It "chore" looks better!; Biceps 'n' Bisection; ~~~~~~~~~~~~ Mass o' Clue Sets

Welcome to Joseph Young’s Puzzle –ria! The picture above, and a few other randomly placed pictures on this week’s blog, pertain to a particular clue in this week’s Specialty Of The House Slice (SOTHS) puzzle. It is a wonderful word, clued with an equally wonderful word.

A few diversions before we dig in to our puzzle slices this week:

Orthography, Mnemonics and Rodents

A radio ad I heard recently reminded me of last week’s third puzzle, in which you were presented “acronymesque” words like ART LAB and THAW, and were to decipher  from them adages such as “A Rising Tide Lifts All Boats,” and “Time Heals All Wounds.” (Or, in the “blog Epistle” according to Paul, WHIT and “Wounds Heal In Time.”)

The ad is in the form of one of those dialogue ads, for household rodent control, in which the homemaker seeks counsel from Mr. Exterminator Guy. It goes something like this:

Homemaker: “How can I keep rodents from entering my house as the temperatures outside get cooler?”

Mr. Exterminator Guy: “Trimming tree branches and bushes that might come into contact with your house is helpful.”

H: “What else can I do?”

MEG: “Sealing any holes or cracks around your foundation can also deter these rodents. Mice can enter a home or building through a crack as small as 1/4 inch.”

H: “And, what if a rat or mouse does get into the house…?”

Cut, cut, cut! Stop the taping! Pause the commercial. At this point, Mr Exterminator Guy babbles something about calling “Acme Pest Control as soon as you spot them to prevent a larger mouse infestation.”

So (take two), the homemaker asks, “And, what if a rat or mouse does get into the house…?” Here is what I wished Mr. Exterminator Guy’s reply to the homemaker’s query would have been:

“A Rat In The House May Eat The Ice Cream!”

Or, of course, if it’s a mouse, AMITHMETIC.” (Examples of AMYTHMETIC include 7 + 3 = 11 and 7 – 3 = Thor.)

Anyway, another mnemonic trick involving a rat appeared in a story I read in my youth about a boy preparing for a spelling bee. He was always misspelling SEPARATE as SEPERATE, until a wise elder reminded him, “There is ‘a rat’ in separate.” The boy proceeded to (surprise, surprise!) win the bee by having to spell… well, you know the rest.

The Guest French Puzzle Chef Returns!

Puzzlerians! may recall that in our August 1^st Puzzleria! edition we introduced you to guest gourmet French chef Monsieur Garcon du Parachutisme, who cooked up a “bonus puzzle slice” for your solving enjoyment. He is a regular commenter over at Blaine’s blog under his English-language moniker, “skydiveboy.” And now he is back to serve up a “bonus slice” second helping. We thank him for sharing this…

Guest French Chef Slice:

Strip Malle

Think of a movie everyone knows in thirteen letters. Then think of a comic strip everyone knows with the same name except for two letters.

Remove two identical letters from the movie plus another identical letter from the comic strip and describe how the comic strip sometimes uses these three letters.

(Hint: Read again very carefully.)

Here is this week’s trio of house puzzle slices:

Menu

Easy As Pie Slice:

It “chore” looks better!

Name common chore during which certain household items are improved. 

Deleting two consecutive letters from this word results in a “rare word” (that is, one that exists but that we really don’t need) describing the items during the early stages of the chore. 

Deleting two consecutive letters from this questionable adjective results in a perfectly legitimate adjective describing the items at the completion of the chore. 

What are the chore and the two adjectives?

Sporty Slice:

Biceps ‘n’ Bisection

Name an article of clothing associated with athletic activity and training. Bisect the word. 

The first half is something athletes often do while wearing this article. 

The second half is something an athlete often does while wearing this article. 

What are these three words?

Specialty Of The House Slice:

Mass o’ Clue Sets

In each of the nine sets of clues below, all letters in the answers share something in common. What the letters share relates to the number, one-though-nine, of their set.

 

Solve the nine numbered sets of definitions, and explain how the letters in the answers pertain to the number associated with each set. (The parenthetical number after each clue gives the number of letters in the answer, similar to most Cryptic Crossword puzzles.)

1. 

West wind (6)

______ Draw McGraw (5)

Two of these don’t make a right (6)

POTUS, and SCOTUS chief justice (4)

Annoyed; baffled (5)

Illustrated anagram puzzle (6)

2.

