"He was born with a filver soot in his mouth!"; Precedential debate; "Just axin' with my oxen, Babe" ; The moo(n)cow, cat & dog dish ran away with the spoonerism; "Tigons & Ligers & Grolers, oh my!"; "Farmy and Zooey"

PUZZLERIA! SLICES: OVER e^{5 +} 5²  SERVED

Welcome to Joseph Young’s Puzzleria! Will you enjoy this week’s head-scratching statements, questionable, assertions, puzzling comments, and other enigmatic offerings?

It’s debatable.

Yes, I am now watching the Republican varsity-team-of-ten’s debate broadcast from Cincinnati... (oops, I mean Cleveland) over the FOX News Channel (television). All ten ready-for-prime-time candidates are smiling, as if they are on “Candidate Camera.” And, all I can say is, “We’ve come a long way since Nixon-Kennedy!”

Is this the Super Bowl, or what? When the three FOX moderators announced the candidates I expected all ten to come bursting through paper banners on their way to the podia.

(But I guess it was not the Super Bowl, after all. Cleveland has never hosted a Super Bowl, after all, and The Cleveland Browns have never played in one… unless you count the Browns that moved to Baltimore and became Ravens.)

Can we get a rebate on this dee-bate? Well, no. But at least we can get a related puzzle slice or two.

The following scorecard should come in handy for the first two puzzle slices on this week’s menu:

The Main Event:

Chris Christie, Rand Paul, Mike Huckabee, Scott Walker, Donald Trump, Jeb Bush, Ben Carson, Ted Cruz, Marco Rubio, John Kasich

The Undercard:

Rick Perry, Carly Fiorina, Rick Santorum, Jim Gilmore, George Pataki, Lindsey Graham, Bobby Jindal

The following scorecard (based on this web site) should come in handy for the second puzzle slice:

Waiting in the Democratic Wings:

Lincoln Chafee, Hillary Clinton, Martin O’Malley, Bernie Sanders, Jim Webb (and possible future declarers: Joe Biden, Andrew Cuomo, Dennis Kucinich, Brian Schweitzer)

There is an additional list, which we are not providing to you, which would also come in handy for solving the second puzzle slice.

Our third puzzle slice this week involves creatures that (sadly) often are forced to endure a different kind of “cage match” – in the kind of cage that holds non-human animals. The slice consists of a quartet of sub-puzzles “piggybacking” on the fine animal puzzle Will Shortz broadcast August 2 on NPR’s Weekend Edition Sunday. 
The NPR puzzle reads:

“Name two animals. Exchange their initial consonant sounds, and the result in two words will be the name of a third animal. What is it?”

There seems to be the possibility of more than one acceptable answer, according to collective wisdom on the “Blainesville” and “An Englishman Solves American Puzzles” blogs. We shall find out on Sunday’s NPR broadcast if Will accepts more than one answer.

In the meantime, chew on these four puzzlitically correct slices. As you Puzzlerians! are well aware, acceptable answers will likely abound… and those provided by your humble puzzler will likely pale in comparison to those provided by the puzzlees. The animals are clearly running this Puzzoo!...

Gesundheit! And good luck.

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Flip-Flop Slice:
“He was born with a filver soot in his mouth!”

Spoonerize the names of each of the 17 candidates participating in the two August 6 Republican debates in Cleveland. Ponder your handiwork. Of these spoonerized results, consider both halves together; or just consider one half or the other. Consider either their spelling or just simply how they sound.

Please give your answers in spoonerized form:

Which spoonerized candidate would seem to merit acceptance and respect on the street?

…would seem to be the voters’ selection, preference, favorite, chosen one?

…seems “not ready for prime time”…and yet, alas, has already passed it?

…echoes, fittingly, a synonym for “fire?”

…is ailing after scurrying to the liquor cabinet?

…seems to be (or have been) on the lips of Meyton Panning, Brom Tady, Fett Bravre, Brerry Tadshaw, Moe Jontana, Noe Jamath, Tan Frarkenton, Stoger Raubach, and Start Barr?

…is just one letter-substitution away from being a creepy tracker?

…might be confused with a nearby Red prez? (Also sharing this plight are two 2012 Republican candidates who participated in debates – one, pre-convention; the other, post-convention.

…may lead us into a toddling and terrible age?

…obviously has something in common with four 20^th-century presidents?

…seems prone to fling doo-doo at spellers or quilters?

