It's not just a basic logic problem - it's a language translation into a logic problem problem. You have to 'get' that is what you're dealing with.

Incidentally, I get a similar feeling from these puzzles that I get from code questions or examples where every variable or function is named 'a' or 'b' or 'foo' or 'bar'.

(aaand I just had a mini-epiphany of sorts that when I see those types of programming puzzles I should probably write them out and substitute the variable names as I go....)