Tag Archives: Wordplay

Beware the Brain Melter…

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meninhats

I’m a huge fan of brain teasers. I love pitting my mind and mental quickness against word puzzles and other challenges, so brain teasers are perfect.

A terrific example of a quality brain teaser appeared here a while back: the Men in Hats problem (pictured above).

It’s a great brain teaser because it’s deceptively simple, but requires careful, outside-the-box thinking to figure out how to solve the puzzle.

But there’s another kind of brain teaser out there that’s not intended to be solved. These are more tricks or bits of wordy gamesmanship than brain teasers. I like to think of them as brain melters.

Here’s an example of a brain melter I tweeted a month or two ago:

True or false? Thare are five mistukes im this centence.

Now, parsing it out, you can see the misspelled “thare” (1), the misspelled “mistukes” (2), the misspelled “im” (3), and the misspelled “centence” (4).

But the statement says there are five mistakes when there are only four, which would make the statement false. If you count “five” as a mistake, then it becomes five mistakes, which makes the statement true. But if five mistakes is true, then saying “five” ISN’T a mistake, so the total goes back to four mistakes, and…

You see? You soon find yourself in a brain-melting loop that never goes anywhere. It’s like the barber who shaves only the townsmen who don’t shave themselves. So does he shave himself? If he does, he doesn’t. If he doesn’t, he does.

Still with me?

Okay, here’s another brain melter. (The one, in fact, that inspired this blog post.)

If you choose an answer to this question at random, what is the chance you will be correct?

A) 25%
B) 50%
C) 60%
D) 25%

At first glance, this seems simple. There are four options, so the chances of being correct should be 1 in 4, or 25%.

But wait. Two of the answers are “25%”, meaning that A AND D could lead to the right answer, so those odds become “50%”.

But “50%” as an answer only appears once, so the chances of choosing “50%” are only 25%.

And if you keep following that chain of thought, you circle around and around and around, going from 50% to 25% and back again while your brain dribbles out your ears and down into your shoes.

Beware the brain melters masquerading as brain teasers, my friends.

Thanks for visiting the PuzzleNation blog today! You can like us on Facebook, follow us on Twitter, check out our Classic Word Search iBook, play our games at PuzzleNation.com, or contact us here at the blog!

5 Questions for Crossword Constructor Ian Livengood

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Welcome to the inaugural edition of PuzzleNation Blog’s newest feature, 5 Questions!

We’re reaching out to puzzle constructors, video game writers and designers, writers, filmmakers, and puzzle enthusiasts from all walks of life, talking to people who make puzzles and people who enjoy them in the hopes of exploring the puzzle community as a whole.

And I’m proud to have Ian Livengood as our first 5 Questions interviewee!

Ian has constructed puzzles for The New York Times, The Los Angeles Times, and The American Crossword Puzzle Tournament, building a reputation as both a savvy constructor and a crafty cluesmith. He spends his days as a crossword editor for Penny Press, in addition to his extracurricular puzzle constructing. (And he even found time to contribute some terrific entries to two clue-centric PN blog posts earlier this year!)

So, without further ado, let’s get to it!

5 Questions for Ian Livengood

1. How did you get started with puzzles?

I started solving crosswords in high school as a way to pass the time. I was a pretty horrible solver at first, obviously, but stuck with it. I tried my hand at constructing a puzzle when I was 19 or 20 and the results were, uh, less than stellar. I think I used 82 words (78 is the limit in most outlets) with some suspect fill. I got the constructing “bug” again in my mid-20’s. I didn’t even know construction software existed — I was using Microsoft Excel and a crude wildcard search engine — but I eventually stumbled on some nice software and began to study exactly how puzzles were made. 

2. Who are three creative types that inspire you?

It’s tough to identify specific people, but I certainly respect certain types of puzzles. I really enjoy a smooth and easy Monday, a diabolically tricky Thursday-level puzzle and a tough themeless puzzle. I really admire “smooth fill.” These are the non-thematic entries in a puzzle that avoid “crosswordese” (entries you only encounter in crosswords) and that are fun and interesting to solve. Frankly, it’s really hard to pull off, and I recognize and respect the skill it took to create ’em.

3. What puzzly endeavors are you currently working on?

I teach a crossword construction class every Sunday in the Spring and Fall in New York City to a group of seniors. As a class, we go through the process of picking a puzzle theme, building a grid, filling the grid and writing the clues. The goal is to get the collaborative puzzle into the New York Times.

Also, I have a book coming out in Spring 2014 called “Sit and Solve Sports Crosswords” through Sterling Publications. As you might guess, the book has 42 easy-medium 10×10 sports-themed puzzles. Since I’m a sports nut, this was a really fun one to make. Available wherever books are sold.

4. You were recently interviewed by the Canadian Broadcasting Corporation regarding your crossword construction class. What was that like, and how did that affect how you see yourself as a constructor?

Yeah, that was a lot of fun. A Canadian NPR producer was solving a recent Sunday New York Times puzzle that class made and thought it would be fun to interview the seniors that helped contribute to the puzzle. I can’t say my Q-rating has really spiked, but it’s always nice to get positive feedback from solvers.

5. If you had a million dollars and three Hawaiian islands, what would you do with them?

Well… since I’m a skier and not much of a beach guy, I’d sell the islands and just go heli-skiing everyday. That sounds pretty nice.

