Sunday Puzzle: Great Crate

On-air challenge: I'm going to read you some sentences. Each sentence has two blanks. The word that goes in the first blank starts GR-. Change the GR- to CR- and phonetically you'll get a new word that goes in the second blank to complete the sentence.

For example: At brunch I put ______ jelly on top of my ______. GRAPE, CREPE

1. Folding my bus ticket to Athens, ______, left a permanent ______ in it.

2. At school I always put off studying sentence structure until the last minute, so you might call me a ______ ______.

3. My dad's dad always got pain in his legs when swimming, and we never found a way to prevent ______ ______.

4. The baker would ______ under her breath if her apple ______ turned out bad.

5. The first asteroid left a big hole in the surface of the moon, but the second, larger one produced an even ______ ______.

Last week's challenge: This week's challenge comes from listener Andy Blau. He's a magician who performs under the name Zoltan the Adequate. He describes the word BEVY as "alphabetically balanced." That is, the first letter, B, is second from the start of the alphabet, and the last letter, Y, is second from the end of the alphabet. Similarly, E and V are each fifth from the ends of the alphabet. Can you think of a six-letter word related to magic that is similarly balanced?

Challenger answer: WIZARD

Winner: Tom Doskow of San Francisco.

This week's challenge: Think of a two-letter and a five-letter word that are synonyms. The two-letter word and the last syllable of the five-letter word sound like new words that are antonyms. What words are these?

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, Aug. 8 at 3 p.m. ET. [Copyright 2019 NPR]