Pay-back for a ref under siege! Punctuation & Judy turns tragic; Restraining one’s room to roam; Bountifully billowing sales... promo; “It was 19 years ago today...” Alphabetical “imbibery” Transporting lowercase letters across state lines!

PUZZLERIA! SLICES: OVER 8!/20 SERVED

Schpuzzle Of The Week:
Punctuation & Judy turns tragic

Take the title of a play that is a comedy. 
Delete a punctuation mark and the two letters that immediately follow it. 
Rearrange the letters to the right of this deletion. 
The result sounds like the title of a tragedy. 
What is the title of this comedy?
What is the title of the tragedy? 

Appetizer Menu

Free Falling Appetizer:
Restraining one’s room to roam

Note: We are privileged this week to present on Puzzleria! a nifty puzzle created by Mark Scott of Seattle, known to many of us also by his blog screen name, skydiveboy. 
Mark created a great puzzle involving spoonerization that Puzzlemaster Will Shortz used last  month as “The Puzzle” on the December 29th edition of NPR’s Weekend Edition Sunday. 
Mark’s “Restraining one’s room to roam” puzzle also involves a spoonerism. 
Enjoy!

Switch the initial sounds of (that is, spoonerize) a two-word phrase for something that restricts the roaming range of certain creatures. 
Switch the order of the resulting words to form what sounds like a two-word phrase that restricts the roaming range of various vehicles. 
What are these two phrases?

Common Law Appetizer:
Transporting lowercase letters across state lines! 

A city and its state share a string of consecutive letters in common. 
Remove these common letters from each, leaving a means of transport and what it once perhaps transported. 
What are this city and state?

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Market Share Slice:
Bountifully billowing sales... promo

Name a type of sales promotion that marketers use, in two words. 
Rearrange the combined letters to form two other words marketers use, often in conjunction with photographs. 
What is this type of promotion? What two words do marketers often use along with photographs.

Super Slice:
It was 19 years ago today...

On January 28, 2001 the rock band Aerosmith performed during the halftime show at the Super Bowl in Tampa, Florida.
It is now nineteen years later. 
Aerosmith will not be performing at this year’s Super Bowl, February 2 in Miami, Florida. But the name of someone related to a member of the band will be ubiquitously visible. 
Who is this someone?

Riffing Off Shortz Slices:
Pay-back for a ref under siege!

Will Shortz’s January 26th NPR Weekend Edition Sunday puzzle reads:
Write down the letter C. Beneath that write ENT. And beneath that write a G. What profession do these letters represent? 
Here’s a hint: It’s a two-word phrase – 10 letters in the first word, 5 letters in the second.
Puzzleria!s Riffing Off Shortz Slices read:
ENTREE #1
Write down the letters ER. Beneath that write LA. What profession do these letters represent?
Here’s a hint: An honest practitioner of the profession deals with “threads,” while a shady practitioner of the profession deals with “bread.”
ENTREE #2
Write down the letters CO. Beneath that write OFFERS. What money-saving methods do these letters represent, in two words?
Here’s a hint: The money-saving methods the letters represent may be printable or clippable.
(Speaking of money, if you remove one of the two O’s, what you wrote is a two-tiered spelling of COFFERS, places to put money.)
ENTREE #3
Write down the word WOOD. Beneath that write G. And beneath that write the word NOR. What profession/title and surname do these letters represent? 
Here’s a hint: The person with the title and surname was elected to public office and served a four-year term at age 34. Forty years later, at age 74 he was elected to the same public office and served another four-year term!
ENTREE #4
Write down the letter S. Above that write LASS. These letters represent a word that Annie Oakley and other such cowgals who competed in the rodeo were sometimes called, especially during certain events. 
What is it these buckskin-clad lasses were at times called as they vied for a rodeo trophy?
Here’s a hint: An apostrophe comes into play during the solving.
ENTREE #5
The six mini-puzzles below, A through F, correspond to the six graphic representations in the adjoining image below.
Each mini-puzzle contains three clues. Solve for the first two clues, then replace the clues with your answers. Then, taking into account the relative positions of the answers (one above the other in each case), solve for the third clue. The number in parentheses at the end of each clue indicates the number of letters in that clue’s answer.  
A. 
kiss (4)
monogram of  “I’m Sorry” singer (2)
muzzle-loading firearm (11)
B. 
Santa syllable (2)
nature abhoree (6)
dirt sucker (6, 6)
C. 
sort, type (4) 
Bubba’s successor (1)
child prodigy (10) 
D. 
word following drum or dinner (4)
Bonn-born composer (9)
Berry-penned title (4, 4, 9)
E. 
platter that is played (4)
platters that are played (5)
advertising slogan urging younger generations to give “groovy” recordings a listen (8, 5)
F.  
what “Lima” stands for (1)
word in a short Holly title (3)
1980’s “hair band” (8)
ENTREE #6
Write down a compound word for particular time periods. 
Place the first compound part above the second part. Switch the first letters of the two parts. That is, spoonerize them.
Given their positioning, these words represent a two-word phrase that describes events that occurred on March 31, 1973 in San Diego and on June 9, 1978 in Las Vegas. 
What is this two-word phrase? 
Here’s a hint: The two-word phrase has 6 letters in the first word and 6 letters in the second word. 

