PUZZLERIA! SLICES:
OVER e5 SERVED
Welcome to the 54th edition
of Joseph Young’s Puzzleria! We are today not quite halfway through May.
Now,
today is not exactly Thanksgiving Day or Christmas, but May 15th is
a “holiday” of sorts that many people still observe.
So, Happy __ __ __ __ __ __ __ A Y!
Four anagrams of that nine-letter
greeting are embedded in the verse below. Each anagram comprises one pair of eight
different words that appear somewhere in the quatrain (not in the underscored title). In two of the pairs the words are adjacent in the verse:
Leander’s Lament...
And Prayer For Reunion
with Hero, Re-imagined
If someday, pray, may I my foe dismay
(Foul Tempest, pulled me drown ’neath
foamy sea),
Swells modify, I’ll rise, swim Hero’s way,
Rest at her side, then pull her drown
with me.
From “Week 53, What Have You?”… here is
an as yet untied loose end:
In last week’s Comments Section we
introduced a portmanteau word (or blended word) we coined: “Quizzle,” which we defined
as “a quick puzzle.”
We proceeded to present to Puzzlerians!
the following pop quizzle:
A judge on a popular TV game/quiz show
from the distant past had a monogram that spells out something spring cleaners
might use. Who is this judge?
Speaking of people with Reasoning skills A.nd Good, winning judgment (Hey, we are better with a Segue than Paul Blart, Mall Cop!),
it is high time we again enjoy sampling a bonus slice baked up by our Master Gourmet French
Puzzle Chef “Monsieur Garcon du Parachutisme,” as he is known here at
Puzzleria! The chef is also known as “skydiveboy” on the blogosphere, and as
Mark Scott of Seattle in the non-cyber world.
Bonus
Picture Show Slice:
“I’ll have
my Katherine Anne Porterhouse well-known, please”
Who is it?
Capitalism Is Competitive Slice:
Name a business establishment where one
can buy a variety of items, in two words. Add a common prefix to the beginning
of one of the words. The result is two men that participate together, along
with others, in a competitive match.
A four-letter
synonym is sometimes substituted for the first word in the German dish. Insert
the last letter of this four-letter synonym between the third and fourth
letters of the card game, and replace the card game’s penultimate letter with
the penultimate letter of the four-letter synonym. Divide this result to spell
two colours.
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.)
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 Puzzleria! Thank you.
Thank you, Mark. That was refreshing and delicious. But now, for some hot puzzle slices. Do not
burn the tip of your brain!
MENU
Capitalism Is Competitive Slice:
It’s a
dog-eat-dog business world
Name a business establishment where one
can buy a variety of items, in two words. Add a common prefix to the beginning
of one of the words. The result is two men that participate together, along
with others, in a competitive match.
Who are these two men? What is the
business establishment?
European
Cuisine Slice:
Dinner deal
Name a German
dish in two words of three and eight letters. Remove the last letter from each
word. The result when spoken aloud is a near homophone of a card game
popularized by German immigrants to America.
A four-letter
synonym is sometimes substituted for the first word in the German dish. Insert
the last letter of this four-letter synonym between the third and fourth
letters of the card game, and replace the card game’s penultimate letter with
the penultimate letter of the four-letter synonym. Divide this result to spell
two colours.
What are this
German dish, the card game, and colours?
Hints: The dish’s
first word and its four-letter synonym begin with the same letter. A plural “s”
is the last letter in the dish’s second word.
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
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 Puzzleria! Thank you.
skydiveboy,
How did I bear the lousy room service in London?
By grinning.
LegJ
"How much can I get for this transceiver?"
ReplyDeleteAbout $15, apparently.
DeleteLeGoodBuddyTenFour,RubberDuck
Okay, Mr. LegoKuchenchef [this comment box refuses to accept my umlauting attempts over the 'u'], I finally solved the German recipe puzzle.
ReplyDeleteNot being very good at coming up with obscure hints, yet anyway, I can only tell you that I worked backwards (as I've seen people do for the NPR puzzles, and I often do them that way myself.) First came up with the card game, then followed your directions re the substitute first word, carefully writing it all out, which then easily yielded the two colors, from there the original three-letter word, and finally, knowing what the end should be due to the card game, obtained the dish which I would NEVER in a million years have thought of!
