Welcome to
Joseph Young’s Puzzle –ria!
This week, we squeeze out a dollop of Dazzledent (as in dazzlingly sparkling minty fresh teeth) onto our
We have
detected a mini-trend lately in Will Shortz’s Weekend Edition Sunday puzzles on
National Public Radio, and it has to do with teeth. No, Will’s puzzles are not
as difficult as the proverbial “pulling of teeth.” Indeed, they are often as
easy as pulling a balloon on a string, or a pop-top on a beer can.
But an
inordinate number of NPR Weekend Edition puzzles in recent months have dealt
with dentistry and dental hygiene.
To wit:
May 25’s answer
was “set of teeth.”
Part of June 22’s
answer was “Colgate.”
Part of June 29’s
answer was “bad breath.”
And now, Will’s
Oct. 5 puzzle this past week read:
“Take the first
four letters of a brand of toothpaste plus the last five letters of an over-the-counter
medicine, and together, in order, the result will name a popular beverage. What
is it?”
(Incidentally,
unless you are unidontic like Oliver J. Dragon of “Kukla, Fran and Ollie” fame,
shouldn’t “toothpaste” be called “teethpaste”? And, while we’re on the subject, isn’t “teethpaste” a much more sensible name for “denture cream” than “denture cream”?)
On Blaine’s and
An Englishman Solves American Puzzles blogs this past week, the consensus of the posted
comments concerning Dr. Shortz’s October 5 puzzle was that it was way too easy to sink one’s teeth
into.
And so, to keep matters hopping and popping, some commenters created and posed what we
at Puzzleria! have dubbed “piggyback” puzzles, so-called because they are similar to, formed from and “supported by” the original “masterpuzzle.” Piggyback puzzles do not stand alone
but rather “ride on other puzzles’ shoulders.”
David, a
brilliant puzzle solver and creator, and a regular commenter on multiple blogs,
including Puzzleria!, posted the following ingenious challenge on Blaine's blog:
“Take a type of
beverage spelled backwards and add a brand of toothpaste to the end. Change one
letter to get another beverage brand that is related to this week’s (NPR) puzzler
answer.”
I was stumped,
so asked David for a subtle hint, which he
provided. He answered my posted plea simply with, “Whiner.” (This alluded somewhat homophonically to “the type of beverage spelled backward.”)
David’s challenge is an
excellent “toothpaste puzzle,” one Will might have also created independently of David. Publishing it here on this blog helps to “drain the pool” of at least one potential toothpaste puzzle that Will might be “sitting on” and about to broadcast over NPR in coming months.
My mission,
immediately below, is to drain that pool even further by publishing a slew of “What
Brand Of Toothpaste…?” (W-BOT) puzzles, that Will might well have already thought
of, but henceforth cannot use because Puzzleria! got there first! Ha!
(I’m apparently
still miffed and reeling from that whole Cellophane/Cell phone unpleasantness
last week!) Once these toothpastey puzzles are squeezed out of their tube, you just cannot cram them back in. And similar toothpaste squeezed from other people
So, here are my
W-BOT puzzles. (Perhaps you can add to them by creating some of your own. To solve mine, use this handy web site from Wikipedia for
reference.):
What Brand Of
Toothpaste (W-BOT), when you transpose two interior consecutive letters, is the first
name of a former wife of a rock icon?
W-BOT, if you
delete an R, is the first name of a Rhythm & Blues/Gospel singer, or the
first name of a famous comedian’s wife?
W-BOT, if you
insert within it the last two letters of another BOT, is the stomping grounds
of a girl in a 1960s Grammy-winning bossa nova song?
W-BOT (referred
to in the preceding W-BOT) has three letters at its beginning that can be
rearranged to form a type of tooth cleansing substance that is an alternative to tooth “paste”?
W-BOT’s
original name was “Infra Dull” but sold much better after changing its name?
W-BOT is also
the name of an American business owner/manager who is closely associated
with Occidental Petroleum but also known as an art collector, philanthropist, and for having close ties to the Soviet Union?
W-BOT should change its
name to Da Vinci, who is responsible for brushstroking merely the most famous smile in art history,
and not. like that other guy, just cranking out a mess of etchings of drab windmills and oils of sour-pussed Dutchmen?
W-BOT is also a
BOM (Brand Of Margarine)?
And finally,
W-BOT is absolutely the worst brand name ever concocted in the
history of commercial products?But, enough of thisW-BOTTING, for now at least. Here is this week’s trio of puzzle slices:
Menu
Easy As Pie Slice:
“If a word falls in the forest…”
Take a word meaning “a lack of voluntary
muscular movement and coordination.” It is related to a facial tic, but is
usually more widespread in the body.
