Welcome to Joseph Young’s Puzzle –ria! Happy New Year and Happy Puzzling! Here’s hoping your sprinkles, dashes and dollops of tangy, sage and piquant holiday seasoning linger well into this new year.
We resolve to
see you all again in 2015, on January 2.
For some
reason, this week’s puzzle slices seem to possess a somewhat romantic flavor, a
full six months-plus before St. Valentine’s Day. (Sic! That should be “six-weeks-plus”... see Word Woman’s December 26, 7:15 AM comment/correction below, in the Comments Section)
Hope you “love”
’em. Here they are:
Menu
Specialty Of The House Slice:
Ars (Font) Poetica
Take the first word of a well-known and beloved poem. Print it in all-lowercase letters, and in a font such as Ar Cena, pictured at the right, or Ar Darling, pictured below it. (Or, use a font such as Segoe Print, Century Gothic or Levernim.)
Rotate the word’s second letter 180-degrees clockwise and its first letter 45 degrees counterclockwise to create a shorthand form of a nine-letter word.
The shorter word is often misunderstood and controversial, but unjustifiably so because it is a perfectly legitimate form of the longer word. This nine-letter word (or its shorthand counterpart) is the subject of the beloved poem.
What are the two forms of the word and what is the poem?
Waiter, I Didn’t Order This Slice:
The Name Game
The following four names are in the wrong order:
Bobby, Malcolm, Rog and Mick 
Put them in the correct order and explain what they signify.
Reflexive Rotational Slice:
When the mirror ball drops…
Name something that is commonplace every December 31 at the midnight hour. Change the last two letters to their mirror reflections, replace their rounded corners and curves with acute angles and straight lines, and move these two new letters to the left of the others.
Replace each letter with the one that appears 13 places after it (or before it) in the alphabet (ROT13). The result is timely. What is it?
Spoon-fed Slice:
The Sweetheart of Sigma Chiasmus
It is January 31, 1879. Oxford University dean the Rev. William Archibald Spooner has just returned from a fortnight away from home as a visiting guest-lecturer (lecturing on “Christmas, Chiasmus and the Cross”) at the University of London. He is now back at his Oxford home spending a quiet romantic New Year’s Eve evening alone with his wife Frances, billing, cooing, spooning, canoodling and, at the stroke of midnight, kissing.
After their smooch, Frances coos to William:
“I’m happy having you near.”
William coos back a six-word response which adds the letters in the word “awe” to his wife’s five-word declaration, but also subtracts from it two vowels that do not appear in “awe.”
What was the Rev. Spooner’s response?
One-Hundred-Eighty-Degree Slice:
Sun, moon, stars… fireworks!
A lad and a gal in North or South America have a yen for one another. They kiss beneath the moon and stars.
On an island half a world away there is sun (not rising, already risen) and a lad and gal who have yen in their pockets and a yen for one another. A half-a-day before the American couple kissed, this couple also kissed beneath the moon and stars.
Take the three letters in “sun” and add one each to the words “lad,” “gal” and “yen.”
Now rearrange each group of letters to form three new four-letter words that form a song title. What is this song title?
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.)
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
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 friends about Joseph Young’s Puzzle -ria! Thank you.
On the train to DC. Got the RRS. Can't say much because according to my cell, I'm roaming.
ReplyDeleteAlso got the S-fS.
ReplyDeleteAnd O-H-E-D-S.
ReplyDeleteThis comment has been removed by the author.
ReplyDelete"Land Yens Gaul" is up and coming for the ¹80 degree slice. Oooh, how did I get a superscript 1 in the 180 above reñdering? Er, reindeering?
ReplyDeleteAnd six months before Valentine's Day, Lego? Is that why the fireworks appear in your posting in the holiday combo known as "Val 4th en of Tine's July Independence Day?" ;-)
Happy Boxing Day. We have a very pretty white one here. Pups and I made a snow person and a snow dog.
Well, it seems David is chuff-chuffing though this week's slices like a Land-of-the-Rising-Sun bullet train on the Shinkansen, or the Train à Grande Vitesse in what was once Gaul...
DeleteSpeaking of which, it appears Word Woman is alluding to that old French drinking tune, "Land Yens Gaul" (and, as a Word Woman, she has always been expert at Superscription. That is why she was able to correct my months/weeks goof. A pity it wasn't instead a weeks/days goof. I could have chalked that up to the old "dog years" seven-to-one ratio...
Speaking of which, pity neither of those pups is a boxer... on Boxing Day and all.
