Not one, but two puzzles this week…..
1) What word is almost always pronounced incorrectly by radio presenters?
2) One for the meteorologists out there – if it is raining at midnight, what are the chances of the sun shining in 72 hours time?
As ever, please do NOT post your answers, but do say if you think you have solved the puzzle and how long it took. Solution on Monday.
I have produced an ebook containing 101 of the previous Friday Puzzles! It is called PUZZLED and is available for theKindle (UK here and USA here) and on the iBookstore (UK here in the USAhere). You can try 101 of the puzzles for free here.
They’re nice and easy this week!
Got both pretty much instantly despite not hearing them before. Second was easier.
Had the answer right away.
Will be some discussion about the 2nd question though
My thoughts exactly.
Indeed. I’ve already come up with the expected answer, along with my refutation of it and quibbling over exactly what the question is asking.
Very easy – about 3 seconds to answer
Both easy, though I would like to propose “eyjafjallajokull” as an alternative answer to question (1)
I would like to propose ‘Bowie’ as an alternative to question 1 too – really gets my goat up when DJs mispronounce that
Or Bono.
@PaulJ – So how do you pronounce Sonny’s last name?
Like this: “Bono”.
I think there are two answers for the second question. It depends on how pedantic one is about the wording.
Yes, finally a puzzle that I got straight away. Got the 2nd one first which helped solve the first one (if you know what I mean?)
Yes! Dead easy, both of them.
Both obvious and immediate.
I fear that discussion of the second question could get quite polarized.
It could even go round in circles.
I suspect a lot of people saw the trick question, and immediately think they’ve got it… when actually it’s a trick trick question.
Have you ever noticed on an aeroplane that it’s always sunny above the clouds!?!
Not at night its not!
Got both in 0.56535126643366632114336 seconds
5 seconds the pair
“Almost” always? That’s intriguing.
Suspiciously easy.
Ian – I see what you did there!
JimC – well, some people might not pronounce it incorrectly….
Second question about 5 seconds. But the first maybe a minute, I think!
Residents of Longyearbyen might have something interesting to say about Q2…
I don’t think it would rain there, though. Snow would be a bit more likely.
But it does rain in Longyearbyen, although of course only in the summer. As far as the question is concerned, it only needs to have happened once. It is irrelevant if snow is more likely.
http://weatherspark.com/averages/28884/Longyearbyen-Spitsbergen-Svalbard-and-Jan-Mayen
Anyway, rather interestingly, it looks like it is possible to make a numerical estimate based on the local climate…
Well, you’re right in that for rain to fall, the season would have to be such that the ‘interesting’ answer would be possible. So let’s go for ‘very slim’, then, on the off chance that you’re in Longyearbyen or thereabouts and it’s one of the rare rainy midnights.
About five seconds.
Yes,more time spent reading the puzzles than working out the answers.
I have no clue about the first riddle (must be a UK thing). As for the second, it depends whether you’re above the northern polar circle (or below the southern polar circle), and whether it’s summer or winter…
The answer to Q1 has nothing to do with the UK or any other location; at least if I’m right it doesn’t.
No, but it does require the radio presenters to be speaking English.
Camel Ali, no, I don’t think it does
Both solved while reading. But whenever my students say, “That was easy,” a cold hand clutches at my heart….
It’s -6 degrees C in my garage. The fridge in there is set to +3 deg C.
Why is it making a noise ? Is it running backwards ?
The answer to question #2 might be trivial or not depending on the place of the Earth and the time of the year that you are in.
For #1, I propose “Madeleine”, as in the college at Oxford University.
There is no such thing. There is Magdalen College, Oxford, and Magdalene College, Cambridge. I have never heard of a Madeleine College
Magdalen is pronounced “maudlin”, which many people get right because they’ve heard it once. Magdalene is pronounced the way it’s spelled, which many people get wrong because they’ve heard “maudlin” once
By the way: this might be because I’m a linguistic professor, but I find it extremely aggravating when people try to mislead you by deliberately failing to use linguistic meta-reference markers that ought to be there. Please stop doing so.
Ok… well that confirms my answer for number one. That was the only thing that was bothering me.
I’m not a linquistics professor, but the misuse of linquistics meta-reference markers pisses me off as well.
Whatever the hell they are.
I heard this was the real reason for the Crusades.
Got fooled into thinking they were trivia questions, looked at the comments and saw how fast people solved them, read them again and was like ‘OH. Okay!
’
That’s exactly what happened to me. Went from “How should I know?” to “Duh!” after seeing the comments and re-reading the questions.
Both very straight forward. Though the second entirely depends on how you interpret the question. It may seem like an obvious trick question, but if you take it quite literally, it’s quite different.
