Two Meanings

Puzzler time.

This one is an age old puzzler. And there is more than one answer, so just be aware of that. There may be many answers, actually.

Here we go.

As you all probably know, there are words that are opposites, and they're called antonyms. For example, hot and cold, up and down, Click and Clack...

So the puzzler is, can you think of two words that are their own antonyms?

I'm gonna give you two as an example, because I know there are more.

The first one is cleave. I'll give you a sentence. You cleave things apart with a meat cleaver, or your lug nuts may cleave to your studs, making them impossible to remove without a very hot torch. In this case, cleave means to pull apart, and to stay together.

The other example is the word sanction. And here's a sentence as an example. NASCAR sanctions stock car races, but a driver that runs another into a wall may be sanctioned by NASCAR. In this case, the word means to allow, and then to not allow.

It's clear that in these two instances, cleave has two meanings which are diametrically opposed, and so does sanction.

The question, very simply is, are there other words like this? And if there are, what are they?

Good luck.

Answer the Puzzler »

Remember last week's puzzler?

Screwy Distributor

This one is a Krusty puzzle. Here we go.

So on the occasion of his most recent wedding, he had to take a long trip to meet his bride to be.

It was really far away, somewhere out on the edges of New York. And it was important that he get there.

He thought it was important that he should take his most reliable car. And he didn't want to be late, because she told him, if you're late for the wedding, it's off.

So anyway, he fires up his most reliable car, his '65 Falcon, and he makes his way through Massachusetts to Route 7 in New York.

He is driving along, and everything seems right with the world. And then, all of a sudden, the car backfires and dies. He coasts to the side of the road as safely as he can.

He realizes immediately that his points have burnt out. And he says, "Oh, shucks, if only I had another set of points." And he opens the glove box, and to his amazement, is a brand new set of ignition points is right there.

And as luck would have it, his entire toolkit is in the glove box. There's a screwdriver, a hammer and a jackknife.

So he opens the hood, takes off the distributor cap, and proceeds to remove the little screw that holds the points in.

He expertly removes the screw, installs the new points, and then, drops the screw.

Where does it go? Where it always goes, inside the distributor, and he can't get it out.

He can see it. He can even touch it with his screwdriver, but he can't get it out.

He says, "Oh my God, what am I going to do?"

He runs around to the trunk and opens it up and starts going through all the things he has in there.

He finds a jack. He finds a 50-pound bag of dog food. He finds a junky old lamp that he bought at a garage sale. And a gallon of extra virgin olive oil and a salami sandwich.

Using one or a combination of these things, and his tool kit, he manages to get the screw from its hiding place in the distributor.

How does he do it?