...but not too hot to “footle?” 007: a license to... use the loo! “Eye owe you a vowel puzzle” Urban Bourbon Street-pedalers; Quenching one’s thirst for silver; “A tale of two cities” (and one other place)

PUZZLERIA! SLICES: OVER 6!π SERVED

Schpuzzle of the Week:

“Eye owe you a vowel puzzle” 

In the phrases “private eye” and “you owe me,” the three-letter words “eye,” “you” and “owe” sound like vowels in our twenty-six-letter Latin alphabet – “i”, “u” and “o”. 

Can you name a word with more than three
letters that sounds like a vowel? 

Note: The answer is not a Greek-vowel word like, for example, “alpha,” “iota” or “omega.”

Appetizer Menu

Skitchin Sinks In Bing’s Abode Appetizer:

A tale of two cities (and one other place)

Abrupt island chain exchange 

1.⛓ Name a large city (population about a
half-million or more) in Central Europe, in seven letters.  Drop the middle letter, and the remaining letters in order will spell an “island chain” and a word for an abrupt change of direction.  

What are the city, the “island chain” and the abrupt direction change?

Hint: The “abrupt change in direction” is often followed by a word for what a “Bulldog” is often also called at Bing Crosby’s alma mater.  

“Skitchy”

2. ♂♀ Name a nine-letter large city (population about a third-of-a-million) in the Western United States. The letters, in order, name: 

* a female, 

* an article spoken in the European city named above in Baffler #1, and 

* a male.  

What are the city, the female, the article, and the male?

Hint: An actress who has this city as a surname has the name a well-known European city as her first name. 

Weights and measurables 

3.🏋 Name two words you see together on a map of North America.  

Rearrange their eleven letters to name a large weight and something else that can be measured, but not on a scale.  

What are the words on the map, the weight, and the measurable?

Hint: One of the words on the map is what the “O” stands for in a synonym of “ABODES.”

MENU

West-Metro Slice:

Urban Bourbon Street-pedalers

Take a city west of the Mississippi River. 

Capitalize all but one letter to spell what looks
like a word for something that usually has pedals. 

What city is this?

What usually has pedals?

Hint: The city rhymes with a nearly century-old product that once received an ambivalent endorsement from Sergeant Frank Drebin.

Riffing Off Shortz And Graham Slices:

007: a license to... use the loo!

Will Shortz’s August 1st NPR Weekend Edition Sunday puzzle, created by Chad Graham of Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, reads:

Think of a common Britishism — a word that the British use that’s not common in the U.S. Write it in all capital letters. Turn it upside-down (that is, rotate it 180 degrees). The result is a famous hero of books and movies. Who is it?

Puzzleria!s Riffing Off Shortz And Graham Slices read:

ENTREE #1

The answer to “What did you eat for Easter dinner?” is often “We ___ ___.”

The answer to “What did you say before Easter dinner?” is often “_____.”

The missing three-letter words in the first answer are the final three letters in the first name and the final three letters in the last name of a puzzle-maker.

The missing five-letter word in the second answer is formed from the first three letters in the last name and the first letter in the first name of this same puzzle-maker, followed by an “e”.

What is the answer to “What did you eat for Easter dinner?” 

“What did you say before Easter dinner?”

Who is the puzzle-maker?

ENTREE #2

Think of a seven-letter adjective that describes a certain influential and wealthy British woman. Write it in all capital letters. Remove the last letter. Write the remaining six letters in reverse order.   

The result is the last name of this influential British woman followed by her age, two years from now, in Roman numerals. 

Note: Actually, this 2-letter representation of her age is an invalid Roman numeral, but it does seem to make more sense than the actual valid 4-letter Roman number for the age she shall attain in 2023.

What is the seven-letter adjective?

Who is the British woman and what will be her age two years from now?

Hint: The woman’s 8-letter name anagrams to a champagne brand she may prefer and a Midtown Manhattan Fifth Avenue luxury department store chain where she might shop when visiting stateside.

