air player is Molly Dobbins of Double Oak, Texas. She is a nurse.  She solved the puzzle while on a long drive to work.  She appeared on Jeopardy about a month ago.

Today's on-air puzzle is called, "Getting Thick In The Midsection." Each answer is a common six-letter word. Each clue is a four-letter word consisting of the first and last two letters of the answer word, in order. Alternatively, take the clue word and insert two letters in the middle to get the answer. For example, if the clue is "pace," the answer could be "PALACE," formed by inserting LA into PA-CE.

CLUES (answers are at the end of this synopsis):
1. chub
2. poet
3. rain
4. when
5. hose
6. show
7. door
8. toil
9. joey
10. fish

The listener challenge for next week asks us to name a well-known movie of the past — two words, seven letters in total. These seven letters can be rearranged to spell the name of an animal plus the sound it makes. What animal is it?
http://www.npr.org/2014/08/10/339149899/getting-thick-in-the-midsection

Answers must be received by 3:00 p.m. Eastern Time on THURSDAY.  One entry per person. NPR will no longer receive entries by email.  Be sure to include a telephone number where you can be reached if you are selected as the winner.  Entries may be made at the web page:
http://help.npr.org/npr/includes/customer/npr/custforms/contactus.aspx?pz=t
You might also get to this page (and an index of recent puzzle episodes)  by going to:
npr.org/puzzle

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Editor's notes:
 
Puzzles, and contents of Weekend Edition/Sunday puzzle segment are copyrighted 2014, by Will Shortz and NPR. Reprinted here with permission.

Here's our regular monthly puzzle transcription schedule:
1st Sunday Even-numbered months: Joe; odd-numbered months: Jerry
2nd Sunday Richard
3rd Sunday Joe
4th Sunday Jerry
5th Sunday Richard
Our e-mail addresses are:
Richard Renner <rrennerATigc.org>
Joe Wander <jdwandersrATgmail.com>
Jerry Miller <jmmillerATmiamioh.edu>

Here are the hints given for the on-air puzzle:
rain, think of something to eat
when, think of something you want to do to some clothes or bedsheets, a vowel then a consonant
hose, insert a vowel then a consontant
show, something that follows you around
door, someone who Molly (a nurse) works with
toil, a part of the human body

On Sun, Aug 3, 2014 at 3:24 PM, David Sobelsohn wrote:
   Count on our synopsis team to provide some provocative aspects to the
report of an easy on-line puzzle (the August 3 "Bad to the Bone"
puzzle, in which each answer's 1st word begins with "ba" & the 2d word
begins with "d").

On August 3, at 9:10 a.m. Jerry circulated his report. At 10:42 a.m.
Joe circulated his report.  Did you guys have mixed signals?

The "Bad to the Bone" challenge posited 2-word answers, in some
tension with Jerry's report that one answer was "back seat driver."
Consistent with the on-air puzzle premise, Joe's report had "backseat"
as one word.

Jerry's report includes a hint, regarding the clue "basic thing earned
after four years of college" (answer: BAchelor's Degree). The hint is
that the answer doesn't start with the word "basic."  I remember
hearing that clue on the air.  Joe's report omits it, perhaps because
in writing, in contrast to over the air, it seemed unnecessary to
report a "hint" that the clue & the answer don't start with exactly
the same word.

