Pacific confusion, multilingual messiness & “switcheroodness” “It’s a small word, or two, after all” What kind of fish is a “gholoti”? Down on the farm... team; “I heard it through the animal groupvine”

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Schpuzzle of the Week:

What kind of fish is a “gholoti”?

The F, I and SH sounds in FISH sound like the GH in lauGH, the O in wOmen, and the TI in creaTIon. 

If a “ghoti” (G-H-O-T-I) is a fish, then using a similar translation method, what kind of fish is a "gholoti" (G-H-O-L-O-T-I)? 

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Worldplayfulfilling Appetizer:

Pacific confusion, multilingual messiness & “switcheroodness”

Pacific Confusion

1. 🌏🌎Two geographic terms are sometimes confused. Remove two adjacent letters from one term or three adjacent letters from the other to yield an identical remainder set of letters. Rearrange this remainder to give a word used in solution chemistry, that does NOT describe the Pacific. Rearrange the five removed letters to name a nation in the Pacific. 

What are the two original terms, the rearranged word, and the Pacific nation?

Misfortune

2. 😟Think of a national capital. Change one letter to give a misfortune that has afflicted it several times over its history.

Stages of life

3. Think of a stage of life. Split it into two “words” that sound like how others in a different stage of life might characterize a member of this stage.

Multilingual mess

4. 🛦An English word derived from the Arabic via Middle French denotes a warehouse for munitions or supplies. It also has a more familiar meaning. 

The cognate word in present-day French and Russian denotes a shop. German has two cognates to the original word. One keeps the original meaning and the second derives from English with the more modern meaning. 

What is this English word?

Note: The later (second) English meaning is a general type of publication, called a “journal” in present-day French. Its English and Russian cognates “journal” and “журнал” (zhurnal) are used for scientific publications, but in English a “journal” also means a diary. The Spanish cognate to diary, “diario,” means newspaper, but Spanish also uses “periódico.” Its English cognate “periodical” is a general bibliographic term for a recurring publication, including scientific journals, newspapers, and popular publications denoted by the puzzle answer. Another English word for a newspaper, “gazette,” derives not from the French state of matter, but from the Italian “gazzetta” that also gave rise to the Russian “газета” (gazeta), the Russian word for a newspaper. ... Confused yet?

Getting to work 

5. 🚋A word formerly applied to many people, with regards to their getting to work. 

Move the fourth letter three places later in the alphabet to describe how they may now get to work. 

What are the two terms?

Switcheroo

6. 🌐Think of an informal name for a country. Remove two adjacent letters that express the main political policy of its leader (as of 2020). Insert in their place a single letter. The result is the general place of origin of many inhabitants of the country. What are the country and general place of origin?

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“Not quite there” Slice:

“It’s a small word, or two, after all”

Take an adjective that means “not quite there yet” or “less than complete.” 

Replace the last letter with a duplicate of the
first letter and divide the result in half. The first half and a rearrangement of the letters in the second half spell words related to “smallness.” 

What are these three words?

Riffing Off Shortz And Bible Slices:

“I heard it through the animal groupvine”

Will Shortz’s December 5th NPR Weekend Edition Sunday puzzle, created by Tom Bible of Cincinnati, Ohio, reads:

Think of a word to describe a single animal. Change the third letter to get a word that describes the plural of that animal. 

Both are nouns, and neither word contains an “s”.

Puzzleria!s Riffing Off Shortz And Bible Slices read:

ENTREE #1

Think of a four-letter word that in the the 16th Century was used to describe a book (like Genesis, Joshua, Judges, Ruth, Job or John, for instance) that is just one of many in a collection. 

Nowadays the word is usually used to describe any large and often ponderous
book. 

Remove the last letter of that word to spell the first name of a puzzle-maker whose surname is one such large and ponderous book. Who is he?

ENTREE #2

Think of a 5-letter word (starting with “a”) for a kind of dominant canine and a 3-letter word  for a kind of submissive ovine. 

Anagram these eight letters to spell the singular forms of words for two things that come in pods.

What are these four words?

ENTREE #3

Think of a feline creature in seven letters. 

Replace its third letter with its fifth letter (not a duplicate of its fifth letter, but the letter itself). 

Then remove the final two letters to get a word that describes the plural of that animal. 

Both are nouns, and neither word contains an “s”.

What are these two words?

ENTREE #4

Think of a feline creature. 

Add to it, in reverse-alphabetical-order, the
letters in a synonym of “allow” to spell bovine creatures.

What are these bovine creatures and what is the feline creature?

ENTREE #5

Name a creature with wings, in four letters. 

Anagram these letters to spell things that wingless creatures, like cats or dogs, have.

What is the winged creature? What do cats and dogs have?

ENTREE #6

Think of a word to describe a single animal. Anagram its letters to get either:

1. rinsing out the test tubes and beakers, for example (in two words of 3 and 5 letters), or

2. KGB Agent Major Anya Amasova, Daisy Duke or Anita Lawson (in two 4-letter words).

What is this single animal?

ENTREE #7

Name a 9-letter parasite transmitted by mosquitoes into dogs. Move the first letter into the fifth position to spell a crawly creature
anglers use to catch fish.

What are this parasite and crawly creature?

ENTREE #8

Name a person, in three words totaling 16 letters, who buys a bunch of plastic bling about 41 or 42 days before Easter Sunday. 

Place the second and third words next to one another to name a creature one might eat for breakfast.

Add to this mix of letters duplicates of the final two letters of this creature.

Rearrange these 18 letters to spell three perhaps more conventional breakfast foods.

What is this three-word person, the edible creature and the other three breakfast foods.  

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Down on the farm... team

Name a common seven-letter slang term for some essential sports equipment and a seven-letter fruit that is a not-as-common slang term for similar essential sports equipment. 

Both terms end with the same three letters. 

Remove those three letters from each word, leaving farm animals and a piece of equipment often found on a farm. 

Rearrange the eight letters in those “rural words” to spell sports officials and the last name of a football legend.

What are these two slang terms, animals, farm equipment, sports official and football legend?

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.