For solutions, go to the Answers to Mind Games and do a “Find” for the title of the puzzle.
Do you have a puzzle you would like to share with our readers? Contact us!
Boxes of Games and Puzzles
A variation by Bruce Whitehill of an old puzzle.
I have three boxes in my games room. One box contains only games, one contains only puzzles, and one contains a combination of both games and puzzles. One box is labeled “Games,” one is labeled “Puzzles,” and one is labeled “Games & Puzzles.” Unfortunately, each box is labeled incorrectly. How many games will I have to look at to determine which box is which?
Rebus Puzzles
from the game Peculiarities and Comicalities of Letters, published in the 1870s by E.G. Selchow.
The answers are in the final rebus above. Click on it to enlarge it.
The three puzzles below have been used with permission of the author, Ivan Moscovich, taken from his book, 1000 PlayThinks, published by Workman Publishing, New York, ©2001.
Handshakes
At a business meeting each person shook hands with every other person exactly once. If there were fifteen handshakes, can you tell how many people attended the meeting?
– Difficulty Rating 3 out of 10.
Bookworm
A five-volume set of books is sitting on a shelf, volumes 1 through 5
placed side by side, respectively, left to right. A bookworm finds itself on page 1 of volume 1 (the book furthest to the left) and begins eating to the last page of volume 5. If each book is 6 centimeters thick, including the front and back covers, which are half a centimeter each, what is the distance the bookworm travels?
–Difficulty Rating 5 out of 10.
Three Coin Flip
You ask a friend about probability, and he tells you the following: “The odds of tree tossed coins turning up all heads or all tails is one in two, that is, fifty-fifty. That’s because anytime you toss three coins, at least two must match, either two heads or two tails. So that means the third coin—which is equally likely to be heads or tails—determines the odds.” Is your friend right? If not, what are the odds of three tossed coins turning up all heads or all tails?
– Difficulty Rating 7 out of 10.
Color-naming Mind Trick
Here’s one you don’t have to figure out, you just have to say it.
Order! Order!
by Bruce Whitehill
Below are some popular games of the 20th century, numbered 1-15. Match up the facts beneath them with the correct games, and then list the games in chronological order, from the oldest to the newest, based on when the game first appeared in the U.S. under that title. Put your answer on the answer line as a sequence of numbers and letters from left to right, such as 2E 5G 1D, etc.
One hint: ACQUIRE came before MOUSETRAP
The Games:
1. Acquire – 2. Battleship – 3. Beat the Clock – 4. Boggle
5. Chinese Checkers – 6. Mah Jongg – 7. Monopoly – 8. Mouse Trap
9. Pit – 10. Rich Uncle – 11. RISK – 12. Scrabble
13. Settlers of Catan – 14. Trivial Pursuit – 15. Uno
The Clues:
A. How many words can you make from this game’s title?
B. This game from Canada opened a new adult category of games–and introduced much higher retail prices for games
C. This game was in Europe in the 19th century before it became popular in the U.S. under its new name
D. One of the first games to come from a TV game show
E. A game of many countries
F. A popular game brought over from China
G. Skip and reverse
H. A “Rube Goldberg” type of invention
I. You can score with the longest road in this game that swept Europe, then became popular in the U.S.
J. The 1999 version of this game honored the inventor by naming one of the properties “Sackson”
K. A game built on anagrams with a name that means to scratch or scrape
L. The Milton Bradley version came out in plastic more than 35 years after it was played under the same name as a pencil & paper game (Note: for the chronology, use the Bradley version date.)
M. One early version included a lantern, a rocking horse, and a purse
N. One of the versions of this trading game included a bell
O. The character associated with this game went on to become “Mr. Monopoly”
ANSWER: ___ ___ ___ ___ ___ ___ ___ ___ ___ ___ ___ ___ ___ ___ ___
Puzzle book, 1891; pages 18-19
Cerebral Classics
One of the many great things about the internet and email is that jokes and puzzles are making a comeback, riding the waves of cyberspace. Classic puzzles are being renewed and reinvented. If you haven’t heard these (or variations of them) yet, it’s about time you did. Read these items through just once, and then give your answer. You might enjoy reading these out loud to others.
