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

Today's Puzzle

Thursday, May 20
___ _'_e do?

What 5 letters complete the phrase above, or can stand on their own as a shortened form of that phrase? This shortened form is associated with Texas, though it actually originated in England in the 16th century.

   


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Yesterday's Puzzle + Solution

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".

Solution Clove! It's a spice, or one lobe from a head of garlic. It's also one of the past tenses of "cleave", as in "cloven hoof".

Congratulations to yesterday's solvers Inca, Jacob C., Zach G., Kate, 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 2020 to March 2021.