No Business Like Snow Business

NPR | By Will Shortz

Published January 29, 2011 at 5:56 PM MST

On-Air Challenge

You are given clues, and each answer has the letters S, N, O and W in it.

Last Week's Challenge

Name a nationality. The third, fourth, fifth, sixth and 10th letters in order name a country. Also the fourth, fifth, seventh, ninth and 12th letters in order also name a country. Neither country is related to the nationality. What nationality is this?

Answer: Afghanistani, a variant on Afghani. The two countries are Haiti and Ghana.

Winner: Alan Lembitz of Boulder, Colo.

Next Week's Challenge

From Alan Meyer of Newberg, Ore.: Think of a common word that's six letters long and includes a Q. Change the Q to an N, and rearrange the result to form a new word that's a synonym of the first one. What are the words?

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.