Not in your neck of the wardrobe; What a difference a dash makes; The mean mane name game, amen; Leaves of Grammar; Innocent or kilty?

P! SLICES: OVER (65 + 432) SERVED

  

Welcome to our April 7^th edition of Joseph Young’s Puzzleria!

We feature another guest puzzle this week, a clever, tricky and dashing conundrum composed by ron, a very clever and prolific puzzle-crafter who is a valued longtime member of our Puzzlerian! community. 

ron’s puzzle is an Hors d’Oeuvre titled “What a difference a dash makes.” It’s a hifalutin’ hyphen puzzle.

Also on our menus are:

One Clearly “Kilty” Appetizer,

One Slice in which the neckline is also the dividing line,

Four Riff/rip-Offs of NPR’s proper-name puzzle, and

One “Whitty” Dessert that “leaves” one craving more chocolates from life’s box.

Thanks to ron, this week’s Puzzleria! is that rare instance when you actually can believe the hype…phen.

So, please enjoy riffling through our riff-offs, and dashing through all our deep-dish delights! 

Hors d’Oeuvre Menu

DO Believe The Hyp-hen Hors d’Oeuvre:

What a difference a dash makes

What common six-letter English word becomes its opposite when you add a hyphen between the second and third letters?

Appetizer Menu

Robes In The Wardrobe Appetizer:

Innocent or kilty?

Hiring us a “Mr. Legal Nerd”… Crock!

The words preceding the ellipsis in the phrase above describe a governmental process that has been ongoing during the past year or so. The words following the ellipsis in the phrase above describe what many Americans think of the manner in which that process is being performed.

Rearrange the 25 letters in the phrase to form the first and last names of the two most recent people to be nominated to fill a certain governmental void in an institution with an acronym that sounds a bit unamerican.

Whao are these two people?  (Whoa! I mean “Who are these two people?”) 

MENU 

Ebony Bowtie Is Not The Answer Slice:

Not in your neck of the wardrobe

 

The name for something worn above the neck contains seven letters, but only six different letters. Replace its two identical letters with two different identical letters to form something worn below the neck.

What are these two things that are worn?

Hint: One of the things worn is restrictive, the other is remedial.

Ripping Off Shortz And Edelheit Slices:

The mean mane name game, amen

 

Will Shortz’s April 2^nd NPR Weekend Edition Sunday puzzle, composed by David Edelheit, reads:

Think of four 4-letter proper names that are all anagrams of each other. Two of them are first names — one male and one female. The other two are well-known geographical names. What names are these?

Puzzleria’s Riffing/Ripping Off Shortz And Edelheit Slices read:

ONE:

Consider the following surnames, listed in alphabetical order:

Barbeau, Cole, Comaneci, Quinn, Ramirez, Ross…

What are the six first names that belong with these surnames?

Hint: Your answer will contain exactly four different letters.

TWO:

Take the first name of a daughter of “American royalty” whose father, happily, “dodged an iceberg” thereby avoiding death, but then, sadly, died a few years later of more natural causes.

Take the first name of another daughter of “American royalty whose father, sadly, was not granted an opportunity to “dodge” what caused his death.

 Who are these “royal” daughters”?

Hint #1: Your answer will contain exactly eight different letters.

Hint #2: One of the father’s first and middle names are the first and last names of a president.

THREE:

Take the first name of a female literary character whose name begins with a C and who was created by a writer whose name begins with a C.

About three centuries earlier, a writer whose surname begins with a C wrote a novel with a title beginning with a D which includes a female literary character whose name begins with a D.

What are the names of these female literary characters?

Hint: Your answer will contain exactly eight different letters.

FOUR:

When I asked “Was war hell?” I just saw my pal nod.

“But at least,” he then muttered, “on our side was God.”

Aroma, scent, fragrance, the rich whiff of kwanza

Wafts on up from Atlantic Coast soil.

On all tongues: French, Swahili, Urdu, Afrikaans, a

Taste so sweet gushes: African oil.

When pop divas sing opera they strive for a coda

Effervescent… (their fans just sip orange fizzy soda).

“Pray, may I be so forward to ask for your hand?

Do you want to espouse, share one life?”

“Ah, I do!” said the mermaid who swam to dry land,

“And I vow I’ll not be a fishwife.”

No one dons any duds on the nudist estate,

That explains why Don’s watching... the scenery’s great!

Each of the five poems above (two quatrains and three couplets) contains the disguised name of a nation or state along with the disguised name of the capital of that nation or state. The letters in these names are rearranged and appear in consecutive words that form either two-word or three-word phrases within the lines of the poems.

For example, in the following sample couplet:

“The saber I bear soon shall sever the head

Of the king as he sleeps in his plush regal bed…”

The letters in “regal bed” can be rearranged to form Belgrade, the capital of Serbia (“saber I”).

In each of the five poems you must address, however, the number of letters in the capital and in its nation or state will be identical, like Tokyo and Japan (5,5), for example, or like Juneau and Alaska (6,6).

What are these five capitals and their states/nations?  

Dessert Menu

Whitman Candygram Sampler Dessert

Leaves of Grammar

Remove the first two letters from a 6-letter adjective you might hear during a grammar lesson. Interchange the second and fourth letters of what remains. To the left of these four letters place a 4-letter synonym for “versify” — in the manner of Walt Whitman, for example.

The result is an 8-letter adjective that is an antonym of the 6-letter adjective, one you might also hear during a grammar lesson.

What are these two grammar-lesson adjectives?

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.