Saddlin’ up to track down bandits; Healing, humanity & history; Cowboys riding seahorses; Conventions, customs & conduct; The wheels on the train go “clickety-clack”

PUZZLERIA! SLICES: OVER 6!π SERVED

Schpuzzle of the Week:

Saddlin’ up to track down bandits

In the Old West, a sheriff would often round up groups of volunteers, asking them to saddle up to help him track down bandits and other such outlaws. 

The number of volunteers in these groups was determined by how vile the bandit was – double-figure-sized groups for the vilest bandits, but only single-figure-sized groups for less-dangerous, “petty” bandits.

One day, for example, Dodge City Sheriff Roy Omar prepared to enlist volunteers to help him track down a mild-mannered Dodge City Bank clerk who, according to the bank president, apparently had embezzled $500 and subsequently seemed to have vanished into thin air – “gotten out of Dodge,” so to speak. 

Sheriff Omar instructed his deputy, Cooper Flute, to initiate the rounding-up process.

“How many volunteers will we need?” Deputy Flute asked.

Sheriff Omar replied laconically, “He’s __ ___-_____-_____ _____?”

Fill in those blanks with words of 2, 3, 5, 5 and 5 letters – two adjectives followed by three nouns.

Those 20 letters can be anagrammed to spell the 5-word name (in 3, 4, 2, 3, and 8 letters) of a legendary Country & Western musical group.

What did Sherriff Omar reply?

What is the name of the legendary Country & Western musical group?

Hint: The name of the musical group is sometimes written without its first word.

Appetizer Menu

Delightfully Puzzley Appetizer:

Healing, humanity & history

A Comforting Cure Story

1.🥘Take a comfort food that doubles as a trusted cure, in three words. 

Replace one consonant with a consonant that sometimes sounds like that consonant that it is replacing. 

Mix up the result to get three words to fill in the blanks in the following vignette: 

“Recently chef James made it to the second round of Master Chef before he was ‘Ramsayed’ off the show. Happily however, it
was not too long before he landed a new gig at an Asian fusion restaurant. There, as a ___ chef, he spent some time in the _______, making ___ for his fiancee.” 

What is this comfort-foodie cure? 

What three words to fill in the blanks (the last of which fills his fiancee’s belly!)?

Animal to Human 

2.🐕🐘👂👅Take an eight-letter animal body part that can be anagrammed to spell two words associated with greeting: 

* a three-letter gesture of respect or reverence, and

* a common five-letter word of salutation.

Replace the first syllable of this animal body part with something sweet. The result is a slang word for a human body part.

What are this animal body part and human body part? 

Wordplayful history

3.📜Take a “wordplay word” sometimes used in puzzle-making. 

Repeat a vowel and add an East Coast state postal code. 

Mix the result to get an important historical document in two words.

What are this “wordplay word” and historical document?

MENU

Collegiate Slice:

Conventions, customs & conduct

Take a two-word term  for the customs, conventions and code of conduct that may be instituted at a mixed-gender institution of higher learning. 

Reverse the order of the last two letters in
each word, then reverse the order of those new words to form a different kind of code. 

What are these two two-word terms?

Hint: One of the four words in the answer appears in the text of the puzzle.

Riffing Off Shortz And Lande Slice:

Cowboys riding seahorses

Will Shortz’s March 20th NPR Weekend Edition Sunday puzzle, based on an idea by Jeff Lande of Minneapolis, Minnesota, reads:
 If a BOY is 5,839, and a COW is 6,874, how much is a FISH?

Puzzleria!s Riffing Off Shortz And Lande Slices read:

ENTREE #1

Move the four letters of a puzzle-maker one place earlier in the alphabet (ROT-25) to spell the first word in a French term that means “obsession.” 

Now take this puzzle-maker’s surname. Place a duplicate of the third letter an the end. Move
the letters of this result 17 places later in the alphaber (ROT-17) to spell a French term that means “dog tired.”

Who is this puzzle-maker?

What are these French terms?

ENTREE #2

If SOB is 508, BOO is 800, and an IBIS is 1,815, how much is a BOSS?

ENTREE #3

If a FOX is 304, and an ELK is 324, how much
is a PUMA? 

ENTREE #4

If a SONNET is 619,983, and a STETSON is
7,382,619, how much is FESTOONS?

Hint: There are 16 possible correct answers. You need supply but one.

ENTREE #5

If OXEN are 2,617, and a TEXT is 8,368 how
much is a ROTOR?

ENTREE #6

“ThIS is AS hard as a ROCK or A BRICK!” exclaim some folks who tackle a CRYPTIC crossword puzzle created by Patrick J. Berry.

If a ROCK is 36,310, and a BRICK is 536,310, how much is CRYPTIC?

Dessert Menu

Pump Up The Vehicular Volume Dessert:

The wheels on the train go “clickety-clack”

Name a profession that is a seven-letter compound word. 

Spoonerize the two parts of the word to spell a kind of vehicle and a sound it makes. 

What profession is this?

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.