Left with a right or wrong choice; Fidgeting with double digits; Compound periodic tableware; Rakes & brooms in break rooms; Moji, Dapo, Jane, Marcel & 13 A’s; Edward Bear, George Geef, Sidney

PUZZLERIA! SLICES: OVER 6!π SERVED

Schpuzzle of the Week:

Fidgeting with double digits

The numbers 8,191 and 32,810 share two digits in common, 8 and 1. 

What two names that are associated with two other common – and yet somewhat famous – digits do the numbers 8,191 and 32,810 suggest?

Hint

Appetizer Menu

UnConunDrumBeatable Appetizer:

Compound periodic tableware

1.🥁Name a six letter compound word of two and four letters. Swap the components to get
another compound word that changes the pronunciation and definition of the four-letter component.

2.🥁Name an element on the periodic table. Add a letter at the beginning. 

The result will describe a difficulty that scientists may have in communicating with the public.

3.🥁 To “table” an item is to save it for later. 

There is another word with a similar meaning, in nine letters, that can be arranged into two words — one, another piece of furniture, and the other, a part of the body.

What is this nine-letter word?

What are the piece of furniture and part of the body?

MENU

Horns Of A Moral Dilemma Hors d’Oeuvre:

Left with a right or wrong choice

A _____ did hard ____ after, given the choice between right and wrong, he ____ the path of a life of _____.

Spoonerize the words in the first two blanks to spell the words in the  last two blanks. 

What are these four words?

Fictitious Slice:

Moji, Dapo, Jane, Marcel & 13 A’s

Take five names associated with fiction and literature:

1. The informal name of an inmate in the television series “Orange Is the New Black” (3 letters),

2. Moji and Dapo’s sister (4 letters),

3. The surname of a character named Jane (4 letters),

4. The “cygnine-sounding” surname of a Marcel Proust character (5 letters), and...

5. The surname of an American satirist and author whose siblings were named Abigail, Amelia, Ann, Addison, Aurelius, Augustus, Almeda, Andrew, Albert, Arthur, Adelia, and Aurelia (6 letters).

Rearrange these 22 letters to spell, in four words, what many people worldwide will be engaged in late this coming Sunday.

What are these five names?

What will people be engaged in late this coming Sunday?

Riffing Off Shortz And Fogarty Slices:

Rakes & brooms in the break room

Will Shortz’s December 24th NPR Weekend Edition Sunday puzzle, created by Neville Fogarty of Newport News, Virgina, reads:

Think of an area found in many workplaces, in two words. Move the first letter of the first word to the start of the second word. Phonetically you’ll name two items that have a similar use — one of which might be used in the workplace. What place is this?

Puzzleria!s Riffing Off Shortz And Fogarty Slices read:

ENTREE #1

Think of a puzzle-maker, in two words. 

From the surname, remove  two consecutive letters that spell a state postal abbreviation, leaving a number.

From the first name, remove three consecutive letters that spell a postal abbreviation and two non-consecutive letters that spell a state postal abbreviation. Multiply the values of the remaining letters. Round up the answer to the nearest tenth, forming a second number.

Divide the first number by the second number and round to the nearest tenth. Subtract that quotient from the divisor to get a whole number. 

What is this number?

Note: The following Christmas/New Year’s/Holiday riff was conjured up, composed and contributed by a quite clever friend and P&P&P! Fan (that is to say, a Packer&Panther&Puzzleria! Fan). This “terriffic” riff is intended to acknowledge the recent P-versus-P Christmas Eve game, both as a tip of the hat to “The Conductor” as well as a Greeting and Well-Wish to Puzzleria!ns everywhere: 

ENTREE #2 

Take the name of the two-word U.S. city known as “Titletown.” Remove “an abbreviated billion bytes.” The result sounds like:

a. Mr. Ed callin’ again

b. Someone The Left Banke would tell to just walk away

c. A subsequent anti vote

d. A Scot once again saying, “Don’t do it!”

e. Ms. Zellweger

f. The surname of the singer of “Navy Blue”

g. A cranberry kin whose activities are recounted in many a Friday chronicle

h. The first name of a philosopher whose surname sounds like a diurnal wain

What is this city known as Titletown?

What is “an abbreviated billion bytes?”

What are the eight sound-alike leftovers?

