You are at home, home here at Joseph Young’s Puzzle -ria! On the radar range slices are bubbling and browning, nearly ready to serve up. The beer and the cantaloupe lay up in the puzzle pantry, poised to complement the slices. Never a discouraging word is heard here, only the occasional puzzling one.
It’s Friday! Time to pull that thinking cap up over the old melon and dig in to the enigma.MENU
Specialty of the House Slice:“Proper Nouns in Common”
The following proper nouns share something in common:
Billy, Jeff, Joe, Rick, Ruby…
What do they share? Can you find other proper nouns that also share it?
Sporty Slice:
“I Seek the Quail... No, Grail! AAYEEE!”
Name a piece of sportsman’s gear. Remove its first letter to reveal another piece of gear this particular sportsman might possess. Remove another first letter to reveal this sportsman’s quest, perhaps. What are these three words?
Easy-as-Pie Slice:“Vowel Play”
The word “facetious” is interesting in that it contains all five non-Y vowels of the alphabet in order. Also interesting are “subcontinental” and “uncomplimentary,” which contain these five vowels in reverse alphabetical order. The word “perihelion,” meaning “the point nearest the sun in the orbit of a planet or other celestial body,” also contains five vowels, albeit not all five … I and E repeat. And yet it is also interesting. In what way?
Every Friday at Joseph Young’s Puzzle -ria! we publish a new menu of fresh word puzzles, number puzzles, logic puzzles, puzzles of all varieties and flavors. We cater to cravers of scrumptious puzzles!Our master chef, Grecian gourmet puzzle-creator Lego Lambda, blends and bakes up mysterious (and sometimes questionable) toppings and spices (such as alphabet soup, Mobius bacon strips, diced snake eyes, cubed radishes, “hominym” grits, anagraham crackers, rhyme thyme and sage sprinklings.)
We invite you to make it a habit to “Meet at Joe’s!” If you like our “mystic puzzleria” please tell your friends about us. Thank you.
The Easy as Pie slice makes me want to sing.
ReplyDeleteAnd reminds me of a TV commercial.
DeleteWord Woman and David,
DeleteYou are both, of course, correct. But I implore you to keep all Muskrats (with all their their "whirling, twirling, tangoing, mangoing, going bananas and going muskmelons!) from this site!
As Tom Hanks so eloquently put it, "There's no crying in baseball." And as Michele Palin (or was it Sarah Bachmann?) declared, there's no singing, not on medieval swampland, and definitely not on Puzzleria!
LeMuskyMusakMustGo...
Nice mellow melon photo, Lego. I missed that the first time around.
DeleteOk, no singing then. No muskmelons either. But, maybe a fruity slice next week? :-)
I thought this was a pizza place? Now I'm thinking of another fast food joint!
DeleteYour first blog administer comment deleting, Lego? Do you have a policy on that or are you going to let jan have it his way? ;-)
DeleteMaybe two blog administerations. . .
Ah, pizza/puzzleria policy preparations!
Word Woman,
DeleteI have always believed “hands-on-esty” to be the worst possible policy. I am instead a proponent of a “hands-office-tea” policy (normally around 4 p.m., as in the U.K.)
jan,
Perhaps because I am at present preoccupied with spring yard work, I have nary a clue to which fast food joint you may be referring. Is it Planet Hollywood? Honey Dew Donuts? Quiznos?
BTW, my favorite fast food joints are the “Elbow Greasy Spoon” and “Knee-Jerk Chicken Shack.”
LegoLambdIRakeRockPiles
After being completely shut out last week, I'm happy to have solved at least one today.
ReplyDeleteSporty Slice: Snicker, snicker?
ReplyDeleteEasy-as-Pie Slice: Did I hear you say, "It'll grow on you"?
I now have solved all three, but have had no success at finding another proper noun for the Specialty of the House Slice. Next time I post I may have one.
ReplyDeleteAlso, I can't find an obscure enough hint for the Sporty Slice.
