7. The digits represent the number of letters in each word of the puzzle. “What” has four letters, “digit” has five letters, “should” has six letters, etc. The last word is “numbers” which has seven letters.
Second. Second place is next to winning. Seconds, the measure of time, pass quickly. Seconding a motion is requested by the chair of the body in Parliament. And the second place finisher in many sporting events such as the Olympics is awarded the silver medal.
And as for why the unit of time is called a second, it goes back to the days of Ptolemy. A second of time is the second small part, or pars minuta secunda, of an hour. (Thanks to Tim J for researching it).
A wise king devised a contest to see who would receive the Princess’ hand in marriage. The Princess was put in a 50 x 50 foot carpeted room. Each of her four suitors were put in one corner of the room with a small box to stand on. The first one to touch the Princess’ hand would be the winner and become the new King.
The rules were the contestants could not walk over the carpet, cross the plane of the carpet, or hang from anything; nor could they use anything but their body and wits (i.e. no magic, telepathy, nor any items such as ladders, block and tackles etc). One suitor figured out a way and married the Princess and became the new King. What did he do?
James makes a bet with Laura that he can use any name she can think of in a song she will recognize with the original lyrics. Laura takes him up on the bet and loses. What song did James sing to win?
Pencil lead. While modern pencils don’t contain lead, that’s still what we call the graphite compound. When real lead was used in pencils it was mined and nearly everyone has used a pencil at some point in their life.