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What's In A Name? A Country, Apparently

On-air challenge: A series of names of famous people will be given. For each name, change either the first or last letter of the last name to a new letter, and rearrange the result to name a country.

Last week's challenge: Last week's challenge came from listener Mike Reiss, who's a writer for The Simpsons. Name a well-known TV actress of the past. Put an R between her first and last names. Then read the result backward. The result will be an order Dr. Frankenstein might give to Igor. Who is the actress, and what is the order?

Answer: Eva Gabor; "rob a grave"

Winner: Jan Wolitzky of Madison, N.J.

Next week's challenge: The challenge comes from listener Sandy Weisz of Chicago. Write down the following four times: 3:00, 6:00, 12:55 and 4:07. These are the only times on a clock that share a certain property (without repeating oneself). What property is this?

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 Thursday at 3 p.m. Eastern.

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).