The NPR "Weekend Edition" Sunday Puzzle
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The Sunday Puzzle Podcast. NPR's weekly word game. Match wits with "Weekend Edition" puzzle master Will Shortz.
| Title | Podcast Description | Author/Reader | Duration |
|---|---|---|---|
| You Have The Right Of Way | Every answer is a familiar phrase or title in the form of "blank of blank," where the word before "of" starts with the letter R. You are given the word that follows "of" and must come up with the phrase. For example, given "Saturn," the answer would be "Rings." | Will Shortz | 00:07:46 |
| A Bundle Of Laughs | You are given two words and must provide a third word that can go in between them. The answer will follow the first word and precede the second to complete two familiar two-word phrases. | Will Shortz | 00:07:22 |
| Show Us Your ID | Every answer is a familiar, two-word phrase with the initials I-D. For example, for: "A fake gem for a ring." The answer is "Imitation Diamond." | Will Shortz | 00:07:20 |
| The Answers Run The Gamut | You are given categories and must name items within those categories that begin with the letters G, A, M, U and T. For example, given the category "girls' names," possible answers would be Gloria, Amelia, Martha, Ursula and Theresa. | Will Shortz | 00:07:57 |
| Well Hello, Dolly! | Every answer is the first name of one famous person and the last name of another, in which the names are anagrams. For example, "Dolly Lloyd" for "Dolly Parton and Christopher Lloyd." | Will Shortz | 00:07:21 |
| A Port Of Call | Every answer is a word or name that contains the syllable "port." For example, given the clue "consequential," the answer would be "important." | Will Shortz | 00:07:44 |
| Master Of Ceremonies | Every answer is a familiar two-word phrase in which the first word ends in the letter M and the second word starts with C. For example, given "Lysol or Comet product," the answer would be "bathroom cleaner." | Will Shortz | 00:06:45 |
| Pearls Of Wisdom | You are given clues for two words. Add an "L" at the end of the first word and you'll get the second one. For example, given "a fruit and a gem from an oyster," the answer would be "pear" and "pearl." | Will Shortz | 00:07:36 |
| All The Clues Fit To Print | For each word you are given, change one letter to get a common name for a newspaper. For example, given "tomes" the answer is "Times." | Will Shortz | 00:06:52 |
| A Real American Hero | For each category given, name things that fall under it that begin with the letters in 'G.I. Joe.' For example, given the category 'large,' the answers could be 'gigantic,' 'immense,' 'jumbo,' 'oversized' and 'enormous.' | Will Shortz | 00:07:25 |
| Oh, There's Always Room For 'Gel' | Each answer is a familiar two-word phrase containing the consecutive letters G-E-L. For example, given the clue 'where a university student may study,' the answer would be 'college library.' | Will Shortz | 00:07:21 |
| What Does It All Mean? | This week's on-air puzzle is an extension of last week's challenge in which a group of letters and symbols represent a familiar word or phrase. | Will Shortz | 00:08:51 |
| Make A Mental Note | You are given two six-letter words. Rearrange the letters of one word to get a rhyme of the other word. | Will Shortz | 00:07:39 |
| Accentuate The Positive | A "dactyl" is a metrical foot in three syllables, accented on the first syllable, like "Anderson." Every answer is the name of a famous person whose full name is a double dactyl, like "Pamela Anderson." | Will Shortz | 00:07:34 |
| Two-For-One Travel | Every answer is the name of a country. For each word given, take two consecutive letters in that word and change them to one letter to name a country. For example, in the word CUBIC, you would change IC into an A to spell CUBA. | Will Shortz | 00:07:32 |
| Divide And Conquer | Every answer is a six-letter word, name or phrase in which the first five letters read backward and forward the same. In other words, if you drop the last letter, what's left will be a palindrome. | Will Shortz | 00:07:42 |
| Initial Here | Every answer today is a familiar two-word phrase or name with the initials 'E' and 'S.' For example: 'Today.' The answer is: 'Easter Sunday.' | Will Shortz | 00:07:23 |
| The Long And Short Of 'I' | This week, Will Shortz gives clues for two words. Each of the words has two syllables. The first vowel sound in the first word is a short 'I.' Change it to a long 'I' sound, and phonetically you'll get a new word that answers the second clue. | Will Shortz | 00:07:34 |
| What's In A Name? Plenty | This week, Will Shortz's game involves famous people whose last names are used to finish a sentence - only the names have been turned into anagrams. Take, for example, the sentence "Andre is a gas." Rearrange the letters in the last three words to get the answer: "Agassi." | Will Shortz | 00:07:17 |