My main problem was: I was initially trying to come up with the dish AUF DEUTSCH (having taken three years of it in college, and my mom was born in Zurich, so I came by a love it the language as a little kid.) It thus threw me that the dish was in English.
Please let me know if this wasn't the 'sort of comment' I was supposed to make, i.e. way too literal!
I have SDB's BPSS and ⅔ of ECS, the card game and the colors, but I still have no idea as to the German dish!
ReplyDeleteI'm envious.
DeletePaul,
DeleteCompared to you and ron, I'm NVS: Not Very Smart.
LegoFolksHaveToldMeI'm...OdiousDespicableSlime
Sometimes I'm Not Very Subtle. Which is why I sometimes find myself in damage control mode. Like now.
DeleteI have the last ⅓ of ECS, but it's not something I would ever consume.
ReplyDeletepositively disgusting-sounding, but probably very tasty if you're into that kind of thing. --Margaret G.
DeleteAm now frustrated because I put together the four anagram word pairs in Leander's Lament, but can not for the life of me, arrange the six letters which remain after the obvious other 3 are separated out, into anything that makes sense for a holiday, however weird said holiday might be.
ReplyDeleteViolinTeddy,
DeleteYour May 17 5:55 AM comment was fine. Indeed, it provided good insight into the “working backwards” strategy you employed in solving the puzzle. It is interesting to me that your superior knowledge of German actually hindered your solving of this puzzle.
My knowledge of German is, alas and alack, lacking, although my college and university studies took place in a county (Stearns in Minnesota) steeped in German tradition and heritage. The snippets of German I sniffed during my time in Stearns County convinced me that, while it is not a “pretty” language to speak or listen to, German is nonetheless a pretty fun language. To wit, its proclivity for compound words on steroids.
In the “holiday” fill-in-the-blanks puzzle, in retrospect, I should probably not have used the word, “holiday,” even in quotation marks.
But it is an ancient observance. Hint: the third word does not begin with a “D”. We want Puzzleria! to be a fun, not frustrating, experience.
BeinoLammJa!
I must respond here. I lived for 2 1/2 years in Germany long ago and I was somewhat surprised to find that, when spoken well, German can be a very beautiful language to listen to. German is not taught properly in this country and sounds guttural when people try speaking it here. Most Americans do not attempt to pronounce foreign words properly, but take the lazy path and that is why it is easy to get the wrong impression of what a foreign language really is like. I recall meeting a German woman telling me several years ago that she considers herself very careful with speaking her native language properly, but when visiting back in Germany she is frequently criticized for her mispronunciation. Living in a country with a different language than you were brought up speaking causes unconscious changes to occur that you have no idea of.
DeleteThank you, skydiveboy, for your linguistic insight. It would be interesting to hear ViolinTeddy (or others with knowledge of the German tongue) weigh in in response to your comment.
DeleteLegoMindInTheGuttural(OverAndOutOut)
As long as he doesn't respond auf Deutsch.
DeleteBTW, "Over and Out" is a Hollywood oxymoron. Over means you have finished your comment and are handing it back to the other to speak. Out is ending the conversation. This is because both cannot speak at the same time the way we can on a land line. Only Hollywood can have it both ways. It MUST be either "Over" or "Out."
Thank you, skydiveboy, for your oxymoronic insight. It would be interesting to hear C.W. McCall (or others with knowledge of voice procedure) weigh in in response to your comment.
DeleteLegOverUnderSidewaysDownDownAndOutOut
First of all, guys, I am NOT a 'he' (relative to skydiveboy's comment.) Hee hee, so to speak!
ReplyDeleteSecondly, thanks for your response, Herr Lamm-da, on my prior puzzle 'hints.' Happily, I THINK I finally came up with a solution for your Holiday puzzle.....not that I'm sure, by any means, of its being correct. I had already realized that I had probably mis-figured on one of the 3 letters "separated out", as I had put it, just as you stated above. Thus, I might ask this: would I have arrived at the correct answer if I put forth the hint "two former husbands?"
As to how Americans might tend to mangle foreign languages, I can't claim any real expertise, except that I have noticed that American accents DO tend to override how German or French (the only languages with which I am familiar) are pronounced. Personally, when I have spoken them, I've made every effort to SOUND as German or French as is possible. It's a matter of REALLY LISTENING carefully to what one is saying, as well as to how native speakers actually say the words. I suppose being musical helps here, because having an 'ear' plays a big part.
