The ubiquity of “AIATM” Geography, anatomy & “scirtem” Blending fruits into drinks; Phinancier and phoodie fraseology; “Spice try on beet!”

 PUZZLERIA! SLICES: OVER 3(7!) SERVED

Schpuzzle of the Week:

The ubiquity of “AIATM”

The letters AI and ATM stand for Artificial Intelligence and Automatic Teller Machine. 

Those five letters, in that order, are also the

initial letters in a ubiquitous phrase you sometimes hear this time of year. 

What is this phrase?

Appetizer Menu

Worldplay Appetizer:

Geography, anatomy & “scirtem”

Orthographia

1. The names Juneau, Phoenix, Sacramento, Atlanta, Boise, Topeka, Saint Paul, and Richmond each share a characteristic with their respective states that the other state capitals do not. What is it? 

Bonus question: Of these eight “special state capitals,” what sets Sacramento apart from the seven others?

Hint: Little Rock, Sacramento, Helena, Columbus, Providence, Austin, Madison, and (often) Montgomery share a different property
with their respective states. 

Again, Sacramento stands out, but for a complementary reason.

Recombinant state name

2.  Divide the name of a U.S. state into two halves. Discard the second half. 

Copy the first half and invert it. 

Combine this result and the original first half to get the state name back again. What is the U.S. state?

Anatomical surgery

3. Think of a body part. Move the first two

letters to the end to form a term for an interior organ. 

What are the two body parts?

Drawkcab

4. Think of a term for areal measurement units. Spell it backward to obtain a term that sounds like an approximation. 

What are the measurement units and term for an approximation?

MENU

Power Couple Slice:

“Spice try on beet!”

Former Spice Girl Victoria and her soccer-star hubby David visit a shoe store. 

While there, paparazzi snap them sampling footwear. Within an hour an image appears on online tabloids with the caption “Spice try on beet!” 

Translate the caption into something more understandable by changing two words. 

Explain your translation.

Riffing Off Shortz And Lipscomb Slices:

Blending fruits into drinks

Will Shortz’s October 11th NPR Weekend Edition Sunday puzzle, created by Tyler Lipscomb of Augusta, Georgia, reads:

Name certain fruits — in the plural. Change the second letter to an L and read the result backward. You’ll name two things to drink. What are they?

Puzzleria!s Riffing Off Shortz And Lipscomb Slices read:

ENTREE #1

Take the first name of a woman, a U.S. capital city, a city named after a U.S. president, and a nearly perfectly square county that borders Texas on two sides and Oklahoma on its other two sides.

Put these four names in the correct order to name the hometown of a puzzle-maker (both the city and the state) and the first and last names of the puzzle-maker.

What are the hometown and name of this puzzle-maker? 

ENTREE #2

Name one thing to drink — in the singular. Change an “i” to an “a”. Read the result backward. 

You’ll name, in three words of 2, 1 and 4

letters, where one might conceivably drink this drink. 

What drink is this?

Where might one drink it? 

ENTREE #3

Name one thing to drink — in the singular. Switch the third and fifth letters and spell the result backward. 

The first four letters of this backward result spell a popular cheese. The four remaining letters can be rearranged to spell either:

1. a name associated with chins, or

2. a word that precedes “wolf,” or

3. a name that precedes “Coward,” or

4. a name that precedes a surname that begins with what a horse does, followed by the 2-letter postal abbreviation of a state where horses famously gallop.

What is this drink?

What is the popular cheese?

What are the four words the remaining letters spell?

ENTREE #4

Name an eight-letter word for “a wee dram at the end of the day.” Spell it backward. 

The last three letters of this result spell what that “dram” might consist of. 

The first five letters can be rearranged to spell what the “dram-drinker,” after downing the dram, might wear (in addition to cloth headwear) to keep his face from flushing or glowing red.

What is this “wee dram at the end of the day?”

What might it consist of?

What might the “dram-drinker” wear? 

ENTREE #5

Name a variant spelling of a word for “something (such as a drink at a bar) given without charge.” (The variant spelling substitutes an “e” for an “i”.) 

Remove four consecutive letters from the

interior of this word. The remaining letters spell a word meaning “a fixed charge.”

Spell the four removed letters backward to spell a drink you might enjoy at a bar, whether or not you are charged for it.

What are this varient spelling, word meaning “a fixed charge,” and drink enjoyed at a bar?

ENTREE #6

Name a noun that describes Leonardo DaVinci, in eight letters. The last five letters of the noun, if you insert a hyphen, is a modern-day adjective that reflects the eminence (at least in the Christian community) of the subjects of one of DaVinci’s well-known pieces of art.

The first three letters of the 8-letter noun, if you spell them backward, form a non-vinaceous beverage that the subjects of the artwork might have been quaffing had they been pirates rather than apostles.  

What 8-letter noun describes Leonardo DaVinci?

What is the modern-day adjective?

What might the twelve “apostolic pirates” have been quaffing?

Dessert Menu

Professional Dessert:

Phinancier and phoodie fraseology

Name a two-word duty associated with a five-letter food professional. 

Insert a third word between the two words of this duty. The result is a phrase associated with a wealthy financial professional. 

Now insert one letter within the five-letter word for the food professional to spell the six-letter word for the financial professional.

What are this duty and phrase?

Who are these food and financial professionals?

 

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.