| The A-B-Cs Of Anagrams | This week, Will Shortz's game involves anagrams, and every word contains the letters A, B and C. For example: To get a type of metal, use A-B-C along with the letters L, O and T to form "cobalt." | Will Shortz | 00:07:30 |
| Just Two Little Words | Given a word, you must give a word that can follow it to make a familiar two word phrase. The third and fourth letters of the first word must be the first 2 letters of the response. For example, for "fashion," the answer would be "show." | Will Shortz | 00:07:53 |
| Put An EE On It | This week, Will Shortz's game involves two words. The challenge is to add an EE sound at the end of the first word to get the second word. Example: For "A person with a bank account" and "tasty" - the answer would be "saver" and "savory." | Will Shortz | 00:07:55 |
| Let There Be L-I-G-H-T | This is a game of categories. For each one, name something in it starting with each of the letters "L-I-G-H-T" in any order. For example, if the category is two-syllable girls' names, the answer might be, Lila, Irene, Georgette, Holly and Tina. | Will Shortz | 00:08:00 |
| The 'Pen' Is Mighty In This Game | Every answer is a word whose second syllable is "pen." For example, given the clue, "a child, say, on one's tax return," the answer is, "de-pen-dent." | Will Shortz | 00:08:09 |
| In Honor Of The Super Bowl | Every answer today is a word used in football. Given three words, you give a word that can follow each to give a familiar two word phrase. The answer will always be a football term. For example, if the clue is "year, tag and dead," the answer would be "end." | Will Shortz | 00:07:54 |
| Alma Maters (Or, A Smart Male) | Every answer is the name of a college or university. Given an anagram, the contestant names the school. For example, if the clue is "lay" plus "e," the answer is "Yale." | Will Shortz | 00:07:43 |
| Who Killed This Puzzle? | Every answer is a familiar two-word phrase with the initials J.R. For example, if the clue is "going for a spin in a stolen car," the answer would be "joy ride." | Will Shortz | 00:08:15 |
| The Bad Pun Department Strikes Again | Every answer is a word, name or familiar phrase with alternating A's. For example, if the clue is "Woody Allen movie," the answer is "Bananas." | Will Shortz | 00:09:09 |
| Fresh From The Bad Pun Department | Each sentence has a blank. Fill the blank with the name of a vegetable that can complete the sentence in a "punny" way. | Will Shortz | 00:08:26 |
| I'll See Your Susan Boyle And Raise You A Balloon Boy | It's time for Will Shortz's annual names-in-the-news quiz. Will gives the names of people that you almost certainly never heard of before 2009, but who became suddenly famous during the past 12 months. | Will Shortz | 00:07:28 |
| Can You See Through From Me To You? | Every answer is a familiar phrase in the form blank to blank, as in "bored to tears." Each clue is a compound word or common two-word phrase in which the first part rhymes with the first word in the answer and the second part rhymes with the last word in the answer. | Will Shortz | 00:08:42 |
| These Phrases Have A Shushing Effect | Today's puzzle is called "Shhh." Every answer is a familiar two-word phrase in which the first word starts with S-H and the second word starts with H. For example, if the clue is "restraining device with a diagonal strap across the chest," the answer would be "shoulder harness." | Will Shortz | 00:08:06 |
| 'I' Will Lead | Each clue in today's puzzle is a word that contains the letter "I" inside. Rearrange the letters to get a new word that starts with the letter "I." For example, if the clue is "Susie," the answer would be "issue." | Will Shortz | 00:08:50 |
| Nouns In Famous People's Names | Every answer is the name of a famous person. The person's last name is a plural noun that is part of a category. The clues are the person's first name and the category of the last name. For example, if the clues are 'Britney' and 'weapons,' the answer is 'Britney Spears,' because spears are weapons. | Will Shortz | 00:08:41 |
| Solving This One Will Be A Fine Trick | Every answer is a familiar two-word phrase that has the letters N-E-T consecutively inside. Specifically, the letters N-E will end the first word, and T will start the second. For example, if the clue is "cause of a breakdown on the road," the answer would be "engine trouble." | Will Shortz | 00:07:05 |
| A Tale Of Turkey, Full Of 'Blobs' | This is a game called 'Blobs' that Will Shortz found in an old book of party games. Will talks about his recent trip to Turkey, and the account has a number of intentional errors. Every time there's an error of fact, logic or word usage, the player says 'blob.' | Will Shortz | 00:11:06 |