I got the poem/anagrams fairly quickly, thinking of tax day (another 15th). Cannot quite count on my fingers here with the 3-and-8 for the dinner deal - 11 is just too many! But I am stumped by your dog-eat-dog business world (CICS). BPSS only reminds me of a trilogy which combined worlds. Maybe tomorrow I'll manage to figure those last two puzzles out before your reveal. --Margaret G.
ReplyDeleteI can't come up with the BPSS either, Margaret. All those photos make me think of is Lars the Polar Bear, and that author, Hans de Beer, isn't "past" enough!
ReplyDeleteFrau ViolinTeddy,
DeleteOur most heartfelt apologies for out she/he gender confusion. It was only a matter of time before I made the same pronominal faux pas. I suspect skydiveboy is reasonably fluent in German. And we all know he is fluent in English because, like so many of us who blogalot, he tends to run off at the mouth!
So, in skydiveboy’s defense, his fluency in both languages likely unavoidably leads to confusion. For example the word “Mister” in German is “Herr.”
Herr. Her(r). Mister? Confusing!
Young misses in Germany are (used to be?) addressed as “Frauleins.” Most men I know, including me, are curmudgeonly, cantankerous cusses who scowlalot and develop premature frown lines.
Frauleins. Frown lines? Confusing!
As for your question concerning the fill-in-the-blanks “holiday” puzzle: “Would I have arrived at the correct answer if I put forth the hint "two former husbands?”…
Maybe. I don’t recognize it as a hint to my intended answer. But then again, lots of puzzle-answer hints elude my grasp, even when I know the answer! The answer to this quizzle is an ancient observance in three words of 4, 2 and 3 words. The third word is “__ A Y” but it is not “D A Y.”
Margaret G,
That being said ("lots of puzzle-answer hints elude my grasp"), I do think I detect an ingenious hint to the European Cuisine Slice in your post.
LegoKermCan’tCuss!
To Ms. Teddy and Ms. Maggie, oops, Ms. Margaret G., Time is running out, so here's hint on my puzzle, which I originally made up as a joke. It is a French author. Now, look at the pictures and say out loud what you are seeing.
DeleteAnd Dear Lego, meine freunde. It is pronounced Froyline, but a married woman is a frouw as in taking a bow, not shooting a bow. The former needs an umlaut over the E, but I am not sure I can do it here. I never umlaut in public!
CORRECTION:
DeleteThe umlaut is not over the E, but over the U. Now I feel sheepish. Ewe'l never know.
Actually, I hate to point this out, Herr Himmel Junge, but the umlaut in Fraulein goes over the 'a', not the 'e'.
DeleteAnd to be very picky, in addressing our host, Herr Lamm-da, you'd have to say "Mein Freund" without the 'e' on Mein, because that is the feminine ending. Unless there is something about Herr Lamm-da that we don't know...ha ha.
I meant to say "not the u." Sorry.
DeleteVT,
DeleteI sit corrected again. It is indeed Fräulein. All I can say in my defense is that I left Germany in 1966, and that was ages ago. I did know that however, but just phucked up.
And remember, men can be vulnerable too, but not too often.
DeleteI hope I didn't unintentionally hurt your feelings, re being pedantic about the umlaut position.
DeleteNo need to profusely apologize, HERR Lego (I already used HERR above when addressing you, but since you wrote on that very topic, I think you probably missed it). In fact, if you yourself had wrongly assumed my gender prior to today's discussion, I failed to notice so myself!
ReplyDeleteRe the Holiday puzzle, I guess I'll just have to wait (however, I don't wait well!) till tomorrow to see IF my 'answer' is wrong, but if what I came up with turns out to be correct, then I'll explain my hint, of course.
Skydiveboy, I already discovered that this comments box will NOT allow umlauting....because I tried in vain, using my usual mac-keyboard method, but it refused to accept them. Too bad, because I always think that umlauting is great fun, for some reason. I assume that means this box will also not allow French accents, not that I've tried. Will go try your puzzle with your newest hint.
VT,
DeleteMay the umlaut be with you.
Speaking of umlauts, my late uncle was a lout, if that interests anyone. I hope Lego will alaut this post.
