Blaise & Claire & Emmy & Lenny; School’s in for autumn! Turning toys into togs (but not into toggle toys)

PUZZLERIA! SLICES: OVER (876 + 54) SERVED

Welcome to our September 22nd edition of Joseph Young’s Puzzleria!

Lotsa Shortz Riff-offs this week, plus two additional better-than-average posers: 

1. An Appetizer about a party thrower, a blue comic, and two math giants, and 

2. A somewhat blue Dessert about toys and togs.

Please enjoy our puzzle party. Romp around in our cyber-room like a kid in a toy factory.

And, as always, enjoy.

Appetizer Menu

Math Giants, Party Thrower And Blue Comic Appetizer:

Blaise & Claire & Emmy & Lenny

Fashion designer and socialite Claire McCardell invites a life-of-the-party yet groan-inducingly “blue comic” named Lenny Bruce to her dinner party. The result is:

“Claire’s jaunty, corny, salty party guest spouts blueness, annoys.”

Blaise Pascal and Emmy Noether were mathematical giants from different eras. The following sentence is likely true:

“Giant Emmy learned giant Blaise’s point theorem, soon schooled allies, also friends.” 

All twenty different words in blue italics above share a very unusual property in common. (The two blue sentences contain 21 words, but “giant” is repeated.”) 

What is this unusual property?

MENU 

Riffing Off Shortz Slices:

School’s in for autumn!   

Will Shortz’s September 17th NPR Weekend Edition Sunday puzzle reads: 

This puzzle is for the new school year. Think of two antonyms, each in three letters. Set them side by side. In between them arrange the letters of TRY TO ACE in some order. The result will name someone at school. Who is it?

Puzzleria’s! Riffing Off Shortz Slices, which are all “for the new school year,” read:

ONE: 

Think of two people often known by just one name, one in three letters, the other in four. Set them side by side. In between them arrange the letters of I TEST MARY in some order. The result will name someone at school who might administer that test to Mary. Who is it?

(Clarification and hint: The image is misleading. It is a scientific test, but not a pregnancy test! It is an academic test.)

TWO: 

Think of two people often known by just one name, one in five letters, the other in four. Both are performers who have been nominated for Oscars. Set them side by side. In between them arrange the letters of GOAL: ACE IT in some order. The result will name someone at school who might write that goal on the front-of-the-classroom “blackboard” before administering a test. Who is it?

THREE:

Arrange the letters of A TEST? OH, I CRY! in some order. Put your rearranged letters somewhere in between the name of a one-named entertainer. The result will name someone at school who might administer the cry-inducing test. Who is it?

Hint: The name of a one-named entertainer is also the name for a person who serves at a place where students might go to pray that they do not flunk the cry-inducing test.

FOUR:

Think of two celebrities with one-name stage names, both in four letters. Change the first letter in one of the stage names to the first letter in that person’s real surname. Set these results side by side. 

In between them arrange in some order the letters of TEARS (the result of the cry-inducing test in the previous puzzle). The result will name someone at school who might administer such a test. 

Who is it?

Hint: The one-word stage name of one celebrity is a former surname of the other celebrity. 

FIVE:

Think of two ant... no, not antonyms, they’re really more like two synonyms... no, that’s not quite it either... they’re actually duplicates of the same three-letter word which is the name of a small creature. Set them side by side. In between them arrange the letters of A LOGOS SOPHISTRY in some order. 

The result will name someone at school who might, for example, proofread or transcribe a professor’s podcast lecture titled “A Logos Sophistry” which proposes a new understanding of sophistry different from that of the ancient Greeks – namely a new understanding based on logic (logos) to persuade people (to vote for a president, for example) rather than on appeals to authority (ethos) or emotion (pathos) that have for millennia been used to manipulate the hearts and minds of humanity. 

Who is this “someone at school?” 

SIX:

Think of two nouns, each in four letters, that together form a synonym for certain whiskers. Set them side by side. In between them arrange the letters of PATENTED CREMES in some order. 

The result will name the university staff position held by a person who might be described as “a guy named Guo Down Under,” a guy who may or may not use patented cremes to eliminate certain whiskers. 

What is the name of this guy and what might you call his staff position?

SEVEN:

Think of two fragments, each in three letters, that together form a slang synonym for a pugilist. Add to the end of the first fragment three letters that can be arranged in some order to spell the surname of a famous person that the slang synonym for a pugilist indicates. Add to the beginning of the second fragment three letters that can be arranged in some order to spell a word (followed by a space and the letter Z) forming a commonplace expression used by commentators in a sport that is a homophone of the slang synonym for a pugilist. 

The result will name someone you might find on a school staff, in two words of six letters each. 

Who is it? 

What is the slang synonym for a pugilist? 

Who is the famous person? 

What is the sport that is a homophone of the slang synonym, and what is the commonplace expression used in that sport?

EIGHT:

Think of two 4-letter synonyms, one of the word “ding” and the other of the word “depression.” Set them side by side. In between them arrange the letters of TULSA in some order. The result will name someone at a school that prepares people for a specific profession. 

(A handful of such schools are based in Tulsa.) 

Who is the someone at the school? What are the two synonyms?

Dessert Menu

Mr. Couch Potato Head Dessert

Turning toys into togs (but not into toggle toys)

Name a popular toy, in two words, that might convince young couch potatoes to put down their PlayStations, Nintendos and Xboxes and actually begin to exercise more than just their thumbs. 

Place a new word after the toy’s first word to form a two-word term for a woman’s somewhat clingy and revealing garment. 

Place the same new word after the toy’s second word to form a two-word term for a woman’s undergarment that is anything but tight-fitting.

What are this toy, the garment and the undergarment? 

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.