Welcome to
Joseph Young’s Puzzle –ria! It’s Friday. Time again to “meet at Joe’s” to chew
the puzzles and the fat.
Hey, wait just
a second… Friday. Joe’s… Joe. Friday. Joe Friday! As in Sgt. Joe Friday of TV’s
“Dragnet” fame. And, he was part of an answer to the following puzzle
originally posted on our June 6 Puzzleria!
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?
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?
But Sgt. Joe
Friday on “Dragnet,” created and portrayed by actor Jack Webb, also has a bit of wise advice
for… me. (No, I didn’t take his advice on smoking cigarettes, and neither
should you!) Friday is famous for saying, “Just the facts, Ma’am,” although he
never actually said exactly those words on “Dragnet.”
But it is the title of
Webb’s authorized biography, and the phrase does epitomize his character Joe
Friday’s no-nonsense approach to police work.
And it is good
advice those of us who tend to ramble on a bit. Lately I have sensed this blog
becoming a little wordy, linky and photo-ey. Phooey! Let’s just say, in light of the forthcoming holiday weekend, that Puzzleria! has recently tended to come across as somewhat... labored. We need to inject some Joe
Friday terseness into our Friday meetings at Joe’s. So, from one Joe to
another, “Thanks, Joe. Here’s to a more no-nonsense approach to puzzle work.
There’s just one more thing that’s bothering me, one other loose
end to tie up first (Now I sound like that other great TV character and Los Angeles detective, Lt. Columbo, portrayed by Peter Falk.)
Last Friday evening I posted this quick bonus puzzle slice
in the comments section:
Take a name used in (last) week’s blog. Remove the space. Change one of the letters and move it elsewhere to create a breed of dog.
(Names used in last week’s blog were: Joseph Young, Will Shortz, Sam Loyd, Bill Lloyd, Ogden Nash, William Tell, Lego Lambda, and automotive wizards Tom Magliozzi and Ray Magliozzi.)
Take a name used in (last) week’s blog. Remove the space. Change one of the letters and move it elsewhere to create a breed of dog.
(Names used in last week’s blog were: Joseph Young, Will Shortz, Sam Loyd, Bill Lloyd, Ogden Nash, William Tell, Lego Lambda, and automotive wizards Tom Magliozzi and Ray Magliozzi.)
Unless someone
beats me to it, I will post the answer later in this week’s comments section.
Now, Joe, on with this week’s
show:
Menu
Easy As Pie Slice
Esslessness
The title of an American 20th
century work of fiction contains four words, two of them plural nouns, but no
esses. What is the title?
Lighter Menu Slice
Soup And Salad Included
Take the title of a theatrical
production. Bisect it and replace one letter from each half with the same consonant,
thereby producing two new words: something you might put into a soup and a
variety of something you might put into a salad. What are this title and the
two words?
Better Business Bureau Slice
Serveat Emptor
Name a customer service many stores
perform, in two words, with the second one plural. Remove a letter. The result
sounds like a brand-name product you might buy at a store. What are the
customer service and the product?
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.)
Please post
your comments below. Feel free also to post clever and subtle hints that do not
give the puzzle answers away. Please wait until after 3 p.m. Eastern Time on
Tuesdays to post your answers and explain your hints about the puzzles. We plan
to serve up at least one fresh puzzle every Friday.
We invite you
to make it a habit to “Meet at Joe’s!” If you enjoy our weekly puzzle party,
please tell your puzzle-loving and challenge-welcoming friends about Joseph
Young’s Puzzle -ria! Thank you.
Joe, I like the new look!
ReplyDeleteAsp me no questions, I'll tell you no lies. . .
Have a safe and fun Labour Day Weekend everyone!
I believe I've solved all 3 puzzles. My biggest surprise was when I looked up the author (for the EAPS answer), I discovered that the full name of that author actually contains the full name of a different author, known for composing a poem which became a song using the melody of another song.
ReplyDeleteHadassah? Aphrodite? Dionysus?
DeleteEnya_and_Weird_Al_fan,
Delete“…and the rockets’ red glare, the bombs bursting in air, gave proof through the tender night that our flag was still there…”
Paul,
Herr Dionysus and Frau Aphrodite lift their brewskis and toast marshmallows during Oktoberfest in Munich? “A hop is a hop is a hop is a hop,” said the March Hare to Alice.
