Asking about Axes and Axes

0:00Hello puzzlers! Let's start with a quick intro duckery puzzle. This puzzle is from Friend of the Show, Peter Gordon. It's Peter and Crossword Constructor, a hero of mine. Peter wrote in about a puzzle that we gave a couple of weeks ago, and it was an intro puzzle about famous people whose names have only one repeating vowel. It's only that same, like Renee Zellwicker has only these. Yoko Ono, only O's, Alinalda, only A's. Univocalic names, if you want to be fancy with the terminology. I said during the intro that I could not think of any people with only use in their name. Well Peter Gordon came to the rescue, and he sent in two U-only names, and I'm going to give you those hints as the intro puzzled to think about while we take a break. The first hint is, one is a 1920's gangster who is not from the Netherlands despite his

1:07name. The second only U-name is, exactly as I was hoping someone would say, is a race car driver. Whose last name sounds like the last name of two U.S. presidents? So a race car driver, whose last name is the hominem of two U.S. presidents, the answer, and more puzzling goodness after the break. Hello folks, welcome back to the Hello Puzzlers podcast, The Lou Garic in your Puzzle Murderer's Pro. I thought it was appropriate with the gangster stuff. I'm your host, A.J. Jacobs. I'm here of course with Chief Puzzle Officer. Greg, please go. And Greg, before the break, we add a question. Can you name anyone? Whose name has only one vowel, and that vowel is U. Two hints the first was that it was a 1920's gangster who is not from the Netherlands despite his name.

2:09Greg, any thoughts? Dutch? That's right, Dutch. That's his whole name, Dutch. Oh, I got it. Dutch. Dutch. Dutch. Dutch. Dutch. That's it. Yes. You got it. Good job, A.J. Nicely done. I know him from who's in some movies like his character, Cockney Club maybe. Second is a race car. Do you know your NASCAR drivers? Last name sounds like the last name of two U.S. presidents? It's something bush. It's a... You got it. Dumbush. Trump Bush. Taff Bush. No, no, just the last name. You got the last name as Bush first. Oh, I thought it was two U.S. president names put together. Oh, got it. Interesting. Okay. So yeah, he got it. He spells it, right, spells it B-U-S-C-H. B-U-S-C-H, and his first name is Bush. Like Cobain. Kirtbush. Kirtbush. Kirtbush.

3:09That's it. Very good. B-U-S-C-H. As I said, came from our friend Peter Gordon. I do have one more. I have one more. I think I might have mentioned it today we did this, but it's... It's the great Burmese leader, U-Nu. U-S-B-A-N-U. Now... Oh, that's good. Technically U in Myanmar and Burmese is an honorific, like Sir or Shri in Indian culture. So it's not... But that's the name U-Tont was the great... Right. ...was one of the great U-N secretaries general with that honorific. So I mean U-Tont is the name by which that person is known, so U-Nu would count as well. I will give it to you. I'll allow it. Well Peter also sent in another fictional character created by Sid and Marty Croft, a very bizarre TV character from the 1960s. Yes. You got to be old to know this one. You got to be old to know. H-R-Puffin stuff.

4:09Puffin stuff. Very weird. I never watched it. I just watched it on YouTube and found it unsettling. Very weird. But H-R probably stood for something like Harold Ruth's or something. I could be. Or human resources, puffin stuff. So... And Peter sent in a... It was just a long list of other great Unifocalic names, including Moon Bloodgood, who I never heard of, but she is an actor. Can we turn this into a quiz that we put up on Patreon? That's what I was thinking. Could be a matching quiz. You get all the professions and all the names and you got to figure out, you know, you kind of go through which is which. Let's do it. I mean, it is a wonderful list. He's very thorough. Peter Gordon. Thank you again. And Peter sending in an intro puzzle seems appropriate because today is a all-lishtner puzzle episode for Friday puzzle lab.

