The quirky half-dozen; Riociprocity; Subtracting letters from Olympiadders; Letter-top lopping; Cooking a country, cooler captions; The great bi-national novel; Varmints and vittles; Tail wagging (or hand shaking?) the dog

P! SLICES: OVER (pe)³ – (e⁴ + p³) SERVED

Welcome to our August 19^th edition of Joseph Young’s Puzzleria!

Our feature puzzle this week is a fine contribution by David of Seattle who most recently sent us a “Ripping Off Shortz” puzzle titled “Treading the Borders” that appeared in our June 10^th Puzzleria! 

David’s offering this week is another Ripping Off Shortz Slice titled “Subtracting letters from Olympiadders” It appears beneath our main MENU.

 

Seven additional puzzles are listed under this week’s menus. Why not order them all? They are excellent brain food for satisfying your “Thinking Good, It’s Friday” hankerings.

Please Enjoy.

Hors d’Oeuvre Menu

Synonym Crunch And Crispy Critters Hors d’Oeuvre:

Varmints and vittles

The plural forms of a critter and a food (8 letters and 10 letters) begin with the same four letters, and share three of their remaining letters in common.

Name a close relative of the critter, in 8 letters. Change its fourth letter to a different vowel. Add another vowel near the end of the word. Place a duplicate of that vowel at the beginning of this result, then rotate that vowel 90-degrees clockwise to form a 10-letter singular synonym of the food.

What are these two critters and the two food synonyms?

Morsel Menu

Backstroke And Field Morsel:

Riociprocity

Two gold medal winners in the 2016 Rio Olympics – one competing in swimming, the other in track and field – share a reciprocal peculiarity that has to do with the countries for whom they compete and their first names.

Who are they?

Appetizer Menu

Performance Artists And Actors Appetizer:

The quirky half-dozen

* A best-selling contemporary novelist;

* A past movie star often cast in “macho/action” roles;

* A past silent movie star who was blessed with pantomime skills;

* A singer/songwriter/actor;

* A past rock/jazz keyboardist; and

* A “Futurama” character voiced by David Herman.

The names of all six of these people share something somewhat unusual in common. What is it?

Name In The News Appetizer:

Letter-top lopping

Rearrange and put into lowercase the letters of the name of a person who has been recently in the news, forming two words: (1.) the newsworthy incident in which the person said he was involved, and (2.) a word reportedly describing either some of his personal belongings or the daytime temperature of the city where the incident reportedly took place.

 

Lop off the top part of the first letter in the second word to form a word that – as the news story is developing – possibly may now modify the first word.

Spoonerize the person’s first and last names. The first part sounds what some people think the person is now doing. The second part sounds what he is wearing in this picture, for short.

Who is the person? What are the two words and the possibly “modified” modifier?

MENU

Ripping Off Shortz Slice (Championship Olympics Edition):

Subtracting letters from Olympiadders

Will’s Shortz’s National Public Radio Weekend Edition Sunday Puzzle from August 7 reads:

Name a famous Olympics champion, past or present – first and last names. Remove every letter from the name that appears exactly twice. The remaining letters in order will name certain minerals. Who is this Olympics star?

 

David’s Ripping Off Shortz Slice (Championship Olympics Edition) reads:

Name a famous Olympics champion past or present – first and last names. For all double-or-more letters (not necessarily consecutive), remove same-letter pairs, starting from the left. (That is, if there are double letters, remove both; if there are triple letters, remove the first two; if there are quadruple letters, remove all four; if there are quintuple letters, remove the first four, etc.)

 

Interchange the third and fourth of the remaining letters, and you will get the last name of a second famous Olympics champion, past or present.

Change a vowel in the last name of the second famous Olympics champion to the prior vowel alphabetically (where “y” is a vowel and precedes “a” in the circular alphabet), then rearrange these letters and you will get the first name of a third famous Olympics champion, past or present.

 

All three Olympics champions past or present won multiple gold medals, so in fact they are actually past Olympics champions.

Remember, from time to time, I have been known to cheat. Who are these Olympics stars?

Riffing Off Shortz Slice:

The great bi-national novel

Will’s Shortz’s National Public Radio Weekend Edition Sunday Puzzle from August 14 reads:

Take the name of a country. Among its letters is the name of a part of the human body, reading from left to right, although not necessarily consecutively. Cross out these letters. The remaining letters in order, reading left to right, will name part of an animal’s body. What country is it?

Puzzleria!’s Riffing Off Shortz Slice reads:

Take the name of a nation. Among its letters is the second word in the title of a well-known novel, reading from left to right consecutively. Cross out these letters. Rearrange the remaining letters to name the first word in the title of the novel.

Rearrange the letters in the common shorthand name of another nation to form a plural word whose singular form is a near antonym of the third word in the title and a near synonym of the first word in the title.

What are these two nations? What is the novel title?

Bonus Riffing Off Shortz Slice:

Tail wagging (or hand shaking?) the dog

Take the name of a nation. Among its letters is the name of a part of an animal’s body, reading from left to right consecutively. 


Cross out these letters. The remaining letters in order, reading left to right consecutively, will sound like the name of part of the human body. What nation is it?

Hint: If you did last week’s puzzles (one, in particular) you will likely experience déjà vu doing this one. 

Dessert Menu

Baking Alaska Dessert:

Cooking a country, cooler captions

From the heart of a country remove and rearrange letters to form a molten substance. Rearrange the remaining   letters to form another molten substance.

 

Now rearrange all the country’s letters to create two-word captions for each of the four images pictured here.

What is this country and the two molten substances? What are the four two-word captions?

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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