Today's Puzzle
Monday, February 8
I love quirky business names. The people who used to cut my hair in my hometown (yes, I got haircuts) wanted to name their shop Curl Up and Dye, but the city wouldn't grant a license for that name because they thought it was too morbid. But I digress.
The Google Maps snippet at left shows a possible walking route between two downtown Oakland businesses with amusing names. As you can see, if I needed an engraved trophy and a Red Bull, I'd only have to walk 46 feet between errands.
Why do you think Aardvark Laser Engraving called themselves that? And what about Both Sides Convenience Store?
(No, it's not a 16 vs. 17 thing.)
Yesterday's Puzzle + Solution
English borrows two contrasting words from Spanish for weather phenomena involving strong, sometimes destructive winds. One of those words is
derecho, which means "straight". The picture at left is of a derecho over Chicago.
What's the other word?
Solution
The other word is tornado.
Now, I would like to tell you that tornado means "turned" or "twisted", which would make a perfect contrast with derecho. But etymology is not always straightforward. Tornado actually comes from tronada, "thunderstorm".
However, you may notice that two of the letters got swapped. That's called metathesis. Metathesis is more common than you'd think in the history of words, and it often happens because the new form "sounds right" to people. So it's pretty likely that tronada turned into tornado because it reminded people of tornar, the Spanish word for "turning".
Congratulations to yesterday's solvers Hazel, Jessica, Charlie, Leo S., Jacob C., Maddy, and Mr. Gregg. Thanks to everybody who made a guess!
About This Site
Though he now teaches mathematics, Dr. (né Mr.) Shapiro's first job in a K–12 school was as a lunch monitor in Davis, CA. It was there that he originated the Puzzle of the Day, even rewarding correct answers with tickets in denominations like "15 points" (though without a clear idea of how he'd ultimately redeem these). Dr. Shapiro's favorite puzzle from this pre-professional era was "Tell me the location of the beehive on this campus."
Ten years later, Dr. Shapiro revived Puzzle of the Day at Proof School, writing each day's puzzle on a name tag. After 600 puzzles or so, he was just starting to feel normal about students reading his chest all the time when campus closed and the puzzle, like the rest of our lives, moved online. New puzzles are posted daily on school days.
Want to catch up on old PotDs? There's an archive currently containing puzzles from March to December 2020.