“Just trim a bit off the sides, please” Homeland obscurity; Lobbing rocks across the pond sterling; Prefixing a chipped truth; Shampoostrophe! John and Yo’OK Oh-no? All roads lead to Bedlam; Mel, Jon, Don, and Moses’ spy guy; Rhymes, Synonym… Hyphen!

P! SLICES: OVER e⁶ + pi⁴ SERVED

Welcome to our June 24^th edition of Joseph Young’s Puzzleria! We feature this week a global geographical challenge created by our friend ron. 

It is titled “Anagramanational Slice: Homeland obscurity.”

You can find it beneath this week’s main MENU. 

Thank you, ron.

Also being served up on this week’s menus are:

Five “Riffing/Ripping Off Shortz” puzzles (involving rock “lobsters,” yeas and nays, domestic blades, roads to Bedlam, and a name game);

One Hors d’Oeuvre for you to rub into your scalp;

One Morsel that may require truth serum to solve; and

One Dessert YYYY solvers.

Yea, slice up the lobsters with cutlery blades, go a bit bonkers, sip some shampooin’ bubbly, chase it down with a snifter of truthiness serum, remain wise… and, as always, enjoy:

Hors d’Oeuvre Menu

Headlining Internationally Hors d’Oeuvre:

Shampoostrophe!

Take a word that has lately been in international news headlines, and has been getting people worked up into quite a lather. If you say the word aloud it sounds like what might be, or might have been, a slogan or advertising catchphrase for a longtime shampoo brand.

The slogan would read:

_ _ _ _ _’_   _ _!

This phrase could be interpreted in two ways:

1. As an imperative proposition with the apostrophized word acting as a verb, and the two letter word a pronominal direct object. (For example, “Frank kept dropping hints, hoping his friends might ‘T.G.I.Friday’s him’ on his birthday.”)

2. Or, more plausibly, as a declarative statement with the apostrophized word acting as both subject and predicate, with a pronoun “pinch-hitting” for the direct object. (This interpretation of the slogan is syntactically similar to a 1968 campaign slogan.)

What is this slogan/catchphrase? What is the word making headlines?

Hint: The word making headlines in a portmanteau word.

Ripping Off Shortz And Isaak Hors d’Oeuvre:

Lobbing rocks across the pond sterling

Will Shortz’s June 19^th NPR Weekend Edition Sunday puzzle, created by Mark Isaak of Sunnyvale, California, reads:

Think of a word that means “unfinished.” Add one letter at the start and one letter at the end, and you’ll get a new word that means the opposite of the first. What words are these?

Puzzleria!’s “Ripping Off Shortz And Isaak Hors d’Oeuvre” reads:

Think of a unit of measurement used in the United States (and also in Britain, but with a different measurement value). Add one letter at the start and one letter at the end, and you’ll get a unit of measurement used in Britain but not in the U.S.

Convert the first unit of measurement (as used in the U.S.) into a number of smaller units of measurement. Convert the second (exclusively British) unit of measurement into a number of those same smaller units. The difference between those two numbers is a 5-digit number whose four rightmost digits form a significant year in American and British history.

What are these three units of measurement? What is the year?

Morsel Menu

True Or False Quiz Morsel:

Prefixing a chipped truth

Take a word that means to give a false impression of, or to show or prove something to be false. Now take a three-letter Latin-rooted prefix that denotes truth. 

Place this prefix at the end of the word (yes, the end) to form a word for one who accepts something as true.

What are these two words?

Riffing Off Shortz Morsel:

John and Yo’OK Oh-no?

Think of a word that is an expression of negation in English, and a word that is an expression of affirmation in a language other than English. Add one letter at the start and one letter at the end of the non-English word, and subtract one letter from the start and one letter from the end of the English word, and you’ll get the first names of a well-known couple. What names are these?

Appetizer Menu

Ripping Off Shortz Appetizer:

“Just trim a bit off the sides, please”

Think of two household items with blades, one used outdoors and the other usually used indoors. Remove one letter from the start and one letter from the end of the outdoor item, and remove one letter from the start and two letters from the end of the indoor item. You’ll get two new words that mean the opposite of each other.

What words are these? What items are these?

MENU

Anagramanational Slice:

Homeland obscurity

Each word you will be given (below) is an anagram of a country, but with one letter changed. For example, given the word “least,” if you change the “t” to a “w” it anagrams to WALES.

It is up to you, you “international men and women of mystery-solving” to “unEarth” the following “obscured homelands.”

1. empty

2. tiara

3. tribal

4. warden

5. amenity

6. elegant

7. glacier

8. senator

9. nails

10. cancer

Note: This puzzle was originally intended as an “on-air NPR challenge,” one in which contestants have no access to reference materials. Try solving these ten anagrams without using online help.

Riffing Off Shortz Slice:

All roads lead to Bedlam

Think of two words that are synonyms of “road.” From each word remove one letter from the start and one letter from the end, and you’ll get two new words that belong in the following informal phrase that means to be stark raving bonkers:

“to be ___ of one’s ____”

What are the synonyms of “road,” and the words that go in the blanks?

Dessert Menu

Puzzle YYYY Solvers Dessert:

Rhymes, Synonym… Hyphen!

Two synonymous slang words can be connected by a hyphen to form a third slang word that is a synonym of both. The hyphenated word rhymes with the full name – first and last names – of a movie director.

Who is this director, and what is the hyphenated word?

 

Ripping Off Shortz Dessert:

Mel, Jon, Don, and Moses’ spy guy

The names of the following four people share a particular property: a “politician” named Donald; an actor named Jon; a onetime stage name of an entertainer named “Mel” (not Shirley); and one of Moses’ 12 spies.

What are these four names and what property do they share?

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.