ABC’s Wide World of Exports; Double yolks in the cracked “shall”; GobsMacked Sennettors; Lettermen not named David; Underdogs shall overcome! Rotating dervishes; All God’s creatures, 5 and 3 letters long

P! SLICES: OVER e⁶ + pi⁴ SERVED

Welcome to our July 8^th edition of Joseph Young’s Puzzleria!

Along with a pair of Ripping Off Shortz puzzles, we feature also this week one Riffing Off Skydiveboy puzzle! 

Last August we ran a typically excellent puzzle created by Mark Scott of Seattle (also known by his screen name “skydiveboy”) titled “Fruit Of The Looming Solution Dessert: Picking the Miranda right fruit.”  

This week’s “Riff-Off” is one Lego Lambda came up with while trying to solve Mark’s puzzle.

Also on this week’s menus are:

1 Creature Feature Hors d’Oeuvre;

1 Morsel melding senators and cinema;

1 Sporty Slice having nothing to do with Mel Chisholm; and

1 “Timekeepers in the news” Dessert.

Enjoy the Ripping, the Riffing, The Riddling!

Hors d’Oeuvre Menu

Noah’s Ark Cargo Hors d’Oeuvre:

All God’s creatures, 5 and 3 letters long

Name one of God’s creatures, great or small, in five letters. Remove the fifth letter, move the first letter to its vacated spot, and add a homophone of an integer to the end to form a seven-letter verb.

The first three letters of this verb spell out another of God’s creatures. The last three letters of the verb – if you replace its middle letter with a different consonant – spell out a synonym of the entire seven-letter verb. This three-letter synonym, when construed as a noun, is another of God’s creatures that is closely related to the five-letter creature.

What are these three creatures?

Ripping Off Shortz Hors d’Oeuvre:

Double yolks in the cracked shall

Will Shortz’s July 3^rd NPR Weekend Edition Sunday puzzle reads:

Take the word FALSE. Divide it between the L and the S. The start of the word is the start of FALL, and the end of the word is the end of RISE. And, of course, “fall” and “rise” are opposites. Do the same thing for the word SHALL. Divide it into two parts so that the start of it starts one word and the end of it ends another word – and those two words are opposites. The dividing point is for you to discover. There are three different solutions. I want you to find all three.

 

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

Take the word FALSE. Divide it between the L and the S. The start of the word is the start of FALTER, and the end of the word is the end of PAUSE. And, of course, “falter” and “pause” are somewhat synonymous.

Do the same thing for the word SHALL. Divide it into two parts so that the start of it starts one word and the end of it ends another word – and those two words are somewhat synonymous.

The dividing point is for you to discover. Or you can use multiple dividing points – whichever ones you choose… it’s up to you.

There are four different solutions. I want you to find all four. You are free, of course, to find more, or fewer.

Morsel Menu

Unequal Measures Morsel:

Gobsmacked Sennettors

Name a unit of measurement. Divide it into two unequal parts that are both first names. The first part belongs to a current movie director; the second part belongs to a former U.S. senator.

What is the unit of measurement? Who are the director and senator?

Appetizer Menu

Riffing Off Skydiveboy Appetizer:

ABC’s Wide World of Exports

A bit less than a year ago, in the August 28, 2015 Puzzleria!, we published the following original puzzle created by “skydiveboy,” also known as Mark Scott of Seattle:

People and products from France are described as French. If from Italy they are described as Italian.

Think of another country and replace its last letter with a different letter to get the word commonly used to refer to their people or products. Now rearrange those letters and you will name a fruit this country produces and exports.

What is this country and what is the fruit?

LegoLambda’s Riffing Off Skydiveboy Appetizer reads:

People and products from France are described as French. If from Italy they are described as Italian.

Take the word commonly used to describe people and products from another country. Change that word’s second letter to a different vowel and slide its first letter to the third-last position to name a fruit that this country produces and exports.

What is this country and what is the fruit?

MENU

Sporty Unspicy Slice:

Lettermen not named David

Name two athletes – one who played about 92.5 percent of his professional career with one franchise, and the other who played about 98 percent of his professional career with the same franchise for which the first athlete mainly played. 

The first name of the first athlete and the last name of the second athlete share a very unusual property pertaining to the letters in their names, and how those letters are ordered.

Who are these two athletes, and what is the unusual property their names share?

Ripping Off Shortz Slice:

Underdogs shall overcome!

Take the word FALL. Divide it between the A and the L. The start of the word is the start of FAULTILY, and the end of the word is the end of WELL. “Faultily” and “well” are opposites, of course, but other related pairs of words are also possible, such as: FABRIC/TWILL, FANTASY/FOOTBALL AND FARM/BILL.

Now do the same thing for the word SHALL. Divide it into two parts so that the start of it starts one word and the end of it ends another word. Do this for four pairs of words. You can choose any “dividing points” you want to obtain these four pairs.

The eight blanks embedded in the following story ought to help you find the four pairs:

In the waning minutes of a college basketball game played in 1984 – before the NCAA instituted a rule that the offensive team had but 35 seconds to attempt a field goal that either “swishes” or hits the rim – the coach of the underdog team tried to keep the score close by choosing not to _____ but instead to _____. 

After the game, each of the victorious underdogs retreated to a ______ _____ in the locker room, and all applied to their scalps _______ with the brand name _____ purchased earlier that day by the team manager at a local ________ ____.

What are these four word-pairs?

Hint: The number of letters in the eight blanks are, in order: (5,5), (6,5), (7,5), and (8,4).    

Dessert Menu

 

As The Terrain Whirled Dessert:

Rotating dervishes

A global pas de dervish deux, not devilish but holy,

The North, the South, Earth’s axis tips, the pair of _____ _____ slowly…

Too slowly though, as it turns out, and so timekeepers reckoned,

“To keep atomic clocks in sync let’s add just one ___ ______!”

The “quaterrain” above pertains to a recent announcement reported in the news. The letters that belong in the second line’s two blanks can be rearranged to form the words in the last line’s two blanks.

What are these four words?  

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.