P! SLICES: OVER (pe)3 – (e4 + p3) SERVED
Welcome to our December 30th edition
Joseph Young’s Puzzleria! It is our last P! of 2016. So…
Kiss this year adieu,
Loom frontiers anew.
Threads unraveled, spliced,
Puzzles still unsliced.
Plenty yet unseen…
Twenty-seventeen.
We are ringing out ten puzzles on our menus this last week of 2016, including four Shortz Rip-Offs that pertain to “fore!”
So, foreward toward our future. Please enjoy this wringing out of 2016
as we ring in 2017.
Hors d’Oeuvre Menu
Piece Of Cake Hors d’Oeuvre:
Foretelling a memory
2016 was
certainly a memorable year. What would you say are two factors that made 2016 memorable?
Here is what we
would say:
1. Donald Trump’s improbable ascent to the presidency; and
2. The Chicago Cubs’ first world championship in more than a century.
1. Donald Trump’s improbable ascent to the presidency; and
2. The Chicago Cubs’ first world championship in more than a century.
Now fast-forward
one year from now. What would you say will be the two factors in 2017?
Morsel Menu
Viva Las Vixen Morsel:
Jes’ kickin’ back with the Clauses
Mr. Santa and Mrs. Sandra Claus invite
some old college chums – Denzel and Daisy Sue Doozie from Cowcreek, Kentucky –
to their digs (shovels?) at the North Pole for some over-the-holidays fun and
relaxation. The Doozies speak Appalachian English.
On the day after New Year’s Day 2017,
the Doozies are kicking back with the Clauses at their polar chalet, watching
the Cotton, Rose and Sugar Bowls on the tube. (Santa pulls for Wisconsin, USC and Oklahoma
because they are clad in red, his signature hue.)
Daisy Sue and Denzel had been privileged to have the chalet
all to themselves for the past week, with Sandra and Santa having flown back in to the North Pole on Sunday evening from their annual weeklong post-Christmas junket to Las Vegas.
During that week to themselves, the Doozies had been
curious about the sounds of hammering, sawing and bustling emanating from the
nearby Santaland workshop/warehouse. Daisy Sue and Denzel had just assumed Santa’s helpers would have
accompanied the Clauses to Las Vegas for some well-deserved down-time. Instead,
it seemed as if they were getting a ridiculously premature jump on filling toy
orders for Christmas 2017.
On the Clauses’ return, the Doozies
pointed to the workshop and asked Santa about the apparent toy-making activity
still going on within, saying:
“(4) (4), (4) (5) (2) (4) (5), (8)?”
(Each set of parentheses represents a
word, with the number within indicating how many letters are in the word.)
Translated into Standard English, the
Doozies’ query would have read:
“Please explain, those helpers are
remaining at the workshop, manufacturing?”
During their Vegas junket
forty years earlier, in December of 1976, Santa and Sandra had attended Elvis
Presley’s final Vegas performance, at the Las Vegas Hilton Hotel. After Elvis’
second encore, the audience clamored for a third – ovationally standing,
rhythmically clapping and urgently chanting “Elvis! Elvis! Elvis!...”
After ten minutes of this mass
importunity, a Hilton security guard approached the emcee and whispered to him
pleadingly:
“(4), (4) (4) (5) (4) (3) (8)!”
As in the question the Doozies asked
Santa 40 years later, each set of parentheses in this exclamation represents a
word, with the number within indicating how many letters are in the word.
The 8-letter word and four 4-letter
words are identical in both the security guard’s exclamation and the Doozies’ question.
Add an “re” to the end of the 3-letter
word in the exclamation to form the second 5-letter word in the question.
Another way of saying what the security
guard said would be:
“Please, Let the audience know that Mr.
Presley departed our hotel.”
The question asked by the Doozies and
the exclamation expressed by the security guard 40 years earlier sound
amazingly alike.
What are this question and this
exclamation?
Appetizer Menu
Laurel And Hardy Appetizer:
Another nice “mexpression” we’ve gotten
you into solving
Name a three-word expression that means a “bad
state of affairs” or “mess,” or something to be reckoned with.” The expression
is a kind of kindred idiomatic spirit with Oliver Hardy’s catchphrase, “Well,
here’s another nice mess you’ve gotten me into.” (Indeed, Ollie might have well
substituted the three-word expression for the word “mess.”) 
Lop off the top half of the final (lowercase) letter
in the expression, forming a new (lowercase) letter. Interchange that new letter with the
one preceding it, forming a new final word and thus, a new three-word phrase.
The new phrase describes a container you
might see around town during the end of the calendar year – one filled with
folding money of all the same denomination.
What are this three-word expression and
three-word phrase?
MENU
Reviews Are Favorable Slice:
Ursa Major genius
Name a woman recently in the news whose
life’s body of scientific work deserves, at the very least, enthusiastically
favorable reviews.
An unofficial mascot at the university
where she pursued and completed her master’s studies is a bear.
Rearrange the four letters in a synonym
of “enthusiastically favorable” to form this scientist’s first name.
Rearrange the five letters in a synonym
of “bear” to form this scientist’s last name.
Who is this woman?
Superbowl LI Slice:
QBs square off in 2017
Find two positive integers. The sum of one
of these numbers squared plus the other number cubed equals 2,017.
What are these two integers?
What are these two integers?