| Familiar Phrases Starting With 'T' | Every answer in today's puzzle is a familiar phrase in the form BLANK of BLANK, where the first word starts with the letter "T." Given the last word of the phrase, the player must give the first word. | Will Shortz | 00:07:03 |
| Categories Fit For 'Radio' | To mark Liane Hansen's 20th anniversary hosting Weekend Edition Sunday, this puzzle is a game of categories using the word "radio." Will Shortz names the categories, and the guest names something in the categories beginning with each of the letters in "radio." | Will Shortz | 00:09:01 |
| Fill In The Blanks | Each clue is a sentence with two blanks. Fill in the blanks with two words that complete the phrase. But here's the twist: The words that complete the sentence are homophones of the words in the answer phrase. | Will Shortz | 00:07:52 |
| 'Mix And Match' These Word Ensembles | This puzzle is called "Mix and Match." Every answer is a familiar two-word phrase in which the first word starts with M-I and the second word starts with M-A, as in "Mix and Match." For example, for the clue "a day before St. Patrick's Day," you would say "mid-March." | Will Shortz | 00:08:39 |
| Get A Clue And A Four-Letter Word | I'm going to give you some clues. The answer to each clue is a four-letter word which can be found in consecutive letters inside the clue. For example, if I said "a sail boat's part", you would say "spar", because a sail boat's part is a spar, and it's concealed in consecutive letters inside "sail boat's" parts. | Will Shortz | 00:08:00 |
| P.S., Think U Have It Solved? | This week's puzzle involves the letters P-S-U as in Portland State University, where Will spoke on Saturday. Each answer is a familiar two-word phrase in which the first word starts with "P" and the second word starts with "SU." So if the clue is "What a lawyer conducts to see if an invention has been made before," the answer would be "patent survey." | Will Shortz | 00:08:00 |
| These C's Come In Threes | Each clue consists of two words starting with the letter "C." The answer is a third word starting with "C" that can follow the first word and precede the second one to complete a compound word or familiar two-word phrase. | Will Shortz | 00:08:20 |
| Initially, Michigan's Upper Peninsula | This week's puzzle is in honor of Michigan's Upper Peninsula. Because U.P. is short for Upper Peninsula, each answer has "U" and "P" in it. The first clue is: "U" and "P" are the initials of a common two-word phrase naming something holding a street lamp. What is it? | Will Shortz | 00:07:51 |
| Give A Ring, Get A Grin | For each clue, the answer is a four-letter word. The word is an anagram of one of the words in the clue. For example, if the clue is "main line through Egypt," the answer would be "Nile," because Nile is a rearrangement of the letters in "line." | Will Shortz | 00:06:24 |
| Maybe Not So Easy As Pie | This puzzle is called "Dividing the Pie." Every answer is a familiar two-word phrase in which the first word starts "pi" and the second word ends with "e." So, the "pi-e" is divided. For example, if the clue is "power source for most automobiles," the answer would be "piston engine." | Will Shortz | 00:07:32 |
| 'A' Test Of Islands | For each word given, add the letter "a" and rearrange all the letters to name a well-known island. For example, if the clue is "trees," add an "a" to get the answer: Easter. | Will Shortz | 00:08:11 |
| Reading Backward Is The Trick | Each answer starts with a clue for a six-letter word. If you drop the first letter and read the remaining letters backward, you'll get a five-letter word that answers a second clue. | Will Shortz | 00:07:05 |
| Scramble The Word To Get One Like The Other | From two given four-letter words, rearrange the letters of one of them to get a synonym of the other. For example, given "each" and "pain," the answer is "ache," because "ache" is an anagram of "each," and it means "pain." | Will Shortz | 00:07:45 |
| Oh My, A Relaxing Game | This puzzle involves meditation. Every answer is a familiar two-word phrase that starts with the initials "O-M." For example: protection for the hand while cooking? Answer: oven mitt. | Will Shortz | 00:08:58 |
| It's All About The Wordplay | It's a game of completing analogies. Each involves wordplay. For example, "pink" is to "pen" as "plead" is to "pencil," because by removing the "p" from "pink," you get "ink," which goes inside a pen. And by removing the "p" from "plead" you get "lead," which goes inside a pencil. | Will Shortz | 00:09:47 |
| How Does That Old Saying Go? | Every answer is a familiar proverb or saying. Given a two-word phrase, one of the words is in that proverb or saying, and the other is an anagram of a word in it. The anagram can be either word in the phrase. | Will Shortz | 00:08:00 |
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