Now I will try to solve your piggybacks on piggybacks from last week. Did you notice my piggyback posted at June 3, 2014 at 11:27 AM.
Oh, and one more thing, Lego. This post contains a clue to one of my septet of opposites from last week that you haven't yet reported that you solved.
David,
DeleteRegarding my answer to your May 3 posted piggyback puzzle to “take two figures from mythology and insert a vowel between (no spaces). Read as one word, it will sound like a food.”
My two mythological figures are Greco-Roman. My food is sweet, but a little nutty.
Still working on # 1 and #7 in your great septet of opposites. Hope the clue you alluded to pertains to #1. I should be able to solve # 7 because -- after solving #6 -- I already have one letter for the synonym of “ample.” (plenty? enough? Some other synonym?)
Good puzzles, David. Thanks.
Lego…
David,
DeleteFinally solved #7. I didn’t see the obvious clue in your post until after I solved it!
# 1 seems like it should be the easiest of the seven, but that is the one I am still stumped on. “Put the words in logical order” is a great hint. But “something that used to be common in homes” (Phone Dial? Futon? Waterbed? Ice box? Rabbit ears? Phonograph? Turntable? Stereo? Lava lamp? Answering machine?) has me baffled, and I am old enough to know what used to be…
Can you give a non-giveaway clue? Thanks, David. Lots of fun.
Lego…
The something is one letter different from something that is probably as common these days.
DeleteI've solved another one, and I even have a 'piggyback' for it, but I think I'll hold onto it until Tuesday and offer a musical hint instead:
ReplyDeleteDean Martin
Paul,
DeleteGood work. I’ll look forward to your “piggyback puzzle” on Tuesday. (Vocabulary reminder: A “piggyback puzzle” is one that builds on another puzzle, using similar rules and/or themes.)
Paul, does your Dean Martin clue pertain to the Easy As Pie Slice (EAPS)?
In the meantime:
Here are a few bass-ackwards clues for the Specialty of the House Slice (SOTHS), for any solvers who want one or two:
1. .tnatropmi si semanrus eseht gniwonK .emanrus ralucitrap a htiw sdnopserroc eman tsrif hcaE
2. .saila na eb thgim rehtonA .retcarahc lanoitcif a si seman eseht fo eno tsael tA
…ogeL
Well, lego, it appears to me, from your comment on another blog, that you already have the answer to my "piggyback puzzle", so maybe I'll just let you have the honor of stating it as well. The Dino hint and my piggybacker both pertain to the same "slice".
DeleteI'm glad my EAPS hint wasn't as obvious as jan's.
I found myself thinking about the Al Kaline puzzle again, but, curiously, not in connection with this week's Sporty Slice.
Scary!
P.S. God Bless!
Paul,
DeleteAnother example of the puzzlee (Paul) being brighter than the puzzler (Lego…)!
You posted that you would give me “the honor of stating” your piggyback puzzle. I have no clue, of course, what your piggyback puzzle is (other than it piggybacks on the Easy as Pie Slice). Still, I will don my Carnac turban ands give it a go:
1. To which state might you make a foray?
2. What state has oddly wide feet?
3. What state has even wider feet?
4. What state, if you blind its second eye, is the “Show Me the Money State”?
5. Which two states have the best bond ratings?
6. What state may be overrun by Dalmations?
7. What state is visually challenged?
lEgO lAmbdA from Manhattan (nEw yOrk and kAnsAs)
Puzzleria! patrons,
DeleteThe big Viking Ship/V-Chip/1 Kings reveal is now dropping over at Blaine’s, but just to keep the ball rolling over here, try a sample of the above bonus “Easy As Pie.”
There are eight slices in this serving (there are two slices in #5). The answer to # 1 is Alabama (There are “forays” {four A’s} in AlAbAmA.) The crust on #6 might be a little tough, but the others are easily digestible.
