Friday, January 29, 2021

Finding the missing puzzle “peace” N NVS QT-pi with no QP doll; Candy is dandy but money is minty; Swapping apps, and other games children play; Who’s in the news?...sounds lots like booze!

PUZZLERIA! SLICES: OVER 3(7!) SERVED



Schpuzzle of the Week:

Candy is dandy but money is minty


Spoonerize two words associated with “money” to form a number. 

Spoonerize two synonyms of “dandy” or “swell” to form a different number. 

What are these two numbers?

Note: In this Schpuzzle “spoonerize” means “change the initial consonant sounds of.”


Appetizer Menu


Unbeatable Conundrums Appetizer:

Swapping apps, and other games children play


📱1. Name three smartphone apps of the same category, such that the first letters of any two can be swapped to form standard English words.

💆2. Think of a nine-letter word that means “easygoing.” 

Exchange two adjacent letters to name something that an easygoing person would rarely make.

🌍3. Name a global landmark in eleven letters, two words, where every other letter is A.

🎉4. Think of a game you might find at a children's party, in ten letters. 

Change the first two letters and remove a K. 

The nine-letter result will be a food item you might find at that party. 


MENU


Symbol Of Serenity Slice:

Finding the missing puzzle peace


Name a one-word, two-syllable, non-plural peace symbol. Move its first letter to the end. 

Remove a string of three consecutive letters and a string of four consecutive letters from
this result.

Rearrange the letters in each string to spell two words that are antonyms, yet are often spoken together in a common idiom. 

What is this peace symbol?

Hint: The three-letter word is related to the peace symbol.


Riffing Off Shortz Slices:

N NVS QT-pi with no QP doll


Will Shortz’s January 24th NPR Weekend Edition Sunday puzzle reads:

This week’s challenge is a spinoff of my (Will Shortz’s) on-air puzzle, and it’s a little tricky: 

Think of a hyphenated word you might use to describe a young child that sounds like three letters spoken one after the other.

Puzzleria!s Riffing Off Shortz Slices read:

ENTREE #1

Think of a puzzle-maker, first and last names. Remove the final two letters from this full name.

Spoken aloud, the result sounds a lot like the name of a historic Beverly Hills hotel that Elvis Presley and John Lennon once called home.

Who is this puzzle-maker and what is the hotel?

ENTREE #2

Think of the first name of a fictional young child that sounds like two letters spoken one after the other. The first name of the child’s fictional father sounds pretty much like two letters spoken one after the other.

Who are these fictional characters?

Hint: the four letters can be arranged to spell a body of water.

ENTREE #3


Take the first five letters of an eleven-letter name in the 2019 political news. 
Spoken aloud, these five letters sound like two letters spoken one after the other. 

The remaining six letters spell a word that
rhymes with a portmanteau word for a hybrid utensil.

What is the name in the 2019 political news?  

ENTREE #4

Bat Masterson, Pat Garrett, Doc Holliday and Wild Bill Hickok ante up in a friendly game of stud poker at the Long Branch Saloon in Dodge City. 

Doc deals the cards.

Wild Bill beholds three kings, a magical hand.

Bat fingers three bullets, matching the three in his Colt Paterson revolver (just in case the game gets out of hand).

Pat holds two pair, queens and jacks.

Doc fans his hand out, revealing but a pair of deuces.

Bill begins the bidding by shoving twenty silver dollars center-table.

Bat and Pat follow suit, putting the pot at sixty-plus.

Doc folds like the cheap deck of cards he brought to the game.

Bill shoves thirty additional silver dollars into the kitty.

Bat does likewise, exclaiming, “_’__  ___  ___!” (three words of 3 letters each, the first one apostrophized).

Pat folds, mumbling, “Too rich for my blood.”

Bill shoves forty additional silver dollars into the kitty.

Bat shoves in twice that amount, exclaiming,  “______, _’__  ______  ___!” (four words of 6, 3, 6 and 3 letters, the second one apostrophized).

Bill folds like an origami bat. Bat (the one not constucted of folded paper) gloats and guffaws as he rakes in his pot of silver.

Bat’s first exclamation, above, sounds like three letters spoken one after the other.

Bat’s second exclamation sounds like four letters spoken one after the other.

What are these two exclamations, and the corresponding letters?

ENTREE #5

The founder of C-SPAN comes out of retirement to conduct a pre-taped-for-later-broadcast confrontational “interview” (actually, more like an argument) with a tiresome and dull albeit incendiary (literally!) red-cap-clad advovcate of Donald Trump who is also an unabashed fan of  a former sheriff of Maricopa County in Arizona. 


(This “literally incendiary” interviewee had been convicted of fire-bombing a homeless
shelter in a Hispanic neighborhood.)

