A Not Not Hard Puzzle

0:00Hello, puzzlers! Let's start with a quick introductory puzzle. This appetizer puzzle comes to us from Senior Puzzler Andrea Schoenberg, and it is about countries and pronouns. Now sometimes countries are called Motherland, sometimes they're called Fatherland, so I honestly don't know which gendered pronoun we should be using when referring to countries, but luckily for this puzzle we don't need to know. We don't need to know because this puzzle, we are looking for countries that end in pronouns. So countries with names that have a pronoun at the very end. For instance, the country of Fiji ends with a pronoun I, and there are several other countries ending with I, so those are some possible answers. But we are also looking for countries ending with other pronouns. In fact we have found seven such countries with six different pronouns.

1:06Perhaps a little more depending on how progressive you are with your pronouns. Can you listeners and Greg and Adam come up with any? The answer. And more puzzling goodness after the break. Hello folks, welcome back to the Hello Puzzlers Podcast, the crushed charcoal in your Puzzle Cleopatra eyeliner, which is spelled K-O-H-L-F-I. I am your host, A.G. Jacobs, and I'm here of course with Chief Puzzle Officer Greg Pliska and Super Producer Adam Newhouse. And before the break, we talked about pronouns and countries. We are a little early for International Pronoun Day, which is in October, but regardless we asked, can you name any countries whose names and with a pronoun such as Fiji ends with a pronoun I. Greg and Adam, did you come up with anything?

2:06This is kind of up right up and down. You said countries and I just started salivating and falling terribly. I think it's very excited about geography. I do, I love geography. So I'm going to defer to Adam here. Oh no, do not defer. I think the puzzle brain needs some warming up here and so I'm here. Okay. I'm a metronome, I don't know if that's right, for the audience who has not found one yet in their brain. A bell weather. A bell weather for you. Bell weather for you. That's the metaphor you want. Thank you very much. Well, you gave us the eye. You gave us the eye countries. So like, hey, there's few of those. Djibouti. Good. There's probably a couple others that didn't come to mind right away. Brunei, S-Watini, former LaValle. S-Watini, sure. 80. All right. I got some more. I got some other pronouns. This is a hard one because it's the end of a word. I feel that's much harder. Always harder.

3:07Like if I said at the beginning of a word, much easier. It's the fact that there are strings of letters, right? They're not just, I mean, one letter, Haiti, although it's pretty easy to come up with a couple of those. Then you've got my mind. There's no country whose name ends with mine, and my name. I couldn't say one, no. But there is a me. I'll give you. There is a me. There is a me. It's a pretty name. There is a me. It's a sure and nom. Seranam spelled S-U-R-I-N-A-M-E. Yeah. That's me. That's me, exactly. And there's a we. There is a we. That was the first one I thought of. It was in Bombay. There's an us. There's at least one us. There are two us's. I got two us's. Yeah, when you got it. I give it to Adam. Mauritius. Yeah, that's one. Yeah. Oh, wow. I guess there are three us's. You've also got Belarus. Right. That's the one I have. In Cyprus. In Cyprus. I've got a very progressive pronoun one that we can get to. What is it? Belize. That's what I was thinking.

4:08C-E, which is a gender-neutral pronoun. For Belize, there's also Kuwait as an it. Oh, there we go. I didn't come up with an it. Sierra Leone is one. One can be used as a pronoun. So there you go. Very good puzzle. But I couldn't come up with it. There's no he or her or mine. I didn't find one. Did not find one. I think that was the hard part of the puzzle for me. Because that's where I went down. Thank you, your pronouns. I went down that rabbit hole of the ones that there wasn't. He, she, yeah. Exactly. Yeah. Well, today is puzzle lab Friday. Every Friday we broadcast live from the puzzle lab. Can you feel the electricity? And in the puzzle lab, we like to experiment. And today we're experimenting with an all listener puzzle episode. So we have two puzzles and both are written by puzzlers at home. One is challenging and one is extra spicy. I like it.

