Ready to flex your brainpower? This week's Sunday Puzzle from NPR is all about U.S. cities, and it's a fun test of your wordplay skills! Get ready to decode sentences where the names of major cities are cleverly hidden within the letters. Each sentence contains the name of a major U.S. city spelled out using consecutive letters, with a helpful hint: the state the city is in is also mentioned in the sentence. Each city name has at least six letters.
Here are the clues:
- Space enthusiasts in Oregon support landing on Mars.
- Contact your insurance branch or agent in Alaska.
- The Ohio company has a sale from today to next Sunday.
- The Colorado trial ended in a sudden verdict.
- Fans voted the Virginia tennis matches a peak experience.
- I bought a shamrock for decorating my house in Illinois.
- All the Connecticut things they knew have now changed.
- Can you help a software developer in Texas?
Think you've got the answers?
Let's rewind and see how you would have fared last week. The challenge, crafted by Mike Reiss from "The Simpsons," asked you to identify a famous living singer. The last two letters of their first name and the first two letters of their last name spell a bird. Changing the first letter of their first name, and then using the first three letters of that name and the last five letters of their last name together spell another bird. The answer was Placido Domingo. The winner was Brock Hammill of Corvallis, Montana.
Now, for this week's challenge! This brainteaser comes from Robert Flood of Allen, Texas. You need to name a famous female singer from the past (with a five-letter first name and a seven-letter last name). Remove the last letter of their first name, and you can rearrange the remaining letters to form the name of a country's capital city (with six letters) and a food product that the nation is famous for (with five letters).
Intrigued? If you think you know the answer to this week's challenge, submit it by Thursday, December 18 at 3 p.m. ET. The winners will get a chance to play the puzzle on air!
What do you think? Are these puzzles fun and challenging? Do you have any favorite puzzle types? Let me know in the comments!