Prior to the broadcast, C-SPAN airs an eight-word promotional “teaser” that consists of: 

a 3-letter verb, 4-letter surname, 6-letter verb, 1-letter article, 7-letter adjective, 6-letter surname, 4-letter acronym, and 4-letter informal noun. 

These eight words begin with an S, L, d, a, t, A, M and p.

The eight-word promotional teaser also sounds like eleven letters spoken one after the other.

What is this teaser?

What are the eleven letters?

ENTREE #6

Frank Scherma, president and CEO of the Academy of Television Arts & Sciences has been persuaded to make amends for the academy’s historical snubbing of exceptional minority actors who deserve recognition, albeit belated, for their contributions to the televised medium. 

One of these underappreciated worthies is an actor who appeared in 52 episodes of the original “Star Trek” TV series, along with noteworthy appearances on episodes of other science-fiction TV series such as  “Star Wars: The Clone Wars,” “Avatar: The Last Airbender,” “Space Cases,” “The Six Million Dollar Man,” “Voyage to the Bottom of the Sea,” “The Twilight Zone” and 22 others. 

And so, Scherma dashes off a six-word memo to the Awards Committee of the Academy of Television Arts & Sciences, reading:

“_  ___  _____  ______  ___-___  _____.”

The memo consists on a pronoun (1 letter), verb (3 letters), proper-noun surname (5), adjective (6), hyphenated adjective (5) and plural proper noun (5). This The six-word memo sounds like nine letters spoken one after the other.

What are these nine letters, and the six words of the memo?

ENTREE #7 

Take a letter. After it place a space and the surname of a hefty actor named Dan. 

The result is a medication that may lower blood pressure.

Take the letter that precedes that letter in the alphabet. 

Add it to the end of the first name of a person surnamed Landon. 

The result sounds like an edible leguminous plant that may lower blood pressure.

What are this medication and plant that may help lower blood pressure?

ENTREE #8

A. Name a synonym of “novice” that sounds like two letters spoken one after the other.


B. Name a synonym of “disobey” that sounds like two letters spoken one after the other.

C. Name something a trainer may throw into
the ring that sounds like two letters spoken one after the other.

D. Name a word that precedes “Bible Institute” or “Blues” that sounds like two letters spoken one after the other.

E.  Name a word that precedes “Jazz” that sounds like two letters spoken one after the other.


Dessert Menu

An Alcohomophonic Appellation Dessert:

Who’s in the news?...sounds lots like booze!

Name  a person in the news whose last name is a homophone of an alcoholic beverage
and 
whose first name is a near-homophone of an alcoholic beverage. 

Who is this person in the news?

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, January 22, 2021

Countries and Postal Codes; Water “oover” the Whooville Dam; Signs of the “Kazoodiac?” Double your money by double-branding; Thumb through to “miss” in the thesaurus

PUZZLERIA! SLICES: OVER 3(7!) SERVED


Schpuzzle of the Week:

Double your money by double-branding


Write down a long-standing one-word brand name twice. 

Change a letter in the first instance of the name and delete a letter from the second instance of the name. 

The result is a two-word term that means “easy money.” 

What is this brand?


Appetizer Menu


Global Coding Appetizer:

Countries and Postal Codes

 

If you remove the first letter of Finland, then you will get a sequence of state postal codes (IN=Indiana, LA=Louisiana, ND=North Dakota).

1. What other countries have the property that if you remove the first letter, then you will get a sequence of state postal codes?

2. What countries have the property that if you remove the last letter, then you will get a sequence of state postal codes?

3. What country is a sequence of state postal codes?

(Global nations, no matter how landlocklocked or coastal

May have ties to a Code in the U.S. that’s Postal. 

LegoLambda) 









MENU


Synonymity Slice:

Thumb through to “miss” in the thesaurus


Remove the first two and last two letters from a synonym of “miss.” Place them next to each other to spell an antonym of  “miss.” 

Change one letter of what remains to an a and remove the middle two letters of the result, leaving a second synonym of “miss.” 

What are these two synonyms and one antonym?


Riffing Off Shortz And Reynolds Slices:

Water “oover” the Whooville Dam


Will Shortz’s January 17th NPR Weekend Edition Sunday puzzle, created by Gerry Reynolds of Chicago, Illinois, reads:

Name a national landmark in six and three letters. Add the name of a chemical element. Rearrange all the letters to name two states.
What are they?

Puzzleria!s Riffing Off Shortz And Reynolds Slices read:

ENTREE #1

Name a puzzle-maker, first and last names. Add the name of a seven-letter chemical element. 

Rearrange these twenty letters to name a disorder that exists in laboratories where scientists sometimes too enthusiastically put certain rodents through their experimental
paces on treadmills and in mazes, thereby irritating the rodents. 

