[Puzzle] Funny Pages – 6 January 2025

The hint to last week’s metapuzzle is now available. Congratulations to the fifteen people who have already solved it! The solution to Clue Conundrum, the puzzle from two weeks ago, is up as well.

This year starts off with Funny Pages, the first puzzle in the January-February puzzle set. I hope you are a fan of comic strips!

Please enter your answer below, leaving out all punctuation.

    [Solution] Triple Rhyme Time

    Each of the clue phrases leads to a set of three words, all of which rhyme. This puzzle is based on the Jeopardy category of the same name.

    • A gaming stream’s connection desire. -> Twitch Hitch Itch
    • An Alaskan garden statue’s froth. -> Nome Gnome Foam
    • Cry of excitement upon seeing 1/100 of a Vietnamese dong as the price of ratatouille. -> Ooh! Xu Stew
    • Spooky and exhausted digital assistant. -> Eerie Weary Siri
    • A single sister rotated. -> One Nun Spun
    • Secures the bovine strolls. -> Locks Ox Walks
    • Archaeologist Indiana has AirPods. -> Jones Owns Earphones
    • Proudly spoken pavement poem. -> Crowed Road Ode
    • An alabaster location after dark. -> White Site Night
    • A strange grass-covered garment worn by ancient Jewish priests. -> Odd Sod Ephod

    Reading the first letters of these triplets in the order they are clued gives the phrase THING FOX SEWS ON SLOW JOE CROW’S NOSE. This is a reference to the rhyming book Fox in Socks, which contains the sentence “Fox sews hose on Slow Joe Crow’s nose.” The answer is HOSE.

    [Meta] The Missing Piece – 30 December 2024

    A hint for Clue Conundrum, the puzzle from last week, is now available, as is the solution to Triple Rhyme Time from two weeks ago.

    The final metapuzzle of the year is The Missing Piece. Use your answers from the past eight weeks to find the solution, then come back next week for the start of a new year of puzzles.

    Please enter your answer below, leaving out all punctuation.

      [Puzzle] Clue Conundrum – 23 December 2024

      The hint for Triple Rhyme Time, the puzzle from last week, is now available, as is the solution to Toe Touches from two weeks ago.

      The new puzzle for this week is Clue Conundrum. Character names and spellings have varied over the years. The suspects are GREEN, MUSTARD, PEACOCK, PLUM, SCARLET, and WHITE. Thank you to Tower for catching this. This is the final regular puzzle of this year. Check back next week for the November-December metapuzzle!

      Please enter your answer below, leaving out all punctuation.

        [Solution] Toe Touches

        This is a word ladder from HAND to FOOT, but the clues are out of order. Each word differs by one letter from the previous word. The full ladder – including the clues which lead to each word – looks like this:

        • HAND
        • HIND – Rear, as a leg
        • WIND – Air current
        • WILD – Not tame
        • WELD – Connect metal using heat
        • MELD – Combine, often referring to sets of cards
        • MELT – Become liquid
        • FELT – Cloth made of pressed wool
        • FEST – Big party, for short
        • ???? – The answer to this puzzle
        • MIST – Fine spray or light rain
        • MAST – Vertical pole on a boat
        • MASH – Alan Alda show
        • MOSH – Dance violently
        • GOSH – Golly!
        • POSH – Swanky or luxurious
        • POST – Opposite of pre-
        • PORT – City with a harbor
        • FORT____ Sumter
        • FOOT

        The only two four-letter combinations that can link FEST and MIST are FIST and MEST. Of those, FIST is the real word – and the answer to the puzzle.

        [Solution] Secret Agent Recruitment

        The first step in solving this puzzle lies in noticing the abundance of words from the NATO phonetic alphabet. In order, those words are Whiskey Oscar Romeo Delta Sierra Papa Echo Romeo Sierra Echo November Tango Echo November Charlie Echo, which spell out the phrase WORDS PER SENTENCE.

        Counting the number of words in each sentence gives 1, 14 19, 23, 5, 18, 3, 15, 22, 5, 18, 20. With A=1, B=2, etc., this translates to ANSWER COVERT. The answer is COVERT.