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

Today's Puzzle

Wednesday, May 19
What word is both the name of a spice and a quantity of a different (also strongly flavored) food ingredient?

Hint Not by coincidence, this word is also a tense of a verb meaning "to split".

   


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Yesterday's Puzzle + Solution

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?

Solution All these words are one letter off from a country:

Gambia ⟶ gambit
Chile ⟶ chime
Samoa ⟶ samba
Spain ⟶ T-Pain
Togo ⟶ pogo
Cuba ⟶ tuba
Laos ⟶ lads
Peru ⟶ perk
Lebanon ⟶ LeBaron
Tonga ⟶ conga*
France ⟶ fiance
Germany ⟶ germane

If you read off the letters that have been replaced in the country names, you get A LOST COUNTRY.

*Conga could also come from changing a letter in Congo, but A LOST COUNORY doesn't quite look as good!

Congratulations to yesterday's solvers Connor (with help from Ishan and Yildiz), Graham, and, yes, 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 2020 to March 2021.