5:09So what do you have, Andrea? Well, we have this email from listener Hailey Tenhove. She writes, hello, a few months ago, my dad introduced me to your podcast. And we have enjoyed listening and puzzling together. Our family has created a puzzle that you might enjoy puzzling over. So this is from Hailey and her dad, Steve. The puzzle is called the not not puzzle. OK. NOT, NOT. NOT, NOT. K-N-O-T-N-A-U-G-H-T. Different puzzle. Different puzzle. OK. In this puzzle, you have to find the word that is the antinim of the second meaning of the antinim of the given word. Wow. Probably sounds confusing. But luckily, Hailey gives us an example. Okay. Good. All right. If the given clue is not, not left. So you first have to get the first antinim of left, which is right. And then you have to think not right to get the second antinim, the other antinim for

6:11right, which is wrong. So the answer to not not left is wrong. Is wrong. Therefore, the transitive property left and wrong are synonyms. There you go. That's exactly how it works. That works. Hailey and Steve just love the premise. So good. Yeah. Great. That's a good one. All right. Are you ready for your other not not pairs? Sure. Yep. We're not not already. How about not not heavy? Not not not heavy. All right. Adam, it looks like you might have a theory. Would that be dark or darkness or? It is dark. It is dark. You get not heavy to light and then not light is dark. So not not heavy is dark. I'd like to point out that the light bulb over Adam's head went off on that one. You could see that. He literally has a light bulb over his head. Right behind him. But do you also see the thought bubble? Yeah. There's a thought bubble on one side and Einstein is whispering into Adam's left here.

7:15That's right. And ideas are in his right here. I mean, you're set up. It's a puzzle. It's a visual puzzle. All right. How about not not hard? Oh. What do you got, AJ? Well, hard could either be easier soft. So soft. He went with soft and then the opposite of soft is, yeah, I guess loud. That's a good one. It's loud, yes. All right. How about not dangerous? Oh, I like it. AJ got a sports one. Sports guys. Crazy. All right. I'll say it since then. Yeah. So it's so rare for you to get it's worth it. So you did a sports that rare. Shuckle the day I'm obsessed with it. I'm on AJ side. You've been learning a lot about sports. Thank you. Yes. And educational podcast. That's one of the reasons I love it. All right. Wait, I forget now. It was not not dangerous. Not not dangerous.

8:16So it was, yes, dangerous. The opposite is safe and safe. The opposite is out if you're talking baseball. Exactly. Out. It's dangerous. It's out. How about not not bright? Well, that could go a few ways. Right. Dark. Right. Not dark is light. But that's some seems kind of a saying. Yeah, that's not. Meaning. I mean, not not bright. You could also go with intelligence. Yeah, stupid. Yeah. And then you could talk it is. Tom, the opposite of Tom talkative, sure. You guys are in the right area. I think the way to get into it is to think about lights and what you do with lights. Oh, dim. Dim dim. So not bright is dim and then smart. Yes. Okay. Yeah, but bright is a lot of time. Right. And smart are so that one you do end up kind of in the wonder if the etymology of that

9:17meaning of bright is somehow related to light as well. I can like a muscle. Yeah, but look at Adam right above his head. It's all about the light bulb. Light bulb. He's so bright. All right. How about not not even? I got a theory. I got ideas for going to a Jane. What do you got? Well, you could go not even is odd and not odd is normal. Yeah. Exactly. Yeah. Well, you nailed it. All right. There's a ready for the last one. Ready. Not not hot. Not not hot hot. That could go a few ways. I feel that our rare some options. There. I wouldn't if you go to cold. They miss you the opposite of hot. Too friendly. Yeah. That's where I was going. Nailed it in one again. Oh, that's it. I hate li and I are on the same wavelength. But then I was you could go with like hot being sexy. Right. On a trip.