ReplyDeleteGeez, all that comes to mind looking at those photos is BearOnIce, i.e. Bernice, but that isn't a French author that I can think of. Had to read piles of French plays in high school and first semester at Smith College (that ended my 'career' with French), and NONE of them can I mangle into anything that works with these pictures: Camus, Voltaire, Dmuas, Stendahl, Hugo, OOOOOOH, I JUST GOT IT! And he was the author of one of the books I had to read in high school. COOL!
ReplyDeleteVT,
DeleteI congratulate you on your knowledge of ocean currents, not to mention French authors. Easy puzzle, huh?
Well, easy only AFTER one knows the answer.
DeleteOcean currents? What am I missing?
OK - got it. Can't say I ever read anything by him. I think I was slowed down by first thinking that I had to look at BOTH pictures - one where the polar bear was standing and the other lying down - and make an inference from the differences. But just one picture will suffice (painting 1000 words). --Margaret G.
DeleteMargaret G.:
DeletePlease don't try and tell me the pictures are polar opposites. I won't have it.
polar *bear* opposites. standing, prone. Notwithstanding your puniness, (punny-ness, which was autocorrected to puniness, which is NOT what I meant)... I wondered if the bear's "change of state" was the clue to the puzzle. But the stateliness of the bear is not at issue. Perhaps this set of pictures can be used for a different puzzle at another time, though. --Margaret G.
DeleteI believe skydiveboy's bear photos were snapped with a Polaroid Not-on-Land camera. Or maybe it was a Kodiak camera.
DeleteLegoGrinSay"Cheese"AndBearIt
Exakta and I Leica it.
DeleteSpeaking of cameras, did you know that Hitler enjoyed photography and his favorite camera was his Third Ricoh?
Oh, a bit slow on the uptake here....I guess you meant in relation to the answer to your puzzle.....
ReplyDeleteYes, go with the flow. Notice that I did not say, Go with the flow, Flo.
DeleteOr "go with the fl....[ending in any OTHER letter.]"
ReplyDeleteI hope that is not meant as a flow blow.
DeleteI BOW(as in the above-referenced FRAU) to your punning ability, with which I can not possibly keep up!
ReplyDeleteThank you. Upkeep is the bane of housekeeping.
DeleteI keep forgetting to hit 'reply' before I write. Nuts
DeleteWell, if I got off this computer more, I'd do a better job of the latter (noun from your comment) nowadays!
ReplyDeleteWell if you ever do, please do come over and help me with my rats nest of accumulation. If my relatives would just please stop dying and leaving all their crap to me, it would really help a lot. I hope I am not sounding ungrateful, you inconsiderate jerks.
DeleteHave you heard of ebay? [Not that I personally get rid of anything on there, but I hear tell that many, many do! : o ) ] Therefore, the jerks' junk = $$.
DeleteAnd heck, I can't keep up with even with papers no matter how fast I pitch them into the recycling. So I wish you best of luck w/ your mess!
Okay, ViolinTeddy and skydiveboy, that exchange was entertaining and fun. As for my Fraudlein slips, my sole defense is that I could not properly pronounce this “f-word” (or, if you’re skydiveboy, the “ph-word”) because the umlaut(s) were missing. I say let’s put umlauts over all fraulein’s vowels, and some of her consonants as well!
ReplyDeleteLegumeLautmaUmYaYa
It's inconsonantential.
DeleteThe following won’t be as much fun as the preceding "The skydiViolinTeddyboy Hour," but I am becoming obsessed with it:
ReplyDeleteOn Monday around noon on Blaine’s blog, jan (who has legitimate scientific/mathematical chops) made a comment relating to Will’s geography puzzle this week. Banter ensued, with jan, Paul, skydiveboy and Margaret G all joining in.
jan began the ball rolling by writing:
“Any two points on the surface of a sphere are in the same hemisphere. For that matter, any three points on the surface of a sphere are in the same hemisphere. Just sayin'.” (I alluded to jan’s comment later on PEOTS. The new PEOTS, incidentally, has been uploaded already. Check it out.)
Anyway after more discussion on Blaine’s, Paul asked this excellent follow-up question:
“To which hemisphere do the points on the circle, which is the intersection of the plane with the sphere, belong?”