1. A bus driver known to all in the community was going the wrong way down a one-way street. The highly efficient local traffic enforcement officer saw him, waved, and neither stopped him nor gave him a ticket. Why?
2. How many times does the word “the” appear in the sentence below?
One of the important results of the
the meeting of the members
was the agreement to plan the next race
before the fifth of the month.
3. A small boat is drifting at sea, its occupants awaiting rescue. The tide is rising at a rate of two inches an hour. A rope ladder hangs over the boat, its lowest rung just under water. If there are five rungs on the ladder and they are five inches apart, how long before the third rung is under water?
4. A frog is trying to jump out of a sloping hole that is one foot deep. With each jump, he leaps four inches up, then slides two inches back. How many jumps will it take him to get out of the hole?
5. You are driving a bus in Washington D.C. The bus has no passengers when it leaves the terminal. At the first stop, the bus picks up four people. At the second stop, three people get on and two get off. At the next stop, one person gets off and two get on. At the stop after that, three people get on and no one gets off. What is the name of the bus driver? (Remember, you’re not allowed to read this a second time!)
Cross-Number Puzzle
by Bruce Whitehill
More than 30 years ago I discovered a book of cross-number puzzles—crossword puzzles that used numbers instead of letters. The two books I know of, called “Cross-Figure Puzzles,” were published in Great Britain and written by L.G. Horsefield. Here is my own number puzzle, which I respectfully dedicate to Mr. Horsefield. [If anyone knows of his whereabouts, or if, indeed, Mr. Horsefiled sees this, please contact me so I can do a story!]
Here’s how it works: One digit fits in each square. The trick is that since each “clue” in the puzzle refers to another “clue” in the puzzle, you have to figure out where to start. You need to work by process of elimination and by narrowing down some of the answers. For example, if a clue for a three-digit number is the square of some two-digit number, then you know that the two-digit number must be between 10 and 31, because otherwise the result would be a four-digit number.
If you like working with numbers, this is one number puzzle that counts! Go figure!
ACROSS
1. 13 across times 2 down
4. See 18 across
7. Reads the same backwards as forwards
10. See 19 across
12. See 21 down
13. Same as 12 across
14. Same as 6 down
16. Square root of 9 down
17. Twice 15 down
18. One more than 4 across
19. Six times 10 across
20. 3 down times 12 across
22. See 23 down
24. See 19 down
25. Three more than 13 across
26. Half of 7 across
30. See 26 down
31. 14 across plus 3 down
DOWN
2. See 1 across
3. See 31 across
4. See 14 down
5. Twice 29 down
6. Same as 14 across
8. See 11 down
9. See 16 across
11. 8 down times 24 across
12. 6 down times 14 across
14. Twice 4 down
15. Half of 17 across
19. Square of 24 across
21. 12 across times 28 down
23. Square of 22 across
26. Square root of 30 across
27. Same as the first two digits of 11 down
28. See 21 down
29. Half of 5 down
Animal Tales
by Bruce Whitehill
Fill in the blank with the name of an animal that would make a complete word or a two-word phrase or description that is no longer a literal connection to the animal. Some animals may be used more than once.
For example, “___ tail” = pigtail (not the one on a pig–the one on a girl). And “leap ___” = leapfrog
01_______ lick
02_______ eyes (not “doe eyed”)
03_______ tired
04_______ tail (not “pig”)
05_______ call
06_______ eared
07_______ power
08_______ neck
09_______ hug
10_______ burglar
11_______ sure
12_______ kiss
13_______ brain
14_______ walk (not “duck”)
15_______ tears
16_______ bumps
17_______ feet
18_______ shines
19_______ man
20_______ grass
21_______ line
22…copy _______
23…stool _______
24…jail _______
25…charley _______
Bonus: What insect name consists of the name of two different animals? ___________________
Crossed-up Crossword
by Bruce Whitehill
I tried to design a crossword puzzle, but as I have never done one before, I really messed things up! First off, I forgot all the clues; then I neglected to number any of the squares. What I was left with is a grid, plus all the answers. However, one of the answers is for another puzzle I was working on, so it doesn’t even get used in this one. And on top of all that, I miscounted the number of letters in some of the words; some words may fit into a row or column that has one more box than there are letters in the word. For example, the seven-letter word “YAHTZEE” may fit into a line of eight squares, with an extra blank square at the beginning or end of the word.