Lego…
I have 4 different answers to "Specialty of the House Slice." I also have an answer to the other two slices. I will post my "findings" Tuesday.
ReplyDeleteron,
DeleteFour answers to the SOTHS is more than I expected. I shall be awaiting them on Tuesday. My dream is to see answers that would more fittingly be posted on Wednesday and/or Thursday.
LegoHumpDay…
Spanning the globe to find a SOTHS answer, at long last.
DeleteWord Woman,
DeleteCorrect you are. We could well have served up this particular Specialty of the House Slice as a Sporty Slice instead. Indeed, the only "bad sports" in the bunch are Ruby and Joe.
Glad to see you are experiencing the thrill of victory. Joe is experiencing the agony of de-feet (flatfoot cop, you know the stereotype). Ruby the Riveter is welding. Bugs and Oswald the Rabbit-eared are melding. Kermit the Ribbiter is molting. And, speaking of Oswald and Oz, the Wicked Witch of the West (World Wide Web!) is melting. Dissolve. Fade to Emerald...
LegoLahr (Bert, not Ernie)
Lego...
Word Woman, I also started spanning the globe, but I ended up close to Lake Placid and didn't need to go further. Even so, I did also go to Germany to find a partner for Rick.
DeleteAhhh, I see now, David.
DeleteWhen the moon hits your eye like a big pizza pie, that's a ... conger ? Whatever it is, it's not a hint for the EAPS puzzle, as has been supposed, but never confirmed. Like I said, it's a hint for the same puzzle which spawned the following:
ReplyDelete"___! You, your gear, and that 'quest' of yours all ____!" was the greeting the sportsman received upon returning home from the _____.
Even though it's been morphed a bit, I think it still meets the piggyback criteria, but we could call it a sausage puzzle, if you prefer.
Perhaps I'm still being too geeky, freaky, and sneaky with my oblique doublespeak, but why stop when I'm on a streak?
My actual EAPS hint had to do with the scary new mascot for the old fast food place jan referred to, and I'm still pleased and overjoyed with how subtle it apparently was.
I couldn't find Any Wednesday, or Any Thursday, but I did recall the battery that never played with Al Kaline, but was associated with Who and What and I Don't Know their first names.
And God bless Billie Holiday.
Ok, Paul, it's a bit scary that some (much?) of your post made sense to me.
DeletePaul,
DeleteI second Word Woman‘s sentiments. Except that only some (definitely not much) of your subtleties are seeping through to my brainpan (or is it my bedpan?). I’m piddling… I mean, pedaling as fast as I can just to try to keep up!
Now I get your Dino clue. That’s a moray! (I thought it might be that Dean’s first wife was Betty McDonald (had no farm). Not your style. Too mundane.
Re: your Albott and Kalinestello battery: Forget that E-I-E-I-O unfarmfresh fare… You’ll love (Dan) Perkins?
Mitch Easter weds Billie Holiday. Billy Sunday officiates.
Your oblique double-speak may be enigmatic, Paul, but it is also very entertaining and clever.
LegoLambday (aka LegoLamprey)
Betty McDonald. I'll be darned. I don't find that mundane. It's a good solid connection between Dean and EIEIO, and it makes that moray thing seem like a cheap joke by comparison. But the Perkins/Tomorrow connection is just scary.
DeleteThink of an English word for a day Change one letter and rearrange to get an Italian word for a day. You might associate one of these words with Dean Martin and the other with The Mamas & the Papas. If it's too easy, just forget about it.
Sporty Slice: CREEL, REEL, EEL.
ReplyDeleteEasy-As-Pie Slice: This challenge focuses on VOWELS. The shortest word in the English language that contains all the vowels, AEIOU (not in order) is SEQUOIA.
Kepler's third law contains the “perihelion equations.” (“equations” being another word that contains all the vowels, AEIOU, not in order)
“Perihelion” does contain the vowels EIEIO in order which is the refrain from “Old MacDonald Had A Farm!”