Dessert Menu

Thirst For Juice-tice Dessert:
Alphabetical “imbibery” 

The second word in the name of a two-word drink sounds like a letter of the alphabet. Replace the word with the letter and move it to the beginning. 
Divide the result into two words. 
Use:
1. the first word twice, 
2. the second word once, 
3. a rhyme of the second word once, and
4. a synonym of “precipitous” once. 
Use those five words to fill in the five blanks in this warning: 
“Don't _____ this drink ___ ____ lest it become ___ ______.” 
What is this drink? 
What is the completed sentence?

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.

Fully-woolly LambEweRama! Crime and Punishmental cruelty; Tek-circ? Sin-net? Not nim-dab! Everybody’s got something (’cept me & my monkey); Edgar Allan Poetry, Lego Lambda Doggerel; Mad Dog duels Capt’n Jack on the Hill

PUZZLERIA! SLICES: OVER 8!/20 SERVED

Schpuzzle Of The Week:
Fully-woolly LambEweRama!

Ram, ewe, lamb and sheep are the male, female, young and general names for sheep. 
Take the male, female, young and general names for another animal. Replace two letters in one of the four names, replace one letter in another one, insert one letter in another, and keep one name just as it is. 
The result will be four words associated with expressing affection. 
What are these four animal names, and what are the four words associated with affection?

Appetizer Menu

Conundrums With Conviction Appetizer:
Crime and Punishmental cruelty

🥁1. Name the garment in the clothing department that is most likely to be shoplifted. [Editor’s note: This is probably the most punishmental of these five conundrums.]
🥁2. Name a crime. Move the first two letters to the end to name a way to detect one’s surroundings.
🥁3. Name a reality TV show in two words. Change the last letter of the first word, then replace the first letter of the last word with a duplicate of the first two letters of the first word. 
The result is something dangerous made by prisoners.
🥁4. Name a way to kill a person. Advance the second letter three places forward in the alphabet to name where the perpetrator will go if caught.
🥁5. Take two words in four and six letters that mean, respectively, deceptions and robbery. Put them one after the other to make a new word that alludes to keeping silent about crimes.

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Public Service Slice:
Mad Dog duels Capt’n Jack on the Hill

Take the surname of a current politician/public servant. Lower an ascender letter and “meld it into” the letter following it to form a single descender letter. 
The result is an informal name for a beverage brand.
Who is this politician and what is the informal brand name?
Hint: In 2019 this politician supported a proposed bill designed to provide an across-the-board benefit increase equivalent to about 2 percent of the average Social Security benefit, and raise the annual cost-of-living adjustment to reflect the fact that older Americans tend to use more of some services like health care.

First (Not Last Alas) Stanza Slice:
Edgar Allan Poetry, Lego Lambda Doggerel
  
Edgar Allan Poe’s last poem, titled “Annabel Lee,” consists of six stanzas, three with six lines, one with seven, and two with eight.
What everybody hopes will be Lego Lambda’s last “poem,” titled “Toll a Bell for Me,” is not yet completed. Only the first stanza exists. It appears below. 
Like Poe’s “Annabel Lee,” Lego’s verse includes at least one six-line stanza. 
Unlike Poe’s “Annabel Lee,” Lego’s verse is doggerel, not poetry!
And, also unlike Poe’s “Annabel Lee,” hidden within Lego Lambda’s doggerelish stanza is a clue to its form.
What is the clue? How and where is it hidden? 
“Toll a Bell for Me” (Unfinished)
In the heat, in the heart of the desert,
That’s the site of the start of my story
And the start of my troubles too, yes sir,
The beginning of endings, lost glory.
My last day broke so rosily, sun-risen light
Which had faded to black by the end of the night.