I know that twelve words below intersect in only one way to fill in the grid. Can you complete this crossed-up crossword?
UNO
CLUE
RISK
HALMA
OTHELLO
REVERSI
TWISTER
YAHTZEE
MONOPOLY
SCRABBLE
STRATEGO
BLOCKHEAD
PARCHEESI
Letters
by Bruce Whitehill
Some words in English have the same sound as letters of the alphabet. For example, “sea” and “C.” The eleven clues below will give you eleven words and, in turn, eleven letters. So, to use our previous example:
(Clue) A large body of water: _sea_ = C
The Clues:
A major question of scientists: _____ = ___
A British line: _____ = ___
What a Boston party was all about: _____ = ___
Not me: _____ = ___
An exclamation: _____ = ___
A sheep: _____ = ___
Last name of America’s first chief justice: _____ = ___
A seer: _____ = ___
A swarmer: _____ = ___
What you can do with money: _____ = ___
A metric unit of land measure equal to 100 square meters: _____ = ___
Once you have the eleven letters, arrange them to form the three words below. The three-word answer tells you what you have to do if you want to play games every day, all day long.
Answer: _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _
As a bonus, take five of the answer letters and arrange them to make an object used in a tossing game that was introduced in the U.S. in the 17th century and for which the first written rules appeared in England in 1881.
What’s New?
by Bruce Whitehill
“What’s new?” “Nothing much.” You know how the conversation goes. Well here’s something you can say the next time someone asks you “What’s new?” Below are a lot of mostly old places that have the word “new” in their name, or things or phrases that contain the word “new.” For example, given the clue, “The capital of India,” the answer would be “New Delhi.” Similarly, “An economic doctrine promoting taxation and spending to maintain economic prosperity” would be “new economics.” Figure out the clues below and see what other new things you can uncover. No fair using a dictionary!
1. The only state whose most populous city shares its name.
2. The economic and political principles adopted by Franklin D. Roosevelt to cope with the Great Depression.
3. A label used to describe new and different modern trends and advances in art, music, and popular culture.
4. The country that is home to the Maoris.
5. The event during which millions of people watch the ball drop in Times Square.
6. The Western Hemisphere.
7. The phrase used to describe people hired by a company to bring in fresh ideas and a renewed vitality.
8. The Dutch colonial town on Manhattan Island, before being renamed in 1664.
9. Part of the wedding sentiment that includes something borrowed and something blue.
10. The name given by Captain John Smith to the area including what is now Massachusetts and the states surrounding it.
11. A style of instrumental music using repetitive, simple melodies and attempting to elicit feelings of tranquility.
12. Something you can’t see in the night sky.
13. A thick soup made with potatoes, salt pork, clams, milk, onions, and seasonings.
14. The state with the shortest ocean coastline of any coastal state.
15. Papua.
16. Mountain state admitted to the Union in 1912.
17. A political movement developed in the 1960s by mostly young people seeking radical economic and social change.
18. The team that lost to the Florida Marlins in the 2003 World Series.
19. A province of Southeast Canada named to honor George III.
20. One of the 13 original states, named after one of the Channel Islands.
21. The state of which Sydney is the capital.
22. Historic American city named after Philippe II.
23. The largest island of the Bismarck Archipelago, as well as a city in Connecticut.
24. “All the news that’s fit to print.”