10:18That's for that. I thought warm would work. So then you got. You got more as a as a. For friendly. I think it's in the dots in the. I would. That's interesting. So hot. Yeah. Not not hot means warm. Exactly. I thought was clever. Well, I loved it. Hailey and Steve. You are very bright and dark. Listeners, if you have puzzles, send them in. I think that is the most fun way to spend a Friday is here and from the puzzle. The Hello Puzzlers community and their puzzles. A great. And we're about to hear more because we got another Puzzler puzzle. So stay with us. We'll be right back. Our podcast Hello Puzzlers does not have an official uniform, but we sort of do because Greg and I are both huge fans of the clothes from Quince. As is my wife. In fact, every year for the last several years, Julie has gifted me and our sons a bunch

11:19of Quince clothing. Sweaters, genos, t-shirts, long sleeve shirts. I've got my favorite pieces I keep returning to, including a fitted blue t-shirt that Julie lets me wear even to nice restaurants. Quince makes it easy to choose your outfit. It's all about fewer, better pieces. Their clothes are made with premium materials, so they're built to last. And what I love is that Quince has priced 50 to 80% less than similar brands. They work directly with ethical factories and cut out the middleman. Find your next fall favorites at Quince. Download the Quince app for exclusive offers or go to quince.com slash Hello Puzzlers. Get free shipping on your order and 365 day returns. Now available in Canada and the UK too. That's q-u-i-n-c-e.com slash Hello Puzzlers. I love doing this podcast, but keeping track of hundreds of puzzles, it's a huge challenge

12:21for someone who's not super organized. The good news is I have started using this all-in-one workspace called Notion. And it has allowed me to set up these interconnected pages for all of my work projects, books, essays, social media, and of course, puzzles. But it's not just for my work. It helps me organize and manage my personal to-do lists, my life goals, and I'm not alone. It's a super popular platform, a hundred million users. And it's also powerful because it lets me collaborate with colleagues and friends. Teams using Notion, move faster, cut friction and cost by consolidating tools, and stay aligned. It's an AI workspace where your teams, knowledge, projects, and agents all come together in one place. Learn more about how Notion can support your business at Notion.com slash Hello Puzzlers. That's all lowercase letters. Notion.com slash Hello Puzzlers to try Notion today and when you use our link, you're

13:24supporting our show. So thank you. Hello Puzzlers, welcome back to the Hello Puzzlers podcast. We are in the middle of Puzzle Lab Friday, a special all listeners episode. These are listener puzzles created by the Puzzlers at home. We just had a great one from Haley and Steve. And now we've got one from Friend of the Show, Shree Kumar. Shree Kumar! We love Shree, we know him. We know him from wonderful weekend of words at Mohmons. Wonderful world of words we can't, please. That one too. Mohmons Mountain House coming to Mohmons this November. Very fun weekend hosted by Greg. Speaking of hosting, Shree has his own podcast, The B-Side with Shree Kumar, which I've been a guest on. And he's written a couple other puzzles for the show and he sent in a tricky one. He was inspired by our spicy, our new spicy format on Fridays.

14:27So it's a puzzle with a meta puzzle. And I think many listeners know a meta puzzle is when you take the answers to the regular puzzle and those answers are hints to another word. So it's a puzzle on top of a puzzle. Lot going on in Shree's puzzle packed with goodness. It's called What It Takes to Electrify. What it takes to electrify. And it's about... It takes electricity. Done. All right, you have a good puzzle. Shree, thank you. This puzzle is about adding the letter E to the beginning of words. So if you take a regular word like quip and you add an E, you get an equip or road, you add RODE, you add an E, you get E-road, E-R-O-D-E. And Shree calls this electrifying the word because that's what an E at the start of the word can sometimes do. Like mail. Email or...