5:10We got one medium spicy puzzle coming up and then one that is quite spicy. So I'm going to start with the medium spicy one and I'm going to give it to Greg and senior puzzler Andrea Schoenberg. And I am a fan of this puzzle. I think it's fun. As he points out, it's more of a quiz than a puzzle, perhaps, is from listener Trevor Cashmore. He sent us some. He's awesome. He sent, he was at game night. He sent in another puzzle we already did called Take the L where you remove an L from a letter. This one, he's a high school English and math teacher, which is impressive, English and math. He plays this with a student and he calls it none, one or tons, none, one or tons. And the premise is that the answer to each question will be either you guessed it none, one or tons. That's the entire premise. So I'm going to give you a question and you will answer and then I'm going to read Trevor

6:16did an excellent job with explaining the answer with fun trivia. So get ready for some fun Trevor Cashmore trivia. Here is your first question. How many people were burned at the stake during the Salem which trials? None, was it none, zero, one, the digit one, were tons. And by the way, tons has to be at least four. That's his criterion. So the answer is two or three, we're not going to ask about them. That falls in the sort of the relevant, god, elephant zone. My guess is going to be none that I don't know how many people were actually executed in Salem, right? There were the trials. It was very significant historical event. How many people were actually killed? I don't know. Maybe it was a lot, but I'm not even sure they were burned if they were killed. That feels like a more medieval kind of thing.

7:18He's too smart for us that Greg. He got it. Twenty people were executed. It says Trevor. Okay. Nineteen of them were hanged and one man was pressed to death with heavy stones. Terrible. It's awful. Really. This is horrible. Yeah, you're right. I shouldn't say that one is particularly better than one. But burning at the stake was a European practice used to punish heretics during the acquisition Joan of Arc. So it was never used in Salem. Well done. All right. Also, those of us who know money, Python are familiar with the, you know, she's a witch, burner sketch, but they never actually burn anyone. And they, well, I want to say, pressure to death with heavy stones. No. They said, burner. How many Grammy awards have been revoked by the recording economy? Is it none, one, or tons, meaning over four or over, I guess?

8:22What do you think Andrea? Did they revoke, was it Millie Vanille, you was, uh, when it was found out they were lip syncing in their live shows? I don't know if they actually revoked that. That really fair, right? Because you got the Grammy for the recording. It shouldn't be a failure. Yeah, I don't. I'm unaware of the actually revoked it. And it got also the, the, maybe they revoked something for a whole different thing. I mean, here's the thing. Grammy's been around a long time. They give out tons of Grammy awards every year. There's, you know, the categories just keep proliferating so everyone can get one. And the possibility of revoking them for one reason or another seems likely. Yeah. I probably, I guess one, I think it's happy to once. I'm going to go tons, actually. Okay. Andrea wins the round and, oh, oh. Oh, oh. I guess the correct, uh, instant, it was Millie Vanille. It was, I, Greg does not approve, but it just happened.

9:24I can't, it's history. All right. This one. Don't worry, Greg. You're going to redeem yourself on this one because it's a geography question. How many countries have more than one capital city, one none or tons? I could think of at least two, I guess. Yeah, I got to be more than two though. Yeah, but you wouldn't ask if it was two or three. Yeah. Right. So therefore it's got to be tons, right? You're thinking of Bolivia as a couple of preface. Well, I was thinking, yes. You've got, I'm talking Andrea. So you got South Africa, which has three different capitals. South Africa, yeah. What about, and you got it. I'm not sure. I'm not sure. I'm not sure. I'm not sure. I'm not sure. I'm not sure. I'm not sure. I'm not sure. I'm not sure. I'm not sure. I'm not sure. I'm not sure. I'm not sure. Well, it all depends how you define it. So that's the gray area. But by Trevor's count, there are around 13 sovereign countries

10:29with more than one capital. As you mentioned, South Africa, South Korea, Bolivia, Chile, Malaysia, the Netherlands, Philippines, and a lot of times they'll split between the official constitutional capital and the administrative capital. So it's splitting the up. Some have a legislative capital. Right. All right, I got two more. How many pirates in history are documented as actually having buried their treasure? How many pirates in history are documented as actually having buried their treasure? Is it not, or one, or tons? OK. What do we mean by documented? And what do we mean by pirates? Oh, boy. We got some nitpickers. Most pirate lore comes from this one source. That's mostly fictional, right? Am I making that up? Yes, but this one, according to, and I did fact check it, is quite well documented. It is not going to be talking about sort of barberry