Many thanks to Ian Livengood for his time. Check out his ebook of 25 easy puzzles here, and keep your eyes peeled for his work in the New York Times (Monday’s puzzle is a Livengood original)!

Thanks for visiting the PuzzleNation blog today! You can like us on Facebook, follow us on Twitter, check out our Classic Word Search iBook, play our games at PuzzleNation.com, or contact us here at the blog!

Palindromic answers for all and sundry!

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As promised, here are the answers to Friday’s PuzzleNation live game, a.k.a. the Palindromes challenge! Thank you to everyone who gave it a shot. I look forward to doing another live puzzle game soon!

TWITTER

1.) Forgetful cats. (2 words)

Answer: Senile felines

2.) Love in the Italian capital. (2 words)

Answer: Amore, Roma

3.) First-person speaker favors a particular mathematical constant. (3 words)

Answer: I prefer pi.

4.) Instructions to hoist in conjunction with the speaker. (6 words)

Answer: Pull up if I pull up.

5.) A fencing challenge offered to a reluctant opponent. (3 words)

Answer: Draw, o coward!

6.) Young Mr. Hawthorne attacked a lama. (4 words)

Answer: Nate bit a Tibetan.

7.) Orders to retreat, given to one’s distant pixie. (5 words)

Answer: Flee to me, remote elf.

FACEBOOK

1.) Television premiere (2 words)

Answer: Tube debut.

2.) Young comic strip miscreant did wrong. (2 words)

Answer: Dennis sinned.

3.) Exclamation to grab the attention of the lad toting certain fruit. (3 words)

Answer: Yo, banana boy!

4.) Weather unsuitable for cheering or owl noise. (4 words)

Answer: Too hot to hoot.

5.) Question a Gotham City resident might ask after the caped crusader’s first appearance. (6 words)

Answer: Was it a bat I saw?

6.) Post’s indecorous citrus fruit (3 words)

Answer: Emily’s sassy lime.

7.) Show boredom in a manner akin to Caesar. (5 words)

Answer: Yawn a more Roman way.

And if there’s some kind of live game puzzle challenge you’d like to see, be sure to let us know! You can like us on Facebook, follow us on Twitter, check out our games at PuzzleNation.com, or contact us here at the blog!

Anagram Answers for Patriotic Puzzlers!

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My apologies for the delay in posting the answers to our Patriotic Anagrams, my fellow puzzle fiends. I hope you enjoyed untangling these little puzzles!

And so, without further ado, here are your answers!

Penny Aced Indeed = Independence Day

Flared Prosy Kiwis = Fireworks display

Horologic Gent Kiln = Cooking on the grill

Legend For Merit = Let freedom ring

Attend Suites = United States

Nice solo = Colonies

It’s Spartan Dress = Stars and Stripes

Phi Alpha Deli = Philadelphia

How many did you get? Let us know in the comments below!

“I have the solution,” Tom answered.

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As promised, here are the answers to Friday’s PuzzleNation live game, a.k.a. the Tom Swifties challenge! Thank you to everyone who gave it a shot. I look forward to doing another live puzzle game soon!

TWITTER

1.) “This is all from memory,” Tom… wrote.

2.) “That just doesn’t add up,” said Tom… nonplussed.

3.) “There’s no need for silence,” Tom… allowed.

4.) “Little devils don’t always tell the truth,” Tom… implied.

5.) “You don’t see the point, do you?” asked Tom… stabbing in the dark.

6.) “No test throw,” thought Tom… triflingly.

7.) “The exit is right there,” Tom… pointed out.

FACEBOOK

1.) “I can take photographs if I want to!” Tom… snapped.

2.) “That’s already been taken care of,” Tom… pretended.

3.) “She’s repeating an SOS message,” said Tom… remorsefully.

4.) “I only have diamonds, clubs and spades,” said Tom… heartlessly.

5.) “I’m covering the neighborhood with heavy cotton cloth,” said Tom… canvassing the area.

6.) “I’ve deduced that this is the right way,” said Tom… pathologically.

7.) “I have a split personality,” said Tom… being frank.

And if there’s some kind of live game puzzle challenge you’d like to see, be sure to let us know! You can like us on Facebook, follow us on Twitter, or contact us here!

Not in so many words…

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A British reader and friend of the blog passed along this link to me this morning. It’s from the UK publication The Guardian, interviewing filmmaking Steve Simmons about his newest production, Crosswords.

The seven-minute short film takes us into the thoughts of a man puzzling out various crossword clues, even as he’s distracted by an attractive woman who shares his park bench.

Most of the clues are fairly straightforward instead of the more wordplay-based British cluing — “Not right (4)”, for example — but others could give you as much pause as the protagonist. (I admit, “The more you take, the more you leave behind (9)” had my gears turning.)

Seeing synonyms and red herrings pass before the solver’s eyes (and settling onto the screen) was a marvelous touch, reminiscent of some of the visual panache of BBC’s Sherlock.

The silent film style adds a touch of tongue-in-cheek flair and melodrama to the whole affair, making for a thoroughly enjoyable short.

Hmmm. Makes me wonder if PuzzleNation should get into the short film game. Exploring space with the intrepid crew of Starspell Command, or heading into dusty puzzle catacombs in search of treasure with the Crossword Raider…

On second thought, maybe I’ll leave it to pros like Simmons.