Friday, June 29, 2018

Tiffs versus Jolts; Watercraftiness; Saint Paul sports... basketball? And now, a word from our sponsor, Brand XX

PUZZLERIA! SLICES: OVER (1110 + 98) SERVED  

Schpuzzle of the Week:
Tiffs versus Jolts

“Tiffs among Jodi, Bea, Jo and Eve may be discouraged, but it’s fine if Judi peps up fans by cheerleading as Bob tries to jolt and pin his foe Jeff during a wrestling bout.”


Exactly half of the 34 words in the sentence above share a very unusual property
What are these 17 words and what is the property they share?

Hint: Other words with this property include: tubs, bee, jut, dibs. 
Also, Puzzleria’s Closed-Loop Circular Seamless Alphabet might prove to be helpful.
Note: This puzzle involves a French word that nevertheless appears in many English dictionaries.
Schpuzzle of the Week Second Helping:
Name a 5-letter hyphenated word that shares this property. 


Appetizer Menu

The Body Is Roughly Seventy Percent Water Appetizer:
Watercraftiness

Name a pretty large body of water and name a craft you might see on a smaller body of water, both in two words. 
Their names share the same first words, both modifiers, and their second words are nouns that are anagrams of one another. 
What are these names?

Slam-Dunking On Ceremony Appetizer:
Saint Paul sports... basketball? 

Name a two-syllable noun rooted in Hebrew scriptures (Old Testament) with a specific ceremonial meaning. The noun has become a staple of our modern lexicon, but with a less ceremonial meaning.
Split the noun into its two syllables.
Add a letter to the beginning of the first syllable, and the same letter to the end, to form a noun characterizing Saint Paul because of something he was able to do in the Book of Acts. A basket was involved.
Add two of that same letter to the end of the second syllable to name, in one noun, something Saint Paul sported, according to early Chistian iconography.
What is this two-syllable noun? What are the two nouns formed from its syllables?


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Riffing Off Shortz And Young Slices:
And now, a word from our sponsor, Brand XX

Will Shortz’s June 24th NPR Weekend Edition Sunday puzzle was created by Joseph Young of St. Cloud, Minnesota, who conducts the weekly Puzzleria! blog. It reads:
Think of a well-known commercial name in 9 letters. Change both the fourth and ninth letters to X’s and you’ll get two other familiar commercial names, one after the other. What names are these?
Puzzleria!s Riffing Off Shortz And Young Slices read:
ENTREE #1:
Think of a past well-known commercial name in 10 letters. Change the second letter to a “p”, change the tenth letter to a “d”, and delete the fifth letter. What you’ll get is a food and how it is often prepared, one after the other. What name, food and method of preparation are these?
ENTREE #2:
Think of a somewhat well-known commercial name in 8 letters. Change the first letter to a “b” and add an “o” after the eighth letter and you’ll get two terms used in mathematics, one after the other. What is this commecial name and what terms are these?
ENTREE #3:
Think of a somewhat well-known commercial name in 10 letters. 
Change the fourth and fifth letters to and “e” and “r” and replace the final letter with an “o” and “p” and you’ll get an article of apparel and the profession of a person who wears it, one after the other. 
What names are these?
ENTREE #4:
Think of a well-known commercial name in 9 letters. 
Change the second, fifth and ninth letters to an “i”, “l” and “i” and you’ll get an over-the-counter brand name drug and a global supermarket chain name, one after the other. What names are these?
ENTREE #5:
Think of the name of a commercial manufacturer in 7 letters that is well known abroad, but not so much in the United States. Insert one “y” between its third and fourth letters and one “u” between its fifth and sixth letters. 
The result, one after the other, will be an English word for something you see on a map and an uppercase word that is an example of that “something” in the country where the commercial manufacturer is based.
What is the name of this manufacturer? 
What are the English word and uppercase word? 

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, June 22, 2018

Hairpins, hailstones hit Seneca! The Wright stuff; Fortune 500 mortar-and-brickyard; 2, 4, 6, 8... Who’s a dweller in this state?


Schpuzzle Of The Week:
The Wright stuff

Name a word associated with flying, circa 1900. 
Change a vowel to a different vowel to form a 7-letter expression that became associated with flying about half a century later. 
This latter expression is often spelled with only 4 letters. 
What are this word and expression?


Appetizer Menu

Words, Wheels And Perhaps Tar Heels Appetizer:
2, 4, 6, 8... Who’s a dweller in this state?

The subject of a rural painting by an American artist contains two words and four wheels. Remove the last letter of the first word. In the second word, place duplicates of the second and and third letters in its fourth and fifth positions, but in reverse order. 
Remove the space to spell what any resident of a certain U.S. state is called. 
What is a resident of this state called?