11:31co-stera pirates. We're talking about Somali pirates. So we're talking about the Pittsburgh pirates. Did Willie Stardial bury his wealth in the back? Great question. Surely someone on the Pittsburgh briars has buried something they consider a treasure at some point. At some point? I think of times I apologize on behalf of my fellow fellow slaves. Super annoying. Just trying to weasel out, advance or any questions. Well, the way that you're speaking is you're saying that this is a well documented thing, which the way you're saying it makes me think that there's one. But you could also be trying to traverse. I think it's zero. I think we're going to go with zero. It's like the trope about pirates they buried their treasure are in the treasure map. And in fact, none of the treasure was ever buried. Well, Andre, I got this one too. It is one. There is only one documented pirate who with buried his treasure. And that is Captain William Kid who hid a portion of his loot on gardeners, island near Long Island, New York in 1699 and it was recovered after his trial

12:35or at least part of it. Some of it might still be out there. The legend is there remains more buried treasure. All right, this one I'll end with another geography one as a gift to Greg. How many islands are in a lake on an island in a lake on an island? How many islands are there in a lake on an island in a lake on an island? On an island. Is it one? Is it none or is it tons? I mean, who can check this really? How many places do you have to visit to be sure to find? There's at least one. I think there's at least one. Yes. I'm going to still have to go on one. I'm going to go with one. Yeah, no, tons. Tons. Okay, sure. There are many lakes and we can put the list on the internet. But then there's one that it's actually there's a debate. Is it a fourth order or fifth order, meaning is it like a recursive

13:41by island lake, island lake, island lake, island lake or something else. And that would be Canada. Canada's Yachtquad lake is a supremely nested lake. So that sounds interesting to visit. How do you define a lake? How big does it have to be to be a lake? Maybe it's just a little pond. There you go. All right, I'm ignoring all of these questions. But it was a delightful puzzle. And we have more puzzles coming up in a moment. So stay with us. 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 of Quince clothing. There's genos t-shirts, long sleeve shirts.

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16:44So thank you. Hello Puzzlers, welcome back to the Hello Puzzlers podcast. We have an all listeners puzzle episode. We have a delightful one from Trevor Cashmore. We have another one coming up. But before that, we have another listener themed brief segment with Greg Plyska. Greg, tell us what we got. Well, as you know, we have a Patreon, patreon.com slash Hello Puzzlers where anyone can join for free, become part of the community, engage with the puzzling, meet your other Hello Puzzlers community members. Have a great time. We've got newsletters. We've got extra content on there. It's a lot of fun. You can also join as a paid subscriber over there on Patreon, which gets rid of some ads, opens up additional bonus content. And if you join as a VIP, a very important puzzler, you get a shout out right here on the podcast.

17:45And we have a new VIP member. Hi, Ray. Welcome. So what works is a little, it's an odd one out puzzle. I'm going to give you four things, one of which is the name of our VIP member and one of these four things doesn't belong. And you have to figure out which one and why. All right. So our VIP is Sarah S. It's S-A-R-A-S. Hello, Sarah. Hello, Sarah. Thank you. And here are your four items. Sarah S. Hogan Greg, Mad Adam and Diva David. I'm feeling some anagram energy. I'm feeling palindrome. Yeah. Good for you. All right. So take it away. Oh yeah, Sarah S is a palindrome. Yes. Very kind of Sarah L. Deliverer. Well, palindrome. Mad Adam was the, that was the, that's a palindrome.

18:45Mad Adam. Our producer Adam Newhouse. Hit me off. Yeah. Nice. Diva David is also a palindrome. Yeah. And so the, the other one, the one that we didn't just say. Over Greg. Over Greg. Oh, not a palindrome. It does have some letters in Ogre that are in Greg, but it's not exactly right. And he's not an ogre as far as I'm concerned. No. Others may disagree. Lovely puzzle and lovely to have you as part of the family, Sarah S. But we got more listener content. Andrea is going to be giving a puzzle to Greg that was created by one of our most prolific listeners. Andrea, what do you got? All right. We've got this puzzle from Eric Gus. Eric Gus. Yes. G-U-S-S. Eric Gus, he's sent to the U before. Yes. We love him. Thank you. He's got a lot of gusto. Haha. Oh. Betty's never heard that. No. I'm a gusty, gusty that up.