Note: Entrees #3 and #4 are the brainchildren of our friend Greg VanMechelen (aka “Ecoarchitect”), whose “Econfusions” feature appears regularly on Puzzleria!

ENTREE #3

Think of a well-known area found in very few workplaces, in two words. Move the first letter of the first word to replace the first letter of the second word. The result will be a famous construction, and what the builders were hoping to avoid. 

What place is this, what is the construction and what was trying to be avoided?

ENTREE #4 

Name a one-word place where people often work together.  

Remove a letter near the middle of the word and the result will be, in order, two groups of
people who often don't work together.  

What is the place, and who are the groups of people?

ENTREE #5

Think of a two-word area found in many workplaces, in ten letters. Replace the space with a hyphen. Invert the third letter. 

Delete the ninth letter. Replace the seventh and eighth letters with one of the two letters they straddle in the alphabet. Move the fourth, fifth and sixth letters to the beginning, reverse their order and place a space after them.

The result is a handheld brightly colored fluffy
ball flourished by cheerleaders for the Wisconsin Badgers, Arizona Cardinals, Alabama Crimson Tide and Stanford Cardinal.

What is this two-word area found in many workplaces?

What is the fluffy ball flourished by cheerleaders at Wisconsin, Arizona, Alabama and Stanford?

ENTREE #6

The college economics professor with a free third period retreated to the communal ________ ______. He was coming from a classroom where a ________ or two — or three or even four — opted to ______ back into their desks and daydream during his lecture. 

The weary and discouraged prof poured himself a mug of steaming, soothing _____ ___ from the pot,
then he himself opted to ______ down into one of the many available Barcaloungers in the room.

The words in the first two blanks name an area in the college. 

Rearrange the 14 letters in this area to spell the two words in the third and fourth blanks. And also rearrange these 14 letters to spell the three words in the fifth, sixth and seventh blanks.

What are these seven words in the blanks?

ENTREE #7

“During the bimonthly shareholders conference, held on December 15, 2023 in the _______ ____ of Puzzleria! Industries Inc., chairman of the board Lego Lambda made a motion to merge all corporate assets, activities and liabilities (especially liabilities!) with NPR Weekend Edition Sunday Inc., thereby, in effect, divesting all said assets, et cetera, of Puzzleria! Industries Inc. into the surviving corporation — namely, NPR Weekend Edition Sunday Inc. — by operation of law.”

Rearrange the combined eleven letters of two words in the above decree to spell the words that belong in the two blanks. 

What are the two words that you anagram?

What are the words in the two blanks?

Hint: The two words that you anagram begin with the same letter.

ENTREE #8

Think of an area found in many workplaces, in one word. Rearrange its letters to spell a caption for any one of the three images pictured here. 

What is this workplace area?

What is the caption?

ENTREE #9

Think of an area found in many workplaces, a place where employees meet, in two words.

Rearrange the combined fourteen letters in these words to spell the surname of a crooner, the surname of a pops conductor and pianist, and a noun for what 17th-Century French opera singer Julie d’Aubigny had once been due to an avocation she once pursued.

What is this workplace area?

Who are the crooner and pops conductor/pianist?

What is the avocation of opera singer Julie d’Aubigny? 

ENTREE #10

Think of areas found in many workplaces, in one plural word. 

Rearrange its letters to spell a three-letter acronym for a type of non-volatile memory used in computers, and a six-letter word for what that memory does to data.

What are these areas found in workplaces?

What is the three-letter acronym?

What is the six-letter word?

Dessert Menu

Minding Your P’s & Q’s Dessert:

Edward Bear, George Geef, Sidney

Place a hyphen between two adjacent letters of the alphabet, spelled-out. (P AND Q, for example, would be PEE-CUE.) 

Replace an interior letter of this result with the second adjacent letter, but not spelled out. The result is the birth name of a fictional character. Who is it?

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.

“Verbal Equivocation, Strad-Steiff Style”; A horse of a different color, two things of a same color; The human body and a humanity; “Toy jet! Yo-yo! Toffy! Wowee!” Only the ‘wise’ will solve this Slice; Only the brainy will solve this Hors d’Oeuvre

 PUZZLERIA! SLICES: OVER 6!π SERVED

Schpuzzle of the Week:

“Toy jet! Yo-yo! Toffy! Wowee!”

On Christmas morning, a boy peeks inside his stocking to see what he got and exclaims: 

“Toy jet! Yo-yo! Toffy! Wowee!”