Riffing Off Shortz And Lipscomb Slices:
Everybody’s got something (’cept me & my monkey)

Will Shortz’s January 19th NPR Weekend Edition Sunday puzzle, created by Tyler Lipscomb of Hamden, Connecticut, reads:
Name something everyone has, starting with H. Add an E, and rearrange the letters. You’ll name two things that every person must do to stay alive.
Puzzleria!s Riffing Off Shortz And Lipscomb Slices read:
ENTREE #1
Name what any one of the the three variously hued images images pictured here are called, in two words. Remove an A, and rearrange the letters. You’ll name a puzzle-maker, first and last names.
What is each image is called?
Who is the puzzlemaker?
ENTREE #2
Name three electrical terms beginning with I, C and O. Delete three consecutive letters from one of the terms. These three letters can be rearranged to form the title of a 20th-century play that added a new noun to the English lexicon. 
Rearrange the the remaining 17 letters to spell the hometown and state of a puzzle maker.
What are these three electrical terms?
What is the play title?
What is the puzzle maker’s hometown?
ENTREE #3
Name a liqueur, in two words. Add an R, and rearrange the letters. You’ll name restraints, in two words, that the authorities may make you wear if, after you drink excessive quantities of this liqueur, they imprison you and deem you to be a flight risk.
What is this liqueur?
What are the restraints?
ENTREE #4
Name something some people believe everyone has, in two words starting with I and S. 
Rearrange the letters combined letters to spell a two-word description, starting with I and L of the degenerate, depraved and wicked ruffians, hooligans, thugs, boors, oafs, hoodlums, and rowdies. Those same aforementioned  “some people who believe” also believe that these “depraved people” will be spending eternity in Brimstone City!
What is it that these “some people” believe everyone has?
How might they describe the depraved eternally damned people?
ENTREE #5
“People in a significant relationship, when they ____ gossip that their significant other has given in to the temptation to _____ on them, often experience _________.”
The third word in this sentence is something painful that people sometimes have. The first 4 letters of the third word, in order, form the first word; The remaining letters of the third word can be rearranged to form the second word. 
What are these three words?
ENTREE #6
Name something most everyone has, starting with “h.” Rearrange its letters to form two verbs. These three words belong in the blanks in the following sentence:
“Every year during what has become a Christmas Eve ritual, Papa dresses up like Santa Claus and _____ the family spruce tree, occasionally reaching low as he _____ an ornament on a lower hard-to-access bough, stretching and sometimes straining his h_________ in the process.”
What are these three words in the blanks?
ENTREE #7
Name what most everyone has, in two words, starting with “A” and “t.” 
Rearrange the combined letters of these words to form two nouns starting with “d” and “l.” 
These four words complete the following sentence when you put them in the correct blanks:
“Olympic d_________ athletes, as they form l____ to compete in the dash and two runs, might be seen bending over to stretch and self-massage their A_______ t______.” 
What are these four words in the blanks?

Dessert Menu

Strops Dessert:
Tek-circ? Sinnet? Not nim-dab! 

Name a sport and spell it backward. 
When read aloud, the result sounds like members of a team who play a different sport  professionally. 

What are these sports and the professional team’s nickname?
Hint: The sport you spelled backward originated in Europe and is still quite popular in Great Britain.


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.

Twains meet over flyover country; Every old crime is new again; Solve for X... and a, b, b & r; Changing X’s and O’s at the line of scrimmage; High-noon Hopalong vs Hare-trigger Bugs Moran

PUZZLERIA! SLICES: OVER 8!/20 SERVED

Schpuzzle Of The Week:
High-noon Hopalong vs Hare-trigger Bugs Moran

Name two gunmen linked together in American history – first, middle and last names. 
Four of those six names are related to rabbits, and the other two form common nouns when spelled backward. 
Who are these gunmen?
Rabbit’s footnote: A word associated with rabbits is the last name of a notable politician/jurist who is associated with the gunmen.

Appetizer Menu

(Note: Our Appetizer this week is an excellent piece of wordplay cooked up by Chuck, a very creative puzzle maker whose puzzles have appeared on Puzzleria! before, including these two links from 2016: May 13 and June 10.
We are calling the vehicle for his creativity "Conundrumbstruck by Chuck."
And, we thank him for sharing with us his puzzle, which is a wonderful melding of geography, sports and classical music. It is titled: Twains meet over flyover country.)

Welcome To Conundrumbstruck! Appetizer:
Twains meet over flyover country


Take an item commonly found at a classical music concert, in two five-letter words. 
Subtract the two-letter abbreviation for a prominent East Coast city. 
Take what’s left and add the two-letter abbreviation for a prominent West Coast city. 
Rearrange the combined letters in this result to spell the first and last names, in four and six letters, of a famous athlete who achieved fame in the Midwest. 
What is the item? 
Who is the athlete?