19:46But here we go. He said that he was doing the August 31st, 2025, New York Times Connections puzzle. And two of the tiles were coordinate and axes. As a math tutor, I often use these words together to mean the graphs with a horizontal and vertical system of location, pronounced coordinate and axes. However, because of the nature of connections, I had to consider that maybe I should use these two words as coordinate and axes to organize cutting tools. So that made him think of a puzzle. In this puzzle, each clue refers to a pair of words spelled the same, but pronounced differently. So for example, a graphing system versus to organize cutting tools would give the answer coordinate axes versus coordinate axes. Coordinate axes. So all of them are two words repeated, but pronounced

20:46differently. So coordinate turns into coordinate and axes, axes, like the X Y, turns into the chopping tool. Exactly. And Eric gives clues to both. It's a very tricky puzzle. That's why we saved it for the end. It's spicy. Yes, it's definitely spicy. Are all the two word phrases sort of dictionary nature phrases like coordinate axes or some making stuff up? I would lead more towards the making stuff up. But it would be very hard to construct this for the other way. Yeah, no, it'd be very hard to construct this the other way. So there are only five here for us, but they are as established. They're a little spicy. So I think I think it'll go up our time. All right, are you ready? Yes. OK, number one, the list of fruits and veggies versus the two steps

21:46needed to make a hit song. OK. Let's say it again. I've got one of the words. A list of fruits and veggies versus the two steps needed to make a hit song. Well, I was going to say produce or produce the collective term for that fruits and veggies and then to produce a song. That's one of the two. That's one of the two. Yeah. It's a list or the steps necessary process. Yeah, something you do to get a song out there. You have to produce tracks. You produce. It's more like a produce comma. So produce. Oh, got it. Got it. OK, that's helpful. Thank you. I'm going to say produce and process. Yeah. But it's not process. Yes. Yes. And the other one is the list of fruits and veggies, the produce. Yeah. A lot of the produce, the numerous and the produce.

22:50It is. You might say for the blank, or you might say, again, this book of records, record, the produce record and produce record. There you go. Got it. Thanks for the help. Got it. I told you it's spicy. Definitely spicy. Definitely spicy. All right. Here's the second one. A license for garbage versus the two opposing positions on whether to allow something. It's just now I've seen this puzzle and even I forget. I don't like that. License for garbage. Yeah. License for garbage, a trash or refuse or refuse. Oh, I think that's one of them. What's the second one? So the license for. Yeah. And then what's the other clue? The two opposing positions on whether to allow something. So the two opposed to you can refuse or allow refuse or permit. Yeah. A refuse permit or refuse permit.

23:51There you go. You got it. You got it. Wow. It's very clever that these were. Yeah. It's good. You just changed the emphasis and it's a new word. Yeah. Permit and permit. Those two are related, you know, etymologically in a way that refuse and refuse might not be. And they probably are actually the refuse. Good. That you toss out. Yeah. Refuse. Refuse. Okay. This one has the preposition two in between each word pair. Okay. Opposed behavior versus the Maistre's baton. Okay. So. Object. You can object, right? You can object to something or it's an object to an object to conduct is the Maistre's baton and object to conduct is to oppose. That's better. Great clue. I love that. Great clue Eric. All right. Only one more.

24:51Okay. All right. Here's your last one. A magazine about legal documents versus two important tasks for your intestines. Digest and something else to digest. Digest and digest. Okay. And it's a magazine about what? About legal documents. So it's a brief digest. Digest. Yeah. It's a three or in the right area. In the right area. I'm in the form of brief. It's legal. You know, there were legal documents. Legal documents. A writ, a subpoena, a contract. Contract. Yes. Contract digest or to contract and digest. There you go. Woo. Well done. I felt my intestines contracting with Glee as. Great.

25:51Great puzzle tricky one from Eric Gus or Rick Gus, I guess. As you know, we love getting these puzzles. So please send in more at HelloPuzzlersPod at gmail.com is one way or go on our delightful Patreon community, which is patreon.com slash Hello Puzzlers. And what can you get there Greg? You can get free version. There's a paid version. Yeah, you can if you pay, you can get it ad free. You've got a lot of extra content, you know, clues we didn't use on the air or additional puzzles. We also have game night occasionally with our Patreon members. And remember, it is free. It can just joined for free and be part of the community. So come see us there. We would love it. And of course, you can also come back here in a couple of days because guess what, we'll have more puzzling puzzles that will puzzle you puzzlingly.

26:54Thanks for playing along with the team here at HelloPuzzlers. I'm Greg Fiska, 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.