The year after Nero fiddled (3)

Hyde Park prez (3)

Will Shortz’s Sunday network (3)

Multi-megapixelled boob tube (4)

Skivvies brand (3)

Initials of Beyonce’s guy’s stage name (2)

3.

Bleach brand (6)

Gambol (6)

Soldering substance (4)

Prefix meaning wife (4)

4.

Doctoral degree (3)

Turntable fodder (2)

State of the Stars (2)

5.

Tittle’s partner (3)

Jesu, according to Bach (3)

Lou Groza’s nickname,

with “the...” (3)

First name of a Hall of Fame “Clipper” (3)
First name of a Hall of Fame “Peach” (2)

6.

Age Jack Benny never attained, according to Caesar (not Sid) (2)

Where He Hate Me got his start (3)

Prescription (2)

7.

Wildebeest (3)

Wild West weapon (3)

8.

Post-millennium Windows OS (2)

Acid/base yardstick (2)

9.

State of Providence (2)

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ 

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.

Bell Curve ubiquity; Beetlemania!; Adage-io in A ...cronyms

Welcome to Joseph Young’s Puzzle –ria!

Not much nonsense this week. Just lots of puzzles (three) with lots of puzzle parts (too many to count). Kind of like the jigsaw-puzzle-like lake thaw pictured above.

Here are our puzzle slices:

Menu

Easy As Pie Slice:

Bell Curve ubiquity

Think of a synonym for “so-so.” 

Switch the places of two consecutive letters, a vowel and a consonant.

Now change the vowel to a different vowel. 

The result is a word that invariably seems to be a ubiquitous subject of national news and debate. 

What are the words?

Entomological Slice:

Beetlemania

Name an eight-letter word that describes beetles when they are larvae. 

Or a word describing the Beatles before 1960.

Insert an “I” between the second and third letters to produce a word describing the Beatles on at least one of their album covers. 

Or a word describing characters in the “Beetle Bailey” comic strip.

 

Finally, insert an “N” between the third and fourth letters of that new word to produce a word describing the “Beetle Bailey” character Private Zero (except when it comes to numismatics). 

Or -- according to Mohammed Saddiq, creator of the Volkswagen Beetle called the “Bio-Bug” which is powered by human-waste-based methane gas -- a word describing people who assume this Bio-Bug Beetle’s ride will tend to be smelly.  

Speciality Of The House Slice:

Adage-io in A… Cronyms

Consider the following “ersatz adage” that I made up:

“Pollyannas Have A Nostalgia Tall, And Short Memory.”

My adage doesn’t make much sense and the syntax is strained, but I present it as an example of the four challenges in this puzzle. In my example, the initial letters of the adage’s words, in order, spell out the word “PHANTASM.”

The words in uppercase below represent acronyms of real adages. The fourth challenge is a monogram representing the acronym of an ailment. What are the three adages and the ailment?

1. ART LAB

(Here are some links to art labs. 

Art labs have cropped up in Santa Monica, Fort Collins, San Diego, Minneapolis, New York City and other cities. 

Hint: the adage was coined in the 20^th century and is related to economics.)

2. HIATT

(...as in singer-songwriter John Hiatt.

Here’s a sampling of John Hiatt’s songs.

Heads-up: The adage sometimes does not include the word represented by the A. And, two consecutive letters in HIATT represent words that are usually hyphenated.)

3. THAW

(This adage has special meaning to me lately.)

4. RLS

(This is not a word, of course, but the monogram of Scottish author Robert Louis Stevenson. The letters also stand for a neurological movement disorder which is especially bothersome to those trying to fall asleep or travel in an automobile.)

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.

Addition by Subtraction; "He scoooorrrres!...sadly"; "People Get Ready"

Welcome to Joseph Young’s Puzzle –ria!

Please indulge me this week. My cat died on Tuesday. I’m still numb, but it still hurts. Grief may be good, Charlie Brown, but it is painful when you’re in the middle of it. I grieve best by writing about my loved ones. I share my grief.

I know, it’s just a cat. But she was a wonderful companion. Unconditional love, and all that.

Around 1998, my brother Mike was deer hunting in northern Wisconsin and noticed a ball of fur in a rut in a dirt road. It was a day-old tabby cat, likely destined to be eaten by an owl. coyote or other predator. He brought it home to my mother (R.I.P. 2011), a true animal lover, as a birthday present.

