Saturday, October 30, 2010

You Must Remember This

Q:

Take the name of the famous singer, "Natalie Cole," 11 letters in all.  Take 3 pairs of letters (6 in all) and shift them 2 places higher in the alphabet.  You choose which pairs, but the numerical positions of each pair must add up to 13.  For example, if you shift the 2nd letter you must shift the 11th.  If you shift the 3rd, you must shift the 10th, etc.

Now take the new set of 11 and shift 1 letter up 2 places.  Rearrange them all to name a very well-known person from an earlier generation.

Hint:

There are only 5 pairs of letters so the number of possible combinations is much less than you might think.  It's not that complicated, unlike this patent diagram.
http://www.freepatentsonline.com/2115867.pdf  


 A:

I gave lots of hints in this puzzle.  

The title doesn't refer to the song "As time Goes By" but to "Unforgettable".
Natalie Cole made a very successful recording of this with her father, who happens to be a famous person from an earlier generation (1 to be exact).

The hint on this page was a give-away of the pairs of letters.  The patent number 2115867 shows you 2 and 11, 5 and 8, 6 and 7.

Once you get that far, it's pretty obvious which final letter to shift and what the answer is.

NAT KING COLE

Saturday, October 23, 2010

Anagranalogy

Q:

Consider the analogy:

Post : i i v i : : Leidy : i v i i

Remove 1 letter overall and rearrange the letters within each section to form an accurate analogy.




A:   


Remove the second v.

Stop : viii : : Yield : iii

A stop sign has 8 sides and a yield sign has 3.



Saturday, October 16, 2010

Six Feet Under

Q:

Michael loved the orchestra. But upon each entrance, he let out a horrible screech. “My oboe won’t work. I think it’s a reed.”


And so on.

Hint:

If you understand the title, you can count on finding the solution.



A:


The title refers to being buried and indeed, there are 11 words buried in this brief story.  I thought s-ix was pretty obvious (what the heck's a quasi-xylophone?).  It reads like this:

 Michael loved the orchestra.  But upon each entrance, he let out a horrible screech. “My oboe won’t work. I think it’s a reed.”

 “I think it may be both reeds…again,” replied the conductor.  "If our concert is to be a success, you must be prepared.  And if I’ve said that once, I’ve said it a thousand times.  Some of our larger and more unusual instruments are hard to maintain,” he went on, “like the wood pipes and the quasi-xylophones.  I gueseven the harps, which weigh the most of all, may have an excuse.  But you play an oboe with tiny little reeds.”

 “I’m sorry,” Michael replied. “I mean I never wanted to be a problem. At least not this often.”

Seeing the shame on the young man’s face, how did the conductor respond?

A: " Don't worry Michael. Even my best players make mistakes."

B:  "Don't worry Michael, but if it happens again, you're out."

The correct answer is A.

Saturday, October 9, 2010

Home At Last

Q:

Take the first 2 letters of a certain US state to get a 2 letter word.  Next, take the first 2 letters of another state and the first 2 letters of its capital city to get a 4 letter word. The result in 2-4, will name a place in which a large portion of the population might say they live.


Which 2 states and capital are these?

Hint:

No hints yet. Post your answer in the comments area.



A:

As many of you guessed, the large portion of the population is Hispanic.

MIchigan, MIssouri, etc. and CAlifornia + SAcramento  -->  Mi Casa  -  Spanish for "My House."