If I understand correctly how any three people (points) on earth (sphere) must be in the same hemisphere: If two points are one exact opposite sides of a sphere, zillions of planes will contain those points. Choose any of those planes. Any third point on the sphere’s surface will be either coplanar with the first two points or fall on one side of the plane or the other. Thus all three points will lie in one hemisphere.
Or, perhaps a bit more simply put, any three points on a sphere’s surface describe a plane that intersects the sphere. Even in the worst-case scenario, if the plane intersects the sphere’s center point, thereby bisecting the sphere into equal hemispheres, the three surface points will be “cohemispheric” (lying in one hemisphere… or the other hemisphere?!)
That is the essence of Paul’s question. In the real world (of geography, not geometry) the answer is easy. If, for example, three people are standing on the equator, each equidistant from the other two, then they stand in both the northern and southern hemispheres simultaneously. That is because the equator is an imaginary line without width, whereas people have dimensions.
In other words, people are not geometrical points. Points possess no length, breadth, area or volume, only position. People possess that whole ball of wax.
So what it the three people suddenly morph miraculously into three points that, along with an infinity of other points, make up the equator? Are these points in the northern hemisphere? Southern hemisphere? Either hemisphere? Both hemispheres? Neither hemisphere?
This question (a restatement of Paul’s question) is the same as asking, “Which hemisphere is the equator in? I don’t know the answer, but my guess is “both.” If the answer is “neither, then jan’s statement, “…any three points on the surface of a sphere are in the same hemisphere” cannot be true. And arbitrarily choosing one hemisphere over the other is too much like playing “Geometry God.”
A related one-dimensional example: A line of length 2x has Midpoint M. Is M a part of the left side of the line or the right side of the line? Neither, both, either…? It is similar to the equator question above.
I think of it this way: Take two lines, each of length x. One line has an endpoint C. The other has an endpoint D. Form a line of length 2x by allowing endpoint C and endpoint D to "kiss." At the exact moment this “kiss” is consummated, endpoints C and D become Midpoint M. M assumes the position C and D were in as their “lips first brushed” during the “kiss.” But it retains its vestiges of C-ness and D-ness. Thus it is a member of both halves of the new line of length 2x.
LegoAin’tTheInfinitesimalFun?
I love it when you speak planely.
DeleteOK, I suppose you were politely saying "enough already", so I shall restrict myself to the midpoint of a line discussion.
ReplyDeleteIt's a matter of definition: each half of our line is a line segment. If you were to say that either half were a CLOSED line segment, then it would thus be defined to INCLUDE its endpoint (i.e. the midpoint M in our discussion.) If, however, it were defined to be an OPEN line segment, then it would be defined to NOT include its end point, i.e. our "M." So whether "M" is in or out [left or right-wise], is merely a matter of which definition you choose for which half. If you say that the right side is 'closed', then IT contains "M". In that case, the left side of the line has to be 'open'. And the opposite would be true, naturally. Only one of the halves can be defined to contain M.
Is that 'plane' enough?
I tried applying jan’s assertion, “Any two points on the surface of a sphere are in the same hemisphere. For that matter, any three points on the surface of a sphere are in the same hemisphere,” to its 2-D analogue, just to see if any of the numbers might change (as they often do when you “shift into a different dimensional gear.”)
ReplyDeleteSo, are the following statements also true, assuming jan’s 3-D statement is true (which I do)?
“Any two points on the circumference of a circle are in the same semicircle. For that matter, any three points on the circumference of a circle are in the same semicircle.”
The first statement is true, if we allow that a circle’s diameter, in particular its endpoints on the circumference, are contained within both semicircles the diameter forms. All non-diameter chords of the circle have endpoints within an infinity of its semicircles.
But the second statement is not true. Consider three radii that divide all circle into three equal “pie slices” (like a pizza pie!). All diameters in such a “thirded” circle will form semicircles containing two circumference points on one semicircle and one point on the other semicircle.
One-D; A trivial case:
“Any two points on a finite line are on the same half-line. For that matter, any three points on a finite line are on the same half-line.”
Neither statement is true. The true statement might read: “Any point on a finite line is included in a half of the line.”
Four-D; not so trivial:
“Any two points on the hypersurface of a hypersphere are in the same hyperhemisphere. For that matter, any three points on the hypersurface of a hypersphere are in the same hyperhemisphere.”
I’m pretty sure these statements are both true, and so probably is: “For that matter, any four points on the hypersurface of a hypersphere are in the same hyperhemisphere.”