25. A French island of 7,172 square miles in the South Pacific.
26. The Neolithic period.
27. What 2000 signified to some people while to others it was 2001.
28. The island of the Bahamas on which lies the capital, Nassau.
29. The system of waterways connecting Lake Erie and the Hudson River.
30. Peter Allen’s song title that begins, “When Everything….”
31. The old name of the country that now consists of Colombia and Panama.
32. Prestigious medical journal that publishes the latest research and findings in medicine.
33. The Egyptian language between the years of about 1600 B.C. and 700 B.C.
34. A breed of dog named after a dominion now a part of Canada.
Extra Credit (real tough!)
A. The territory or viceroyalty which in the 17th and 18th centuries included Mexico, the West Indies, the Philippines, and parts of the U.S. and Central America.
B. The method of figuring time according to the Gregorian calendar.
C. A group of islands in the central Solomon Islands, and the name of the largest island in the group.
Puzzle book, 1891; pages 28-29
Don’t Put Your Foot in Your Mouth!
A quiz of body idioms
by Bruce Whitehill
We use lots of expressions that contain body parts. For example, “keep your nose clean,” and “he’s pretty tight-lipped.” In the quiz below, 25 different words that are parts of the body are used only once to fill in the blanks, making popular idiomatic expressions. Some words may fit more than one blank, but the only way to get them all right is to figure out which words to use where. If you need help, the answer page will show you the 25 words that appear in the puzzle. Since many of you will get all the answers to this “warm-up” quiz correct, the key is in how quickly you complete it. Five minutes or less is very good. Get your time pieces ready, put your heart into it, and….Begin!
1. first, _____ this quiz
2. a lump in my _____
3. keep your _____ open
4. _____ up!
5. she’s long in the _____
6. he’s _____-tied
7. _____ down and get some work done
8. get a _____ up on the competition
9. don’t stick your _____ out
10. keep your _____ up
11. keep your _____ out of it
12. in your _____
13. sink your _____ into it
14. keep your _____ on the ball
15. don’t give me any _____
16. don’t be so _____y
17. try to _____ the line
18. missed by a _____
19. he’s a real _____ beater
20. she won _____ down
21. give it a _____ up
22. _____ some of the responsibility
23. head over _____
24. she really put her _____ down
25. He’s kind of dorky, but she’s pretty _____
Word Search Crossword
Jigsaw Puzzle
Have you ever done a word search puzzle or a crossword puzzle or a jigsaw puzzle? (I certainly hope you’ve done at least one of them!) Now you can do all three! Simply print this puzzle, cut out the pieces and put them back together as a rectangle so that you can find 21 words from two to nine letters, reading horizontally left to right only.
What’s in a Name?
A word puzzle by Bruce Whitehill
Many names and nicknames are also everyday English words or slang. For each clue below, choose an answer that can also be a person’s first name. Example: A deep-red precious stone = Ruby. If a clue has more than one answer, be sure to pick the one that is also a name. No answer is repeated.
1. Knowledge
2. Might
3. A live recording device
4. Fishing pole
5. To go up and down in water
6. Blunt
7. Fool’s day
8. Litigate
9. You can do this to a ballot
10. Part Gemini, part Cancer
11. Touch lightly
12. “Over and out”
13. A cat
14. To whom the spoils belong
15. A bear
16. Second to the sun
17. Rights of arrest
18. Altered drink
19. Burnt wine
20. After afternoon.
21. Tropical plant spice in ale
22. Translucent fossil resin
23. Talkative
24. Surrounding pupils
25. Light spear
26. Auto raiser
27. Emerald and aquamarine are varieties
28. Bright, yellowish green
29. Bivalve sand covering
30. A purple swallow
31. Ballot punch.
32. What some artists do (past tense)
33. Passed by Congress
34. Enclosed breeding ground
35. A fish catcher.
36. A wire nail of thin, uniform thickness.
37. The word about town.
38. Evergreen foliage often woven into wreaths
39. Ground round (or toss away)
40. Precipice
Puzzled States
by Bruce Whitehill
In this two-part puzzle, first you have to solve a clue to get a one- or two-word answer, then you have to remove some letters and rearrange the letters left in order to arrive at the name of one of the 50 states. For example, a clue that reads, “Large, shallow body of water in NW Utah (3 words) – grettle” would be solved this way: “Large, shallow body of water in NW Utah (3 words)” = “Great Salt Lake”; minus the letters “g-r-e-t-t-l-e” leaves you with “asalak” which can be rearranged to form “Alaska.”
