1 in 3,265,920 – the ABCDEFGHIJ Puzzle; “Memorialable oral mime” puzzles; Ring around the blue-collar? Dancing bolder as winter grows colder; Hair follicles & Roman Empire follies;

 PUZZLERIA! SLICES: OVER 6!π SERVED

Schpuzzle of the Week:

Ring around the blue-collar?

Name an informal two-word term for a blue-collar worker – hard-working and perhaps a tad sweaty – who is engaged in a particular profession. 

Rearrange the letters in these two words to spell a noun, verb and adjective, all associated with the olfactory sense. Keeping in mind that blue-collar workers are not all factory workers, what are this two-word term and three words associated with the olfactory sense?

Appetizer Menu

Try A Little Cleverness Appetizer:

1 in 3,265,920 – the ABCDEFGHIJ Puzzle

Here is an elegant number puzzle that has been published occasionally, not my invention but I feel it deserves to be better-known.

The puzzle reads:

Please find a 10-digit number – we can call it ABCDEFGHIJ – in which all 10 digits are different, A is not 0, and:

    The number  A  is divisible by 1

    The number  AB  is divisible by 2

    The number  ABC  is divisible by 3

    The number  ABCD  is divisible by 4...

    and so on...

    The number  ABCDEFGHIJ  is divisible by 10.

There is only one solution!

You can solve it easily by writing a computer program, but try it with just a 10-digit calculator and some cleverness!  

Note: There are 3,265,920  possible candidate numbers? Why?

Bonus Challenge: Can you find an anagram in words of 3, 4 and 3 letters for “ABCDEFGHIJ”?

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Confounding Compound Slice:

Dancing bolder as winter grows colder

Take two compound synonyms associated with growth. 

The second parts of each synonym can form a third compound word, one associated with dancing. 

The first part of one of the synonyms is a word associated with winter. The first part of the other synonym is a word sometimes heard when that winter-word is present. 

What are these three compound words and two “winter-words?”

Riffing Off Shortz And Collins Slices:

“Memorialable oral mime” puzzles

Will Shortz’s January 21st NPR Weekend Edition Sunday puzzle, created by Peter Collins of Ann Arbor, Michigan, reads:

Take a word that’s in the name of several tourist attractions in our nation’s capital, Washington, D.C. Rearrange the letters in that word to spell the names of two other nations’ capitals. What are they?

Puzzleria!s Riffing Off Shortz And Collins Slices read:

ENTREE #1

The following is excerpted from a biography of an Italian musician:

“In 1689 he directed the performance of the oratorio Santa Beatrice d’Este by Giovanni Lulier with 39 violins, 10 violas, 17 cellos. The same year, he entered the service of Cardinal Pietro Ottoboni, in which he _____ the rest of his life.”

Rearrange the combined letters in the surname of the musician and the five-letter word that belongs in the blank to spell the name of a puzzle-maker.

Who is this puzzle-maker?

Who is this musician and what is the word in the blank?

ENTREE #2

Take a four-letter acronym for a weapon with a range greater than 3,400 miles primarily designed for nuclear weapons delivery, a five-letter slang term for a generic U.S. soldier, and a four-letter word associated with an adjective
that is a homophone of the first two letters of the weapon.

Rearrange these 13 letters to spell the names of two capital cities whose nations are only two of eight known to have the four-letter weapons.

What are these capitals?

What are the weapon, U.S. soldier and four-letter word? 

ENTREE #3

Take the surname of a landscape photographer and environmentalist (5 letters). Two of his photographs appear here. Name two synonymous nouns for the creature in one photo (5 and 3 letters). Name a salient feature of the creature in the other photo (7 letters).

Rearrange these 20 letters to spell the two world capitals, in 11 and 9 letters, in North America and Europe. 

What are these capitals?

Who is the environmentalist?

What are the two nouns and salient feature?

ENTREE #4

Rearrange the combined letters in the capitals of  two European countries to spell a past leader associated with one of these countries and a river in a third European country.

What are these capitals?

Who is the leader and what  is the river?

Hints: The past leader shares his name with the surname of a pianist who, according to Ray Charles, “plays his buns off.” The European river seems as if it should rhyme with a river in Virginia, but it doesn’t.

ENTREE #5

Take a 5-word 18-letter open-ended and ambiguous question – beginning with the word “Is...” – that many people in our nation’s capital, Washington, D.C., were asking on January 6, 2021.

🏛 The second word (5 letters) in the question is a surname.

🏛 The third word (5 letters) is an informal contraction of “going to.”

🏛 The fourth word (4 letters) is one often repeated in traditional wedding vows.

🏛 The fifth word (2 letters) consists consecutive letters in the name of the boss of the person with the 5-letter surname.

Rearrange the 16 letters in those four words to spell the names of two world capitals. 

What are the capitals? What is the open-ended question?

Hint: The question is open-ended and ambiguous because it could end in a number of ways; for example: 

“...to power?” 

“...to his commitment to the Constitution?” 

“...to his loyalty to his boss?”

“...to his Christian principles?” 

“...to his life?”

ENTREE #6

Name a famous brand name. 

Name also the part of speech of the middle word in its familiar three-word, eight-letter

trademark/slogan with the initials JDI. Rearrange the eight combined letters in that part of speech and the brand name to spell two world capitals.

What are these capitals?

What are the brand name and part of speech?

ENTREE #7

Name a two-word term that you might use to describe the music of The Nairobi Trio or of a group of guys named Davy, Peter, Micky and Michael. 

Rearrange these letters letters to spell the names of two nations’ capitals, each with five letters. 

What are the capitals?

What is the two-word term?

ENTREE #8

Name the three-word title of a popular tune that, four-score years ago, remained on the hillbilly chart for 82 weeks. 

Rearrange the eight letters of its first and third words to spell the names of two nations’ capitals. 

What are these capitals?

What is the tune title?

ENTREE #9

Name highlighted bits of text seen on a screen and what might be used to open them, each in five letters. Rearrange these 10 letters to spell the name of two nations’ capitals. 

What are these capitals?

What are the bits of text and what might open them?

ENTREE #10

John Bunyan, as a _______, was one who practiced piety (obeying religious rules), dressing simply, and living a modest life. 

He was early to bed as well as an early _____,
and he read his _____ religiously.

Rearrange the 17 letters in those blanks to spell the capitals of three counties – two European, one Asian.  

Dessert Menu

Caesar Salad Dessert:

Hair follicles & Roman Empire follies

“Is it possible that ‘_________’ hair follicles may put an end to ________ _________?”

“Gaius Caesar was the _____ ____ of Emperor Augustus.”

The words in the first two blanks are nine-letter and eight-letter homophones.

The word in the third blank is a nine-letter compound plural noun. 

You can rearrange the combined letters of the words in the fourth and fifth blanks (in five and four letters) to spell that plural noun in the third blank.

What are the words in the five blanks?

Hint: the words in the fourth and fifth blanks, together, rhyme with a compound word for mackintoshes, ponchos, galoshes and the like. 

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.