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Every week the Sunday Puzzle issues a compact but clever test of wordplay. This edition hands you pairs of five-letter words and asks you to add the same two letters to the end of the first word and the start of the second. The result in each case is a familiar seven-letter word. Try them and see how many you can complete.
How the two-letter bridge puzzle works
The game gives two related five-letter words. Add the identical two letters to the end of the first word and to the beginning of the second word. Each new seven-letter result should be a common word.
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Example: LATER and READY become LATERAL and ALREADY, by inserting the letters “AL”.
Six word pairs to solve now
- 1. Habit / Tempt
- 2. Laten / Press
- 3. Blank / Ching
- 4. Since / Venue
- 5. Shack / Groom
- 6. Surge / Stage
Past week: reader challenge and solution
Last week’s brainteaser came from Rawson Sheinberg of Plymouth, Michigan. The prompt asked for a U.S. city with two words. Add one letter to the first word (without rearranging) to name a country, and then anagram the second word (no added letters) to name a second country.
The intended city was Los Angeles, which yields Laos (by adding a letter to Los) and Senegal (by rearranging Angeles).
Reader recognition
Our selected solver this time is Elaine Neel of Derby, Kansas.
This week’s original on-air challenge
To honor the 186th National Puzzlers’ League convention in Bloomington, Indiana, guest setters Henri Picciotto and Joshua Kosman supplied this week’s puzzle.
Find two words that are opposites and that share a single letter. Remove that shared letter from each word. Then place a hyphen between the two resulting starting words. The hyphenated phrase is commonly seen in food advertising. What are the two original words?
Hints and contest rules
- Do not rearrange letters inside each word.
- The two words are antonyms and intersect on exactly one shared letter.
- After removing the shared letter, join the two beginnings with a hyphen to form the advertised term.
How to submit your answer
If you know the solution, enter it at the official submission form. Submissions are accepted through the online entry by the deadline.
Deadline: Thursday, July 9 at 3 p.m. ET.
Important: Include a phone number so producers can contact you if your entry is chosen.
Submit here: https://npr.formstack.com/forms/sunday_puzzle
On-air opportunity and prize
Winners will be contacted and may get a chance to play the puzzle live on the program. Selected answers also appear in the next published write-up.