Now see what you can do with the dozen shorter ones below.
Have a nice trip!
1. Poser – g
2. Spanish for avenue – i
3. 2000 lb lifter (two words) – o
4. Writer – ro
5. Fighter – rrr
6. A single monster (two words) – e
7. Survey instrument – tn
8. Backpacks – kpc
9. Equal (to) – tut
10. Bringing back vigor – zelt
11. Spanish nobleman ranked below a grandeè – gl
12. To mislead or dupe – kwnd
Proverbs and Clichés
by Bruce Whitehill
Do you speak German? If so, move on to the next puzzle—this one’s too easy for you. But if you don’t speak the language, how good are you at detecting real German proverbs and clichés from fake ones? Below are phrases in German in column one, and the literal translations in column two. Of the 28 sentences or phrases shown, about 25% of them are fake. Your job is to pick out those proverbs that are real—true idioms in the language. On the answer page you’ll find the meaning of each legitimate proverb.
[German proverbs and translations provided by Sybille Aminzadah and Benjamin Aminzadah.]
Proverbs
| # | German original | literal translation |
| 1 | zwei Fliegen mit einer Klappe schlagen | to hit two flies with one swatter |
| 2 | Du kannst eine Giraffe in einem Tunnel mitnehmen, ohne dass sie sich den Kopf stößt. | You can take a giraffe through a tunnel, but that doesn’t mean he’ll hit his head. |
| 3 | etwas mit links erledigen | to get something done with (your) left (hand) |
| 4 | Da wird der Hund in der Pfanne verrückt | There the dog goes crazy in the pan! |
| 5 | Da brat’ mir einer ‘nen Storch! | Now fry me a stork! |
| 6 | Angst vor der dunklen Seite in sich selbst haben | being afraid of his own dark side |
| 7 | aus einer Mücke einen Elefanten machen | to make a mosquito out of an elephant |
| 8 | die Nase gestrichen voll haben | to have one’s nose completely full |
| 9 | bevor ein Lama dreimal mit dem Schwanz wedelt | before a llama can wag his tail three times |
| 10 | Der Löwe steht stets über der Gazelle. | The lion maintains the rights to the gazelle. |
| 11 | Geh dahin, wo der Pfeffer wächst. | Go to where the pepper is growing. |
| 12 | bekannt wie ein bunter Hund | well-known like a colorful dog |
| 13 | fünfe gerade sein lassen | let five be even |
| 14 | sich die Radieschen von unten ansehen | to look at the radish from underneath |
| 15 | wenn du die Hosenträger abnimmst | at the drop of the suspenders |
| 16 | auf der Nase herumtanzen | to dance on somebody’s nose |
| 17 | Soll ich dir Beine machen? | Should I make you legs? |
| 18 | Ich bin fast im Dreieck gesprungen! | I almost jumped in triangles! |
| 19 | Das kannst du dir in die Haare schmieren! | You can rub that into your hair! |
| 20 | Du kommst nicht gegen das Rathaus an. | You can’t fight the Town Hall. |
| 21 | Fass Dir an die eigene Nase! | Grab your own nose! |
| 22 | Ich wünsch dir Hals- und Beinbruch! | I wish you broken legs and a broken neck! |
| 23 | Lass die Hosen runter! | Drop your pants! |
| 24 | den Braten riechen | to smell the roast |
| 25 | Der lebt ja hinter dem Mond! | He lives behind the moon. |
| 26 | Hast du Tomaten auf den Augen? | Do you have tomatoes on your eyes? |
| 27 | Es ist vorbei außer dem Geschrei. | It is finished except for the yelling. |
| 28 | Er biss ins Gras. | He bit into the grass. |
The Polished Perpetrators
A mystery puzzle by Bruce Whitehill
It was a typical crime-shrouded day. Inspector Pierre Gamé (pronounced “Gah-may”) questioned four suspects about their possible involvement in four different crimes. Experience has taught him that the ones who lie are almost always guilty of the crime at hand. The suspects’ statements are below. Can you tell who was lying? (And how do you know?)