But the most startling part of both synopses was Joe's reference to a
supposed 1933 Marx Brothers movie called "The Spy" & a supposed Marx
Brothers joke "Euripides Eumenides."  The Marx Brothers (as a team)
starred in 13 movies (not counting 1957's "The Story of Mankind,"
which included Groucho, Chico, & Harpo in separate scenes).  No Marx
Brothers movie had the title "The Spy."  See, e.g., Allen Eyles, "The
Marx Brothers: Their World of Comedy" (Paperback Library Ed. 1971).
The Marx Brothers did have a 1933 movie called "Duck Soup," in which
Chico & Harpo do portray spies.  But I've seen that film several
times, & have no recollection of any of the brothers using the phrase
"Euripides Eumenides."  Nor is there any website that focuses on the
work of the Marx Brothers & that attributes the phrase "Euripides
Eumenides" to the Marx Brothers.  The 5 websites that even have the
phrase are an LA Times crossword blog, a website on "Why Evolution is
True," a BBC website about DNA, something from a "Novak Graduate
Seminar" about "Racing €˜the Jew'" (this one is apparently Joe's
source), & a Danish website (not in English) called "Bennie's
Rate-Base: ALL - WORDs."  I first heard the phrase "Euripides
Eumenides" from a girlfriend who'd majored in philosophy.  I just
assumed it was an old joke phrase familiar to students of the
classics.  However, it's also true that in the 1932 Marx Brothers film
"Horse Feathers," Groucho portrays a college president.  The film is
replete with academic puns.  It would be no surprise if, in that film,
Bert Kalmar & Harry Ruby (principal screenwriters for both "Horse
Feathers" & "Duck Soup") had the Marx Brothers use a pun familiar to
classics scholars.  However, I've also seen that movie several times,
& have no recollection of anyone using the phrase "Euripides
Eumenides."  An attribution of that phrase to the Marx Brothers
appears in neither
http://www.mirror.co.uk/news/weird-news/worlds-geekiest-jokes-explained-after-2051303
nor in http://www.slate.com/blogs/future_tense/2013/06/28/the_most_intellectual_joke_you_know_an_idiot_s_guide_to_the_reddit_thread.html,
suggesting that an attribution to the Marx Brothers resembles the
false attribution of famous quotes to such quoteworthy historical
figures as Winston Churchill, Mark Twain, & Yogi Berra, who often get
credited with having originated humorous quips they never expressed.
See also www.metafilter.com/73357/The-oldest-joke-in-the-book-really.

From: Joe Wander
To: David Sobelsohn
Cc: Jerry Miller, Richard Renner
Subject: Re: NPR Puzzle synopsis 2014-08-03
Date: Aug 4, 2014 1:51 AM
Hi, David. Thanks for the detailed analysis and particularly for the two links to the joke sites. I remembered that Duck Soup cast Harpo and Chico as spies (and the date matches) and ran it this afternoon to be sure the tailor gag wasn't in it. The line is at least that old and is so well matched to Groucho's style that the absence of a documented attribution of its origin doesn't completely shake my faith that they used it at some time off screen. However that is only an item of faith, unsupported in the historical records. The context was always "Euripides?" "Yes, Eumenides?"---I should have included some punctuation. Given the Greek letter theta, the claim on the British site (which I thought i had included) about pronunciation was a bit shaky, but I was pushing to get the synopsis out and that was the last item holding me up so I went with it. I'd swear that I heard one of the Magliozzis list Euripides Eumenides as the show tailor on more than one occasion, but that was certainly not even close to the origin of it, and it is also undocumented.

I'm sad to report that the link to the humorlessness of the  Bible and Koran in the last link is dead---a pity. If you happen to encounter another such site please pass it along. I'm always looking for ammunition to support a case that one or the other has been responsible for most of the armed conflicts in the world's recorded history. joe


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Links of interest:
World Scrabble Championship
http://www.wscgames.com
American Crossword Puzzle Tournament
http://www.crosswordtournament.com/
Merl Reagle's article on constructing crossword puzzles, available at
http://www.crosswordtournament.com/articles/inq031697.htm
World Puzzle Federation (including Sudoku tournaments):
http://www.worldpuzzle.org
The US Team page is at:
http://wpc.puzzles.com/
Register for the USA team at:
http://wpc.puzzles.com/register/index.htm
More of Ed Pegg Jr.'s puzzles are available at:
http://www.mathpuzzle.com
National Puzzlers' League
http://www.puzzlers.org
Kristy Fowler suggests linguaphiles visit
http://www.wordsmith.org/awad
You can join Kathie Schneider's email list for accessible word and logic puzzles. To subscribe, send a blank email to
blind-puzzle...@googlegroups.com
Will noted that Matt Jones writes the Jonesin' Crosswords which appears in over 50 alternative newspapers.
http://www.jonesincrosswords.com/

Richard Renner
rrennerATigc.org
Today in Jackson Heights, Queens, New York
www.taterenner.com

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CLUES    INSERT    ANSWERS
chub    er    cherub
poet    ck    pocket
rain    is    raisin
when    it    whiten
hose    rs    horse
show    ad    shadow
door    ct    doctor
toil    ns    tonsil
joey    ck    jockey
fish    ni    finish

Linda suggested that "whiten" is old-fashioned

End of NPR Puzzle Synopsis.