Icon of the realm; Oh Pairs! Captious captions; Can money root out all evil? Four-score-less-seven cheers ago…; Ratcheting back the smugness a few notches; Heroic Greek couplet;

PUZZLERIA! SLICES: OVER e^{6 +} pi² SERVED

Welcome to our April 15^th edition of Joseph Young’s Puzzleria!

The word “iconic” is arguably the most overused, misused and abused word in American media and society in recent years. And yet, we are featuring this week a puzzle that is “iconic,” in the truest sense of the word. Indeed, it is based on icons worldwide.

We have been graced with this enlightening and creative puzzle courtesy of Mark Scott of Seattle, also known by his cyber-screen-name “skydiveboy.” It is titled “Product Placement Slice: Icon of the realm,” and appears immediately beneath our main menu.

Our six other puzzles this week, alas, are more ironic than iconic.

1. The Hors d’Oeuvre is a timely picture puzzle with an answer that continually causes many to kick up a fuss.

2. Our Morsel pertains to Olympians, prosceniums and pronouns.

3. The Appetizer helps build up bridges by ratcheting back smugness.

4. Our Ripping Off Shortz Slices riff off Will with a quintet o’ pairs.

5. The first Dessert is about nothing but netting one’s goals.

6. And our second Dessert is a hopeful conundrum regarding the promise of philanthropy in the face of an insidious adversary.

If, for any of these challenges, you come up with two perfectly plausible solutions…

… just flip an icon:

Hors d’Oeuvre Menu

Bitter Hors d’Oeuvre:

Captious captions

Write one collective news caption – in three words of 2, 4 and 5 letters – that applies to the sum of all four photographic images shown here. 

Remove the space between your 2-letter and 4-letter words, and remove a very common verb from the end of the 5-letter word. 

The result is something about which many people tend to bellyache.

What is this occasion for bellyaching?

Morsel Menu

Hero And Leander Morsel:

Heroic Greek couplet

Remove two letters from the word “heroic” and put the remaining four letters into alphabetical order. 

Place them after a first person pronoun to form a not-so-common word associated with Greek gods. 

Place them in front of a different first person pronoun to form a much-more-common word associated with classical Greek theater.

What are these two words?  

       

Appetizer Menu

Building Bridges Appetizer:

Ratcheting back the smugness a few notches

Think of a familiar expression sometimes used to describe people who may be “somewhat full of themselves” and/or may “need to be taken down a few notches.” 

The expression is usually stated with six words, but it is the subject, predicate and direct object that are the gist if the phrase. Thus the article, pronoun and article that are the first, third and fifth words in the expression can be ignored, at least for the purposes of this puzzle.

Now think of a term familiar to physicists, geometers and bridge builders. The first three letters of the term form the subject of the expression. The second, third and fourth letters of the term form the expression’s predicate. The term minus its third and fourth letters form the expression’s direct object.

 

What is the expression? What is the term?

Hint: The expression involves a couple of critters.

 

MENU

Product Placement Slice:

Icon of the realm

People love icons, and many geographical locations are instantly recognized by their icons (see the collage above). I am thinking of one of these geographical locations and one of its widely recognized icons that, like so many other icons, is used to advertise a popular product of the region and, over the years, has been associated with the company that produces that product.

If you can think of the geographical location and the icon I am thinking of, you can drop the second letter of the icon’s sponsor and move the first letter to the end to come up with another, slightly larger, well known geographic location in a different part of the world.

Can you name both locations and the company and product?

Ripping Off Shortz Slices:

Oh Pairs!

Will Shortz’s NPR Weekend Edition Sunday puzzle this past week, like the previous week’s offering, relied on one’s knowledge of the alphabet. This week’s challenge also requires knowledge of things sold in pairs. It reads:

Name something in eight letters that’s usually bought in pairs. Change the second letter to the letter two spaces later in the alphabet, and you’ll get a new word that names something else that’s usually bought in pairs. Both words are plurals. What are they?