Consumed By Drama Appetizer:
Hairpins, hailstones hit Seneca!

What consumable product is the following sentence subliminally advertising? 
Hint: There are seven separate instances of the advertising in the text:
A mechanic begins engineering a format change on the Minnie Pearl Greyhound tour bus’s gyroscopic stabilization system after a roadie loses her balance during a dramatic hairpin turn as the bus, in a hailstorm intensifying, logs Joplin-to-Seneca, Mo. mileage.


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Riffing Off Shortz And Reiss Slices:
Fortune 500 mortar-and-brickyard

Will Shortz’s June 18th NPR Weekend Edition Sunday puzzle, created by Mike Reiss, reads:
Think of a familiar hyphenated 7-letter word. The first 4 letters name a prominent American company, and the last 4 letters name a different prominent American company. What word is it?
Puzzleria!s Riffing Off Shortz And Reiss Slices read:
ONE:
Think of a Fortune 500 food company/corporation with a fun-to-say name that is also an informal interjection. When spelled backward this name is a Spanish adverb that intensifies what it modifies. What is this company?
TWO:
Remove the initial letter from a prominent Fortune 500 company/corporation to form a short-form nickname of a U.S. president. Remove the initial letter from a less-prominent Fortune 500 company/corporation to form the first name of a more recent U.S. president’s sibling. What are these two companies?
THREE:
Remove four vowels from the name of a somewhat prominent Fortune 500 company/corporation, leaving four consonants that are all the same. What is this company?
FOUR:
Name two prominent Fortune 500 companies/corporations that begin with the same letter of the alphabet. Replace the fifth letter of one of them to name what Mildred Wattigny opted to do in October of 1930... something that involved someone now enshrined in Cooperstown. Replace the first letter of the other to name a Chicago Cub who is enshrined in Cooperstown.
FIVE:
Name a somewhat prominent Fortune 500 corporation that promotes health and hygiene. 
Replace its second letter with its final letter to form a deadly virus.
Name the same health-and-hygiene-promoting corporation. Replace its last two letters with a vowel and add some punctuation to form bacteria that can cause sickness.
What are this company, deadly virus and bacteria?
SIX:
Name a one-syllable shorthand expression for a car brand with a cross logo, followed by the screen name of a very-valued contributor to Puzzleria! The result is a prominent and “energetic” Fortune 500 corporation.
 What is this corporation?
SEVEN:
Remove one letter from somewhat prominent Fortune 500 corporation to name something that is unbearably light, according to Milan Kundera. 
What is unbearably light?

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, June 15, 2018

Doc, Martin, Joe and a pair of Buddys; More TVVisted titles; Competing gets tougher when services suffer; Finding some kind of sign-off the beaten path


Schpuzzle Of The Week:
Competing gets tougher when services suffer

Think of a term in two words for a service whose business model is suffering, five and four letters. 

The last three letters of each word are the same as each other, and spell a word that is a type of suffering. 
Remove these common letters and rearrange the remaining three letters to name a competing service. 
What are the term and the competing service?
(Note: This week’s Schpuzzle Of The Week was created by Mathew Huffman, a valued friend of Puzzleria!)


Appetizer Menu

Car Branding Appetizer:
Finding some kind of sign-off the beaten path

Name a synonym of “road” followed by a 2-word car brand. 

Reversing the order of the three words and saying the result without pronouncing the initial consonant sounds will sound like a sign-off. 
What is this sign-off?

John Aston-Martin Balsam Brand Appetizer:
Doc, Martin, Joe and a pair of Buddys


Doc, Martin, Joe, and a pair of guys named Buddy... 

Find a two-word phrase that pertains to the list of names above. 
Interchange those words to name what sounds a lot like a two-word automobile brand name. 
What is that brand name?
Hint: The key to solving this puzzle is to find the first name of an actor who portrayed characters with the first names Doc, Martin, Joe, Buddy and Buddy.


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Riffing Off Shortz Slice:

More TVVisted titles

Will Shortz’s June 3rd/June10 NPR Weekend Edition Sunday two-week creative challenge puzzle reads:

Television today can be so derivative  and so is this two-week creative challenge. The object is to pitch an idea to one of the networks, either broadcast or cable, in which your show’s title is just one letter different from an existing show’s title, past or present. Name your TV show and summarize it in 15 words or less.
Examples:
American I Do’s  Hilarious misadventures of a bumbling wedding planner
You Bet Your Wife  Trivia contest, with wagering, to determine who knows more, husband or spouse
Puzzleria!’s Riffing Off Shortz Slice reads:
The title of each of the following 14 potential TV shows differs by just one letter from an actual past or present show’s title. Name these new titles based on the summaries given for each. 
To aid you, we are providing the genres and time frames of the actual TV show from which each of their titles is taken, along with the number of words in the title: 
1.  A man bases all his life-decisions on a musty Magic 8 Ball he purchased at a rummage sale. 
(Soap opera, 1952-2009; 3 words in the title)
2.  This remake focuses on Boss Hogg and Rosco who are repeatedly hornswoggled by those doggone Duke boys Bo and Luke. 
(Action comedy, 1979-85; 4 words in the title)
3. The Enterprise crew is stranded after crash-landing on a heavenly sphere inhabited by prehistoric creatures.
(Science fiction, 1966-69; 2 words in the title)
4. How commuters pass the time while stuck in bumper-to-bumper freeway traffic. 
(Science fiction, 1959-64; 3 words in the title
Note: This proposed TV show title is not exactly kosher vis-a-vis Will Shortz’s rules for this two-week challenge; not only does it change one letter of the original title, but it also doubles a second letter in that title.
5. Candid interviews with people who confess an infatuation with Kentucky Senator Paul or late fan-dancer Sally. 
(Adventure drama comedy, 1977-84; 2 words in the title)
6. During an embargo, Idaho laundry owners hoard potatoes in order to continue guaranteeing crispness in their customers’ collars. 
(Soap opera, 1951-86; 3 words in the title)
7. A bald lollypop-popping cop solves crimes by using his photographic memory. (Crime drama, 1973-78; 1 word in the title)
8. Documentary illuminating the Big Apple’s attitude toward Tom Terrific. 
(Sitcom, 1957-63; 4 words in the title)
9. Operatic diva alters her surname to reflect her newfound infatuation with jazz. 
(Sitcom, 1962-71; 3 words in the title)
10. Millionaire opera queen loads up the limo and moves westward to a “Californy” zip code.
(Teen drama, 1990-2000; 3 words in the title)
11. Steve Martin reprises his role as sadistic dentist Orin Schrivello, but on the small screen. 
(Sitcom, 1959-63; 3 words in the title) 
12. Scientist transforms his family members into midge-human hybrids, similar to “The Fly” films. 
(Musical sitcom, 1970-74; 3 words in the title)
13. Documentary about big-time Hollywood actors who have stepped up into military service to their country. 
(Talent competition, 1983-2004; 2 words in the title)
14. Ferdinand the Bull bucks cowboys off his back then rescues them, ironically, from homicidal rodeo clowns. 
(Sitcom, 1989-93; 4 words in the title)

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, June 8, 2018

Plurutensils; Subway? Superway? Twisted TV titles


Blue Plate Special Of The Week:
Plurutensils

Divide a word for plural body parts in half. The second half is a word for plural utensil parts. The first half can be rearranged to spell a word for plural utensil parts. What are these body parts?


Appetizer Menu

Transportation Appetizer:

Subway? Superway?

Name a means of transportation in which vehicles travel largely above ground level (although its passengers usually maintain contact with the ground). 

Move the first letter to the end to name a means of transportation in which vehicles travel both above and below ground level.
What are these two means of transportation?


MENU

Riffing Off Shortz Slice:

Twisted TV titles


Will Shortz’s June 3rd NPR Weekend Edition Sunday puzzle reads:
Television today can be so derivative — and so is this two-week creative challenge. The object is to pitch an idea to one of the networks, either broadcast or cable, in which your show’s title is just one letter different from an existing show’s title, past or present. Name your TV show and summarize it in 15 words or less.
Examples:
N.Y.P.D. CLUE — Manhattan crime investigation in which each case hinges on a single, unexpected piece of evidence
HAVE GUT, WILL TRAVEL — Portly host tours the best all-you-can-eat restaurants in America 
Puzzleria!’s Riffing Off Shortz Slice reads:
Name the titles of the following potential TV shows, based on their summaries. To aid you, we are providing the genres and time frames of the actual TV shows from which each of their titles is taken, along with the number of words in the title: 
1. (Sitcom; 1980s-90s, 2 words)
Dr. Drew Pinsky encourages wimps to begin behaving more confidently and courageously.
2.  (Sitcom; 1990s-2000s, 3 words)
A serial documentary chronicling the cocaine epidemic in post-Watergate-era America.
3. (Sitcom; 2000s, 4 words)
A fantasy about Forbes, a billionaire whose extravagant lifestyle ends after he is shrunken and confined to the inside of his Stradivarius violin.  
4. (Sitcom; 1900s, 2 words, but written together as one)
A media executive convinces former House Speaker Gingrich, who plays himself, to compete with Limbaugh and Dr. Laura over the airwaves.
5. (Crime drama; 1980s, 2 words)
Mickey, Minnie and company pull up their Orlando stakes and move south to South Beach.
6. (Sitcom; 1970s-70s, 3 words)
All-American dad Steve Douglas admits he fathered Mike, Robbie and Chip all out-of-wedlock.

