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V11 2008 INDEX
E-SYLUM ARCHIVE
BRAIN TEASER ANSWER: WHAT DO THESE WORDS HAVE IN COMMON?
Last week I published a brain teaser forwarded by Dave
Bowers: "If you can figure out what these words have in common, you are a
lot smarter than I am."
Bob Leuver answered "The second letter in each
word is the same as the last letter of the word." - Banana
- Dresser
- Grammar
- Potato
- Revive
- Uneven
- Assess
Jim Davis picked up on the "mass of doubled letters", as did Joseph D. McCarthy who writes: "The obvious answer is that each word contains TWO sets of letters that are each used TWICE."
Bob Laetare writes: "Your word puzzle was easy, or else I am completely wrong. All of the words have two sets of double letters."
True, but there's more to it than that. Carl Honore was very close - his answer was the same as mine. He writes: "Each word begins with a letter followed by a palindromatic figure; the rest of the word can be read forwards or backwards."
Martin Purdy and Pete Smith were close as well. Martin writes: "Take away the first letter and you have a palindrome in each case." Pete adds: "There is a connection with numismatics - some banknotes have palindromic serial numbers. These are also called "radar" notes for obvious reasons. As Christopher figured out, all the words in your brain teaser are pallandromes with an added letter in front."
Joe Boling nailed it with a very succinct explanation, which was how my son Christopher answered it. Carl, Martin and Pete's answers are arguably identical to this one, but Joe's response is closest to how the author of the quiz described the answer. Joe writes: "Move the first letter to the back and read it right to left - same word."
Rich Mantia writes: "I got it now. That's really intense! That's why Dave is at the top of the writer's pool. I was only looking at words that acted as RADAR's in relation to currency. Reversing the word by moving the first letter is truly a MENSA question. Congrats to Mr. Bowers for beating me at a game of 'Stump the Chump'. I really enjoyed it."
Nick Graver's wife Marilyn solved it as well. Many thanks to everyone who participated.
the cascabels of two cannon BRAIN TEASER: WHAT DO THESE WORDS HAVE IN COMMON?
Wayne Homren, Editor
The Numismatic Bibliomania Society is a non-profit organization promoting numismatic literature. See our web site at coinbooks.org.
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