Specialty of the House: Some nicknames share only 2 letters with the given name they come from: Abe, Abraham, Jim, James, Ed(die), Edward, etc. Some nicknames share 4 letters with the given name they come from: Doug, Douglas, Phil, Phillip, Pete, Peter, etc. All the male nicknames in the challenge share exactly three letters with the given name from which they come: Billy, William, Jeff, Geoffrey, Joe, Joseph, Rick, Richard, Ruby, Reuben.
ReplyDeleteAnother such name is Andy, short for Andrew and there are many others.
A second solution is that each given name (of the male nicknames) is a well-known author” Billy = William Shakespeare, Jeff = Geoffrey Chaucer, Joe = Joseph Conrad, Rick = Richard Wright, Ruby = Reuben Davis.
A third solution is that the first 2 letters of each word represent the first 2 letters of capital cities: BIsmark, N.D., JErusalem, Israel, JOhannesburg, S.A., RIga, Latvia, RUd, Siah Rud, Iran. [SAm, SAntiago, Chile.]
A fourth solution is that each of the names can be followed by DEE: Billy Dee Williams, Jeff Dee, Joe Dee and the Starliters, Rick Dees & Ruby Dee. Others: Dee Dee Myers, Bobby Dee, Sandra Dee. I suspect that none of these 4 solutions is the intended one!
ron,
DeleteThere is a distinct possibility that you just may be too smart for the room (Puzzleria! Parlor). Those are four salient solutions! All trump mine.
LegoLambDee
R.I.P., Ruby Dee.
DeleteShe died yesterday. Nice memorial Lego. Circumstances of her death.
DeleteRuby was a remarkable actress, activist, and human being. A Raisin in the Sun remains a favorite film.
DeleteANSWERS:
ReplyDeleteSpecialty of the House Slice:
“Proper Nouns in Common”
The following proper nouns share something in common:
Billy, Jeff, Joe, Rick, Ruby…
What do they share? Can you find other proper nouns that also share it?
Answer:
The proper nouns are first names of quasi-famous people who have days of the week as last names:
Billy Sunday; Jeff Saturday; Joe Friday (Sgt. Joe Friday of the old TV series “Dragnet”); Rick Monday; Ruby Tuesday.
I don’t know of any other quasi-famous people with names like this. There is the reverse case of Tuesday Weld, of course, who, had she married actor Frederic March (and if his father had been Frederic March Jr.) would have been Tuesday March the Third.
I googled “people with days of the week for surnames” and discovered the crossword puzzle which I have just uploaded at the bottom of this week’s Puzzleria! posting. It appears as if there is a Wednesday Addams and a Thursday Next.
Sporty Slice:
“I Seek the Quail... No, Grail! AAYEEE!”
Name a piece of sportsman’s gear. Remove its first letter to reveal another piece of gear this particular sportsman might possess. Remove another first letter to reveal this sportsman’s quest, perhaps. What are these three words?
Answer:
Creel; Reel; Eel
(The Norman Rockwell “Post” angler is wielding a reel.
The orange pail by his side is probably a bait bucket, not a creel.
He is likely fishing for northern pike or speckled bass, not eel.)
Easy As Pie Slice:
“Vowel Play”
The word “facetious” is interesting in that it contains all five non-Y vowels of the alphabet in order. Also interesting are “subcontinental” and “uncomplimentary,” which contain these five vowels in reverse alphabetical order. The word “perihelion,” meaning “the point nearest the sun in the orbit of a planet or other celestial body,” also contains five vowels, albeit not all five … I and E repeat. And yet it is also interesting. In what way?
Answer:
The vowels in perihelion are E-I-E-I-O, which is the refrain in “Old MacDonald’s Farm.”
Proposed new lyrics:
Old McDonald had a menu, E-I-E-I-O,
And on this menu he had McRibs, E-I-E-I-O,
With a moo-moo here and a muumuu there,
Here a moo, there a moo, everywhere a moo-moo.