1. Roman Aristopolis, questioned about a murder by poisoning: “At the time the crime was being committed, I was working in my workshop—a small studio next to the railroad tracks. I was polishing my coin collection and at 1:45 AM, the time you said the murderer struck, I was cleaning a rare, valuable Grecian gold coin stamped with the date “156 B.C.” The polish I used would make someone very sick if ingested, but I didn’t think it could kill anyone. The 1:44 nightly express train went by at the time of the murder, so I didn’t hear my business partner choking or calling for help.”
2. Roland Johnson, questioned about a robbery in his studio: “It was a warm October evening, and I was polishing the family heirloom silver from about 9:40 until just after the 10 o’clock evening news. I heard someone tampering with the lock on the back door, which is in the dining room next door. I switched off the radio. I had no time to get across the room to hit the light switch on the other side of the kitchen, so I reached up and quickly unscrewed the bulb hanging over the table. In the darkness I was able to find and remove a hammer from the utility drawer under the sink. When the intruder entered the kitchen from the dining room, I tried to hit him on the head, but I missed and got him on the shoulder. He turned and knocked me to the floor, then grabbed the tray of silver and escaped through the back door. Well, I guess that’s one less thing to think about when talking to the divorce lawyers Monday morning.”
3. Tod Laker, questioned about a shooting and murder: “I was fast asleep Friday night when you said the crime was committed. I had set my loud, old-fashioned, wind-up alarm clock for nine o’clock, the time I usually get up on Saturdays, so I had been up about ten minutes when you came by earlier. I came home last night from a hard day’s work—actually, a long week of hard work. It must have been around 6:30. Yeah, 6:30. I had dinner at 7:00—I know the exact time because I heard the church bell chimes while I was eating. I got into bed and was polishing off my second desert, and by 8:30 I was fast asleep. I told you, it was a Friday night after a tough week, I was exhausted, and once I fell asleep I didn’t hear a thing until the alarm woke me this morning. I slept right through the gunshots you said went off at 9:15 last night. I don’t know anything about any shooting.”
4. Juliet Bartholomew, questioned about a robbery in her home: “I heard glass breaking. I was in my bedroom on the third floor, and I ran downstairs to investigate. I had grabbed my gun, which I always keep in the nightstand by my bed. I was a little slow getting downstairs because of this bad leg—I shot myself in the foot a week ago, you know. By the time I got to the living room, the crook was gone. The patio door was open and a flower pot on the table next to it, in front of the window, was overturned. I had just polished the floor and cleaned the windows. I went outside and I could see a mound of sparkling, broken glass in the flower bed under the window. When I came back inside, I hobbled over to the broken window and could see where the crook had reached in and unlocked the patio door next to it after he smashed the glass. You can see some dirt there on the floor where he came in. Sure, the polished ruby necklace he stole was insured, but it’s not the money—that necklace had great sentimental meaning for me.”
Pat Pending – A Name Game Puzzle
by Bruce Whitehill
This game is dedicated to Pete moss who got off Scott-free after getting
Gail force winds in a half Nelson and then stealing her sloppy Joe.
Have you noticed that quite a few words and word-combinations contain a person’s name? In some cases, the name actually can be attributed to a real person, such as the “Teddy” in teddy bear being named for Teddy Roosevelt. In other cases, the origin may be unimportant, or refer to the average “everyman”, as the “Jack” in “Jack Straws,” a name given to early games of pick-up-sticks.
In the lists below, you are given either the second part of a word or the second word of a two-word combination. You must supply the first part — the name that goes before the word given. For example, given the word “Tar”, the answer would be “Jack,” as a “Jack Tar” is a sailor. Note that answer #7 has to be different from answer #6.
