Sunday Puzzle: Phonetic fun!

By Will Shortz

Published October 6, 2024 at 8:00 AM EDT

On-air challenge: This is a phonetic puzzle. If I asked you to say a letter of the alphabet before one of the gifts of the Three Wise Men to get a boy's name, you'd put L before MYRRH to get ELMER. Now try these.

Say a letter of the alphabet before ... to get ...

... a decoration on a gift ... a thin musical instrument
... a carpenter's tool ... a biblical patriarch
... a boundary of a field ... a word meaning "prevention of a team from scoring"
... the sound a cat makes ... part of a car that clears a windshield
... the opposite of war ... a monocle, for example
... where a judge presides ... a person who accompanies someone on a date
... a son of Adam and Eve ... a word meaning "difficult to understand"
... a mean, mixed-breed dog ... a card game
... a word meaning "having a raspy voice" ... a fish that swims upright
... a seabird with a harsh call ... a dog with floppy ears

Last week's challenge: Last week's challenge came from listener Curtis Guy, of Buffalo, N.Y. Name a certain breakfast cereal character. Remove the third, fifth, and sixth letters and read the result backward. You'll get a word that describes this breakfast cereal character. What is it?

Challenge answer: Toucan Sam, Mascot

Winner: John Weaver of Tacoma, WA.

This week's challenge: This week's challenge comes from listener Joe Krozel, of Creve Coeur, MO. Think of a place in America. Two words, 10 letters altogether. The first five letters read the same forward and backward. The last five letters spell something found in the body. What place is this?

Submit Your Answer

If you know the answer to the challenge, submit it here by Thursday, October 10th, 2024 at 3 p.m. ET. Listeners whose answers are selected win a chance to play the on-air puzzle. Important: include a phone number where we can reach you.