Mind-Boggling Word Puzzles

By Martin Gardner and V.G. Myers

Ready to have your mind boggled? World-famous puzzle master Martin Gardner has provided more than 100 ways to give your little gray cells a workout. These unusual puzzles, many of them original, include palindromes, anagrams, rebuses, and logic puzzles. Their whimsical illustrations contain occasional clues and plenty of humor. If you're stumped, you can consult the back of the book for complete solutions. Martin Gardner was renowned for his "Mathematical Games" columns in Scientific American, which he wrote for 25 years. Acclaimed by Newsweek as "The Magician of Math," he published more than 70 books on subjects ranging from science and math to poetry and religion.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Dover Publications
• Release date: Jul 31, 2012
• ISBN: 9780486145686

Martin Gardner

Martin Gardner, born in 1914, has written several reviews for The New York Review of Books and was a Scientific American columnist for over twenty-five years. His books include Calculus Made Easy and When You Were a Tadpole and I Was a Fish. He lives in Hendersonville, North Carolina.

Book preview

Mind-Boggling Word Puzzles

Martin Gardner

V.G. Myers

Copyright

Copyright © 2001 by Martin Gardner All rights reserved.

Bibliographical Note

This Dover edition, first published in 2010, is an unabridged republication of the work originally published by Sterling Publishing Co., Inc., New York, in 2001.

9780486145686

Manufactured in the United States by Courier Corporation

47496801

www.doverpublications.com

Table of Contents

Title Page

Copyright Page

Foreword

1. Warm-ups

2. Family Talk

3. What Did You Say?

4. Creatures

5. Getting It Right

6. What Do You Have in Mind?

7. Toughies

ANSWERS

ABOUT THE AUTHOR

INDEX

Foreword

Hundreds of puzzle books have been published over the last few decades. It is surprising how often old puzzles keep appearing over and over again in most puzzle books, only slightly altered by different story lines. The word and letter puzzles here, with few exceptions, are unfamiliar ones — not to be found in other collections. Many are original. Some I found in old and new periodicals. Some were sent to me by friends.

It goes without saying that you’ll enjoy these brainteasers more if you can refrain from peeking at the answers until you’ve done your best to solve each one.

1. Warm-ups

1. William’s Preferences

William likes apples better than oranges, and vanilla ice cream better than chocolate. He would rather watch a baseball or football game on TV than hockey, enjoys summer and fall more than spring and winter, thinks Newsweek a better magazine than Time, and is convinced that High Noon is a greater Western movie than Destry Rides Again.

Can you explain why William has these preferences?

2. The IDK Band

Six college students, all musicians, decided to form a rock band that they named the IDKers. The group consisted of five men and a lead singer named Matilda, who was tall and had red hair. The men were all from New Jersey, but

Reviews for Mind-Boggling Word Puzzles

[Shawn Barrett · Rating: 5 out of 5 stars]

Awesome book, full of word problems that make you think!