I inherited the tabby cat after my father died in 2003. My mother by that time was in a nursing home. My father had named the kitten “Nuisance.” We called her “Noosie.”

Noosie was blessed with a very loud purr, especially when I treated her to a can of tuna in lieu of her usual dry cat chow. She loved it when you scratched her face. She was a good mouser, especially at a lake cabin. Noosie loved to cuddle, in winter… and in summer. She would come when you whistled.

Thank you for listening. And I thank the Lord for gracing me with Noosie for a while. “People get ready” (great Gospel song) for this week’s puzzles: 

Menu

Easy As Pie Slice:

Addition by Subtraction

Remove six letters from a one-syllable word. Rearrange the remaining letters, using one of them twice, to form a three-syllable word.

 

What are the words?

(Hint: When spoken together, the words may be overheard in an auto body shop or dermatologist’s office.)

Sporty Slice:

He scooorrres!... sadly

Name a three-word psychological phenomenon (with a metaphorical name) often characterized by depression, loss of purpose and a diminishment of goals. Remove the third word and one letter from one of the first two words, resulting in the name of a competitive strategy often leading to an increase of goals. What are this phenomenon and strategy?

Specialty Of The House Slice:

“People Get Ready…”

Four two-word phrases each describe something done preliminary to, or in preparation of, something else. In two of the phrases, the descriptive first word begins with an R and the second word, a noun, begins with DR. In the other two phrases that pattern is reversed. What are the four phrases?

 

 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.

Septyllabification; POOCHTUS; The Scarlet Serpent

Welcome to Joseph Young’s Puzzle –ria! It’s Friday, time for a fanfare.

Fridays and Fanfares just seem to go together. A fanfare is like a brassy blare heralding the weekend.

A fanfare, according to my Merriam Webster’s Collegiate Dictionary 10^th Edition, is a “showy outward display” or “a short and lively sounding of trumpets.” The root is the French “fanfarron,” meaning braggart. The English word “fanfaronade” means empty boasting.

(Prefab fanfare: There were many a fan of Faron Young {no relation to Joseph Young, I don’t think}. Faron, a bonny lad from Shreveport who was also known as the “Hillbilly Heartthrob” and “Singing Sheriff,” was one day older than Johnny Cash.)

I was going to use the word “fanfare” in the title of this week’s Easy As Pie Slice because that puzzle uses words that echo fanfare, like find, France, fins, fancier, fine and financial. But because the puzzle’s answer has seven syllables, I opted instead to go with “Septyllabification,” which echoes “September,” the seventh… oops, I mean ninth month, on this September the Fifth.

 

I don’t like to boast (That’s a lie; I actually enjoy boasting. It’s bee-stings I don’t like.), but I predict that, Puzzleria-wise!, this September will be a month to remember. Now, if I could only remember if today is the fifth of the seventh or ninth month…

But enough of this folderol and fanfare. ’Tis high time we fan the flaring fires of our puzzle ovens and bake up some slices, which this week involve a world leader, a dog breed that is not a Samoyed, and a supremely, serpentinely challenging (we hope) alphabetical array.

Menu

Easy As Pie Slice:

Septyllabification

Piece answers to the following four clues together in the proper order to form seven syllables that are, or sound like, the first and last names of a national head of state: 1. You’ll find it in the middle of France, 2. Twenty fins, 3. A fancier of fine shiny stones! 4. Financial bottom line. 

Who is this national leader? (Hint: The leader’s nickname sounds like a type of gun.)

Dogmatic Slice:

POOCHTUS

Name a generic dog breed, in two words. Reverse the words, insert four letters between them, and divide the result to form a two-word expression coined by a U.S. president. What are this dog breed and the expression?

Hint: One of the words in the expression can be altered slightly (that is, two consecutive letters are flip-flopped and the result is bisected) to form a collective description of “Biscuit Goes to School,” “Gizmo,” “Bad Dog Marley!” “Amelia Bedilia,” and Where’s Spot?” etc. 

Specialty Of The House Slice:

The Scarlet Serpent

In the alphabetical array pictured below explain the distinction shared by the 14 letters in red that “slither” snake-like in the green grass around the two rocky blue blocks of letters.

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.