1QB + 1QB = 1HB; A self-referential state; "Won't get 'field' again?"

Welcome to Joseph Young’s Puzzle –ria!

This week’s we slice into:

The “Pineapple Upside-down Clock”

(…and other appetizing puzzles)

Puzzle bloggers and puzzle blog commenters, including yours truly (and “mine falsely”) have occasionally twitted (not Tweeted, mind you, twitted) puzzle master Dr. Will Shortz for purveying “cream puff” puzzles (that is, puzzles too easily solved) during his puzzle segment on National Public Radio’s (NPR’s) Morning Edition Sunday.

(Puzzle bloggers, especially yours, truthfully, are also eminently twittable for cramberry-jamming their paragraphs with parenthetical annotations, and then disingenuously apologizing about it in an immediately subsequent parenthetical paragraph.)

I submit that Dr. Shortz has been unduly twitted.

Our renowned enigmatologist, after all, must strive to appeal to a national audience of puzzle solvers with a broad range of puzzle-solving aptitudes. Sure, many NPR puzzles Will broadcasts are easily solved (eliciting more than 1,000 correct answer submissions during some weeks!) but Will also mixes in a fair number of more challenging posers.

Take for example our favorite NPR puzzle from this past calendar year, the following gem from February 2:

“Where in most homes will you see the words SHE and HIS, and what word will you see right after HIS?

This puzzle, which came to be known at Blainesville

and at AESAP as the “upside-down digital clock puzzle,” featured a really nifty time/space misdirection, and proved to be a tough solve. Will received very few correct entries.

Reaction among puzzle bloggers was mixed, with some praising the puzzle as clever, even ingenious, but others deeming the puzzle’s “trick” or “twist” unfair.

The answer to the puzzle as well as commentary about it are available here and here and here.

A few months later, Will broadcast another stickler, one that began by providing a “helpful example,” “the film Wild Wild West,” that was actually a red herring, or misdirection:

“The film Wild Wild West had three W’s as its initials. What prominent film of last year had two W’s as its initials?”

Blog answers and commentaries pertaining to this puzzle are available here and here. Again, the reaction was mixed.

(A Blainesville blog commenter screen-named “Al” was one of the handful of people who solved the “SHE/HIS” puzzle, and was one of the handful who also solved the “two W’s film” puzzle. Quite a feat, IMHO. Al doesn’t just think outside the “puzzle box.” No, in a boxcar filled with “puzzle boxes,” he thinks outside the boxcar!)

Two months later, Will posted another poser – somewhat easier, yet still tricky:

“Name part of a TV that contains the letter C. Replace the C with the name of a book of the Old Testament, keeping all the letters in order. The result will name a sailing vessel of old. What is it?” Here is what the blogs gave as a verdict.

Like the others, this puzzle involves a “twist,” an element that requires solvers to perceive a trickily skewed reality, to navigate a house of mirrors as if it were their own home.

Frequent Puzzleria! commentor David posted a “piggyback puzzle” on October 10, 4:23 PM in last week’s Puzzleria! comments section. It reminded me of the above NPR puzzles, so I suggested he submit it to NPR.

We at Puzzleria! strive to create and post such puzzles – puzzles with a trick, a twist, a misdirection, a different way of perceiving letters, words, numbers or expressions.

The closest we’ve come, our best puzzle so far IMO, was this one, posted in May, the first month of Puzzleria’s existence:

Specialty of the House Slice:
“Trivial Scribble”
What three-word phrase is a bad thing if you’re playing Trivial Pursuit, not a bad thing if you’re playing Scrabble, and a thing that might seem to be a logical impossibility if you’re playing Pictionary?

It had decent wordplay and was the puzzle we felt best about as we created it.

But in too many of our Puzzleria! puzzles, the solver is merely moving letters and syllables around like furniture across the living room floor. It is mere heavy lifting, requiring an exercise of brawn over brain – a workout, sure, but not so much fun.

This week’s puzzles, for example, might be a bit too much like that. And, many of our puzzles have been too easy:

What two-word phrase is a good thing for dessert, a good thing in the used car lot, but a bad thing on a puzzle blog?

So, don’t be a twit. And don’t twit. Just pit your puzzle-solving skills and match wits while we at Puzzleria! knit our brows, grit our teeth and commit to hitting it out of the ballpark… a grand slam four-base-hit every at-bat, that is.

This week’s trio of pitched puzzles:

Menu

Halve It Your Way Slice:

1QB + 1QB = 1HB

Name a word you might hear on a football broadcast. Remove the first letter to form a word describing Brett Favre as a Viking or George Blanda as a Raider. Replace the letter you removed with one having “half its value” and halve the result to form two words that are somewhat antonymous.

Hint: The two near antonyms can each be classified as a word that sometimes modifies “fruit.”

Easy As Pie Slice:

A self-referential state

Divide the name of a U.S. state into two parts. Add a letter to the end of the first part and replace the last letter of the second part with a different letter to form two words that describe the state. What are the two words and the state?

Studious Slice:

“Won’t get ‘field’ again?”

Think of a field of study. Insert into this word an acronym that might be a topic of discussion in that field, creating a new word that is also a field of study. What are these words?
(Hint: The longer-worded field of study is considered by some people to be not so “academic.”)

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.