Puzzles

Lance is a member of the National Puzzlers' League, the oldest existing puzzle organization in North America. Its monthly newsletter, The Enigma, contains puzzles in verse (called "flats") with clues to answers with wordplay, as it has done for over a hundred years.

Lance has written a number of these puzzles about Michelle, and thought it might be nice to share them. He also wrote a seven-puzzle "mini-hunt" called "Relationships are Stupid", which Michelle was kind enough to testsolve in November of 2003. (See the history of our relationship for more information.)

The first flat Lance wrote was for the 2001 convention, when the annual flat-solving competition was themed around Beatles pastiches. He briefly considered writing a verse to the tune of "Revolution #9" (which someone else did), but realized that he pretty much had to write the following.

A heteronym is a puzzle in which the two parts of the answer consist of the same string of letters, with different spacing or punctuation: for instance, "Mount St. Helens" and "mounts the lens". In this case, BELLE is standing in for a dictionary entry consisting of an eleven letter word and a five letter word (the brackets indicate a single entry); WENCH is standing in for a series of six words, with a semicolon after the first. The third is capitalized (and is one letter long, which should narrow it down).

BELLE and WENCH, the capitalized words, are called "cuewords"; they're standing in as placeholders for the answer parts, which do not have to fit the rhyme scheme or the rhythm of the verse.

HETERONYM ([11 5], 4; 2 *1 3 3 3) (BELLE, WENCH)

Michelle, my BELLE
Not a puzzler, but I think she's swell, my Michelle.

Michelle, ma belle,
N'aime pas des enigmes but what the hell, what the hell.

I love her, I love her, I love her, in English or in French,
Or to the deaf, I'll WENCH
Many qualities in one big sum, I will. Understand?

Michelle, my BELLE,
Comprend quand j'ecris des "flats" pour elle, des "flats" pour elle.

I need you, I need you, I need you to solve this flat I penned,
And read it to the end. For when you do I'm hoping you will know what I mean:
I love her.

I want you, I want you, I want you to add her every trait.
For then you'll see she's great.
Until you do I'm telling you it comes out quite well.

Michelle, ma belle,
Resumez ses qualites ensemble, tres bien ensemble,

I will write the only flat I know that you'll understand, my Michelle.

See the answer

The second flat I wrote about Michelle was a transposal: rearrange the letters in one of the words or phrases to get the other. (Outside the NPL, these are often called anagrams, though within the NPL "anagram" is reserved for rearranged phrases that describe the original, like BENEATH CHOPIN = THE PIANO BENCH.) In this case, the first half of the answer, for which MICE HELL stands in, is two four-letter words that make up an entry in the dictionary; the second half is a single eight-letter word that does not appear in Merriam Webster's Collegiate Dictionary, but does appear in their unabridged dictionary.

TRANSPOSAL (4 4, 8) (8 = NI3)

I'm moving in with my MICE HELL;
We think we suit each other well,
Like crust and filling do in tarts and pies--
So we resemble a MICHELLE.
(That's cheese inside a pastry shell,
And not a rodent of unusual size.)

See the answer

The last flat I wrote is a second-letter change, which is pretty self-explanatory: change the second letter of one word to get another word, kind of like the cuewords do here. MAN is a six-letter word, and MEN is a capitalized six-letter word that's the same except for the second letter. (In the original verse, the words mice-hell were actually the first part of the answer to the above verse, so I've deleted them here.)

SECOND LETTER CHANGE (6, *6)

You may know that my mice hell's a lass named Michelle,
As I wrote a transposal, and con flat as well.
Well, at last I've proposed--with a puzzle, no less!
(And she called me a dork, but of course she meant "yes.")
So at last I'm her MAN--there's no happier boy,
And my bride-to-be's lovely as Helen of Troy;

(The word "MAN" comes from MEN, for in Paris, perhaps,
They show utmost respect for us marrying chaps.
That seems hard to believe, though: as Homer once said,
Paris cared not at all that fair Helen was wed.)

See the answer

Just remember: Michelle knew what she was getting into when she said yes.