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

Today's Puzzle

Tuesday, May 18
Today's puzzle is dedicated to Mr. Gregg, who thinks my puzzles have been too easy lately. 👹

What do all the words below have in common?

gambit / chime · samba · T-Pain · pogo / tuba · lads · perk · LeBaron · conga · fiance · germane

But wait, don't stop there; rummage in the discards for the final answer to this puzzle, a three-word phrase.

Hint How well do you know the notions of the world?

   


     Note: Clicking "Submit" will send your response to Dr. Shapiro.

Yesterday's Puzzle + Solution

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.

Solution Pearls! I've always associated pearls with oysters, but these ones were inside a mussel. They were less than 2 millimeters in diameter, alas, so this dinner did not pay for itself.

Congratulations to yesterday's solvers Anna K., Summer, Ronin, Ena, Bridget, Peter M., Jessica, Jacob C., Maddy, Kalpana, Inca, Dr. Hill, Graham, Kate, Dr. Yetman, 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 2020 to March 2021.