Lopping off the first and last letters
results in something jet airplanes do. Lopping another letter from the end
results in something governments do. Lopping another letter from the beginning
results in an implement one might use to perform the lopping of woods rather
than words.
What are these increasingly (decreasingly?)
truncated words?
All Come To A Similar End Slice:
Motley Cruise
Three words end with the same five
letters in the same order.
One is a mammal. Another appears in a
Christmas carol that is often sung in Latin.
The third is an uncomplimentary word for
a person, a noun. Its definition usually includes either a word sounding like a
woodland creature or a word sounding like an amphibious creature, or both.
The remaining letters (from the
beginnings of the three words) can be gathered together and rearranged to form the
phrase “motley cruise.”
What are the three words?
Extra Credit: What are the woodland and
amphibious creatures?
Specialty Of The House Slice:
Gamey Kids’ Stuff
Name a children’s game. Write its
syllables in reverse (not its letters, just its syllables) and divide the
result into two words to form a phrase that one might use to characterize a
carpenter’s technique of fastening boards by driving nails at an angle. What
are the game and the two words?
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.
All my friends use Da Vinci toothpaste.
ReplyDeleteAnd you Mona bout it here, Paul? ;-)
DeleteYes, Word Woman, but at Lisa Paul's friends don't have Stonehengey tusks that lean like towers of Pisa.
DeleteLegoRinseSpitMoan
When I try to look up the "phrase that one might use to characterize a carpenter’s technique of fastening boards by driving nails at an angle" on either DuckDuckGo or Wikipedia, instead of any link to a carpenter's technique, I instead get links to or about a movie.
ReplyDeleteI have solved, I think, all the above W-BOTs, Here is another: W-BOT, when you remove the last letter, results in another type of dental product.
ReplyDeleteI also have the EAPS. On to the ACTASES and the SOTHS (I think I know the technique, but not the game).
On the ACTASES, did you get the definition from dictionary.com? That is how I got the extra credit.
ReplyDeleteAdd two letters to the non-last-five letters one of the three words (keeping those letters in order, but not necessarily consecutive) and get a (relatively, at least) well known movie.
Add two letters to the non-last-five letters another of the three words (keeping those letters in order, but not necessarily consecutive) and get a (relatively, at least) well known talk show host's first name.
Add two letters to the non-last-five letters the third of the three words (keeping those letters in order, but not necessarily consecutive) and get a chemical element. Change the added letters to two different letters to get another chemical element (tricky).
Actually, that last one of yours is not quite right. The positions of the changed added letters are different. A better way to have phrased your challenge is this:
DeleteAdd two letters to the non-last-five letters the third of the three words (keeping those letters in order, but not necessarily consecutive) and get a chemical element. Then insert two additional letters (still keeping all that's there in order, the new inserted letters not necessarily consecutive) to get another chemical element. Finally, remove the first two letters you had inserted, to get yet a third chemical element.
Paul,
DeleteYes, my friends too use Da Vinci toothpaste. I guess they figure that lions have strong, healthy choppers.
David, I’m not too sure I have the answer to your 1:45 PM piggyback W-BOT. I used my Wiki-link for the list. Is “Glee” a dental product?
As for the “extra creature credit” in the SOTHS, I have just always associated that great word with those two creatures. I tend to use my clunky MW Tenth Edition before consulting online references. Ludite? Guilty!
I like your piggybacks (or, put more hifalutin’ly, “porcidorsalines”) for the ACTASES. I deem the movie as a classic, as were many by this director, who was a curmudgeon but also a genius. I was a fan of the talk show host when he/she was a young stand-up comic.
As for the third word, I believe I unearthed your elements, but perhaps not, becuase I didn’t encounter any trickiness. Wasn’t “In the year 6590…” a lyric in the old Zager & Evans hit?
Enya_and_Weird_Al_fan,
I did not get your results when I put that phrase into the DuckDuckGo and Wikipedia search engines. I hope you didn’t find some objectionable movies, though (if I infer correctly what you found).
I wish I could hire you as my puzzle editor! You are persnickety in the very best sense of the word. In other words, I mean that as a compliment. Precision is underrated, but not by you, apparently.
That said, I dug up both David’s without scuffling too much.