Old McDonald had a menu, E-I-E-I-O…
McPork… with an oink-oink here…
McDuck… with a quack-quack here…
McMutton… with a baa-baa here…
McChicken… with a cluck-cluck here…
McDobbin(!)… with a neigh-neigh here…
(Ordering the neigh-neigh is a no-no. I’m ovinely not so fine with, neither am I a big fan of, ordering McMutton!)
LegoLambda
Thursday Next is a literary detective in a series of books written by Jasper Fforde. I found those books very entertaining, but not what people would call "serious literature". The first in the series is "The Eyre Affair", which I recommend. I also hinted at this name when I said "Next time I post ..." for the Specialty of the House Slice. Earlier this morning, I hinted at non-English day-of-week surnames, Placido Domingo (Sunday) and Heidi Montag (Monday).
DeleteFor the Easy-as-Pie Slice, I hinted at the TV commercial where Old MacDonald enters a spelling bee. His word is "cow", which he spells C-O-W-E-I-E-I-O.
David,
DeleteThanks for your book review, hints, coweieio-zoweieio laugh, and for your international take on the SOTHS. This one-fourth of the Rams’ Fearsome Foursome is one vowel off from being the French Heidi Montag (not to be confused with Heidi Bowl).
LegoLundi
EAPS: Old Macdonald: yes.
ReplyDeleteSS: CREEL, REEL, EEL
SOTHS: I was thinking of people/characters with the last name BRIDGES, but the days of the week span an answer also, Lego.
Good balance this week, Lego.
Word Woman,
DeleteThanks. You are indeed a Bridge over muddled puzzle water. (Bruby Bridges: Ruby Ridge?)
I need to keep working on that delectable balance.
Lego:ogeL
Sporty Slice: Snicker, snicker? -- As close as I could come to SNIGGLE, the fancy word for eel fishing.
ReplyDeleteEasy-as-Pie Slice: Did I hear you say, "It'll grow on you"? -- As on a farm, specifically Old MacDonald's.
Sporty Slice: Snicker, snicker? As close as I could come to SNIGGLE, the fancy word for eel fishing.
ReplyDeleteEasy-as-Pie Slice: Did I hear you say, "It'll grow on you"? -- As on a farm, specifically Old MacDonald's.
Bob K.,
DeleteHope you had a great vacation. Thanks for checking back in.
I am putting you great word “sniggle” on my Top-50-All-Time-Favorite word list. Are you a sniggler, Bob?
Sometimes it’s good when things grow on you: love for puzzles, hair on the top of your head, etc. But sometimes it can be bad: warts, mold, etc.
EelegoSniggler
A little bit ago, I posted the answers to my piggybacks of last week at the bottom of last week's post.
ReplyDeleteThis comment has been removed by the author.
DeleteThank you, David. These were very clever and fun to solve.
DeleteI got all but # 1, a wonderful puzzle that completely eluded me. Hire, Fire, HiFi.
I was stumped and skunked... even though you gave me a great clue: "The something is one letter different from something that is probably as common these days." HiFi becomes WiFi!
In my June 7, 8:42 PM post I listed "Stereo" among the "somethings" that were common in homes of the past. I had the answer! I just could not make that "leap" to HiFi. So close, but so far, from solving!
This was a devilishly tricky, David, because I doubt that "hire" and "fire" appear on many antonym lists. Great work!
Lego...
I'm really enjoying this tremendous blog. Now this song is stuck in my head... Here a moon, there a moon, everywhere a moon moon...
ReplyDeletezeke creek,
DeleteThanks for meandering by. We appreciate your kind words.
“Here a moon, there a moon…” is outta this world, sure. But so is:
Here a dw-arf, there dw-arf… (dogstar)
Here a muon, there a muon… (catstar)
Here a quark, there a quark… (duckstar)
Here a black howl, there a black howl… (wolfstar)
LoboLambda