Hint: It
is possible that you might see these two numbers on the jerseys of opposing
quarterbacks in an American Football Conference playoff game, depending on the outcomes of this weekend
It is also possible (again depending on this weekend’s outcomes) that you might see
these two numbers on the jerseys of opposing quarterbacks in the Super Bowl.
If
this happens, it would be either the sixth Super Bowl appearance for both teams
or the sixth appearance for one team and the first for their opponent.
Ripping Off Shortz And Collins Slices:
Linking words from the links
Will Shortz’s December 25th
NPR Weekend Edition Sunday puzzle, submitted by listener Peter Collins, reads:
Think of three words used in golf. Say
them out loud one after the other. They’ll sound like a group that was in the
news in 2016. What group is it?
Puzzleria’s Riffing Off Shortz And
Collins Slices read:
ONE: Think of three words used in golf.
Say them aloud one after the other. They’ll sound like a deadly “weapon” in a
1990’s cinematic dark comedy, with the first of the three words describing the
stuff the “weapon” is made of.
Name this “weapon.”
TWO: Think of two words used in golf, a
noun and a past-tense verb. Say them aloud one after the other. They’ll sound
somewhat like the remorse, in two words, that the school bully might feel after
executing a dangerous prank involving undergarments.
What are these two golf words? Name the
kind of remorse the bully feels.
Hint: “The Donald was lying two – although his Trumplelist ball was buried deep in a bunker – on the par-5 eleventh hole at Whistling Straits. So he took the _____ from his Caddie (the Donald pooh-poohed golf carts, and instead always had his chauffeur drive him around the course in his Escalade) and ______ the hole by draining a blast from the sand trap for a 3.”
Hint: “The Donald was lying two – although his Trumplelist ball was buried deep in a bunker – on the par-5 eleventh hole at Whistling Straits. So he took the _____ from his Caddie (the Donald pooh-poohed golf carts, and instead always had his chauffeur drive him around the course in his Escalade) and ______ the hole by draining a blast from the sand trap for a 3.”
THREE: Think of the last names of two
female country singers. Say them aloud one after the other. They’ll sound like
a well-established American company that was in the news in 2016.
Think of a
word people associate with this company which is also the last name of a third
female country singer.
The last name of a fourth female country singer, if you
remove the last letter, is what the company “was in,” idiomatically, which led
to the news coverage.
Who are these four singers? What is the
company, the word associated with it, and what the company “was in”?
FOUR: Think of two words used in golf.
Put them in alphabetical order, capitalize the second word, and split the first
word into a personal pronoun and a capitalized first name. 
The result is what might be a good title
for an autobiography of a member of a rock group that was in the news in 2016.
What group is it? Who is the member of
the group whose possible autobiographical title would echo golf terminology?
Hint: The autobiographical title would
also echo an actual book title by Isaac Asimov. Indeed, those two titles’ first
three letters would be identical.
FIVE: Think of four words used in golf. Say them aloud one after the other. They’ll sound like what my dad used to call my not-so-powerful, 1970’s-era, front-engine, rear-drive, subcompact, three-door, hatchback Ford vehicle.
What did my dad call my car?
Hint: One of the four words is repeated... A hyphen is involved.
Note: The final golf term in the answer is a relatively obscure golf term for a certain part of a golf club. The term is also used as a verb in golf parlance.
SIX: Think of three words used in golf. Say them aloud one after the other. They’ll sound like a two-word substance used for furniture repair and refinishing or exterior siding refurbishing.
What is this substance?
SEVEN: Think of three words used in golf. Put two of them together to form a kind of camera. The third word is the last word in a phrase a photographer might employ (somewhat akin to “Say cheese!”) when taking photos of toddlers.
What are these three golf words?
FIVE: Think of four words used in golf. Say them aloud one after the other. They’ll sound like what my dad used to call my not-so-powerful, 1970’s-era, front-engine, rear-drive, subcompact, three-door, hatchback Ford vehicle.What did my dad call my car?
Hint: One of the four words is repeated... A hyphen is involved.
Note: The final golf term in the answer is a relatively obscure golf term for a certain part of a golf club. The term is also used as a verb in golf parlance.
SIX: Think of three words used in golf. Say them aloud one after the other. They’ll sound like a two-word substance used for furniture repair and refinishing or exterior siding refurbishing.
What is this substance?
SEVEN: Think of three words used in golf. Put two of them together to form a kind of camera. The third word is the last word in a phrase a photographer might employ (somewhat akin to “Say cheese!”) when taking photos of toddlers.
What are these three golf words?
Dessert Menu
Inebriating Dessert:
Man of letters meets folksy lady
Name the title of a traditional folk
song, the melody of which you often hear around this time of year. Seven of
this title’s twelve letters are consonants. The other five are the same vowel.
The title is a compound word.
Take three consonants and one vowel
from the title and add a new different vowel to the mix. Rearrange these five letters to form a word for what “The
Inebriate” is an example of.
Take the four remaining consonants
from the folk song title, keeping them in order, and place a different new vowel in
the middle, creating a five-letter noun that the first five letters of the title describe. The last six letters of the title form the surname of an Emmy-nominated comedic actress. A homophone of her surname and the noun (described by the title’s first five letters) appear in the title of an American author’s well-known poetry collection.
What is the title of the folk song? What
is the title of the poetry collection?
What is “The Inebriate” an example of?
What is the five-letter noun that the first five letters of the title describe?
What is “The Inebriate” an example of?
What is the five-letter noun that the first five letters of the title describe?
Every Friday at Joseph Young’s
Puzzleria! 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 Wednesdays 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.
