Small advance, but (FWIW) this “puzzle” was known in Atlanta by September, 1974, so we’ve got a pre-1975 sighting.
THIRD ‘GRY’? The city desk gets many calls for information please. Night city editor Jim Bentley relayed this one.
Someone on the phone wanted to know if the city side could name the third word in the English language that ends in “gry.” He cited “hungry” and “angry” as the other two.
The night city desk did not have the answer. Nor do I, not yet. Do you? The phone is 428-5150.
[In Leo Aikman’s “He Now Faces the Music,” The Atlanta Constitution, 4 September 1974, p. 5-A.]
GETTING ANGRY: If that fellow who called night city editor Jim Bentley asking the third word in the language ending “gry” was pulling our leg, if there is no such word, some of us are going to join the “12 angry men.” We are hungry for the answer. A few have called saying the challenge has them “climbing the wall.”
[In Leo Aikman’s “No Longer Even a Smile,” The Atlanta Constitution, 11 September 1974, p. 5-A. Aikman referred to the puzzle again in his 20 September column and reported on a reader’s suggestion of another “gry” word.]