Legatsby
fnzblrq
ReplyDeleteI just realized that my answer to EAPS is NOT THE INTENDED ANSWER! What I am now certain is the intended answer was written by a different author. Two of the four words in the intended answer are plural without question. Two of the four words in the title of what I first thought was the answer are actually indeterminate as to whether singular or plural, but should be assumed by most readers of the title as most likely both plural.
ReplyDeleteNeither title contains even a single s. The title I first found, also 4 words, has more letters. I counted the total number of letters in both titles, and if you reverse the digits of the number of letters in the novel title I first found, you get the number of letters in the novel title of the intended answer.
The novel I first found was published 15 years before the intended answer.
There exists a current TV show in 5 words, which like the 20th-century work of fiction which I first thought to be the answer to EAPS, does not contain an S anywhere, but two of the words are nouns, both indeterminate as to whether singular or plural, but should be assumed by most readers of the title as most likely both plural.
ReplyDeleteEnya_and_Weird_Al_fan (essless, but also pluralless),
DeleteI don’t know yet about your five-word TV title, but your 21-letter EAPS answer is definitely acceptable, albeit not my intended. That year was a good one literarily,
Bob Kerfuffle,
Vignere Cipher?
Wourd Wouman,
Thanks four the kind wourds. No questiouns asped. Oune bit of advice, thouugh. Doun’t ape Cleoupatra!
Legou…
Simple Rot13. Didn't know if you wanted to give away your quick quiz, the only one I had time for.
DeleteBob Kerfuffle,
DeleteHad Will Shortz been born instead with the name Will O’Treer (which dogs at times will do, to squirrels, cats, etc.), we could have changed one of his L’s to an T and, after some rearranging, spelled out the dog breed “Ebggjrvyre,” an answer more in keeping with the ROT13 cipher.
Yrtb…
ACK!!!!! Just forget my posts! In both my first answer to EAPS, and the current TV show, 2 of the words in each of the titles; they're not nouns, they're ADJECTIVES; each modifying the same understood-yet-unwritten noun!!!
ReplyDeleteIt's up to you, the reader of the titles, to understand the noun which belongs at the end of the title of my 1st answer and after each adjective in the TV show title. You could chose the plural form of the noun, or the singular form. If you were to add the plural form of the understood noun to the title of my 1st choice, you would now have a 5 word title still with no s. If you were instead to add the singular form of the understood noun, well, then you would have an s.
Orange (clothing) Is the New Black (clothing)? Just kidding. Do the two titles have a nine-letter word in common, perchance?
DeleteSorry I missed the fun last week.
ReplyDeleteGot the dog.
Got the EAPS, a book I actually read.
Got the LMS, and have a piggyback:
Take the title of a theatrical production. Bisect it and replace one letter from each half with the same vowel, thereby producing two new words: something you might put into a soup and that thing's shape (sort of), in 2-D. What are this title and the two words? Hint: both productions have something (actually several things) in common.
Still working on the BBBS.
David,
DeleteI finally solved your LMS piggyback puzzle. Very nicely done. I was not familiar with the theatrical production (maybe just vaguely) so I worked backwards, guessing the “shape word” first. Your knowledge of the theater obviously trumps mine.
I can detect one obvious thing my and your theatrical productions (their titles) have in common, but I am too lazy (or sleepy) to Google the several other things they have in common.
Thanks. A tough but fair solve.
LegoLaMardiFoieGras
Enya_and_Weird_Al_fan,
ReplyDeleteI still say your 21-letter fictional work is OK. Sure, these are adjectives, but can’t they be “construed” as (plural) nouns? I’m thinking, for example, of Norman Mailer’s “The Naked and the Dead” (not my intended answer, as you know). “Naked” is questionable as a (plural) noun perhaps, but my MW Collegiate Dictionary 10th even lists “Dead” as a collective noun. (See Monty Python &The Holy Grail’s “Bring out your dead!”
I think this noun/adjective hair-splitting is a gray area… or as MW would allow, a “gray.”
David,
We missed you, too. Can’t solve your piggyback as yet. Is it a one-word title with an even number of letters? You gave lots of good hints, but I am at present clueless.
Two more LMS piggyback puzzles:
Take a title of a theatrical production. The first five letters name something oft seen in a relish dish. The last five letters name a meat traditionally served with onions, especially in Europe.
Name a kind of cheese in four letters. Change a vowel to a consonant to form a hoosegow for salts. Now take a 145-year-old novel that is also a 102-year-old brand of cookie. Remove from it the common first name of two guys surnamed Greene and Michaels. Add what’s left over to the end of the hoosegow synonym to form the title of a theatrical production.