LegoElementalDigger
Not some objectionable movies, just one obscure one. Even though I can't find any web article talking about the carpentry technique in the words produced by taking the children's game and reversing the syllables, I never-the-less don't feel comfortable asking you about it out loud, so I'm encrypting the rest of this post with Sharky's Vigenere Cipher, the OLD version 1.0 using as the key: the first word of EAPS + the mammal of ACTASES + the second word of EAPS + the Christmas carol word of ACTASES + the third word of EAPS + the uncomplimentary word of ACTASES.
DeleteOd, flz tlp gwplqkxn'p otdm, C tpk TVV-MAZ-LMG. W upghkew teit xsi rhrcxgtbz'l kmwtcpqhx pordb ds p AOR MAVTFK. Wlpr X lngxk teim zvna tptuxk DruiFirrGb hr Pihqpiomp, hlzhlt xte kpy dtzuyml aow dqf p toibe "Mhb Boi Eeraip", paizp vruy aja ia mpo-qzmwgpud-ngd-xidpt. M OMS miaw hnb xtxm, urilr gax dlmzns hsafael, iq'a hsxiglnbottfwgj(lif)piohm(woq)umo(gahsu)hd(llxah)eohxaibgl(siily)yn(eahsu)mheksgnwcntvis(woq)ptq hlxjh QHXS amltzcnt dhnm B bbdggjtk tux ctrmmnxpvh aepagincx za, vgi pt ptelp ar "vct-uaveigg" xvd RPZTY ufxl tem pfzx "fpjtvv". Lo tzw fc X uoj urbnd ilp elxz uc tgd xad pwo mqvug bm? Bbuywgt mielt Wasqd wlms hbbnm tem LFBBE, "X ahvgd I hfmy hwl trvhgince, ffx cvt gax gxux" rvx fwl ybn cupl qcws ahnm yhu aqd rzx vlt gatt omlltn iwln lhn prl rjoi whetsx ikbo HfgzKupdZo xvw Nqeueldvt.
Enya_and_Weird_Al_fan,
DeleteSame key (actually, that’s no key… it’s a night watchman’s keychain!)
Od, I’j bhi thxvt! V vhpfxu “xbdpze gatt lfc owvot hle mo zpavlgilrvsx a ztixyzilr’f mxcefgsit vf stsmekqnk mspydf ur dobmqhs chiyl tt xf ypual” iamo mhb aeecgw lntbgep. Gfb “NAT AAPMBC” xk wqi blaam fhr jm ts os. Iouf B wia gfb mqt “hly mae owqwziz” fbk tae jwvmp "Xwl Tbx Mazmzk", qtxjh V pts rfdcaxsink wbte, JTA. T vthlvsx tex tilbtutrk’l tbufpwfbe vl ctlimd "xzi-chiybgg," xgu vif rhlyxw a "qgc voraip" xxvemb bc xi xu tubl prsqty. Nja ml FP Cldjguxhtr Wivtfwnecc Ilnga Xdfmzwh sxcef t wecalkhxvn shr mhb devm “xdl” af “mh dobmm (ue p uave) hbiaowsaf,” sb B fbgrzeh T apz oa tm lbtjb mqbp-sbebd djmwbs iy hligg “qwe xlgipc” nl fy mnqhfq pusjxk.
For those out there who were able to read my question to legolambda in its entirety, but find that lego's reply back gets messed up, well, somehow he messed up his night watchman's keychain a little bit. The second word of EAPS got replaced with another copy of the third word of EAPS. So...., just delete ONE LITTLE LETTER from the key and then it should be just fine. And thanks, lego.
DeleteEnya_and_Weird_Al_fan,
DeleteThat settles it! You are hereby officially hired as the official editor of the Joseph Young's Puzzle-ria! blog.
Wait, you say you're curious about your salary? What we can offer? Celery! In Puzzleria!'s refrigerated stockroom we have a surplus of celery stalks (See the SOTHS's "Three times Faster" in the link). We ordered them in bulk, at a bargain-basement price, intending to offer them as complimentary relish-tray appetizers for our Puzzlerian! patrons. But nobody bit! So we're a bit overstocked.
With a steady diet of celery you shouldn't require medical benefits. We may require that you come in to work on some Saturdays. That would be great...
LegoLumbergh
E&WAF, I see the answers to your response to my 3rd piggyback, but I stick by my answers, with an emphasis on tricky.
DeleteDavid,
DeleteOkay, I think I might have figured out the “tricky part” of your “third-word ACTASES piggyback” (and I like it!). But now I am a bit confused about your wording: “keeping those letters in… not necessarily consecutive (order),” unless that is a red herring, of course.
Perhaps Zager & Evans sang: “In the year 5290, man will be hard-pressed to find a pine tree. …”
EllegoEllambda
Also, Lego, instead of your animals, I would use a farm animal, not in the farm animal sense, in a phrase.