ENTREE #3

Think of a two-word phrase that is equal to fourteen. Write it in all capital letters. 

Change the first letter to a duplicate of the third letter. Change five consecutive interior letters to an equivalent single numerical character (or symbol). 

Turn the result upside-down (that is, rotate it 180 degrees). The result is a short, informal hyphenated word for video-photography in which the action that has been captured is made to appear to occur in a more tortoiselike manner (perhaps 14 times more tortoiselike!) than when it was recorded live.

What is the two-word phrase that is equal to fourteen?

What is the short, informal hyphenated word?

ENTREE #4

Think of a French expression in two words totaling four letters, that means “a lot to me” — well, perhaps not “a lot.” 

Invert the first letter, remove the space and write only the fourth letter as a capital. 

Turn the result upside-down (that is, rotate it 180
degrees). 

The final result is a U.S. state. 

What state is it?

What is the French expression? 

ENTREE #5

Name, in five letters, what a mussel sometimes does in a sweet-spicy-tart tomato-olive-caper sauce. 

Write it in all capital letters. Turn it upside-down (that is, rotate it 180 degrees). 

The result is what a muskie sometimes does in a lake. 

What does a mussel do in sweet-spicy-tart sauce?

What does a muskie do in a lake? 

ENTREE #6

Think of an interjection that is also “half-a-laugh,” followed by a plural word for forms of wordplay that seldom produce laughs but often induce deep groans indicative of annoyance.

Write this interjection and plural word in lowercase letters, then turn the result upside-down (that is, rotate it 180 degrees). The final result – if you capitalize the first letter and invert the fifth letter – is the surname of a preacher who played professional ball for the White Stockings, Alleghenys and Phillies.

What are the interjection and plural word?

Who is the preacher/ballplayer?

ENTREE #7

Think of a noun associated with weaving that is a homonym (that is, it is spelled and sounds the same) of a verb that means “to emerge, often in a menacing manner.” 

Write it in all lowercase letters. Turn it upside-
down (that is, rotate it 180 degrees). The result is something that might be woven and made into a garment. 

What are the noun associated with weaving and what might be woven?

ENTREE #8

Think of something that is often white and fuzzy – something that is often removed. Write it in all lowercase letters. Turn it upside-down (that is, rotate it 180 degrees). 

The result is an implement that removes something that is usually white and fluffy.

What is often white and fuzzy?

What is white and fluffy, and what implement removes it? 

Hint: The white and fuzzy thing often resembles the “something that might be woven into a garment” in Entree #7, just above.

ENTREE # 9

Name a verb for something eagles, vultures, condors and other raptors sometimes do in their pursuit of prey. 

Write it in all lowercase letters and turn it upside-down (that is, rotate it 180 degrees). 

The result of this lowercasing and rotation is
another verb for what a raptor’s action does to the prey. 

What do raptors sometimes do during their pursuit of prey?

What does a raptor’s action do to the prey?

Dessert Menu 

Desert Heat Dessert:

...but not too hot to “footle?”

Name a nation with an average yearly temperature in the 70s.

Rearrange the letters of this nation to name two things that are often too hot to handle. 

What is this nation?

What are the two too-hot-to-handle things?

A Medalist With Mettle Dessert:

Quenching one’s thirst for silver

“Alcoholic spirits like tequila, rum, gin and vodka are great thirst-quenchers, but can whiskey that is distilled from fermented ___ _____ one’s thirst as well?”

Name an Olympic medal-winning athlete whose hometown sounds like the the two words (in 3 and 5 letters) that belong in the blanks in the sentence above.

Rearrange the combined letters in this Olympian’s first and last names to spell two words that will likely apply to him after he abandons his amateur status and turns professional:

1. the last name of a famous family he will be rich as, and

2. the profession of someone he may need to hire to handle his finances.

Who is this Olympian, and what is his hometown?

What is the surname of the famous family?

What is the profession of someone he may hire?

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.