Beethoven’s “Ode to Joy” is a Christmas
carol in Japan.

What three of those eight words within the quotation marks do not belong with the other five, and why not?

Hint: The phrase “...do not belong with the other five” might also be phrased “...are not as ‘pure’ as the other five.”

Appetizer Menu

Homographology Appetizer:

“Verbal Equivocation, Strad-Steiff Style”

Instructions: In problems #1 through #10  below, each of the two parts is a synonym for the same word – a word that you must find. Such words are called “homographs,” that is, “words that have the same spelling but differ in origin, meaning, and sometimes pronunciation.”

For example, the word “present” can mean “gift under a tree” or “offer,” and the word “crib” can mean “Jesus’s manger” or “plagiarize,” and the word “darn” can mean “a mild expletive” or “sew.”

In #11, you must find two related words that are spelled the same except that one has an additional letter. 

Name these homographs:

1. endear  vs  trinket

2. shoe  vs  stop up

3. waver  vs  pastry

4. won’t  vs  trash

5. now  vs  flowing

6. thing  vs.  dissent

7. fungi  vs  Jell-O casing

8. pal  vs  flower

9. plant  vs  pig

10. nearby  vs  non-fat

Find these two words: 

11. Add one consonant to a word meaning “having fevers” to obtain a word for what such a condition might make you feel.

MENU

“Mixologists Need Not Apply” Hors d’Oeuvre:

Only the brainy will solve this Hors d’Oeuvre

Take a beverage. 

Add to it, without a space, an alcoholic beverage. (But don’t do any mixing of these two drinks.) 

The result is three syllables long. 

The second and third syllables spell a body part shaped like the first syllable. Replace that body part with a synonym of that body part. 

The result is a word for a brainy person (like one who solves this puzzle!).

What are these two beverages, the body part and its synonym, and the brainy person?

When Holidays Collide Slice:

Only the “wise” will solve this Slice

Take a word associated with a certain holiday. Replace one letter with a different letter. 

Rearrange half of the letters of the result to spell a word associated with another holiday.

What are these two holidays and two words?

Hint: The letters that you rearrange are almost  consecutive. 

Riffing Off Shortz And Robison Slices:

The human body and a humanity

Will Shortz’s October 11th NPR Weekend Edition Sunday puzzle, created by Samantha Robison of Eugene, Oregon, reads:

Think of a word that means “required.” Rearrange its letters to name two school subjects, one of which is often required, and one of which often isn’t. What are they?

Puzzleria!s Riffing Off Shortz And Robison Slices read:

ENTREE #1

Think of six five-letter words:

1. a month in the Hebrew calendar,

2. the first five books of the Hebrew Bible,

3. large pulpits in early churches and in contemporary Greek and Balkan churches.

4. a savory watery liquid in which meat, fish, cereal grains or veggies have been simmered,

5. the edible substance God provided the
Israelites in the desert following the Exodus, and

6. a fertile area of a desert that sustains plant life and provides habitat for animals.

Anagram the 15 combined letters of the first three words to spell the name of a puzzle-maker.

Anagram the 15 combined letters of the last three words to spell the name of that same puzzle-maker.

Who is this puzzle-maker? 

What are the six words?

Note: Entree #2 was composed and contributed by our friend Plantsmith whose “Garden of Puzzley Delights” is featured regularly on Puzzleria! 

ENTREE #2

Take a word that means “required.”

Add an “e” to the mix, then mix up the result to get a creature and the last name of a singer who hails from a place not far from where you might find the creature.

What is the synonym of “required”?

What are the creature and the last name of the singer?

ENTREE #3

Think of a word that means “obligatory.” Move its last letter into the third position and place a space after it. 

The result is a collection of 24 or sometimes 25 sheets of crimson paper. 

What is the word that means “obligatory?” 

What is the collection of crimson paper?

Hint: Place an anagram of “Mary” between the two words of your answer and change the third word to its homophone. The result is what those in the West commonly call a Russian armed forces choral ensemble founded during the Soviet era.

ENTREE #4

Think of a word that means “required.” 

Rearrange its letters to name a mythological creature and a real mountain associated with a mythological figure. (The name of the mythological figure is also the name of a real canal spelled backwards.)

What is this synonym of “required”?

What are the mythological creature and real mountain?

What is the canal?