DeleteI was being consistent with the prior two pigs.
DeleteDavid,
DeletePlease do not post your answer to the ACTASES third-word piggyback puzzle. I am seriously suggesting that it is “Will-worthy” and that you submit it to NPR. It is really a great puzzle.
I will not presume to speak for Enya_and_Weird_Al_fan (He speaks just fine on his own!) but I suspect he meandered down the same errant tine-of-the-fork-in-the-road as I did initially in trying to solve this brilliant puzzle.
(I will expound further on what I believe makes up the essence of a brilliant puzzle this Friday, October 17 in Puzzleria!’s preamble. In short, it is that “tricky” element to which you alluded.)
If it was my puzzle, and I were submitting it to Will, I would package it this way: (The parenthetical parts are optional and make the puzzle a bit wordy, but there might be a good reason for including them.)
Remove the last five letters of a(n) (three-syllable) English word that appears in a Christmas carol (often sung in Latin). (These are also the last five letters of a large mammal and synonym for bootlicker.) Add two letters to the remaining letters -- keeping those remaining letters in order, but not necessarily consecutive -- to spell out a chemical element. Now change those added letters to two different letters to spell out another chemical element.
What are these elements and word from the Christmas carol?
My rationale for including the parenthetical parts is that you want solvers to arrive that point where they have discovered the two elements which they think will be your answer.
As to whether you should tip solvers off (as you did when you posted it here) that there is something “tricky” about solving this puzzle, I am not sure what I would do. Probably flip a coin.
The beauty of you puzzle is that it will generate scores of half-correct answers, with the second half not compliant with your clear wording. Fantastic!
LegoHopeToHearWillSayYourNameOnNPR
I won't post the answer to my third ACTASES piggyback, but I'm not sure that Will won't find the puzzle has too many steps, although we all know he doesn't mind tricks. Do any of the other solvers have an opinion of whether I should submit it to NPR?
DeleteI'm never careful enough when I'm reading. It's "a phrase that one might use to characterize a carpenter’s technique", not the name of the technique. I was struggling to think of a children's game starting with 'ing'.
ReplyDeleteLooks like an interesting movie. I could have sworn Andrea Martin was a member of the SNL cast for a season or two, but I guess I was wrong.
I see you finally came up with the same children's game that I did.
DeleteI remember spending countless hours as a youngster playing that classic childrens’ game, “Ingnail(Groza).” I think it originated in China, like Mahjong.
DeleteLegoMisspentYouth
Binaca, Aim, Marvis, Ipana, Gleem, Ultra-Brite, Close-Up, Arm & Hammer, Rembrandt, Promise, Signal, that radioactive thing, ataxia, taxi, tax, ax, elephant, triumphant, sycophant (fawning toady), tic-tac-toe, toe tactic
ReplyDeleteThe Rembrandts performed the theme song for Friends.
Andrea Martin can be heard in 'The Toe Tactic' which was written and directed by Emily Hubley, who doesn't seem to be any relation to Season Hubley. However, a member of Emily's family (as well as order and species, I presume) has an interesting connection to my findings vis-à-vis this week's NPR puzzle, about which I may (or may not) explain more in 48 hours.
Now that I've read all four answers to the NPR puzzle, I don't think I had the best one.
DeleteThis comment has been removed by the author.
DeleteI liked it all. Paul . . . except the rainbow with violet on the outside and red on the inside. ROY G BIV, ROY G BIV, ROY G BIV.
DeleteYo La Tengo.
Your inside is out and your outside is in
DeleteYour outside is in and your inside is out
Shake it easy.
Paul,
DeleteGreat stuff! I think every NPR puzzle in history is alluded to in that video. (I think blog commentor jan has some connection to a member of Yo La Tengo, if my memory serves me.)
Legolatenyo
My W-BOT piggyback (pb) is Stripe (which is not on the Wikipedia list Lego referred us to) and (whitening) strip.
ReplyDeleteMy first ACTASES pb is syco(phant) leadingng to Psycho (a movie everyone has heard of?).
My second ACTASES pb is ele(phant) leading to Ellen (Degeneres).
Lego asked me not to print the solution to my third ACTASES pb.
For the record, here are this week’s answers:
ReplyDeleteEasy As Pie Slice:
“If a word falls in the forest…”
Take a word meaning “a lack of voluntary muscular movement and coordination.” It is related to a facial tic, but is usually more widespread in the body.
