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Sunday Puzzle: Should Old Acquaintance Be Forgot, At Least Recall These Headline-Grabbers As the end of the year approaches, there's no better time to look back at the months that were. Here's a challenge featuring the names of people who made news in 2015.
Sunday Puzzle

Sunday Puzzle

The Weekly Quiz From NPR Puzzlemaster Will Shortz

Should Old Acquaintance Be Forgot, At Least Recall These Headline-Grabbers

Heard on Weekend Edition Sunday

Should Old Acquaintance Be Forgot, At Least Recall These Headline-Grabbers

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On-air challenge: It's the end of the year, so it's time for a challenge featuring the names of people who made news in 2015. For each description given, name the person (or people) described.

  1. Transgender woman and Olympic gold medal winner in the decathlon, formerly known as Bruce Jenner.
  2. County clerk in Kentucky who was jailed for refusing to issue marriage licenses to same-sex couples.
  3. New Princess of Cambridge, daughter of Will and Kate.
  4. New prime minister of Canada, son of Pierre Trudeau.
  5. Fourteen-year-old Texas high school freshman was got into trouble for building a digital clock and bringing it to school.
  6. Trio who overpowered a Moroccan terrorist on a high-speed train from Amsterdam to Paris (three names).
  7. Prime minister of Greece during the Greek debt crisis.
  8. New anchor of The Daily Show, from South Africa; replaced Jon Stewart.
  • Former CEO of Turing Pharmaceuticals, who raised the price of an HIV drug by 5,000 percent (and was also recently charged in unrelated hedge-fund fraud).
  • Former NAACP chapter head and civil rights activist who is white but passed herself off as black.
  • Lead characters in Star Wars: The Force Awakens (three names).
  • Miss Colombia in the recent Miss Universe pageant, who was briefly — and mistakenly — awarded the title.

    • Last week's challenge, from David Aukland, of Tarrytown, NY: Think of four common six-letter words that all end in the same five letters, in the same order. And the first letters of these four words are consecutive consonants in the alphabet (like B, C, D, F). No other common six-letter words end with these five letters. What are the words?

    Answer: Lotion, motion, notion and potion. We also accept browns, crowns, drowns and frowns.

    Winner: Jim Water of Bellingham, Wash.

    Next week's challenge: Name a famous actress who has four letters in her first name and four letters in her last name. Add one letter, and rearrange the result to name an animal and the sound this animal makes. Who is the actress, what is the animal and what is the sound that the animal makes?

    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 Wednesday, Dec. 30, at 3 p.m. ET.