The disorder consists of three words of six, six and eight letters beginning with an O, G and S. 

Who is the puzzle-maker?

What is the chemical element?

What is the disorder?

ENTREE #2

Name a national landmark in six and three letters. 

Add the name of an eight-letter chemical element. 


Rearrange all the letters to name two states and the five-letter name of baseball leagues that were formed a century ago – leagues where players like Hank, Jackie, Josh and Sachel plied their trade.

What landmark and element are these?

What are the two states and the baseball leagues that were formed a century ago?

ENTREE #3

Name a national landmark in six and four letters. Add the name of a chemical element. 

Rearrange all the letters to name the title character (in 3 and 5 letters) in a tragedy written by a satirical English dramatist/novelist and the eight-letter surname of an American novelist. 

What landmark and element are these?

Who are the title character and the American novelist?

Hint: The first five letters in the English dramatist’s surname are the same as the last five letters in the surname of the American novelist’s most well known character. 

ENTREE #4

Name a national landmark in seven and four letters. Add the name of a chemical element with an atomic number that is a perfect number. 


Rearrange all the letters to name:

A. a six-letter world capital city,

B. a five-letter mineral that is an ore source of a
chemical element with an atomic number that is also a square number, and

C. a six-letter chemical element with an atomic number that is also a cube number. 

What landmark and element are these?

ENTREE #5

Name a national landmark in seven and four letters. 

Add the name of a chemical element that is a word in a Box Tops’ 45. 

Rearrange these 15 total letters to name a vessel and the first names of two young fictional friends surnamed Campbell and Algar. 

The first name of one of the friends is also the
first name of a country singer whose surname is a word for waterways the vessel might navigate.

What landmark and element are these?

What is the vessel and what are the names of the fictional friends?

ENTREE #6

Name a three-word national landmark in 15 letters. 

Add the name of a six-letter chemical element of which the landmark is constructed. 

Rearrange these 21 letters to spell a slogan you might see on a protest sign in Canada in
four words of 7, 3, 4, and 7 letters beginning with P, F, S and B.

What landmark and element are these?

What is the slogan?


Dessert Menu


Instrument Of Astrology Dessert:

Signs of the “Kazoodiac?”


Take the final five letters of a plural musical instrument. 

Move the fifth of these five letters to the beginning to spell the name of a fictional character that is a zodiac-sign creature.

Spell the remaining letters of the plural
instrument backward to spell a second zodiac-sign creature.

What are these two creatures?

What is the plural musical instrument?


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, January 15, 2021

An aquatic “creature of habitat” Fruity, Meaty, Yeatsy, Ducky! Subtract 3 letters, add 10 years; Flappers, flivvers, foxtrots, firewater, Fitzgerald; “I see by your outfit that you are a nemesis”

 PUZZLERIA! SLICES: OVER 3(7!) SERVED



Schpuzzle of the Week:

An aquatic “creature of habitat”


Name a three-word phrase that has lately been in the news. 

Delete its first eight letters and spell the remaining letters backward to form two words:

1. a habitat of an aquatic creature, and 

2. the creature itself. 

What is this phrase?

What is the habitat of an aquatic creature? 

What is the creature?


Appetizer Menu


Puzzley Garden West Of Nod Appetizer:

Fruity, Meaty, Yeatsy, Ducky!

Poetry Class Assignment

1. 📘📚Think of a three-word, 18-letter social gathering you should avoid during this viral time. 

Drop one repeated letter. Scramble the result to get a four-word poetry class assignment requiring the parsing of one poem each by
Edgar Allan Poe, George Moore, William Butler Yeats, Charles Baudelaire, T.S. Eliot, Stéphane Mallarmé, Paul Verlaine, Paul Valéry, Juan Ramón Jiménez, and Jorge Guillén. 

This assignment might be especially beneficial and even therapeutic to a person who is addicted to ribald limericks written by the likes of Algernon Charles Swinburne, Isaac Asimov and scores of anonymous authors... like the one first published in 1927 that begins "There was a young man from Nantucket..."

What is the three-word, eighteen-letter social gathering you should avoid during this viral time?

What is the four-word poetry class assignment?

Hint: All 18 letters of the social gathering can be scrambled to spell three words associated with religion:

A. The final assumption of Christians into heaven during the end-time,

B. A land west of Nod in the Book of Genesis, and

C. A service of evening worship.

Noël, Noël, Novël! 

2. 🎄📕Think of a famous fictional Christmas character in six letters. Move the fourth letter five places later in alphabet. 

Replace the fifth and sixth letters with some meat that is traditionally served at a Christmas meal, especially in Australia. 

The result will be the surname of a famous novelist.

