Friday, December 30, 2016

Jes’ kickin’ back with the Clauses; Man of letters meets folksy lady; QBs square off in 2017; Foretelling a memory; Another nice “mexpression” we’ve gotten you into solving; Ursa Major genius; Linking words from the links

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.

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?

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’s NFL games.

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.”

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? 


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? 

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.

Friday, December 23, 2016

Clues to Carols’ deeper meanings; Once upon a nursery rhyme; Galoshes-shod sloshers; Hip bone’s connected to the backbone; Super Bowls o’ hot soup; Sugarplums and sandmen; Reindrops on rooftops; Poltroons, sexting and mood alteration; Holidology 101; Venison in the verses?

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

Welcome to our December 23rd edition of Joseph Young’s Puzzleria!

Merry Christmas. 
Chappy Chanukah.

We have been stocking up on holiday puzzles, and have hung ten of them by the chimney with devil-may-care.

Here they are. Please enjoy… to the world (and to the Word):

Hors d’Oeuvre Menu

Cowboys And Findians Hors d’Oeuvre:
Super Bowls o’ hot soup

Super Bowl VI between the Dallas Cowboys and Miami Dolphins was won by Dallas 24-3 on January 12, 1972 at Tulane Stadium in New Orleans. The temperature at kickoff was 39 degrees, the record low for a Super Bowl played outdoors. Late in the third quarter, Dolphin free safety Jake Scott hit Cowboy quarterback Roger Staubach on a blitz, shaking him up.

But, had the blitz resulted in a fumble instead of the incomplete pass that it actually did result in, the outcome of the sixth Super Bowl might have been different. Here is “the call,” by TV announcers Ray Scott and Pat Summerall, of what might have happened...

Ray: The score after nearly three quarters of this Super Bowl VI is Dallas 17, Miami 3.


Pat: The Dolphin coach Don Shula is pacing the sideline apprehensively. On the opposite side of the field, the Cowboy mascot is goading his horse so it will ______ up and down the sideline.


Ray: It’s third down six… here’s a blitz! And whoo, Jake Scott really hits Staubach. Did the ball come loose? Yes! Scott scoops it up and speeds toward the goal line... like his opponent Bob Hayes racing the final 25 yards of a 100-yard ____.

Pat: And after his sprint into the end zone, Jake does a little celebratory victory _____, then tosses the ball to a Cowboy fan who proceeds to spill the coffee she’s been using as a hand-warmer.


Ray: Right you are, Pat. Cold beer sales may be slow here today but you will see many a ___ of coffee, cocoa or soup in the hands of the fans in the stands…


Eight words in the blue-lettered dialogue above share a particular property, including the four blanks you must fill in with words that contain six, five, four and three letters. The other four words hidden in the transcript contain two, three, four and five letters. (The two-letter “word” is not actually a word.)

Extra credit: Find a ninth word in the text, a seven-letter word (or eight letters in its plural form) that also shares the property, but in a way that is somewhat different from the other eight words you found.
Note: Super Bowl LI, to be played on February 5 in Houston, may be a rematch of Super Bowl VI. Dallas has secured a berth and Miami is still alive to secure a berth. (And indeed, “VI” kind of looks like “LI” if you tip the “V” on its side.)


Morsel Menu

Easy As Christmas Pie Morsel:
Hip bone’s connected to the backbone…

Name two parts of the human body that are not next to each other anatomically. Put them next to each other textually without a space and in alphabetical order.
Pronouncing the result aloud will sound quite a bit like a word associated with St. Nicholas.

Replace the body part that came first alphabetically with a third body part that rhymes with it. The result is two body parts that are next to each other both anatomically as well as textually without a space, but are no longer in alphabetical order.
Pronouncing this second result aloud will still sound like the word associated with St. Nicholas, but less so.

What are the three body parts? What is the word associated with St. Nicholas?

Appetizer Menu

Piece Of Fruitcake Appetizer:
Holidology 101

Can a young Californian Mensan take an exam of some sort to test out of 100-level courses at UCLA, USC, UC San Diego or even UC Berkeley and Stanford?

Embedded within the text of the question above are two words in two different hiding places that, when placed next to each other, pertain to Christmas.

What are these two words?

Hold The Ketchup On My Snow Cone Appetizer:
Galoshes-shod sloshers 

Scores of National Hockey League fans have circled February 25 on the 2017 calendars they just got as Christmas gifts. That’s the date of a hockey match-up between the visiting Philadelphia Flyers and the home Pittsburgh Penguins at Heinz Field in Pittsburgh. This “Stadium Series” event is one of a handful of regular season outdoor games the NHL schedules annually.
Let’s peer into our crystal ball – our “snow globe” aflutter with floating and flittering flakes…
Alas there are no snowflakes present. The game-time temperature at Heinz Field is 57 degrees Fahrenheit. The match has been cancelled. The ice rink – now a melting pot of mushy slush – appears as if a Zamboni from fiery hell has been rumbling over it.
A couple hundred diehard fans, however, well-lubricated with pregame beer and flasks of booze, linger about the rink in tailgating fashion. Some even venture out onto the sloppy surface and slosh, galoshes-shod, about in the mush.
A photographer from the Post-Gazette snaps a shot of the melted revelry. 

This photo quickly is uploaded to the paper’s website and also appears on the following morning’s front page accompanied by the caption MELTED RINK: “SLOSHED” AREA.

