Un-silent Letters

If an S and an I and an O and a U/ With an X at the end spell SU;

And an E and a Y and an E spell I,

Pray what’s a speller to do?

Then also, if an S and an I and a G

And H-E-D spell CIDE,

There’s not much left for a speller to do,

But to go and commit SIOUXEYESIGHED. (Cool no?)

Secondly, consider if you will the following words: BOUQUET, PEIPING, SEALING, TAOISM, QUAY, PHARMACY, JANITOR, NAVAJO, EYE, GESTURE, CHORUS, W-SHAPED, GRANDPA, COMPTROLLER, TABLEAU, HICCOUGH, KOALA, COLONEL, CENTURION, PASSED, EWE, THEREOF, ONE, WRECKS, UNICORN, XYLOPHONE. The question is what’s the logic in listing them together. Okay, don’t go breaking rocks with your head because the answer’s simple. Each word has an alphabet which is pronounced in the word but is not actually there in it. For instance BOUQUET is pronounced “Boo-kay” with a distinct “A” sound in the end but there’s no A in it at all. Similarly, PEIPING the old spelling of Beijing had an initial P with a B sound but no real B. And SEALING is pronounced as if we’re saying “C-ling” but where’s the C? Work out the rest if you, like me, have time to waste and nothing better to do with it.

But finally, and thirdly, we come to the actual puzzle. Consider the following words: ROUND*, PUZZLE, HOT, LADY*, CRADLE, BOMBAY, LAUGHING*. Each word represents one part of a two-word set with the asterisk indicating whether the second word comes in front or the back. Your problem is to complete each with the name of an animal and then, again, tell what’s the logic in listing them together. Remember that the first part of the puzzle is fairly straightforward; it’s the second part which gets to be on the side of daunting. (For your benefit, the first one can be expanded to ROUND ROBIN.)

DEAR MS

Dim-Tubelight-Dept:

(A talkative passenger who, after getting off, realised that the cabbie couldn’t have been deaf or dumb as he had pretended to be. How? — MS)

The logic is that when the lady got into the cab, she must have informed the cabbie of her destination and he dropped her as directed. That’s what suddenly occurred to her and she knew that he was not deaf.

M Giridhar, makrerigiridhar@gmail.com

When the lady got into the cab, they both would have talked of the 
destination, when he would have responded. Unless it happens in a place like Taiwan where all you do is show the written address to a cabbie and he takes you right there! — A V R Murthy, avramamurthy@gmail.com

The answer is that as the lady gets in, she tells the cab driver her destination. If the driver was deaf and dumb, he could not have taken her to the right place. That is how the lady knew.

Malavika Manu, manumalavika@yahoo.com

One basic fact has been ignored. Can a deaf and dumb person get a driving license — that too as a cab driver? If YES, then we need to look for solutions. — P Gnanaseharan, gnanam.chithrabanu@gmail.com

Riches-To-Rags-Dept:

(The other problem was: “A man buys rice at $1 a pound from American growers and sells them at $0.05 a pound in India. As a result of this he becomes a millionaire. How come?” — MS)

This requires lateral thinking. If you cannot become rich from poverty, at least you can become rich from an ultra-rich state. What I mean to say is that the man must have been a good Samaritan and a billionaire too. So by doing this great activity of kindness, he became a millionaire (from a billionaire).— Saifuddin Khomosi, saif_sfk@hotmail.com

ENDGAME

There’s this farmer who comes to town with some watermelons. He sells half of them plus half a melon and finds that he has one whole melon left. How many melons did he take to town?

Vinayak Shukla, shukla58@hotmail.com

(To get in touch with Mukul, mail him at mukul.mindsport@gmail.com)