LegoTheFourteenthOfFebruaryIsDependenceDay...AndThatCanBeAGoodThing
And the SOTHS.
ReplyDeleteGot the ROT13 (enjoyed listening to Wilson Pickett again); got the spoonerism; got the 180° thing, but David and WW seem to have gotten it before me, which I guess makes my solution solution⑶(hopefully solution⑴=solution⑵=solution⑶).
ReplyDeleteJoyeux Noël⑶ (baawk!)
Paul,
ReplyDeleteYes, Wilson Pickett, good name for a songwriter/guitar-picker (which of course, he was).
All Puzzlerians!
Each puzzle this week is connected to at least one of the four others, as you may have gathered. That is true also of Waiter, I Didn’t Order This Slice: The Name Game.
Granted, it is a relatively tough puzzle, but solvable, especially for Puzzlerians! If you can determine even one or two of the four people in the puzzle, you are well on your way to solving it.
I have a clue that I may post later today or tomorrow, In the meantime, if you solve the “Waiter, I Didn’t Order This Slice,” please feel free to post your own clues. Thank you.
LegoThe“Waiter”WhoGivesTips
For WIDOTS, the correct order is: Rog and Mick (or Mick and Rog), Malcolm and Bobby. That may or may not be of much help to you.
ReplyDeleteLegoApplePieOrder
For the WIDOTS, I think I have identified the 3rd and 4th people, the significance and the puzzle(s) to which it is connected, but don't know the 1st and 2nd people.
ReplyDeleteYour clue has confirmed my suspicion, still no help on 1 and 2.
DeleteObscure hint that requires dot-connecting:
DeleteBobby, Malcolm, Mick & Rog = Holly, King, Comet & Stella...
LegoLatinStar
I regret that I haven't had much time to devote to this week's "slices." I have solved a couple though.
ReplyDeleteSOTHS:
'TWAS (the night before Christmas)>>> XMAS>>>CHRISTMAS.
180° S:
AULD LANG SYNE
WIDOTS:
Rog Ebert, Mick Mouse, Malcolm Muggeridge(?), Bobby Fisher, but I have no idea "what they signify!"
That's it.
ron,
ReplyDeleteGood solving on the SOTHS and OHEDS. On the WIDOTS, your are correct about the illustration identifications. But I must apologize for packaging the puzzle confusingly. I had four other guys named Bobby, Malcolm, Rog and Mick in mind (see my comment below), but you and other solvers had no way of knowing that.
All puzzles this week were somewhat interlockingly related: to New Years/holidays/the Greek letter chi (written "X," which, as a Roman numeral, equals 5, the number of this week's puzzles).
LegoSweetheartOfLambdaChi
X=5?
DeleteLegoLambda is a Greek puzzle chef, not a Roman puzzle chef!
Delete500ego... or is that 50ego... (I always get D and L mixed up!)
Part 1
ReplyDeleteThis week’s answers for the record:
Specialty Of The House Slice:
Ars (Font) Poetica
Take the first word of a well-known and beloved poem. Print it in all-lowercase letters, and in a font such as Ar Cena, Ar Darling or, use a font such as Segoe Print, Century Gothic or Levernim.
Rotate the word’s second letter 180-degrees clockwise and its first letter 45 degrees counterclockwise to create a shorthand form of a nine-letter word.
The shorter word is often misunderstood and controversial, but unjustifiably so because it is a perfectly legitimate form of the longer word. This nine-letter word (or its shorthand counterpart) is the subject of the beloved poem.
What are the two forms of the word and what is the poem?
Answer:
Xmas; Christmas; “A Visit from St. Nicholas”
Clement Clarke Moore’s “A Visit from St. Nicholas” begins with the word “’Twas (the night before Christmas)” = ’twas. Rotating the “t” and “w” results in xmas = Xmas = Christmas.
Waiter, I Didn’t Order This Slice:
The Name Game
The following four names are in the wrong order:
Bobby, Malcolm, Rog and Mick
Put them in the correct order and explain what they signify.
Answer:
The correct order is: Rog, Mick (or Mick, Rog) Malcolm and Bobby.
Rog and Mick are Roger Maris and Mickey Mantle, known to New York Yankee fans as “the M&M Boys;” Malcolm is Malcolm X; Bobby is Bobby Vee.
Thus, Rog, Mick, Malcolm and Bobby =
MMXV = 2015 in Roman numerals.
(My “obscure hint” in my December 27, 8:45 PM comment:
“Bobby, Malcolm, Mick & Rog = Holly, King, Comet & Stella”
“Holly” is Buddy Holly, whom Bobby Vee admires.