15:28Email. Electronic mail, right? E-bike. Electro bike. Right. So all of the answers are going to be two words, the base word and then that same word with an E added to the start. And Shree wrote clues that hint at both words. So I'm going to give you an example. Shree wrote all the clues in the puzzle, but I wrote the example. Okay. In case it sucks. I'm going to read it. I'm going to read it. I'm going to read it. I'm going to read it. I'm going to read it. I'm going to read it. Sometimes down in Africa, lions might go to this place to keep dry. If you electrify that word, you get heaven on earth. Mm-hmm. Okay. So Greg's got it. He thinks. I got it. Three letters become four. Where do lions go? They go to their den and electrifying it makes it eden. Exactly. So the first... But you can't say rains down in Africa without thinking of the Toto song. So... It's an interesting thing that you bring that up.

16:30I wonder if maybe that wasn't just a coincidence. Oh. Yeah. Okay. Look at that. All right. So keep in mind that there is something else going on in this puzzle. And it actually will become quite clear in this first. I don't know if the actual thing going on will become clear, but it will become clear. There's something going on. Does that make any sense? No. No. Crystal clear. Okay. That's what I want. It's a puzzle podcast. All right. Here's the first clue from Shree. You don't mess around with a gym or with any of his mobbed up cronies who might try to pull one of these on you. So they might try it. Mobbed up cronies might try to pull one of these on you. That's the first word. If you electrify that word, you get a school subject covering supply and demand. So. Oh. Got it. Okay.

17:31Yeah. We'll say it. Yeah. Sorry. So it's a con that they would pull on you. And this is econ is the subject. Right. So yes. Con becomes econ when you electrify it. I know you probably have some theories about that first phrase. You don't mess around with Jim. I sure do. All right. Well, let's hold off until we've done another couple. My theory is that Shree is as old as I am. That's my theory. Exactly. I actually did not know this reference based upon that reference. All right. Here's clue number two. You might run with this long bounding stride. So what's a long bounding stride? If you electrify that word, it means when the boys of summer sneak away with their girls to get married in secret. Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm. Nice to see what that is. Yeah. All right.

18:31I just want to try and manage it. I just roll with this one. It's a lope. Yes. Exactly. A lope is a long bounding stride and e-lope is where you get married in secret. And actually what happens right before you run is an animal that's in Africa. Oh, nice one. Anti-lope. Anti-lope. Yeah. Okay. Before you run, you anti-lope. Anti-lope. Nicely done. All right. Next clue. Number three. It's number three of, I believe, seven. You'll find two boorms clustered by this geothermal feature. Swaying and rolling in the deep parts of our ocean. Oh, oh. If you electrify that word, you get a special happening. Nothing makes me happier than two-borm content. We don't get enough. So it's a four-letter that goes to five-letter when you add the e at the...

19:31Oh, Adam's got it. Okay. We have a vent to event. Exactly. When the sun shines and you don't need your umbrella, you may see one of these small specks floating in a sunbeam. Electrify that word and it means to show feelings in a dramatic way. Oh, I know this one. I know this one. Go ahead. The first word is moat. Yes. A little small speck, little moat and emote to show. There it is. All right, we got three more. We got a Chinese strategy game. If you electrify it, you get the self-esteem and confidence to bluff in that very game using a poker face. Oh. A poker face, you say? A pop-a-pop poker face. That's the one. I got that one. That was... All right, Adam. The Chinese origin game go.

20:32Go. Yes, go. And then to ego. Go to ego. Exactly. All right, two more. We got... I would just like to announce that I have solved the metapuzzle. Already? Just saying it. Just saying it out loud. All right. Not the first I'm sure, but I'm keeping up with the best solver. Write it down and take a picture. I know the time. We acknowledge you, Greg. I've written it down. I'm not sure I trust it. I'm not sure I trust it. I can show it to you, but that would ruin it. Put it in a sealed envelope. Yeah, that's what I meant. Yeah, mail it to us. The baller move, if you think you've solved the metapuzzle, is to try to free him to the clues, right? Yes. So pause right now and try to guess these last two clues. If you wanted to dismiss a lawsuit in court, you might make one of these. And if you electrify that, you get a feeling so powerful you might lose yourself in.