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, June 1, 2018

A nightcap to cap off the night? Erconstructive obdily usrgery; Spoonerfuls o’ food fit for the famished; All-day picnic dishing

PUZZLERIA! SLICES: OVER (1110 + 98) SERVED

Blue Plate Special Of The Week:
All-day picnic dishing

You are packing an all-day picnic basket: 
🍵🍺Begin by including two beverages. 
🍛Combine the letters of the two beverages, change one letter, and rearrange the result to spell a luncheon dish. 
🍳To this, add a vowel and rearrange to spell a breakfast dish. 
🍗To this, add a consonant and rearrange to spell a dinner dish. 
💿To this, add a consonant and rearrange to spell what these dishes may be served on, in a two-word term. 
What are these six picnic items?
Bonus Blue Plate second helping: 
☕To the letters in the two words denoting what these dishes may be served on, subtract a P and add a T to form two words: a hot beverage to enjoy during the evening campfire (with smores!) and the luscious froth that floats on the brim of that beverage.  


Appetizer Menu

Dad’s Boot Rear Appetizer:
Spoonerfuls o’ food fit for the famished


Write a caption for each of the 15 numbered images pictured here, then spoonerize each caption in some manner to name something you can eat or drink. 
For example, an image of a father kicking a burglar or other intruder in the posterior could be captioned “boot rear” which, when spoonerized, becomes root beer.

To further help you as you solve, fifteen hints appear below: 
The type of food (Meat, Sweet, Dairy, etc.) appears in green.
The number of words each caption contains appears in (parentheses)
The number of words in each food-answer appears in [brackets]
(Numbers 2, 4, 5, 8 and 11 are the most far-fetched of the fifteen captions/foods.)
1. Veggie (2 words in the caption) [2 words in the food]
2. Veggie; Note: Before you spoonerize the caption to reveal the food, you must first flip the third-last letter of its first word 180-degrees along the axis perpendicular to the surface it is written on. (2) [2]

3. Legume (2) [1]
4. Meat (4) [2] Spoonerize only the first and third of the 4 caption words to reveal the food.
5. Meat (2) [2]
6. Meat (2) [1 word, but sometimes written as 2]
7. Meat (2) [1]
8. Porridge (2) [2]
9. Sweet (3) [2] Spoonerize only the first and third of the 3 caption words to reveal the food.
10. Sweet (3) [2] Spoonerize only the first and third of the 3 caption words to reveal the food. 
The third word does not begin with a consonant sound, so the spoonerization is similar to the likes of ginger ale” becoming “injure jail.”
11. Sweet (3) [2] Spoonerize only the first and third of the 3 caption words to reveal the food. 
And, you are advised to write the caption Ebonically
12. Dairy (2) [2]
13. Dairy (2) [2]
14. Pasta (2) [2]
15. Meat (2) [2]

MENU

Brandy Name Slice:
A nightcap to cap off the night?

Reverse the letters in the brand name of something you drink to spell something you wear. 
What is it that you wear? 
What might you drink?

Riffing Off Shortz Slices:
Erconstructive obdily usrgery

Will Shortz’s May 27th NPR Weekend Edition Sunday puzzle reads:
Name part of the human body. Switch the first two letters to get a two-word phrase for something that is worrisome. What is it? 
Puzzleria!’s Riffing Off Shortz Slices read:
ONE:
Name part of the human body associated with contemplation. 
Switch the first two letters and change a later vowel to a different vowel to get a part of the human body associated with audition. What is it?  
TWO:
Name part of the human body. 
Change the first letter to the first letter of an adjacent body part which includes one end of the first body part. Switch the first two letters of this result to get the first name of a Scandinavian actress. To find her last name, switch the first two letters of another body part. 
Who is this actress?  
THREE:
Name part of the body often considered to be vulnerable. Switch the first two letters to get a two-word comparative phrase for what a _____ dancer often possesses vis-a-vis, say, a ballet dancer. What is this body part?
Hint: the word in the blank echoes the word “ballet” and is a part of the vulnerable body part. 
FOUR:
Name part of the human body. Switch the first two letters to get the last name of a past muckraking journalist/photographer. What is this human body part and who is the journalist/photographer?
Hint: The relatively primitive camera this journalist used had a part called a diaphragm, which is also a human body part. Were the jounalist alive today he would use a camera with a part serving the same function as the diaphagm... and that part is the answer to this puzzle!  
FIVE:
Name part of the human body. Move the first two letters to the end of the word to get something much shorter than a homonym of another part of the human body. What are these two body parts? 

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.