Hallowe’en mixed “boo-quet” bag; “Smart, punchy hipster jive!” “Don’t forget the a la mode!” “...Even educated fleas do it...” “Bona ‘fidiom’ ”

PUZZLERIA! SLICES: OVER 6!π SERVED

Schpuzzle of the Week:

“Bona ‘fidiom’ ”

Anagram a four-word idiom to form a three-word description of a book that suggests that the idiom is true. 

What are the idiom and description?

Hint: One word in the idiom appears, intact and  unchanged, in the description.

Appetizer Menu

Frightfully Delightful Puzzley Appetizer:

Mixed  Halloween “boo-quet” bag 

A “wacky” word for “wacky tobacky?”

1. 🚒Indigenous people, especially in the Ohio valley, once smoked a tobacco substitute consisting of dried leaves from a plant – a plant that has an interesting name. 

The plant contains 12 letters, but only four different letters: 

* 4 of the same vowel, 

* 4 of the same consonant, 

* 3 of the same consonant, and

* 1 other consonant.

If you speak the word aloud, its sounds as if you are repeating yourself, or are perhaps speaking from an echo chamber. Compared to this “common” name for the plant, its scientific name is not nearly as interesting...

The scientific name is, however, an anagram of three artistic/creative professions:

* AUTHOR

* SCULPTOR, and

* VAISYAS (people from a Hindi caste characterized by cleverness, creativity, and selfish motivations – a merchant, for example)

What is this plant?

What is its scientific name?

Hint #1: The last 58.3% of the plant is the name of a Midwest stadium.

Hint #2: Removing the peniltimate letter of this mystery plant turns it into a palindrome.

“Take me to the river”

2. 🌎Name a major North American river that ends with a U.S. state postal code. Replace its last letter with another U.S. state’s postal code to get a pretty flower. The river forms much of the border between two U.S. states. 

What is this river?

What is the pretty flower?

What are the four words and the tributary? (See “Extra Credit,” below.)

Extra Credit:

Anagram the combined letters of the river and its main tributary to form four words:

* one of two things every river has,

* what those two things consist of,

* a Greek letter heard on a dairy farm, and

* a “bullet” in the hand.

Texting is bad for your health...and your plant’s health!

3. ♯♭Take a two-letter abbreviation often used in texting and place it at the beginning of a famous singer’s stage name to get an unhealthy plant. 

Who is the singer?

What is this abbreviation?

“Currency in the stream”

4.🏅Name an athlete who was in the 2011 headlines, first and last names. 

Remove a four-letter unit of currency from the middle of this full name. The result contains two instances of one letter. 

Move both of these letters six places later in the alphabet (so, A becomes G, B becomes H, etc.). 

The result is the name of a streaming service.

Who is this athlete?

What is the streaming service?

Hint #1: The athlete also made some news this past summer by advocating for U.S. women’s soccer team salaries. 

Hint #2: The athlete shares a surname with a TV character who had a sidekick named Illya, and also shares the surname with a movie character whose sidekick’s name sounds like he is masticating the mystery plant in the “wacky tobacky” Appetizer Puzzle #1 above:  

MENU

Jive Talkin’ Slice:

“Smart, punchy hipster jive!”

Hipsters speak in “smart, punchy jive.” 

That three-word phrase in quotation marks contains 15 different letters – all you will need
to spell all eight members of a particular group. 

What group is this?

Note: Most of the 15 letters are used more than once in spelling the eight members of the group.

Riffing Off Shortz And Reiss Slices:

“Don’t forget the a la mode!”

Will Shortz’s October 24th NPR Weekend Edition Sunday puzzle, created by Mike Reiss, reads:

Think of a two-word phrase you might see on a laptop computer menu. Remove five letters. What remains, in order, is a three-word phrase you might see on a restaurant menu. What phrases are these?

Puzzleria!s Riffing Off Shortz And Reiss Slices read:

ENTREE #1

Take a synonym of “blunder” or “sin of omission.” Remove three letters. What remains, in order, is the first name of a puzzle-maker.

Take an adjective describing someone who commits a “sin of omission” while “asleep at the switch.” Remove one letter. What remains, in order, is the last name of that same puzzle-maker.

Who is this puzzle-maker? 

What are this synonym and adjective?

Hint: Take a seven-letter synonym of a word that appears more than once in this puzzle. Remove three letters that can be arranged to spell a negative conjunction which, when spelled backward, is man’s first name. What remains, in order, is the first name of the puzzle-maker that is the answer to this puzzle.

ENTREE #2

Take a  Windows Explorer feature, in two words, that gives you a “sneak peek” of a preview that gives information about a file (images, text, videos or documents) without actually opening it.

Remove five letters. What remains, in order, is a two-word object a baker uses. 

What is this Windows Explorer feature?

What does a baker use?

ENTREE #3

Think of a two-word phrase you might see on a laptop computer menu while you and your spouse visit a married couple you know for an enjoyable evening of playing a game of charades.

Remove from the phrase the letters of the brand of soft drink your hosts serve with the hors d’oeuvres. Remove also, embedded in the phrase, a word for an amorous glance your host accuses you of making – a glance that
was not directed at your spouse!

What remains of the phrase, in order, is a two-word exclamation your host subsequently sputters! 

What phrase is seen on the laptop?

What are the cola brand, amorous glance, and sputtered exclamation?

ENTREE #4

Think of a two-word phrase you might see on a laptop computer menu. Remove the last letter from each word. 

What remains is the title of a documentary film about guys named Donald, Roger, Neville and Wallace. 

What phrase is this?

What is the film title?

ENTREE #5

Think of a two-word phrase you might see on a laptop computer menu. Remove the last letter. What remains, in order, after you move the space and add a second space someplace, are:

1. something potentially messy a kindergartner might use to make a collage,

2. a kind of club at a college,

3. the kind of class the collage-crafting kindergartner is in.

Take that same two-word phrase you might see on a laptop computer menu. Remove the last two letters. What remains, in order, after you add a second space someplace, are:

1. a two-and-a-half-millennia-old board game,

2. an amorous glance,

3. a word that follows “bug’s” or precedes “plugs.”

What phrase is this?

What are the six words?

ENTREE #6

Think of a two-word phrase you might see on a laptop computer menu. 

Remove the first three letters, the last three letters, and the last letter of the first word. 

What remains, in order, is a two-word slang term for a sheriff in the United States. 

What phrase is this?

What is the slang term?

ENTREE #7

Think of video editing software you might have on your laptop, in three words. Remove the second word and two letters from the first word – the seventh and eighth most frequently used letters in the English language. 

What remains, in order, is a hyphenated synonym of a loose branch hanging or falling from a tree, or a blockage in a branch of the left coronary artery.

What video editing software is this?

What is the synonym?

ENTREE #8

Think of a two-word phrase you might see on a laptop computer menu. Remove nine consecutive letters. What remains, in order, are seven letters that spell what a policeman in a squad car sometimes does to protect property. The first six of the nine removed letters spell a kind of property. The last three of the nine removed letters spell a kind of person that may be up to no good on the property. 

What phrase is this?

What does a policeman in a squad car sometimes do?

What is the kind of property?

What person might be up to no good?

Dessert Menu

“Meet the Beetles” Dessert:

“... Even educated fleas do it...”

Name something some insects do. 

Spell it backward. 

Remove one letter of this result to spell some insects. 

Now return to the “something some insects do,” spelled backward. This time replace one letter. The result is other insects. 

What do some insects do? 

What are the two insects?

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.