MENU

Bad-Penny Political Slice:
Every old crime is new again  

Take the combined letters in a movie title from the past that, in light of recent political events, is again being mentioned. 
Rearrange these letters to form the names of two fictional crime fighters – one an inspector, the other a doctor. 
What is this movie title?
Who are the fictional crime fighters?

Riffing Off Shortz And Fogarty Slices:
Solve for X... and a, b, b & r

Each week, on NPR’s Weekend Edition Sunday program, puzzlemaster Will Shortz presents us with a puzzle challenge. The January 12th challenge, created by Neville Fogarty of Newport News, Virginia, reads: 
Think of a familiar three-word phrase that has the following property: The first word is a number. Let X be that number. Then the last X letters of the second word form, in order, a common abbreviation for the third word.
Puzzleria!s Riffing Off Shortz And Fogarty Slices read:
ENTREE #1
Write a two-word caption for Image A, pictured here. 
Rearrange the combined letters of the words in your caption to form the first and last names of a puzzle maker. 
What is the caption?
Who is the puzzle maker?
Hint: The combined letters in the first and last names of the puzzle maker can be rearranged to form a two-word caption for Image B. 
What is the caption for Image B? 
ENTREE #2
Think of a three-word phrase that has the following property: The first word is a number. Let X be that number. 
Then  X  of the last X+1 letters of the second word form, in order, a common abbreviation for the third word.
The phrase describes “Nessun dorma,” “O Sole Mio” and other selections sung by a trio composed of a pair of Spaniards and an Italian.
What is this phrase?
ENTREE #3
Think of an unfamiliar three-word, six-syllable phrase that has the following property: The first word is a number. Let X be that number. Then the last X letters of the third word form, in order, a common abbreviation for the second word (a word that contains two hyphens).
The unfamiliar phrase describes a Spitfire mired in bumper-to-bumper traffic.
What is this phrase?
ENTREE #4
Think of a three-word phrase (with the first two words connected to one another by a hyphen) that has the following property: The first word is a number. 
Let X be that number. Then X of the last X+1 letters of the second word form, in order, a common abbreviation for the third word.
The phrase describes a loudness level on a stereo system that might well blow the roof off your house!
What is this phrase?
Hint: The second word begins with an M.
ENTREE #5
Think of an unfamiliar four-word phrase that has the following property: The first word is a number. 
Let X be that number. Then the middle X letters of the second word form, in order, a common abbreviation for the third word. The fourth word is plural.
The phrase describes two cagers associated with Toronto named Kyle Lowrey and Jose Calderon.
What is this phrase? 
ENTREE #6
Think of a three-word phrase (with the first two words connected to one another by a hyphen) that has the following property: The first word is a number. Let X be that number. Then the first X letters of the second word form, in order, a common abbreviation for the third word.
The phrase describes a physician – one who specializes in treating high-cholesterol patients – who prescribes only Lipitor and Simvastatin.
What is this phrase?
ENTREE #7
Think of a three-word phrase (with the first two words connected to one another by a hyphen) that has the following property: The first word is a number. 
Let X be that number. Then X interior letters of the second word form, in order, a common abbreviation for the final five letters of the third word. The phrase describes a co-ed prison subdivided into separate residential spaces. What is this phrase?
Hint: The second word is a compound word... but not as “compound” as the third word.
ENTREE #8
Think of a three-word phrase whose second and third words are each hyphenated compound words. The phrase has the following property: The first word is a number. Let X be that number. Then X interior letters in the first part of the second word form, in order, a common abbreviation for the first five letters in the second part of third word.
The phrase describes a pair of frat boys at a bar guzzling beer after beer as a part of a debauched hazing prank.
What is this phrase?
Hint: The first part of the second hyphenated word is a body part. The second part of the second hyphenated word rhymes with “mending.” The first part of the third hyphenated word rhymes with “mink.”
ENTREE #9
Take the three-word title of a biographical comedy-drama film tells the story of an Irishman born with cerebral palsy. 
The last two letters of the second word in the film’s title form, in order, a common abbreviation for the third word in the title.
Pluralize the third word in the title to form a possible title of a film that might tell the story of Steve Wozniak, Evander Holyfield or Geraldo Rivera, according to the judges on the “Dancing with the Stars” television show.
What is this possible film title?

Dessert Menu

Gridiron Dessert:
Changing X’s and O’s at the line of scrimmage  

Replace a letter in a football player’s last name with a different double letter. Divide the result in two to name what participants in a second sport must sometimes do, followed by the name of that sport. 
Who is this football player?
Hint: Move the letters of the football player’s first name six places forward in the alphabet to spell an informal name that he might use to refer to his teammates. 

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.