“King” is the Rev. Martin Luther King, to whom civil rights activist Malcolm X was often compared/contrasted.
“Comet” alludes to Mickey Mantle’s nickname, “the Commerce Comet.”
“Stella” alludes to Stella Maris, Latin for “Star of the Sea.” Stella Maris is a title of the Blessed Virgin Mary.
LegOculiSidereumMaris
I kinda guessed XMAS was involved, but couldn't see the letter rotation or poem to save my soul. Maybe I'll try to find 'Come Thou FONT of Many Blessings' on the Cyberhymnal.
DeleteI also kinda thought Rog and Mick were 9 & 7, but Bobby's still #1 in my book (Billy who?). And Malcolm did trigger an X, but I didn't make the Roman connection. And STELLA sucks me into one of two black holes: Marlon Brando or Elaine Benes.
The rest I got. Can't prove it, but I did.
Butch... er, Paul,
DeleteProof? You don't need no stinkin' proof!
The "45-degree counterclockwise rotation of my lowercase t so that it forms an x" is kind of an iffy maneuver. What I needed was a font with a "t" that resembled a plus sign (+), and preferably an uppercase "T."
How long have you been a Yankee fan (if you are)? Billy and Bobby were as different as night and day (or "Devil or Angel," as Bobby Vee might say). Their Yankee tenures overlapped. Bobby wore # 17 in 1956.
BR does seem like a really good guy. Have you seen this? And, in this video I was reminded that Tony Kubek came from my own home state of Wisconsin.
LegoIfTheyRetireMyNumberDoesItReceiveAPension?
Part 2
ReplyDeleteThis week’s answers for the record:
Reflexive Rotational Slice:
When the mirror ball drops…
Name something that is commonplace every December 31 at the midnight hour. Change the last two letters to their mirror reflections, replace their rounded corners and curves with acute angles and straight lines, and move these two new letters to the left of the others.
Replace each letter with the one that appears 13 places after it (or before it) in the alphabet (ROT13). The result is timely. What is it?
Answer:
A New Year’s Eve “KISS” is commonplace every December 31 at midnight. Replacing the two esses (SS) with mirror images and replacing curves with acute angles results in “ZZ.”
Thus, KISS becomes ZZKI, which becomes MMXV, which is 2015 in Roman numerals.
Spoon-fed Slice:
The Sweetheart of Sigma Chiasmus
It is January 31, 1879. Oxford University dean the Rev. William Archibald Spooner has just returned from a fortnight away from home as a visiting guest-lecturer (lecturing on “Christmas, Chiasmus and the Cross”) at the University of London. He is now back at his Oxford home spending a quiet romantic New Year’s Eve evening alone with his wife Frances, billing, cooing, spooning, canoodling and, at the stroke of midnight, kissing.
After their smooch, Frances coos to William:
“I’m happy having you near.”
William coos back a six-word response which adds the letters in the word “awe” to his wife’s five-word declaration, but also subtracts from it two vowels that do not appear in “awe.”
What was the Rev. Spooner’s response?
Answer:
I’m happy having you near + awe – ou =
I’m having a Happy New Year…
which not only spoonerizes (you-near/new-year) but also “chiasmusizes” (happy-having/having-a-Happy) his wife’s declaration.
One-Hundred-Eighty-Degree Slice:
Sun, moon, stars… fireworks!
A lad and a gal in North or South America have a yen for one another. They kiss beneath the moon and stars.
On an island half a world away there is sun (not rising, already risen) and a lad and gal who have yen in their pockets and a yen for one another. A half-a-day before the American couple kissed, this couple also kissed beneath the moon and stars.
Take the three letters in “sun” and add one each to the words “lad,” “gal” and “yen.”
Now rearrange each group of letters to form three new four-letter words that form a song title. What is this song title?
Answer:
“Auld Lang Syne”
YEN + S = SYNE
LAD + U = AULD
GAL + N = LANG
The strains of “Auld Lang Syne” wash over the American couple as they kiss on New Year’s Eve at midnight, about 12 hours after the couple in Japan ushered in the new year with a kiss.
(Fot those of you who are too young to remember the 1970, the TV-screen graphics in the “Auld Lang Syne” link above perfectly epitomize the schlocky essence of the decade.)
LegoOrMaybeThatSchlockBeganInThe1960s!
Running a day or so behind. Got the Xmas, Christmas, and 'Twas and Auld Lang Syne puzzles. Fun, Lego!
ReplyDeleteAll the best to all of you for blissful, exciting, healthy 2015!