Ancient mythology, modern fiction; “Muggers and mug shots” Dat tree be da “tannen-bomb!” Past blasts from “bygone” eras; The Vatican: “PayPal Residence?”

PUZZLERIA! SLICES: OVER 6!π SERVED

Schpuzzle of the Week:

Past blasts from “bygone” eras

“Buyers of radios on eBay boogeyed to rock ‘n’ roll,” “Feller Was Unhittable,” and “Mongols fail to take Cairo” are bygone headlines from the
20th and 13th centuries. 

What do the words “radios,” “eBay,” “boogeyed,” “Feller was” (as a combined pair), “Mongols” and “Cairo,”  share in common?  

Appetizer Menu

Little Conundrummer Boy Appetizers:

Dat tree be da “tannen-bomb!”

“Deer Santa, you be da Tannen-bomb!”

1.🎄Think of a two-word phrase describing certain types of Christmas trees. 

Reverse the order of the words to get a two-word phrase for success – a phase that indicates that one is a fully initiated member of a particular group.

Two letters... to Santa

2. 🎅Think of a commonly seen two-letter abbreviation. 

Reverse the letters to get another two-letter abbreviation seen in the same places as the first. 

Interpreted differently, these abbreviations are also the name of a magazine and an honorific.

Christmas shopping made easy

3. 🏬Think of a convenience some stores offer, in seven letters. 

Drop the middle letter and move the first three letters to the end to name an inconvenience.

MENU

“Deitary” Slice:

Ancient mythology, modern fiction

Name two ancient mythological gods and an adjective that might describe them. 

Rearrange the combined thirteen letters of these three words to spell the first and last names of a character in a series of 20th-Century novels. 

Who are these gods and the adjective?

Who is the fictional character? 

Riffing Off Shortz Slices:

The Vatican: “PayPal Residence?”

Will Shortz’s December 25th NPR Weekend Edition Sunday puzzle reads:

Name a prominent geographical location in the United States. 

Change the fifth letter to an S. The resulting string of letters from left to right will name a game, a mountain, and a popular website. What place is it?

Puzzleria!s Riffing Off Shortz Slices read:

ENTREE #1

Name a nine-letter landlocked historic and ceremonial county in England.

Replace the ninth letter, a vowel, with two consonants that rhyme with that vowel. Replace the seventh letter with a different vowel. Replace the fourth letter with a duplicate of the third letter. Add a space someplace.

The result is the name of a puzzle-maker.

What is this county?

Who is the puzzle-maker?

Hint: The county is home to a prehistoric monument.

ENTREE #2

Take the first nine letters letters of a prominent 13-letter geographical location in the United States. Add a “t” to the mix. Rearrange these ten letters to spell a noun that is a synonym of “Scrooge.” The remaining four letters in the geographical location spell a popular website that a “Scrooge” would likely not use.

What are this geographical location, synonym of “Scrooge” and website? 

ENTREE #3

Name a triumphant three-word, 13-letter boast Rocky Balboa might have shouted after knocking down Eddy Portnoy, “Blimp” Levy or “Kingfish” Levinsky.

Remove two exclamation marks. Change the third letter to lowercase and change the the ninth letter to uppercase. The result is a prominent geographical location in the United States.

What is Rocky Balboa’s boast?

What place is it?

ENTREE #4

Solve these four clues

A. “I am impatient enough to fidget or squirm in a chair, or to pace back and forth across the carpet, leaving an elongated bare patch.”

(Find a third synonym of two synonyms formed by rearranging impatient enough.)

B. A word in a Shakespeare play title

C. A fabled elephant-fetching flyer

D. There are three “____” in the Shakespeare play to which “Clue B” alludes, one in Act III and two in Act IV. (The word in the blank is a plural word.)

The answers to the clues above contain 5, 3, 3 and 4 letters. Replace an “f” with a “k” in one of the words. 

The result, from left to right, spells a prominent geographical location in the United States.

What are the answers to the four clues?

What is the geographical location?

ENTREE #5

Name a prominent geographical location in the United States. 

The string of letters from left to right will name a “yes” in Seville; a synonym of the verb “blunder”; what follows arc-, germ-, hum- or prof-; and the plural form of the  word that precedes Pinson, Nobles and Sultenfuss.

What place is it?

What are the “yes” in Seville, the synonym of “blunder,” what follows arc-, germ-, hum- or prof-, and the plural preceding word. 

ENTREE #6

Write the name of a prominent geographical location in the United States, with punctuation as it would have been written before 1890. Move a space one place to the left. Lower a punctuation mark, thereby making it a different kind of punctuation mark. 

The result is a two-word command one may make to the subject of the image pictured here.

What are this geograpical location and command?

Hint: The person making the command is no expert in identifying fish species, and thus relies on the misleading “Walleye” label depicted in the image. This command-maker may also be a bit confused regarding the fish’s capabilities.

ENTREE #7

Name a prominent three-word,13-letter geographical location in the United States. The first word is the home state of this geographical location.

Replace an “a” with an “o” in the first word and rearrange the result.

Insert an “h” into the second word.

Replace an “t” with an “e” in the third word and reaarrange the result.

You will have formed two words that appear the King James Version of God’s first commandment in the Book of Exodus, and a third word that sometimes substituted for “strange” or “other” in the translation of that commandment.

What is this geographical location?

What are the three words in the first commandment?

Hint: A 10-letter word is often substituted for the state as the first word in the geographical location. This word consists of the French word for “good” plus the first name of a past symphony conductor, or past Jamaican musician, or somewhat infamous past British prime minister. 

ENTREE #8

Take the original name of a nearly century-old historic thoroughfare in the United States that consists of digits as well as letters (as well as two punctuation marks). Spell out the digits using letters. Remove the punctuation.

The resulting string of 15 letters from left to right will be:

🚗 letters that can be rearranged to spell one of the five specific tastes received by taste receptors: salty, sweet, bitter, sour, umami;

🚚 Salt Lake City-based athletes;

🛺 9;

⛟ Hardin or Cobb;

🚘 VI.

Hint: John Steinbeck in his novel “The Grapes of Wrath” dubbed the thoroughfare the “Mother Road.” It has also been called the “Main Street of America.”

What is this historic thoroughfare?

What are the taste, athletes, 9, Hardin or Cobb, and VI?

ENTREE #9

Name a geological wonder in the southwest United States, in two words of four and five letters. 

Rearrange the combined letters to form a description of the following statement, in two nouns of six and three letters:

“I promise to lead the National Football League in tackling the quarterback in the backfield for a loss.”

What is this wonder?

What describes the statement?

ENTREE #10

Name a geographical formation Arizona that is the most photographed in the United States, in two words of eight and six letters. This 14-letter string of letters from left to right will name a poker pot-builder, a canter-like gait of a horse, a synonym of “clink” or “cooler,” and an informal synonym of “thither” that is oft paired with “hither.”

What is this geographical formation?

What are the poker pot-builder, canter-like gait of a horse, informal synonym of “clink” or “cooler,” and synonym of “thither” that is oft paired with “hither”?

Dessert Menu

“I’ve Got A Suspect” Dessert:

“Muggers and mug shots”

During a line-up conducted at police headquarters, the eyewitness is asked, “Was suspect #3 the one who mugged you?” The eyewitness replies, “No, it was ___ ___. It was _______ mugger, one I don’t see in this line-up.” 

The third missing word in what the eyewitness said, if you remove its first letter and divide the result in half, becomes the first two words. What are these three words?

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.