ENTREE #5

Think of a word that means “required.” Rearrange its letters to name a three-letter synonym of “desire” or “longing” and a word for what may help satisfy that desire or alleviate that longing.

Take that same word that means “required.”  Add a “c” to the mix. Rearrange the result to spell a two-word term that describes Norman knifing Marion, Regan spinning her head 180 degrees before facing her horrified mother, or Wendy cowering behind the bathroom door as her hubby Jack attacks it with his axe.

What are this synonym of “desire” or “longing” and what may help satisfy that desire or alleviate that longing? 

What is the two-word term after you add a “c” to the mix?

ENTREE #6

Think of a word that means “required.” 

Rearrange its letters to spell a synonym of “silent” and the name of a Greek goddess who is an eponym of a noun that is defined as “a combination of musical sounds that strikes the ear harshly.”

What is this word that means “required”?

What is the synonym of “silent?”

What is the name of the Greek goddess?

ENTREE #7

Think of a word that means “required.” Rearrange its letters to name two plural words for objects, each with a pointed end that disappears when the objects are used.

What is this synonym of “required”?

What are the two plural words? 

ENTREE #8

Think of a word that means “required.” Rearrange its letters to name an award, in four letters, and what the award often recognizes and honors, in five letters. 

What is this synonym of “required”?  What is this award? What does the award often recognize and honor?  

ENTREE #9

Think of a word that means “required.” Rearrange its ten letters to name:

1. the state or jurisdiction of a ruler in Islamic countries  who enjoys  special privileges and prestige, and

2. a three-letter term for this ruler.

What is this synonym of “required”?

What is the jurisdiction of an Islamic ruler?

What is a three-letter term for this ruler?

Hint: The term for the ruler is acronymic.

ENTREE #10

An adjective, in 11 letters, that means “required” is sometimes used as a noun on college campuses. 

Take the plural form of this “noun.” 

Rearrange its letters to spell a two-word term that describes a certain “close-your-eyes-and-plug-your-ears” snippet or portion of movies such as  “The Wild Bunch,” “Natural Born Killers” or “Pulp Fiction.”

What is the plural form of this “noun” that is used on college campuses?

What is the descriptive two-word term? 

Dessert Menu

“Do You Hear What I Hear?” Dessert:

A horse of a different color, two things of a same color

Consider the following sentence:

“___ hear but don’t ______.” 

Anagram the letters in the second blank to spell something that is usually a certain color. 

Take a homophone of the word in the first blank. Add it to the letters in the second blank. Anagram the result to spell a second thing that is also usually that color.

What are the words in the blanks? 

What are these two things?

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. 

“Clothes and Countries” “A tale of 2 nations, 1 landmark, 3 letters” Three-course 4-letter-each lunch; “Neither snow nor rain nor sleet...” Dove extends an olive branch... “You gotta be putting me on!”

PUZZLERIA! SLICES: OVER 6!π SERVED

Schpuzzle of the Week:

A tale of 2 nations, 1 landmark, 3 letters

Name a nation. 

Remove from it consecutive letters that spell the name of a natural landmark in a second nation, leaving three letters associated with that second nation’s capital. 

What are these two nations, one landmark and three letters?

Appetizer Menu

“DiscomBobbylating” Appetizer:

“Clothes and Countries”

1.🧦What is a two-word article of apparel such that the first word is an anagram of a country
and the second word is an anagram of another country?

2.🌍Take the name of a 9-letter country. 

Remove the 4th and 5th letters. 

Rearrange to get the nationality of another
country. 

What is it?

MENU

Ready-To-Wear Hors d’Oeuvre

“You gotta be putting me on!”

Remove a synonym of “female” from a word for things you wear. 

Rearrange the remaining letters to form a word for other things you wear that serve a similar purpose. 

What are these two words for things you wear?

Authoritarian Slice:

Three-course four-letter-each lunch

Anagram the name of an author to get three four-letter foods you might have for lunch. 

Who is the author? 

What are the foods?

Riffing Off Shortz And Baggish Slices:

“Neither snow nor rain nor sleet...”

Will Shortz’s December 10th NPR Weekend Edition Sunday puzzle, created by Steve Baggish of Arlington, Massachusetts, reads:

Take the phrase WINTER SEASON. Add a letter of your choosing. Then rearrange all 13 letters to spell three related words. What are they?

