Today's Puzzle
Thursday, February 18
Today's puzzle comes from Jason, who asks what these (and only these) letters have in common: F, H, L, M, N, Q*, R, S, U*, W, X, Y.
I've asterisked two letters whose inclusion is debatable.
Hint
It has to do with the names of the letters.
Yesterday's Puzzle + Solution
Answer me these questions three:
- What are the three principal ingredients in Turducken?
- The monstrosity on the book cover (first image) is a curious amalgam of what three creatures?
- The map (second image) covers parts of what three states?
Solution
- Turkey, duck, and chicken. I didn't know this the first time I heard about turducken. It sounded Finnish to me.
- Porcupine, iguana, and pelican (not toucan—the structure of the book requires 3-syllable names!).
- Texas, Arkansas, and Louisiana. Hope you weren't fooled by Atlanta, TX (pop. 5,495).
Congratulations to yesterday's solvers Illia, Josh M., Hazel, Atticus, Summer, Jacob C., Ena, Dr. Yetman, Jason, and the Greggs. 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.
