Sunday Puzzle and Weekly Challenge

Sunday Puzzle NPR offers listeners a challenge involving anagrams and wordplay. In this on-air game, you are given hypothetical two-word phrases where each word contains five letters. You need to rearrange the letters of one word to form a well-known two-word phrase. Your task is to determine which word requires reordering.

Example:
APPLE DICER becomes Apple cider.

Here are the challenges:

• BAKER PEDAL
• BLANK SERVE
• LEGAL FIBER
• MAID’S TOUCH
• REGAL PRINT
• HUMAN BINGE
• PEACH TRICK
• DREAM GUARD
• DUTCH TATER
• PEARL DRIVE
• CLEAN TALES
• SHORE SENSE

Last Week’s Challenge

Joseph Young from St. Cloud, Minn. proposed last week’s challenge: Identify a famous past actor with a 7-letter first and last name. Remove three consecutive letters from the last name; the remaining letters spell a well-known lead character from a long-running film series.

Answer: Charlie Chaplin becomes Charlie Chan.

Winner: Thomas Hirschman from Durham, North Carolina.

This Week’s Challenge

This week, Jim Francis from Kirkland, Wash. presents the challenge. Think of a well-known female singer with an 8-letter first name and a 4-letter last name. The first syllable of her first name, the second syllable of her first name backward, and her last name forward are all verbs associated with human desire. Can you name this singer?

If you know the answer, submit it online by Thursday, May 28 at 3 p.m. ET. Those who provide the correct answer get a chance to play the on-air puzzle. Remember to include a phone number for possible contact.