LegoPerhapsWeShouldn’tGetSoHyper
HAPPY IDES OF MAY! (“foe dismay”)
ReplyDeleteBPSS:
The photos show a polar bear on an ice floe, or a FLOE BEAR, which leads directly to FLAUBERT, Gustave! Great puzzle!
ECS:
PIG or PORK KNUCKLES (Schweinshaxe). Without the G or S, this is “almost” a homophone of that German immigrant card game, PINOCHLE (Binokel). Adding the K in pork after the N in pinochle and changing the L in pinochle to an R yields the 2 colors: PINK & OCHRE.
The transceiver question refers, of course, to a HAM radio operator trying to HOCK some of his equipment. CB = Canadian Bacon?
ReplyDeleteDid no one get CICS? I thought ron did; that's why I was green (collard, turnip, etc.) with envy.
Happy Ides of May (which is better than the Ides of April - Tax day)! Side Foamy, Sea Modify, Foe Dismay, and If Someday were the 8 words from the poem which were acronyms for that phrase
ReplyDeleteBPSS: same as Ron
ECS: my comment on not being able to count on my fingers was in reference to having to start using my knuckles.
I never got CICS. Something about a team?? Doubles?? Looking forward to seeing that answer revealed.
--Margaret G.
Class Dismissed ?
DeleteWho is this person, anyway?
Nobody likes a wise-ass.
I'm enjoying thinking about open and closed sets, along with lego and VT.
ReplyDeleteYes the answer to BPSS, the polar bear puzzle, is Flaubert, which is pronounced, flow bear. Gustave Flaubert is most known as the author of Madame Bovary (1857).
ReplyDeleteMaking up the puzzle, which I originally made as a joke, was easy, but getting those polar bears to pose on the ice floes for me took a lot of coaxing on my part. You might guess what I used to seal the deal.
Congratulations to ron who solved it first and without any hint either. Kudos to Margaret G. for her tenacity in solving it with a geographical hint. I was hoping to hear if any others may have solved too.
The wording of the puzzle:
Delete"Looking at these pictures might remind you of a well-known author of the past. Who is it?"
I was reminded of both Robert W. Service and Jack London, so I solved it, sort of, although I did not get the intended answer.
I wonder if we would have had any complaints at Blaine's if Will worded his puzzle that way.
David:
DeleteAs I have mentioned at least three times now here, I first made this up as a joke, and in that original version I stated it was a French author. I intentionally left the French reference off here as I felt there are some very smart people who visit here and would solve it without that big hint. I was right, and I seriously doubt you, or anyone else, actually believed Service or London were the intended answer. When told as a joke, where time is of the essence, then it needs to be presented with the French reference, but to do that here would be insulting to those who visit here. Beyond that you do, of course, have a point. That being said, I would not change it if I had it to do again.
David and skydiveboy,
DeleteFirst, I want to reiterate, as ron has done also, that this was an excellent puzzle, and I am very grateful skydiveboy allowed me to upload it here. That being said, David does make a very valid point.
As this blog’s “administrator,” I am responsible for its contents. In other words, editing is a part of my job here. I used to be an editor for a spelle (I mean spell) in real life, and I always found it easy to edit others’ copy, but next to impossible to edit my own copy. So, I would not have been averse to editing the wording of this puzzle.
And so, in retrospect, I believe I should have made the following edit, which would have rendered skydiveboy’s Flaubert puzzle perhaps a tad less difficult but certainly much less ambiguous (thereby eliminating London and Service as possible answers):
“Looking at these pictures might remind you of the name of a well-known author of the past. Who is it?”
I marvel at how clean and tightly written are skydiveboy’s puzzles. Were my puzzles worded so tersely! But in this puzzle, adding those three clarifying words might have been prudent.
LegoWhenIStayedAtTheChesterfieldMayfairHotelInLondonTheRoomWasLousy!
Lego,
DeleteThank you for your comment. On first reading I thought I might agree, but on second consideration I don't think so. The puzzle still works with your added three words, but David's objection remains the same. I got to thinking about this on my bike ride today and although I am very familiar with both Jack London and Room Service, sorry, I mean Robert Service, I could not recall ever seeing a photo of either a polar bear, an ice floe, or both, where I was reminded of either of those authors, but It was a photo on TV news I saw in a hotel lobby that made me think of Flaubert. This is how I first came up with the joke. I suspect David's post was simply a dig I perhaps deserve for my frequent criticisms of Will Shortz and his frequently poorly written puzzles. (Oops, there I go again!)
