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Sunday Puzzle: You Can't Spell Consonant Without C Or T

Sunday Puzzle

On-air challenge: Every answer today is a word, name or phrase in which the only consonants are C and T — repeated as often as necessary. All the other letters are vowels.

Example: Understood without being stated --> Tacit

1. Room at the top of a house

2. Like an angle that's less than 90 degrees

3. Group of eight musicians

4. Desert plants with needles

5. Adorable person

6. City on the Erie Canal

7. Strategy

8. Something invisible a grade schooler doesn't want to get

9. Brand of breath mint (two words)

10. Kind of acid

11. Ancient Greek state with Athens

12. Misbehave (two words)

13. French poet, playwright and novelist Jean

14. Turn on, as a machine

15. Virtuoso musical piece played on a piano

16. Large lake between Bolivia and Peru

17. Cry meaning "Stop! That's enough!" (three words)

18. Game with X's and O's (hyphen)

Last week's challenge: This challenge is something different. It comes from Joseph Young of St. Cloud, Minn. It involves Pi Day, which is Saturday, March 14 — commonly written as 3/14. That's been designated Pi Day because 3-1-4 are the first three digits of pi. Well, the letters of "Pi Day" also have a curious mathematical significance. What is it?

Challenge Answer: The numerical positions in the alphabet of "Pi Day" are 16, 9, 4, 1, and 25 — the first five perfect squares.

Winner: Bernie Speevack of Louisville, Ky.

This week's challenge: This week's challenge comes from Adam Cohen of Brooklyn. Think of a well-known entertainer, six letters in the first name, four letters in the last. You can change the first letter of the entertainer's last name to name an animal. And you can change the first letter of the entertainer's first name to get what kind of animal that is.

Submit Your Answer

If you know the answer to next week's challenge, submit it here. Listeners who submit correct answers win a chance to play the on-air puzzle. Important: Include a phone number where we can reach you by Thursday, March 19, at 3 p.m. ET.

Copyright 2021 NPR. To see more, visit https://www.npr.org.

NPR's Puzzlemaster Will Shortz has appeared on Weekend Edition Sunday since the program's start in 1987. He's also the crossword editor of The New York Times, the former editor of Games magazine, and the founder and director of the American Crossword Puzzle Tournament (since 1978).