Part 1: FOR THE JACK OF ALL TRADES
In Part 1, complete the word or double-word by supplying a common first name of a person.
1. ___ O’Lantern 2. ___ Club 3. ___ Hammer 4. ___ Cloth
5. ___ Goat 6. ___ Gun 7. ___ Gun 8. ___ Knife
9. ___ Pin 10. ___ Name 11. ___ Rabbit 12. ___ Cat
13. ___ Pot 14. ___ Dandy 15. ___ Socks 16. ___ Cake
(#1-16 score 3 points each)
Part 2: THE REAL MCCOY
In Part 2, complete the two-word combination by supplying the last name of a person. In each case, though the terms are now almost generic, the item or object was actually named after the person in the answer. Remember, the name goes before the word (so “Cracker” is not “Cracker Jack” but “_____ Cracker”).
17. ___ Cracker 18. ___ Wheel 19. ___ Code 20. ___ Burner 21. ___ Jar 22. ___ Toast 23. ___ Bed 24. ___ Steak 25. ___ Decimal System 26. ___ Bag
(#17-26, score 4 points each)
Part 3: DAVY JONES’S LOCKER
In Part 3, the name you have to supply could be a place name or a person’s first or last name (which may or may not be from a real person). Two of the four answers below are possessive–that is, they have an apostrophe. (#27-30, score 3 points each)
27. ___ Salts 28. ___ Apple 29. ___ Ladder 30. ___ Screwdriver
French Fries & Russian Dressing
A Puzzle of Nationalities
by Bruce Whitehill
“French” fries are as American as apple pie, and “Russian” dressing is certainly not something we think of as being from the former Soviet Union. Many words in English have been combined with a “nationality”, even though the resulting two-word combination is no longer associated with that nationality, nor with any country.
Other examples are a “Turkish” bath, which is no longer seen as primarily Turkish, or a “German” shepherd, which is not exclusive to Germany. Similarly, each of the words listed below is often connected with a particular nationality, though each word-combination is no longer (or never was) linked just to that one country.
For each word in the list, choose a nationality that goes with it. For example, “toast” would be “French toast”, and “summer” would be “Indian summer”.
Remember, in each case the word you are looking for is a nationality, such as “German”, and not the country, such as “Germany”. Note that some of the nationalities may be from the past (like “Babylonian”). Though some words may appear to accept more than one nationality, no nationality is used more than once in this quiz.
So, open the Venetian blinds, eat so you don’t get Hungary, and Finnish this game before Brussels sprouts.
1. ___ horn 9. ___ bacon 17. ___ club
2. ___ waffle 10. ___ checkers 18. ___ moss
3. ___ towel 11. ___ setter 19. ___ numeral
4. ___ rug 12. ___ twins 20. ___ jumping bean
5. ___ beetle 13. ___ muffin 21. ___ cheese
6. ___ treat 14. ___ rarebit 22. ___ roulette
7. ___ falcon 15. ___ massage 23. ___ ice
8. ___ measles 16. ___ crawl 24. ___ terrier
25. ___ man-of-war
Double Vision
(A puzzle that’s twice as much fun!!)
by Bruce Whitehill
Professor Pare was inventing a Daily Double crossword puzzle for the Twin Cities Press when he rolled out of his double bed and hit his head—twice! This gave him a bad case of double vision. When he finished his crossword, it turned out that every clue in it led to an answer consisting of duplicate or repeating segments–two letters, two syllables, two words, or two phrases in which the first letter, syllable, word or phrase was exactly the same as the second.
For example, the answer to the clue, “A penlight battery size,” would be “AA”, and “A baby’s cry for its mother” would be “Mama”; and doubly difficult: “a tropical tree in Aruba and the Americas, whose curled, astringent pods yield tannic acid,” is called a “divi-divi,” and “a plant of the pepper family whose roots have narcotic properties” is the “kavakava.”
The professor dedicated the puzzle to his two daughters, Fifi and Kiki, and his two wives, Bibi and Didi. And he devised a two-part scoring system, sixty-six main questions and a double bonus. Scoring 2 points for each correct answer, a total score of 55 or higher is Above Average or AA, and below 55 is considered just so-so.
