Two Pictures, One Word
Read the puzzle
Two picture tiles are joined by a plus sign, with an equals sign and an empty answer box below them. The left tile shows a grey cloud with blue drops falling from it. The right tile shows a red ribbon tied with two loops and two hanging tails. (A warm-up at the start shows a sun plus a flower.) Join the names of the two pictures into one word. What is the word?
Join the two pictures into one word.
Say each picture's name out loud.
RAINBOW
Rain + bow = rainbow.
How to solve it
Start by naming each picture with the shortest everyday word for what it shows, not for the object itself. The left tile is a cloud, but the important part is what is falling out of it: the drops are rain. The right tile is a piece of ribbon, but a ribbon tied with two loops and two tails is called a bow.
Now put the two names side by side and try both orders. RAIN + BOW gives RAINBOW, a real word and a fitting one, since a rainbow appears when sunlight meets falling rain. BOW + RAIN gives BOWRAIN, which is not a word, so the order on screen is the right one.
The warm-up works the same way: SUN + FLOWER = SUNFLOWER.
The usual slip is naming the objects too literally. CLOUD + RIBBON, STORM + KNOT or CLOUD + BOW make nothing, and people then decide the puzzle has no answer. If a pair of names does not join, swap one name for a synonym before giving up.
Quick check: RAINBOW splits cleanly into RAIN and BOW, one word per picture, with no letters left over.