Make you mind up, old boy. Up above this point of the answers at 9.26 you say:-
“I suspect a lot of people saw the trick question, and immediately think they’ve got it… when actually it’s a trick trick question.”
or is the “trick” that if you just read the questions as stated the answers are obvious?
Got both quickly. I agree, though, that some pedants will argue Q2.
It’s not “pedants” that will argue it. Pedantry is preoccupation with irrelevant details. If it affects the answer, it’s not irrelevant.
How’s that for pedantic?
Meta-pedantic.
Well played, sir.
Richard – Oh, don’t be such a pendant.
Both very obvious – to the posters on here who think there can be any discussion about the answers, you are so obviously wrong!
This week’s questions are so easy, even I solved them.
I certainly hope the sun will always be shining, at least until I’m safely dead. If it’s shining on me is another question
For Q1, I suppose there is only one answer that does not require information about where the radio presenters are, or where they are from, or which language they are speaking, so I think I have it
There’s only one puzzle this week, the same one as last week: “Where’s the Friday Puzzle?”
We need somethimg to think about, not questions that are solved before you’ve finished the blurb about not posting answers.
And, in accordance with the request to say how long it took: It took me just as long as it took to read the questions, plus about 0.5 seconds thinking time.
If I am right I got both instantly. If I am wrong then I am missing something!
Got the second one instantly. Still puzzling over the first.
I wonder what % of radio presenters speak English
After 10 seconds of ‘How the hell would I know?’, the brain worked.
What if the radio presenters mispronounce the answer to no.1?
It won’t be pronounced blahdyblah then.
No2 has many answers, though I can see the one that will be posted on monday the sun always shines on me.
I’d like to remind people that the chances of rain are fairly slim in certain climates.
1. why “almost”? the inclusion of that word in the question makes no sense.
2. there are 3 valid answers to this question, which contains 4 ambiguities that affect the answer.
“why almost” – because some may mispronounce it
but the puzzle doesn’t specify its pronunciation…
Well there’s one word they nearly always pronounce wrong and it annoys me no end. I’ve lost count of the number of emails I’ve sent to the BBC about it!
One of those questions would work better if spoken, and the other has several possible different answers, depending on one’s point of view. Nice to see Richard back on ambiguous form
For the first puzzle I have no idea, for the second one… lol
Both could potentially be trick questions, although Q1 works best if read aloud and the answer to Q2 depends on starting time and either geography or physics (I suppose chemistry could come into it as well…)
I got one possible answer for both almost immediately, especially as I’m familiar with a variation on Q1 where the key word is “spelled” rather than “pronounced”.
Less time than it took to read the questions.
By the way, the inclusion of rain to question 2 is a requirement and a disambiguation factor.
There will most definitely be a discussion about question two.
There are two completely valid and defensible answers depending on how you interpret parts of the question.
Done & Done.
Sounds like a firm of solicitors.
I live in Tromso…
that second problem is one solvable only by advanced stellar physics. is rain possible as close to 72 hours before the sun is extinguished?
that first problem reminds me there is word often written backwards in comments to this blog
I really have no clue about the first question. Maybe the fact that I have never heard english speaking radio is an issue here ?
I don’t understand question one at all, no clue.
Question two was trivial, although I can see the potential problem with the wording.
Yippee!? …For the first time in my Friday Puzzle career, I got the answers in seconds!
Got both in seconds. (With a groan for each.)
I second that. (:-)
The first one took me a second, but when I figured it out I immediately remembered that I hate those kinds of “puzzles”: http://xkcd.com/169/
I thought of that cartoon as well. There’s an xkcd for everything, isn’t there?
Very fast, but there will definitely be debate over 2, with good reason. Unfortunately, anyone who disagrees with me will be wrong.
#2 would be problematic to a meteorologist in Alaska or Finland (to name a couple).
How long it took? How do you measure the time of a thought?
Seemed pretty easy to me.
Here’s a harder puzzle for you (almost) :-
If my pet spaniel is called Lucinda what are the chances of the sun shining in 72 hours?
I think I got both of these trick questions immediately.
The second one I got instantly. The first one took a couple minutes–duhhhh.
I think I remember these from a book of riddles when I was 4.
The riddles of both questions aside, there is one word which is nearly always mispronounced by radio and TV presenters alike (including BBC presenters & correspondents).
That word is SIXTH, which will more often than not be pronounced SICKTH. If you can say SIX and the sound TH, their really is no excuse. The only people I have pronounce it correctly are the likes of Stephen Fry, John Humphries and maybe David Dimbleby.
…I have **heard**. prnounce it correctly…
I know the answer! I know it!
Finally two that I have figured out. The second one almost straight away. The first one after reading it a few times.
Got both, quite easy this week, well, very easy.
Got the answers fairly quickly, assuming that the second question should have read “72 hours later” rather than “in 72 hours”