Exit FOX, Enter Puzzleria! Slice:

Precedential debate

  

Puzzleria! has graciously agreed to sponsor a future debate involving presidential candidates. A debate including all 17 would be unwieldy and impractical, so we whittled that number down to seven.
Based on one particular criterion, here is the list of the candidates we have invited:

John Kasich, Bobby Jindal, Chris Christie, Jeb Bush, Ben Carson, Andrew Cuomo and Joe Biden.

Yes, we realize Cuomo and Biden are Democrats, and that neither has even yet announced his candidacy (though some pols and pundits suspect they will). We invited them to our debate solely because, like the other five invitees, they also satisfy our criterion.

Hint: We will require two of the debaters, Bobby Jindal and Andrew Cuomo, to debate while suspended from the rafters, shod in gravity boots, their heads level with podium microphones, upside-down for the duration of the verbal crossfire. Or they can opt instead to stand upright but turn their backs to the audience during the debate, perhaps facing into a mirror so the audience can see them. Either method will satisfy the requirement of our criterion.

What is our Puzzleria! criterion  for candidates in our debate?

Piggybacking A National Public Radio Offering Slice:

Moo(n)cow, cat & dog dish ran away with the spoonerism

1.) Name two animals. Exchange their initial consonant sounds, and the result in one word will be the name of a third animal. 
What is it?*

2.) Name two animals. Exchange their initial consonant sounds, and the result will be the names of two other animals. What is this quartet of critters?

3.) Name an animal and an “eponicknymous”* word for an alcoholic drink. Exchange their initial consonant sounds and put them together, removing the space. The result will be an animal that is a two-syllable compound word. What are these two animals and the drink?

4.) Describe – using a one-syllable word followed by a two-syllable word – a container that normally holds an alcoholic drink but that has been drained of its contents. Reverse the order of the words and remove the space between them. The result in one three-syllable compound word will be the name of an insect. What are these two words and the insect?

* Puzzlerian! and Blainesvillian Paul also gets credit for creating this “piggyback puzzle” (a puzzle that rises out of and upon the “shoulders” of another), as does Blainesvillian Scott Bretzke, as does Ross Beresford, co-author of the AESAP blog. (He is An Englishman (who) Solves American Puzzles. 

All four of us came up with this piggyback of the NPR puzzle independently. (See my August 6 at 6:11 PM comment.)

As Paul commented to Scott on Blaine’s blog yesterday (Thursday), “Great minds think alike… they tend to ignore trivial details.”

Exactly, Paul! LegoLambda tends to ignore trivial details – details like going through the mundane motions of posting his comments after he composes them.

*eponicknymous adj. (i pa 'nik ni mes): a word describing a thing named after a particular person’s nickname, just as “eponymous” describes a thing named after a particular person’s name. 
Eponicknyms (i pa 'nik nims) are rarer than eponyms – examples of which are: sandwich, wisteria, guillotine and fuchsia.

Television Icon Slice:

“Just Axin’ with my oxen, Babe”

Name a television personality, host and announcer whose ubiquity on the small screen spanned half a century.

The personality’s last name describes something legendary lumberman Paul Bunyan does to a mighty redwood. A homophone of the personality’s first name describes something Paul Bunyan and Norb Onion (his fellow coworker, or should that be “fellow blue-oxorker”?) do to a mighty oak.

Who is this personality?

Hint: This personality appeared recently in a documentary film.

Test for confirming your answer: The last two letters of the personality’s middle name are adjacent in the alphabet, and in alphabetical order, like “qr,” for example. Replace those two letters with the next letter in the alphabet, and at the end add something that shelters. The result is a noun that seems not to apply to  this personality, because we personally believe the personality possesses a pleasant personality.

Wizard Of Zoos Bonus Slice:
“Tigons & Ligers & Grolers, oh my!”

Hybrids abound in nature, including the animal kingdom. 

Examples of such inter-species critters are:
Savannah cats, wholphins, camas, beefalo, geeps, yattle, yakows, leopons, zonkeys, zebroids, pumapards, mules and (whinnying) hinnies, etc.!

Consider the hybrid critter pictured here (above and left). What is it called?
Hint: Its name has four syllables.

Political Animal Bonus Slice:
“Farmy and Zooey”

Name a critter, in the plural, and in four syllables. Duplicate a letter in the critter’s name and place the duplicate next to the original. Remove a skein of five consecutive letters from this result. 

Those five letters, in order, name another critter. Scrunch the remaining letters together to form the surname of a 2016 presidential hopeful (not pictured above).

Who is this presidential hopeful? What are the two critters?
Hint: Neither critter is a Mama Grizzley. 

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.