Keith Douglas
Last time, I wrote about peanut butter. Paul made a language comment, preferring “in” to “with.” “In” is sometimes used spatially. Is that appropriate?
“This product spontaneously separates” might work, given the discussion of “naturally.” I am not sure I like “spontaneously” either; it too alludes to “inside vs. outside,” and I am not sure the separation occurs purely as a result of internal matters. I do know if there were no ambient pressure at all, the oil would eventually evaporate.
Alex wondered about “twist” on a similar product and its meaning of distortion of truth. I have no comment on this other than that peanut butter should bring people together, except those with allergies, which we will discuss in a future column.
Reconstruct a Message
Our goal is to reconstruct a message by taking each letter indicated and putting them in the order provided. There will be no spaces or punctuation generated by the clues; you will have to add those yourself. A search online won’t find the answer. One has to “poke around” and interpret.
1. First letter of alternative name for tungsten.
2. Letter that’s equal to mc2.
3. First letter of the villain’s nick name from the MacGyver episode “Jenny’s Chance.”
4. Last letter of the synonym for autumn.
5. First letter of the name of one of the two materials used by warp engines on Star Trek.
6. Letter used as the most common algebraic symbol in the theory of computational complexity.
7. Last letter of twelve hours from midnight.
8. First letter of the word for theory of knowledge in philosophy.
9. First letter of the Norse goddess, homophonous to a realm of the dead in Christianity.
10. Fourth letter of the family name of a woman associated in Canada with chocolate.
11. Welcome to our _ool. Notice there is none of this in it; we’d like to keep it that way.
12. Fourth letter in the name of a good friend of Kurt Goedel.
13. Third letter in the given name of an actor who appeared on both MacGyver and The Facts of Life.
14. Seventh letter in the family name of another actor who appeared on both MacGyver and The Facts of Life.
15. First letter of the Germanic name of the symbol used here: ö.
16. Three words, related to Nancy Drew. Use the second word, first letter.
17. First letter in the name of a radioactive element used in the home.
18. First letter of the name for where the maximum elevation is roughly 5.5 km.
19. First letter of the key word, used in many programming languages, often meant to be used in bounded size iterations.
20. First letter of a word for “everything.” Now used as a synonym for “local hubble volume” where the understanding is there can be more than one.
21. First letter of the children’s saying, “—- —- boo boo!”