Wall Street Journal

August 20, 2021

Mike Shenk

(Title shown below)

 

The phrases below share a very unusual property that has nothing to do with their meanings. Can you determine what it is.

1. Furniture items for the house

2. Term heard in research/development

3. Foe in Roddenberry's Star Trek

4. Few of us reach this height.

5. Significant eastern city of North Dakota

HINT:

It has to do with numbers.

(BIG) HINT

Initial letters

 

Answers:

 

The initial letters of the words in each answer spell out an ordinal number:

 

1. Furniture Items For The House (FIFTH), etc.

2. THIRD

3. FIRST

4. FOURTH

5. SECOND   

Puzzle title:

STARTING POSITIONS