Here is our quintet of Puzzlerian! rip-offs/riff-offs:

1. Name something in eight letters that’s usually bought in pairs, and used above one’s neck. Replace the second letter with the letter two spaces later in the alphabet. Then replace the first letter with its “Alphanumeric Sum-27 Complement” (see chart) and you’ll get something else that’s usually bought in pairs (although they are becoming increasingly difficult to find on store shelves). Both things are plurals. What are they?

2. Name a pair of particularly desirable cards in a poker hand that is beaten by a poker hand with three of a kind – any kind, even three lowly deuces! Change the second letter in these cards to its “Alphanumeric Sum-27 Complement” (see chart) and you’ll get a pair of particular instruments (actually, a slang term for them) that make bands like the Allman Brothers, Thin Lizzy, Television, Derek and theDominoes and Neil Young (with) Crazy Horse so enjoyable to listen to.

What are these cards and these instruments?

3. Name something that’s sold as a pair, a six-letter word. Replace its second letter with the letter that has twice that second letter’s alphanumerical value (see the “Alphanumeric Sum-27 Complement” chart) and you’ll get a new plural six-letter word that a famous person (who has a surname that is a homophone of the original six-letter word) would probably use to categorize “ping-pong” and “table tennis.”

What are these two six-letter words?

4. Name the singular form of something that’s usually sold in pairs. Replace the first of this nine-letter word’s two vowels with a different vowel and you’ll get the brand name of a product. Both the thing sold in pairs and the brand-name product come in contact with one’s lips. What are they?

5. Name something in four letters that’s often sold in pairs. Replace the fourth letter of this plural word with the letter three spaces later in the alphabet, and you’ll get a prefix meaning “in two.” What are this word and prefix?

Dessert Menu

Tangle-Toed Dessert:

Four-score-less-seven cheers ago…

 Name a veteran offensive NFL player, first and last names. Replace the first letter of his surname with a different consonant to form a two-word synonym of the name of the most recognizable (And dare I say “iconic”? No! I daresay not.) landmark at his collegiate alma mater.

Restore the player’s surname to its original spelling and add a consonant at its beginning. Place this result after the player’s first name to form the first two of three words in the name of a professional sports franchise that was in the news this past week.

The eleven letters in those two words can be rearranged to form the eight pairs (plus the one trio) of highlighted-in-red words in the following paragraph pertaining to the franchise:

Before breaking through, there had been decades of lean seasons in which the team longed to taste success. So, how did they do it? They negated lost games. Sure, they were tested along the way. But they had gotten leads early, and held on to them. Then this year they compiled the (to date) longest victory total ever – becoming as much a legend as Ott (Mel). Successfully running (and shooting and rebounding) a gantlet does wonders for a team’s record. Their offensive mastery turned their otherwise princely opponents into “tangle-toeds.” In short, they netted goals, in both senses of the phrase.

What is the franchise? Who is the NFL player?  

Signature Sneaker Dessert:

Can money root out all evil?

Those of you who solved Will Shortz’s “Pairs Puzzle” this past week are well aware that, in order to earn their NBA salaries, retired players Kobe Bryant, Jason Kidd, Alonzo Mourning and Allen Iverson ran while shod in pricey signature sneakers during games, then retreated to their postgame locker room suites to listen to rap music on boom-boxy speakers.

Rearrange the letters in either SPEAKER + RAN or SNEAKER + RAP to form the name (first and last) of an entrepreneur who is banking on “A MONEY TRIUMPH” over an insidious yet formidable adversary via his quarter-million-dollar philanthropic investment.

The letters in the phrase “A MONEY TRIUMPH” can be rearranged to form one of the main strategies being employed to defeat this adversary, in one word.

Who is the entrepreneur/philanthropist? What is the strategy? What is the adversary?

Hint: the adversary is sometimes referred to by a single letter that is included in neither of the two uppercase “rearrangements” above nor in any of the names of the quartet of NBA players listed.

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.

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