The playful li'l kitty seen here in 32 poses is from a software program from the 1980s (just as you'd probably guess from her appearance).
What did she chase around the screen?
The playful li'l kitty seen here in 32 poses is from a software program from the 1980s (just as you'd probably guess from her appearance).
What did she chase around the screen?
The detail at left is from a picture book I treasured when I was a kid. (Well, not just when I was a kid. It's still pretty great.)
Take a good look, then tell me some of the things you'd expect to find in the illustration on the book's LAST page. You can guess as many as you want; I'll acknowledge whoever gets the most.
Possible answers include (but are probably not limited to) two ungulates, a dirigible, a metal fastener, a musical instrument, a flower, several countries (current and former), a member of an African tribe, a menagerie, something with twelve parts, a masked man, a Greek philosopher, and (I think?) an American writer.
But that's not what the puzzle was asking. If this is the 'Q' page in an alphabet book, the last page is probably 'Z'. So, what 'Z' words can we expect to see there?
Going in order of my clues, there are zebras and zebus, zeppelins, zippers, a zither, a zinnia, Zimbabwe and Zambia (current countries), Zaire and Zanzibar (former countries), a Zulu, a zoo, a zodiac, Zorro, Zeno, and a woman who might be Zora Neale Hurston. All these were guessed except for zebu (which turns out to be more obscure than zebra duikers and a whole bunch of zebra hybrids with silly names). Oh, and I failed to mention that the zeppelins were made of an unlikely metal and move in a particular way—but that didn't stop some of you from guessing zinc and zigzag!
The book is Animalia by the wonderful Graeme Base.
Here's a link to the Z page.
Solution
The illustration shown in the puzzle has lots of 'Q' things in it (quails in a queue, for instance). For fun, see how many you can find!
Here are all the 'Q' words Charlie and I spotted...
Quails, queue, queen (perhaps a querulous queen?), quills, question marks, quizzes, quiver, Queensland, quotient, quarter or quadrant, quaver, quicksand, quadriporticus (with a Q on the cobblestones), Quixote, quoits, Qantas (jet), quay.
Congratulations to yesterday's solvers Graham (9 items), Dr. Yetman (12), Charlie (15), and Yana (grand prize winner with 16).
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 June 2020.