Perhaps I should also have mentioned that I was not reminded of Mary Shelley or her fictional author, Captain Robert Walton, either.
DeleteThere is an instance of poor editing in the sign-off to my post, above.
DeleteCorrection:
LegoWhenIStayedAtTheChesterfieldMayfairHotelInLondonTheRoomServiceWasLousy!
LegoNeedsEditing
Lego,
DeleteHow were you able to bear it?
skydiveboy,
DeleteFor my response, see my comment at the bottom of this week's blog.
Leg(Can'tMakeAGrinnyFaceInBlogger'sCommentsSection!)
BTW skydiveboy, I understand that German speakers pronounce "Flaubert" as "Floy(the)Bar(ber)." (This I learned from your May 18 at 10:37 PM comment... and from Barney Fife.)
DeleteLegoLaMadamI'mAdamdaBovary
Sorry Lego, but that is incorrect. AU is always pronounced as in ouch. However äu is always pronounced as in boy. Fräulein is an unmarried woman and frau is a married woman. Fräulein is pronounced froyline and frau is pronounced frow similar to the bow of a boat, but not a bow and arrow. You can also use this information with regard to eu, which is always pronounced as in boy, although it has no umlaut. It has no umlaut because it is always pronounced the same way, whereas au and äu are different.
DeleteI forgot to mention another confusion common with Germans and Americans, and this is in regard to the word, dipthong(s). Dipthongs are to Americans part of grammar. In Germany dipthongs are what many Germans wear at the beach and tend to shock some Americans.
DeleteI think it was my not getting the puzzle that frustrated me. I knew, in fact, that the puzzle had something to do with the polar bear. I apologize for being pedantic, when we all prefer antic.
DeleteThanks, skydiveboy, for contributing your great puzzle.
ReplyDeletePuzzlerians!
As usual you have rendered our answers redundant… except for the Capitalism Is Competitive Slice: It’s a dog-eat-dog business world. That is why we held off for a while today from giving our “This week’s answers, for the record.” (That, and because I was in bed sleeping!... Better to use first person singular rather than the "editorial we” in that confessional sentence.)
There were some nice hints given by you Puzzlerians! this week. And, as usual, they flew over my head.
For two examples, Paul mused about how much he could get for his transceiver (HAM radio) perhaps on ebay, Craigslist, etc. or perhaps at someplace that is not a cyber-marketplace, hinting that he wanted to HOCK it (ham hocks = pig/pork knuckles). Great clue!
Margaret G’s hint to the same puzzle concerned not having enough fingers (10) to count the 11 letters in pig knuckles, and so she would have to start using her KNUCKLES. Another great clue that I didn’t get, although I thought I did… I thought Margaret G was hinting that she would have to start counting on her toes (“piggies,” as in “This little pig went to market, etc.”).
This “double-clue-meaning phenomenon” seems to happen more times than one think. It’s a bit like reading a poem and discovering meanings that sometimes the poet may not have even consciously intended.
And, for some reason, I too was under the impression that ron had solved the CICS: Dog-eat-dog puzzle.
So, because you have solved everything else, we will delay revealing the solution to the CICS puzzle until later this evening… unless of course a chorus of objection arises from the brilliant Puzzlerian! "peanut gallery."
There is a CICS hint in the body of this post, around where I was complimenting Paul on his “transceiver clue.”
LegoWeHopeYouWereNotBoredByThe“It’sADog-Eat-DogBusinessWorld”Puzzle!(AnotherHint,AHomophonicOne)
This week’s nearly superfluous answers, for the record:
ReplyDeleteMay 15th is a “holiday” of sorts that many people still observe.
So, Happy __ __ __ __ __ __ __ A Y!
Four anagrams of that nine-letter greeting are embedded in the verse below. Each anagram comprises one pair of eight different words that appear somewhere in the quatrain (not in the underscored title). In two of the pairs the words are adjacent in the verse:
Leander’s Lament...
And Prayer For Reunion with Hero, Re-imagined
If someday, pray, may I my foe dismay
(Foul Tempest, pulled me drown ’neath foamy sea),
Swells modify, I’ll rise, swim Hero’s way,
Rest at her side, then pull her drown with me.