To give you a little help too, two of the answers are SHABU SHABU and WAW-WAW. Two other answers, twice as difficult, are MATA-MATA and HAILEY-HAILEY.
Begin. Begin.
1. A toy that goes up and down, up and down.
2. An Indian drum.
3. A bite-sized chocolate-covered ice cream, or a candy.
4. A dance that goes “1, 2, 1-2-3″.
5. A French dance that goes “step-kick, step-kick”.
6. A style of dancing from the ’60s.
7. A ballet garment.
8. A Hawaiian sack dress.
9. The beginning of the poetic line asking black sheep for wool.
10. The middle and last name of the dog Rin.
11. A child’s gun or the ammunition it uses.
12. A heart problem.
13. The multi-word choo choo sound of the little engine that could.
14. The cry of the cartoon roadrunner.
15. A childlike term for a bruise.
16. Yogi Bear’s sidekick.
17. Tubby’s constant little companion in the comics.
18. Dorothy’s dog and Charles de Gaulle’s cat. (1 point each)
19. Pebbles Flintstone’s buddy.
20. Max Fleischer’s cartoon clown friend of Betty Boop.
21. A disease-carrying fly.
22. A disease caused by a lack of vitamin B1.
23. A French way of saying yes.
24. A New York State prison, home of felons sent “up the river”.
25. A city and a state.
26. A city and river in Washington state, settled 1859 near a fur trading fort of the same name.
27. A 1966 movie comedy about a foreign submarine in the U.S.
28. A 1970s late-night TV soap opera parody.
29. A 1963 top-ten hit by the Kingsmen.
30. A tree which bears a milk-laden fruit.
31. A North African dish of crushed grain.
32. A popular edible Hawaiian dolphinfish.
33. A revolutionary Kenyan warrior.
34. A member of one of several Moslem tribes of North Africa.
35. The capital of American Samoa.
36. A Chinese dog.
37. A Chinese appetizer platter.
38. Panda Hsing-Hsing’s sibling at the Washington zoo.
39. A Japanese beef and cabbage dish.
40. The tree that produces the papaya fruit.
41. The wild yam of the West Indies.
42. A very small African antelope.
43. A word from the French meaning elegant, chic, sophisticated, or showy.
44. The beginning of the witches chant in Macbeth.
45. The female lead in The Mikado.
46. A popular boy-hero adventure comic from Belgium.
47. A large, disk-shaped gong, struck with a felt-covered drumstick.
48. A hollow-nosed bullet.
49. Eva Gabor’s outspoken sister.
50. The famous Ma cellist.
51. A 1968 movie about a flying car.
52. A bird from Lewis Carroll’s “Jabberwocky.”
53. The beginning of a “Who’s there?” joke.
54. One of the Society Islands in French Polynesia.
55. A leading character in the opera La Boheme.
56. A flightless extinct bird.
57. A character from the movie Barbarella.
58. A rock group from the ‘eighties.
59. 1958 Academy Award winner for best picture and best song.
60. An early 1900s artistic cult characterized by abstract, incongruous, unconventional creations.
61. Thor Heyerdahl’s 1957 book about Easter Island.
62. More than a minor character in Catch 22, played by Bob Newhart in the 1970 film.
63. A rare genetic disease that affects the skin.
64. Turtle that grows large and spends its enitre life in water.
65. A moat that serves as a fence without impairing the view.
66. So long!
DOUBLE DOUBLE BONUS QUESTIONS (2 questions, each with 2 answers, each answer worth 2 points):
A) In Thor Heyerdahl’s 1957 book about Easter Island, what is the name of the place where there are statues, and what is the name for the tablets with hieroglyphics?
B) What was the year of the film “Guys and Dolls,” starring Stubby Kaye, (19_ _), and what were the first two names of the character called Johnson, played by Kaye, and introduced by Damon Runyon in his 1932 book? (If you get this one correct, the answer tells how you’ve probably done on the rest of this quiz.)
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