Lopping off the first and last letters results in something jet airplanes do. Lopping another letter from the end results in something governments do. Lopping another letter from the beginning results in an implement one might use to perform the lopping of woods rather than words.
What are these increasingly (decreasingly?) truncated words?
Answer:
ATAXIA, TAXI, TAX, AX
All Come To A Similar End Slice:
Motley Cruise
Three words end with the same five letters in the same order.
One is a mammal. Another appears in a Christmas carol that is often sung in Latin.
The third is an uncomplimentary word for a person, a noun. Its definition usually includes either a word sounding like a woodland creature or a word sounding like an amphibious creature, or both.
The remaining letters (from the beginnings of the three words) can be gathered together and rearranged to form the phrase “motley cruise.”
What are the three words?
Extra Credit: What are the woodland and amphibious creatures?
Answer: ELEPHANT, TRIUMPHANT, SYCHOPHANT
Remaining letters: ELE TRIUM SYCO can be rearranged to form “motley cruise.”
Extra Credit: The creatures related to the definition of “sycophant” are “fawn” (fawning) and “toad” (toady).
Specialty Of The House Slice:
Gamey Kids’ Stuff
Name a children’s game. Write its syllables in reverse (not its letters, just its syllables) and divide the result into two words to form a phrase that one might use to characterize a carpenter’s technique of fastening boards by driving nails at an angle. What are the game and the two words?
Answer:
TIC-TAC-TOE becomes TOE TACTIC
(The “carpenter’s technique of fastening boards by driving nails at an angle” is called “toenailing”. In my Merriam Webster Collegiate Dictionary Tenth Edition, “toe” is listed as a transitive verb meaning “to drive (as a nail) obliquely,” and the transitive verb “toenail” is defined as “to fasten by toed nails.”
Ergo, “a carpenter’s technique of fastening boards by driving nails at an angle” is a “toe tactic.”
(The verbal similarities between the carpentry and the foot are interesting: for example: “hammertoe,” toenail.”)
LegoLammbertoe
Paul, Successfully succinct.
ReplyDeleteDavid, I do vaguely recall Stripe toothpaste. Good PBs.
And here are my W-BOT Answers:
What Brand Of Toothpaste… (W-BOT) puzzles:
What Brand Of Toothpaste (W-BOT), when you transpose two interior consecutive letters, is the first name of a former wife of a rock icon?
Binaca > Bianca Jagger, former wife of Mick.
W-BOT might Dennis Banks, Clyde Bellecourt and Russell Means have used? (The answer is not ANAM!)
Aim: Banks, Bellecourt and Means are all associated with the American Indian Movement (AIM), which is not known as the American Native American Movement (ANAM), just as the NAACP has not changed its name/initialism to the NAAAAP.
W-BOT, if you delete an R, is the first name of a Rhythm & Blues/Gospel singer, or the first name of a famous comedian’s wife?
Marvis > Mavis (singer Mavis Staples and Mavis Leno, Jay’s wife)
W-BOT, if you insert within it the last two letters of another BOT, is the stomping grounds of a girl in a 1960s Grammy-winning bossa nova song?
Ipana + the “em” from “Gleem” = Ipanema.
W-BOT (referred to in the preceding W-BOT) has three letters at its beginning that can be rearranged to form a type of tooth cleansing substance that is an alternative to tooth “paste”?
Gleem: the “GLE” in “GLEEM” can be rearranged to form “GEL”
W-BOT’s original name was “Infra Dull” but sold much better after changing its name?
Ultra Brite. (This W-BOT is not factual. It is my notion of a joke.)
W-BOT did Norma Desmond tell Cecil B. De Mille she was ready for?
Close-up
W-BOT is also the name of an American business owner/manager who is closely associated with Occidental Petroleum but also known as an art collector, philanthropist, and for having close ties to the Soviet Union?
Arm & Hammer > Armand Hammer (Sorry, I should have said something about a “homophone” or “sounds like…”)
W-BOT should change its name to Da Vinci, who is responsible for brushstroking no less than the most famous smile in art history, and not. like that other guy, just cranking out a mess of etchings of drab windmills and oils of sour-pussed Dutchmen?
Rembrandt (Dutch artist and toothpaste brand) ought become “Da Vinci” (creator of the Mona Lisa smile, even though it is not a toothy one).
W-BOT is also a BOM (Brand Of Margarine)?
Promise
W-BOT will give your teeth a red, green and amber glow?
Signal
W-BOT is absolutely the worst brand name ever concocted in the history of commercial products?
Doramad Radioactive Toothpaste. ’Nuff said, I reckon.
LeGeigero…