, Columnist
Kominers’ Conundrums: Something New From Overlapping Clues
Before-and-after riddles offer just enough information to lead to something you’ve never imagined.
The key to solving this riddle: a fusion-focused mind.
Photographer: Digital Vision Vectors/Getty ImagesThis article is for subscribers only.
In “before-and-after” riddles, you’re given an unusual-sounding clue that represents the fusion of two people, places, phrases or things. The answer is a literal fusion: the last part of the first half of the answer overlaps with the first part of the second half.
This can work in lots of different ways. The simplest version is when there’s a full word’s worth of overlap, such as in “Land Before Time After Time,” which we might clue as “animated dinosaurs in a popular children’s film perform cover of Cyndi Lauper love ballad.”7