21:33The answer to that is motion. I'm going to file a motion. And of course, the other clue was emotion. Right. You might lose yourself in an emotion. And then finally, you might find yourself sitting on the dock of this body of water. If you electrify that word, it turns into an online auction site. Okay. Okay. So obviously, Bay to eBay. There you go. Okay. Flavor text, which is like a little hints about the metapuzzle. And Sri has given this one. He says, I'll sing your praises. I'll sing your praises. If you can use these leads to construct a word, that's the real answer to this puzzle. And the answer to the puzzle was called once again, how to electrify something. Right. All right. Well, lock us through.

22:33Lock us through, Greg. Well, use these leads is a nice clue because it could mean identify the lead singers of these songs. Right. And also can mean take the first letter, the leading letter. Right. So your songs, not counting the example, right? Your songs were, you don't mess around with Jim by the great Jim Croci. Right. The boys of summer by Don Henley. Right. Rolling in the deep by Adele. Nice. Umbrella by Rihanna. Popo popo poker face by Lady Gaga. Lose yourself by Eminem. And sitting on the dock of the eBay by Eodis Redding, Jr. That's it. So if you take the first, Croci, Henley Adele, monominate, mononomic, single named Rihanna, single named Gaga, basically single named Eminem, single

23:37named, and then Eodis Redding, you get C-H-A-R-G-E-R. Charger. Which is charger. That's how you electrify something with a charger. Prius, precisely. Well done, Greg. And by the way. Well done, Shree. Shree did a great job. Very clever. He did give an additional hint if you were confused by the surname thing. He says, don't focus on the first step of the leads. But I figured you didn't need it. So thank you, Shree, for that electronic music puzzle. Very fun. And yeah, as Adam and Greg were saying. It looks acknowledge it's tough to do a metapuzzle in your head. Like I wrote all those down as we went on. Right. We want the song title. No, he's given us that. Maybe we went the artist. You got to write it all down. And then you can start to see it evolve. It's true. And it's a good reminder, also puzzle solving reminder for anybody who confronts metapuzzles out in the wild.

24:38You know, if you're being asked to solve the metapuzzle, you don't have to solve all the components. Right. If you want to jump to the answer, because you've got C-H-A-R-G and you think, oh, how do you electrify something? You use a charger. You can skip the last two if you want to. Nice. Some people are complete. It's they like to get every clue. Greg was a jumper. We saw that. Another way to electrify something with the jumper. There you go. Well done. So yes, send in more puzzles. We have several ways to communicate with us. There's the Hello Puzzlers pod at Gmail. There is our Instagram, which is Add Hello Puzzlers. And we have a lovely community on Patreon, which we are so thrilled with our friends there. It's patreon.com slash hello puzzlers. We now have a we have a tick talk. So hello dot puzzlers.

25:39We got a lot of stuff up there. We're easy to find. Oh, and don't forget we have a game coming out our first home game. The Hello Puzzlers first home game, which is based on our ear bus, which is it's very fun party game. We think you'll like it. Where can I pre order that? Where can I get a copy of that game? Well, I'm glad you asked, Greg. Earbusgame.com soon to be available everywhere, but earbusgame.com pre order right now. Be the first on your block. Get a first edition. Yeah. Yeah. Well, thank you to our listeners and thank you. Thank you, Hayley. Thank you, Shree. And Steve. And of course, thank you to the Hello Puzzlers team of Greg, Adam and Andrea. And to you listeners out there, we will see you next time right here for more puzzling puzzles that will puzzle you puzzle.

26:41Thanks for playing along with the team here at Hello Puzzlers. I'm Greg Pusca, your chief puzzle officer. Our executive producers are Neely Lomon and Adam Newhouse of Newhouse Ideas. The show is produced by Claire Bittigar Curtis and our senior puzzler is Andrea Schoenberg.