This past week’s puzzle:
We have been eating dinner out a lot lately, due to an in-progress kitchen remodel. During one such culinary expedition, Nora mentioned that she wanted to help my wife Allison make her delicious, healthy brownies by grating zucchini.
“Nora,” I said, “the zucchini isn’t just GREAT, it’s AMAZING!”
“No, Daddy,” she replied. “G-R-A-T-E, not G-R-E-A-T.”
And, thus, this week’s puzzle about homophones, heteronyms, oronyms, and homographs was born.
Below, please find a list of unlikely sentences or descriptions that can be summarized by a set of homophones, heteronyms, or oronyms. Please respond with the proper words summarizing each, along with the type of set the summary contains.
Example: Banana splits in the Sahara : A desert dessert (oronym)
- Cutting two fruits
- Mercy killing of young folks on other continents
- Capturing audio on vinyl
- An exemplified specimen unit of ovum
- To turn down trash
- A less sensate figure
- The premiere Pb
- To make farm goods
- Run, Siphonaptera!
- Magnitude of sad breaths
- Revealing the gift
- “My name is Xmas paper and I am here to say…”
- When the true falsehoods dawn on you
- A clothed boy placed house numbers on postcards
- 2:00 or 2:01-ish PM
- Planter of certain conifers
- An agressive book introduction
- Used for cleaning Eastern Europe
Congratulations to Tom Melia, winner of this week’s ThinkGeek $50 Gift Certificate.
The overall solution set (as there were some new and interesting twists!) appear below.
- Cutting two fruits – Paring a pair of pears (homophone)
- Mercy killing of young folks on other continents – Youth in Asia euthanasia (oronym)
- Capturing audio on vinyl – Record a record (heteronym)
- An exemplified specimen unit of ovum – Example egg sample (oronym)
- To turn down trash – Refuse refuse (heteronym)
- A less sensate figure – A number number (heteronym)
- The premiere Pb – The lead lead (heteronym)
- To make farm goods – Produce produce (heteronym)
- Run, Siphonaptera! – Flee, flea! (homophone)
- Magnitude of sad breaths – Sighs size (homophone)
- Revealing the gift – Present the present (heteronym)
- “My name is Xmas paper and I am here to say…” – Rapping wrapping (homophone)
- When the true falsehoods dawn on you – Realize real lies (oronym)
- A clothed boy placed house numbers on postcards – A dressed male addressed mail (oronym)
- 2:00 or 2:01-ish PM – A minute minute (heteronym) or a minute or two to 2:02 (homophone)
- Planter of certain conifers – Cedar seeder (homophone)
- An aggressive book introduction – Forward foreword (homophone)
- Used for cleaning Eastern Europe – Polish polish (heteronym/capitonym) or War Soap Act Warsaw Pact (oronym)
Thanks to everyone that submitted a solution, and thanks once again to the fine folks at ThinkGeek for offering a tantalizing prize each week. Special thanks to Gus Sterneman, who posited Dracula contemplating his neighbor: He mulled over Muldova. Happy puzzling!
I feel compelled to point out that a banana split is a dessert, not a desert.
Thanks for the shout out! This one was fun.