Auld Language, new business sign; Video life imitates visual art; Pounding down epicured meats; Soap floats… or does it? Driven to run; then runs when driven

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

Welcome to our December 16^th edition Joseph Young’s Puzzleria!

On our menus this week are:

A meaty Hors d’Oeuvre;

A soapy Morsel;

An arty Appetizer;

A trio of Ripping Off Shortz Slices; and

A drive-time Dessert.

Please enjoy.

Hors d’Oeuvre Menu

Restaurant Hors d’Oeuvre:

Pounding down epicured meats

Name a national restaurant chain. Spell its last three letters backward, followed by its first two letters spelled forward.

Follow these five letters with three letters that – when preceded by the restaurant chain’s middle letter – spell out what you must do to the food before you can enjoy it at the restaurant.

The result is an eight-letter synonym for “epicure” or “voluptuary,” which is exactly the type of person who would be unlikely to patronize the restaurant, or to enjoy its food.

What is this restaurant chain? What is the synonym?

Morsel Menu

Tickling Ivories Morsel:

Soap floats… or does it?

Name a number associated with the Super Bowl to be held in 2017. Add to its end an abbreviation of a month associated with the number 2. 

Add to the abbreviation’s end a second-person pronoun spelled backward.

The result is a brand of soap that is also an object that floats on water (although the soap is not the brand that is famous for floating). A synonym of the object is the name of a brand of candy.

What is the soap brand?

Appetizer Menu

Title! Dialogue! Alliteration! Appetizer:

Video life imitates visual art;

Rearrange the letters of the surname of a well-known visual artist to form the title of a well-known television show.

Rearrange the letters of the surname of a second well-known visual artist to form two alliterative words (with the same first letter) that might be used to describe the place where most of the show’s dialogue occurs.

Rearrange the letters of the surname of a third well-known visual artist to form a snippet from some dialogue that might have occurred at that place.

Who are these three artists? What are the TV show’s title, the alliterative words, and the snippet of dialogue?

MENU 

Ripping Off Shortz Slices:

Auld Language, new business sign

Will Shortz’s December 11^th NPR Weekend Edition Sunday puzzle read:

Think of a two-word phrase commonly seen on signs in new businesses. Nine letters in all. Change the sixth letter to an N, and read the resulting letters in order: You’ll get a new two-word phrase sometimes seen on humorous signs in classrooms and offices. What signs are these?

Puzzleria’s Riffing/ripping Off Shortz Slices read:

ONE: Think of a two-word phrase commonly seen on signs in many discount merchandise businesses. Nine letters in all.

Remove the fourth and fifth letters and move the ninth letter to the beginning of the first word: You’ll get a new two-word phrase often seen on highway signs this time of year. What signs are these?

TWO: Think of a two-word phrase sometimes seen on signs in residential neighborhoods. Nine letters in all.

Move the fifth letter to the beginning of the first word, and move the last letter of the first word to the spot vacated by the fifth letter, and place a space between the sixth and seventh letters: You’ll get three new words, which might appear in this sentence:

Those who lack (first word) may lament, “It’s (second word) (third word)!”

What sign is this? What three words are these?

THREE: Think of a three-word phrase commonly seen on signs at new businesses. Fifteen letters in all.

One new business specializes in two, and only two, niche markets. It caters to lovers of homemade stews, broths, bouillons, consommés, minestrones, borsches and vichyssoises, all served piping-hot at a sit-down diner-style counter. And the business also stocks an array of undergarments: skivvies, lingerie and other unmentionables too numerous to mention.

The proprietors renamed theirstore “Skivvies & Stews,” erecting a sign with the new name above their main entrance. It covered up the old sign. The name on the original name said essentially the same thing the new sign says, but it was not as catchy, and not all alliterative. Both signs consist of two nouns separated by an ampersand.

The store owners do, however, keep in a front window a small sign bearing the original name. The sign was relatively expensive to have made.

Rearrange the 15 letters of the three-word phrase commonly seen on signs in new businesses so that they form the two nouns on the relatively expensive sign bearing the store’s original name, plus the word for the kind of sign in the front window. Ignore the ampersand. 

What is the three-word phrase commonly seen on signs in new businesses? What are the two nouns on the sign in the window, and the kind of sign it is?

Dessert Menu

Slate Of Candidates Dessert:

Driven to run; then runs when driven

Take an informal two-word description for a strong admirer or big fan of a person who ran for president recently. Interchange the initial letters of the two words to form a car brand.

Who is this presidential hopeful? What is the car brand?

Hint: Only two of the four words rhyme.

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.