Who are the Chrismas character and famous author?


A Fruity Phrasey Ducky Puzzle

3. 🍌🦆Think of a nine-letter fruit. Move the first letter 16 places earlier in the alphabet. Add to the end a part of a duck’s anatomy.

The result is a phrase that includes three words (the third one is hyphenated). This phrase signals a warning about a specific place – in an area of a hotel, hospital or other large building, for example.

What is the fruit?

What is the warning phrase?

Hint: If you remove the hyphen from the third word you will form the surname of a real guy first-named Patrick who made shots and a fictional guy first-and-middle-named John Ross who got shot.


MENU


Spidey Sensory Slice:

“I see by your outfit that you are a nemesis”


At the Marvel Comics convention an attendee dressed as a nemesis of Spiderman won the competition for best outfit. 

The name of Spiderman's nemesis and the word describing the competition are anagrams of each other that begin with the same letter. 

What are they?

Hint: The name of the Spiderman nemesis is also the name of a resident of a mythical island Homer wrote about, and of an oceanographic vessel a songwriter wrote about.


Riffing Off Shortz And Shteyman Slices:

Subtract 3 letters, add 10 years

Will Shortz’s January 10th NPR Weekend Edition Sunday puzzle, created by Michael Shteyman, of Freeland, Maryland, reads:

Name a person in 2011 world news in eight letters. Remove the third, fourth and fifth letters. The remaining letters, in order, will name a person in 2021 world news. What names are these?

Puzzleria!s Riffing Off Shortz And Shteyman Slices read:

ENTREE #1

Take the surname a puzzle-maker in eight letters. 

The first, third and fifth letters spell a synonym of “pigpen.” Remove them. 

Add a hyphen to the remaining letters, to spell a word for a well-built, muscular guy. 

Who is the puzzle-maker?

What are the synonym of “pigpen” and word for a well-built, muscular guy?

ENTREE #2

Take the three-word name of a person in 1841 U.S. news, in twenty letters. 

Remove all but the first three and final three letters. 

The remaining six letters, in order, will spell the surname of a person in 1913 U.S. news. 

What names are these?

ENTREE #3

Take the surname of an American novelist in eight letters. 

Remove the second and third letters. 

The remaining letters, in order, will spell the surname of a Poland-born-and-reared novelist. 

What novelists are these?

ENTREE #4

Take the surname of a U.S. president. 

Remove the first, second, third and fifth letters. 

The remaining letters, in order, will spell an adjective that does not at all describe his successor. 

What presidents are these?

What is the adjective that does not describe the successor?

ENTREE #5

Take the six-letter surname of a poet and novelist whose most famous title alludes to a wall-sitter who “fell apart” after a fall. 

Remove the second and third letters. 

The remaining letters, in order, will name creature who might perch on a wall but would not fall. It would fly safely away.

These letters also spell the surname of an acclaimed British architect.

What poet/novelist is this? What is the creature? Who is the architect.

Hint: The creature rhymes with the poet/novelist’s middle name. 

ENTREE #6

Name a major world city. 

Its third and forth letters spell a U.S. state postal code. 

The remaining letters, in order, will name the official state bird of a state that is adjacent to the state designated by that postal code. 

What world city is this?

What is the official state bird of the state adjacent to the “postal-code state?

ENTREE #7

Take the surname of an English poet. 

Remove the third letter. 

The remaining letters, in order, will spell the surname of an American poet. 

What poets are these?

ENTREE #8

Name an English statesman, first and last names. 

The first and last letters of his first name plus all but the first four letters of his surname spell the surname of the pen name of an English novelist who lived three centuries after the statesman. 

Who are these two Britons?

ENTREE #9

Take the surname of a U.S. founding father.  

Subtract 501 (in ancient Rome) from its interior to spell the name of a member of a fraternal organization of which several founding fathers – like George Washington,

Benjamin Franklin and James Monroe – were members... although this particular founding father claimed he was not a member of this fraternal organization. 

Who is this founding father? 

What is a member of the fraternal organization called?

ENTREE #10

Take the first and last names of a U.S. president. 

Remove nine consecutive letters, leaving a body part your parakeet has.

Take the first and last names of this president’s successor. 

Remove ten consecutive letters, leaving a place you might keep your parakeet.

What presidents are these?

What is your parakeet’s body part and the place you might keep your parakeet?


Dessert Menu


Jazz Age Dessert:

Flappers, flivvers, foxtrots, firewater, Fitzgerald

Spoonerize a two-word name seen on movie posters during the Roaring 20s to form what sounds like a possible headline seen in newspapers 50 years earlier.

(“Spoonerize,” in this case, means to switch the initial the initial consonant sounds in the two words of the name.)

What is this name?

What is this headline?


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.