Legourmet
Even number of letters, one word.
DeleteGot your additional LMSs. My brother was a character in the first of those in a junior high school production. The cookie brand is the kind my father gave me when he taught age 5 me how to shave, using a safety razor with no blade. That is still the way I shave.
Your QBC may seem like a bitch to some, but it wouldn't to Sam Loyd. He would have said, "Here Boy, I've got it."
ReplyDeleteIf you are struggling with the BBBS, Serveat Emptor, the illustration at the right of the puzzle text gives a subtle clue to the brand-name product.
ReplyDelete…lloggo…
In my Aug. 29, 6:50 PM comment I posted this LMS piggyback puzzle:
ReplyDeleteTake a title of a theatrical production. The first five letters name something oft seen in a relish dish. The last five letters name a meat traditionally served with onions, especially in Europe.
Here are two hints: The theatrical production's title is six letters long. It has something obvious in common with this week's LMS answer and also with the answer to the piggyback puzzle David posed in his Aug. 29 11:47 AM comment.
Lego!
“Please, sir, I want some more.”
DeleteSorry, skydiveboy. No gruel for you!
DeleteYou've had enough. If you slurp down any more thin gruel (and unusual punishment) you will begin to resemble a chubby big yellow taxi.
LegoLambumble
Perhaps a Baba au Rhum?
DeleteBaba au Rhum? No! At least you’re safe here at the orphanage, skydiveboy. We don’t want you wandering off into some teenage wasteland now, do we?
DeleteWe’ll give you some more thin gruel on Friday if you can hold out for that long.
LegoLamdaltrey
For the record, here are this week’s answers:
ReplyDeleteEasy As Pie Slice
Esslessness
The title of an American 20thcentury work of fiction contains four words, two of them plural nouns, but no esses. What is the title?
Answer:
“Of Mice and Men,” the novella by John Steinbeck
Lighter Menu Slice
Soup And Salad Included
Take the title of a theatrical production. Bisect it and replace one letter from each half with the same consonant, thereby producing two new words: something you might put into a soup and a variety of something you might put into a salad. What are this title and the two words?
Answer:
Oklahoma! = okra + roma (tomato)
Better Business Bureau Slice
Serveat Emptor
Name a customer service many stores perform, in two words, with the second one plural. Remove a letter. The result sounds like a brand-name product you might buy at a store. What are the customer service and the product?
Answer:
Customer service = Price checks
Remove the “P”
Brand-name product = Rice Chex
(The illustration at the right of the text is a hint because the phrase, “Customer service is a snap,” includes the word “snap.” “Snap, Crackle and Pop” were cartoon elf mascots/pitchmen for the Kellogg’s cereal, Rice Krispies. If Rice Chex, made by General Mills, had mascots they would probably be Bohemian elves.)
L-E-Double-L-Oh-Double-Good-Lego-Best-to-you!
My piggyback was Carnival! = Corn + Oval. Similarities to Oklahoma! include number of letters, evenly divided, ending with !.
ReplyDeleteHere are the answers to the puzzles I posted August 29, 6:50 p.m.:
ReplyDeleteTwo more LMS piggyback puzzles:
Take a title of a theatrical production. The first five letters name something oft seen in a relish dish. The last five letters name a meat traditionally served with onions, especially in Europe.
Olive + Liver = Oliver!
Name a kind of cheese in four letters. Change a vowel to a consonant to form a hoosegow for salts. Now take a 145-year-old novel that is also a 102-year-old brand of cookie. Remove from it the common first name of two guys surnamed Greene and Michaels. Add what’s left over to the end of the hoosegow synonym to form the title of a theatrical production.
Brie cheese
Brig = hoosegow for salts
Lorna Doone = novel and cookie brand
Lorna Doone – Lorne = adoon
Brig + adoon = Brigadoon
And here is the answer to the “breed of dog” puzzle I posted in this week’s puzzle preamble:
Take a name used in (last) week’s blog. Remove the space. Change one of the letters and move it elsewhere to create a breed of dog.
(Names used in last week’s blog were: Joseph Young, Will Shortz, Sam Loyd, Bill Lloyd, Ogden Nash, William Tell, Lego Lambda, and automotive wizards Tom Magliozzi and Ray Magliozzi.)
Sam Loyd = Samoyed
LegoLambdoon