Rearrange the 21 letters in that caption to form three words associated with a particular holiday: 1. something you light, 2. toys that delight, and 3. culinary delights.

What are these three words, and what is the holiday?   


MENU 

Elves! Dwarves? Ovis? Slice!:
Once upon a nursery rhyme

A Christmas song standard contains in its first line two adjectives that begin with adjacent letters in the alphabet.
A Thanksgiving song standard contains in its first stanza an adjective and noun that, when put in alphabetical order, form the title character of a beloved German fairy tale.
A popular nursery rhyme’s first verse contains one of the Christmas song’s adjectives and a homophone of its other adjective. The nursery rhyme’s first verse also contains the Thanksgiving song’s adjective and noun.

What are the two songs, the nursery rhyme, and the fairy tale.

Clement Moore Slice:
Sugarplums and sandmen

Christmas Eve. Sandman, his gritty work done, punches out. Children nestled snug, sugarplum dreams dancing…

Christmas morn. Children rouse and yawn. Weeks of eager anticipation supplanted by wait-no-more. They “knuckle-out” lingering sand grains from eye sockets and tumble down the stairs toward the tree and the treats it shelters.

Here is your wrapped and ribboned puzzling present:
Name a three-word idiom for the children’s post-slumber upstairs state. Remove “sand” from the “eye” of the idiom, but replace the “s” with a vowel. 


The result is the sheltering greenery that greeted the children downstairs.

What is the idiom? What greets the children downstairs? 


Sing Along With Noel Slice:
Clues to Carols’ deeper meanings

The answers to each of the following clues appear near the beginning of a Christmas song, in the form of two or three consecutive words of the lyrics.

Identify the consecutive words that satisfy each clue, and give the title of the song.
In some cases you may have to remove spaces between words. And, some answers involve homophones.
Clue #5 provides two clues because one word in the lyrics is printed as either of two homophones, depending on which lyric sheet you are singing from. 



1. Beats two pair (say, aces and eights), but gets beat by a straight

2. An order that might be given on a battlefield

3. They have mounds in their middles

4. Words heard at a funeral or gravesite (although, in the song, they refer to the cradle  or actually the manger  rather than the grave)

5. (Clue #1) Eight (or perhaps nine) take ten;
 (Clue #2) Caribou hooves

6. When spoken aloud, sounds like what some call the biggest lemon in history, rivaling even the Edsel

7. Word in the title of one of Yeats’ poetic “gems”

8. Rolex vis-à-vis Jubaoli

9. When spoken aloud, sounds like a Cricket’s gestures acknowledging applause


Ripping Off Shortz And McDonald Slices:
Poltroons, sexting and mood alteration

Will Shortz’s December 18th NPR Weekend Edition Sunday puzzle, submitted by listener Janet McDonald, reads:
Take the initials and last names of two opposing historical figures. Add a C and mix all the letters together. You’ll get the title and last name of another historical figure from approximately the same era. Who are these people?

Puzzleria’s Ripping Off Shortz And McDonald Slices read:

ONE: Take the first-name initials and last names of two opposing historical figures. Add a C and mix all the letters together. You’ll get the title and first name (the “for short” version) of another historical figure from an era approximately a century after the era associated with the two opposing historical figures.
Who are these people?
Hint: All three historical figures shared the same title, and the most recent of the three figures was the vice presidential candidate on a ticket that won the electoral votes of five states and received about 14% of the popular vote. One of the two earlier figures actually served as a U.S. president.
TWO: Take the title and last name of a fictional character whose rival shares the name with a brand of a product that often complements a brand that rhymes with “pluckers.” Add an H and mix all the letters together. You’ll get two words: What a fellah might use to get high, and what the fellah’s furry pet might use to get high.
What are these two means of mood alteration?

THREE: Take the title and first and last names of a fictional character on a well-known past TV sitcom. Mix all twenty letters together. You’ll get three words (an article, possessive noun, and noun) indicating what the police may confiscate in cases involving threatening calls, harassing texts, or predatory sexting.
Who is this character? What may the police confiscate?
Hint: Some political observers suggest that we have managed to ELECT a POLTROON as our next president. Rearrange the 13 letters in “ELECT POLTROON” to form the title and last name of the fictional character.

Dessert Menu

Parade Of Names Dessert:
Reindrops on rooftops

Monica, Barbara, Clara and Maria. Those four women’s names share something in common pertaining obliquely to Christmas.
Find a fifth name that shares the same quality. This four-letter name is also an anagram of what St. Nicholas and his reindeer do from rooftop to rooftop every Christmas Eve.


Find a sixth word that shares the same quality. This four-letter Spanish word is a homophone of what St. Nicholas and his reindeer do from rooftop to rooftop every Christmas Eve.

What quality do these six words share? What are the two 4-letter words that share the quality?

S. Nick Errs? Dessert:
Venison in the verses?

Take the third word of the final verse of a popular but relatively lengthy holiday song. Remove the first two and last two letters from the word. The remaining letters spell a noun associated with St. Nick.

What is the third word of the final verse, and what is the noun associated with St. Nick?
Hint #1: In a beloved traditional Christmas poem, a versifier once characterized St. Nick himself as this noun.
Hint #2: The first two letters of the word in the verse are the first two letters of a number between one and ten, and the last two letters of the word are the first two letters of the following number.


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.