Answer:
IF SOMEDAY
FOE DISMAY
FOAMY SIDE
MODIFY SEA
all anagram to:
IDES OF MAY
Bonus Picture Show Slice:
“I’ll have my Katherine Anne Porterhouse well-known, please”
Looking at these pictures (of a bear on ice floes) might remind you of a well-known author of the past.
Who is it?
Answer: Gustave Flaubert
FLOE BEAR = FLAUBERT
Capitalism Is Competitive Slice:
It’s a dog-eat-dog business world
Name a business establishment where one can buy a variety of items, in two words. Add a common prefix to the beginning of one of the words. The result is two men that participate together, along with others, in a competitive match.
Who are these two men? What is the business establishment?
Answer:
Pawn; Bishop; Pawn Shop
European Cuisine Slice:
Dinner deal
Name a German dish in two words of three and eight letters. Remove the last letter from each word. The result when spoken aloud is a near homophone of a card game popularized by German immigrants to America.
A four-letter synonym is sometimes substituted for the first word in the German dish. Insert the last letter of this four-letter synonym between the third and fourth letters of the card game, and replace the card game’s penultimate letter with the penultimate letter of the four-letter synonym. Divide this result to spell two colours.
What are this German dish, the card game, and colours?
Hints: The dish’s first word and its four-letter synonym begin with the same letter. A plural “s” is the last letter in the dish’s second word.
Answer: Pig (pork) knuckles; pinochle; pink ochre
Pig knuckles >> pi knuckle >> pinochle
Pinochle + k + r - l = pink + ochre
Lego…
I'll be darned! Of course I was thinking about a pawn shop while constructing the ham hock hint, but bishop never occurred to me.
ReplyDeleteDang you, Paul! And darn me!
DeleteLegOnlyASockPuppetWithAHoleInMySoul
When I've finished my pancakes w/maple surple, I'm going rollerskating.
DeleteGo to northwest New York State. I've heard the rollerskating's good in Buffalo.
Delete(1960s songs purveyed sexual innuendo; Today's songs purvey sexual in-yo-face-o.
My breakfast usually consists of old stogies I have found and cigarettes, but I ain't got no cigarettes right now... I'm on the patch.
LegoYouKidsGetOffaMyLawn!
I don't get "YouKidsGetOffaMyLawn!", but it doesn't matter. I'm reminded of an SNL segment that NBC seems loath to part with.
DeletePaul,
DeleteThe lawn allusion.
Great SNL skit. I have never seen it. I guess I still haven't. I await the day when everything is on YouTube or somelplace else online!
LegoShouldI"SellOut"AndBuyIntoPuttingAdsOnMyBlog?
I never even came close to the pawn shop at all....thought of many other shops, but even somehow kept focusing on crew (rowing) pairs and tennis double teams! A chess set never crossed my mind.
ReplyDeleteI would never have guess the pawn shop, either. I was thinking more of flesh-and-blood men - silly me. --Margaret G.
ReplyDeleteThe pictures ...
ReplyDelete... did not remind me of London;
... could not have reminded me of Service;
... could not have helped but remind me of Dostoevsky;
... actually reminded me of Flaubert before jan dropped the bomb over at Blainesville (which I say not to brag, nor to save face, but merely in the interest of scientific accuracy).
Paul,
DeleteI don't know... That Dostoevskydiveboy link has a faint stuffy odor to it. I tried it out, and told myself not to think of "the ironic process theory." Five seconds later, I could not for the life of me think of what it was I wasn't supposed to be thinking about!
LegoRusticProcessTheory
Paul,
DeleteThe Dostoevsky riff actually makes some sense, and I thank you for sharing it here, whereas the London & Service suggestion is pure nonsense. Of course you knew it too wasn't the intended answer and quickly discovered the logical answer. After all, all three bear photos are on ice floes. There is no way the puzzle could possibly have been stated more purely. Even had I said the author was French, David could have said it reminded him of Defoe because the 4 Musketeers "iced" so many foes. Or perhaps Jean Valjean, the main protagonist of Victor Hugo's Les Misérables stole a loaf of white bread. Or had I stated it was a foreign author it could also have been a reminder of Thor Heyerdahl who wrote Kon Tiki. Equally absurd.