Puzzleria!s Riffing Off Shortz And Baggish Slices read:

ENTREE #1

Take the first and last names of a puzzle-maker and his hometown. 

Add one consonant and one vowel of your choosing to the mix. 

Then rearrange all 23 letters to spell the surnames of a U.S. secretary of state and of a U.S. United Nations ambassador and the first name that the close friends of a British prime minister might have called her. 

Name this puzzle-maker and his hometown. 

Name also the two surnames and the first name.

ENTREE #2

Take the phrase BASEBALL SEASON. 

Add a letter of your choosing. 

Then rearrange all 15 letters to spell a synonym of “walk” and a synonym of “superstar pitchers.”

What are these two synonyms?

ENTREE #3

Take the phrase WINTER SOLSTICE. Add a letter of your choosing. 

Then rearrange all 15 letters to spell two professions. 

What are they?

Hint: The surname of a person in one of the professions is “Carver.” The surname of a person in the other profession is “Carter.”

ENTREE #4

Take the phrase WINTER WONDERLAND. 

Add a letter of your choosing. 

Then rearrange all 17 letters to spell three surnames of scientists named Charles, Isaac and Alfred. 

Who are they? 

ENTREE #5

Take the phrase SPRING BREAK. Add a letter of your choosing. 

Then rearrange all 12 letters to spell the title (in two words of eight and four letters) bestowed on a male college student on spring break who is the winner of a beach barbecue competition in Key West, Cancun, Cabo San Lucas or South Padre Island.

What is this beach barbecue winner title?

ENTREE #6

Take the phrase FALL COLOURS. Replace the “C” with a different consonant of your choosing. 

Then rearrange all 11 letters to spell a five-letter lily-like flower and a six-letter adjective that describes it. 

What are this flower and adjective?

ENTREE #7

Take the phrase SUMMER VACATION. Add a letter of your choosing. Then rearrange all 15 letters to spell three words:

1. the surname of a French philosopher,

2. the surname of a French modernist painter, and

3. the first name of a sprinter who once ran a 100-yard dash in nine seconds flat.

What are these surnames and first name?

ENTREE #8

Take the phrase SPRING-LOADED. Add no letters of your choosing... at least not yet. Anagram the result to spell what a rodeo participant may be doing, and what he is sitting on while doing it.

Or, you can instead anagram SPRING-LOADED to name what devout farmers may call spring showers between the months of March and May.

Or, you can instead add to SPRING-LOADED two letters of your choosing from the first quarter of the alphabet to name a brief period of non-summer-like weather (in two 4-
letter words) and a 6-letter kitchen appliance associated with the first of those two 4-letter words.

What may the rodeo participant be doing, and on what he is sitting?

What may devout farmers call spring showers between the months of March and May?

What is the brief period of non-summer-like weather, and the kitchen appliance?

ENTREE #9

Take the phrase SUMMER SCHOOL. 

Add a letter of your choosing. 

Then rearrange all 13 letters to spell a dining area aboard ship and a midday meal you might eat there.

Take the phrase SUMMER SCHOOL again. Add a different letter of your choosing. Then rearrange all 13 of these letters to spell an edible fungus that might be served in a salad at that midday meal aboard the ship, and any one of the thin cross-sections of that fungus that a salad chef might prepare for the salad using a mandoline.

What are this ship’s dining area and midday meal?

What is the edible fungus and one of its thin cross-sections?

ENTREE #10

Take the phrase SPRING SEASON. Add a letter of your choosing. Then rearrange all 13 letters to spell a six-letter word for a Protestant pastor and the name of a book he might read from during a church service.

Take the phrase SPRING SEASON again. Add a different letter of your choosing. Then rearrange all 13 letters to spell the seven-letter surname of a fellow whose name is a metric unit of mass, and his profession.

Take the phrase SPRING SEASON a third time. Add another different letter of your choosing. Then rearrange all 13 letters to again spell the seven-letter surname of this fellow whose name is a metric unit of mass and a word many music critics used to describe him.

What are the word for a Protestant pastor and the book he might read from during a church service?

What is the word many music critics used to describe the fellow whose name is a metric unit of mass?

Dessert Menu:

After The Deluge Dessert:

Dove extends an olive branch...

Rearrange the letters of a popular television show to spell what Noah might have exclaimed when the dove returned to him with a leafy olive branch in its beak. 

What is the television show? 

What might Noah have exclaimed? 

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.