H E L L O
my name is
Dr. Shapiro's Puzzle of the Day

Today's Puzzle

Monday, May 17
What inedible object—which can be valuable when of sufficient size and quality—did my wife find two of in our seafood dinner the other night?

Hint Not to be confused with a certain programming language, nor with a term from knitting.

   


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Yesterday's Puzzle + Solution

There is an abbreviation, very common in English, which stands for a French phrase that is no longer used by French speakers; an equivalent in modern French might be Merci de confirmer ta présence. What abbreviation/phrase am I thinking of?

Solution RSVP, for répondez s'il vous plaît (which literally means "respond if you please"—a polite way of saying "please respond"). To French speakers today, this sounds overly formal.

Congratulations to yesterday's solvers Anna J., Atticus, Jacob C., Jessica, Maddy, Peter M., Tori, Kim, Zachary S., Mr. Gregg, Graham, and Kate. 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 2020 to March 2021.