“Synonymetry," "penmanshifts,” and subtracting from the states; Converting hot pods into hot rods Behavior in Bentleys and Buicks; “We’re U2 on YouTu, Brutus on!” Sitcom in a can;

PUZZLERIA! SLICES: OVER 6!π SERVED 

Schpuzzle of the Week:

Sitcom in a can

Name a canned-food brand, in two words. Replace the first word with an anagram of one of the brand’s foods to name a TV sitcom character. What is this brand? What is the character’s name?

Menu

Worldplayful Appetizer:

“Synonymetry,” “penmanshifts” and subtracting from the states

State subtraction #2

2. 🌎Take the names of two U.S. states. 

Subtract the letters of the second state from the first. 

Rearrange the remainder to give the plural of a unit of mass, that is also used colloquially to mean “a lot” (of something). 

What are the states and the word?  

State subtraction #3

3. 🌎Take the names of two U.S. states. Subtract the letters of the second state from the first. The result gives the symbol for a noble gas.

Rearrangement yields the name of an Egyptian god, as well as the symbol of a different chemical element. What are the states, Egyptian god, and symbol?

State subtraction #4

4. 🐄Take the names of two U.S. states. 

Subtract the letters of the second state from the first. 

Rearrange the result to give what the squirrels
built when they went into large-scale agribusiness. 

What are the states and the structure?

State subtraction #5

5. 🍐🥚🍿Take the names of two U.S. states. 

Subtract the letters of the second state from the first. 

Rearrange the result to give a filling food. 

What are the states and food?

“Alchemical threefold synonymetry”

6. 🧪Think of three words that relate to self-contradiction. 

The first two words sound a bit like two chemical elements. 

Exchange (switch) two similar-sounding letters in the first to obtain one element. 

The first part of the second word has the same root as the element it (vaguely) sounds like.

The third word sounds like two waterfowl. Its first part is a structural term used in organic chemistry. 

What are these three self-contradictory words?

“Penmanshifts”

7. 🖋🖊I bought a pen in Adelaide, South Australia. 

This pen opened and retracted the tip by turning the lower segment of the pen’s body (in contrast to most such pens, that “click” to open or retract). 

When I started writing with this new pen, the tip kept retracting, and the pen was unusable. The pen was not defective. 

What caused this maddening problem?

MENU

Idiomatic Transmission Slice:

Behavior in Bentleys and Buicks

Take a two-word idiom, in three syllables. 

The last two syllables are two words for what a person might do in an automobile. 

The first syllable is a homophone of what a person might do in an automobile. 

What is this idiom?

Riffing Off Shortz And Baggish Slices:

“We’re U2 on YouTube, Root us on!”

Will Shortz’s February 12th NPR Weekend Edition Sunday puzzle, created by Steve Baggish of Arlington, Massachusetts, reads:

Name a popular rock band — one that everyone knows. 

Add a “B” sound at the end, and phonetically you’ll name a place where you might hear this band play. What band is it?

Puzzleria!s Riffing Off Shortz And Baggish Slices read:

ENTREE #1

Take the first name of a popular puzzle-maker — one that NPR listeners know — and his hometown. Rearrange these 14 combined letters to spell two words:

1.👂 an opening in your body, and

2. 🎺 a small hole in a musical instrument that one might block with a finger.

Now double one of these 14 letters. 

Rearrange these 15 combined letters to spell what Emile Zola was and the title of one of his
works.

Rearrange these same 15 letters to spell what Albert DeSalvo was prone to do and a word describing those deeds.

Who is this puzzle-maker?

What are the body opening and the small hole?

What was Emile Zola and what is the title of one of his works?

What was Albert DeSalvo prone to do and what word describes his deeds?

Note: Entree #2, below, is a puzzle riff composed by our good friend ViolinTeddy, a very-valuable-and-valued member of our Puzzleria! community. VT’s puzzle is a “riff-off” of Chuck’s Appetizer #2 that appeared in this past week’s edition of Puzzleria!

Here is ViolinTeddy’s “teriffic” riff:

ENTREE #2

Name a fictional animal character in five letters. Change the third letter to the one before it in the alphabet, and eliminate the second letter altogether. Rearrange the result to find where we first met this character.

Where did we first meet this fictional animal character, and who is it?

ENTREE #3

Name a popular rock band — one that most people know, in two words. 

The first word is a verb that means “to cut a zigzag edge on,” usually with shears or scissors with saw-toothed inner edge on its blades.

The second word in the band is the first name of a TV character who used scissors, but probably not scissors with saw-tooth-edged blades.

What is this band?

Who is the TV character?

ENTREE #4

Name a popular rock band — one that many people knew, in two words. Spoonerize the two words (that is, switch their initial sounds). 

The result sounds like two words:

1.🤵an abbreviated, informal word for certain muscles above the belt, and 

2.💓 rhythmically recurrent contractions – contractions of an organ above the belt, for example.

What is this rock band?

What are the muscles above the belt and the rhythmically recurrent above-the-belt contractions? 

ENTREE #5

A mid-1980s American science fiction comedy-horror film used as its soundtrack an album by a hard rock band based in the Eastern Hemisphere.

The second word in this 3-word album title is a 4-letter verb that is a homophone of an unmarried young woman. 

The first and third words are identical, and are the second word in the name of a 2-word British band containing 6-letters.

The album title is ungrammatical. Add an “m”
somewhere to correct its grammar.

What are this soundtrack album title and science fiction film title?

What is the British band?

What is the hard rock band based in the Eastern Hemisphere?

ENTREE #6

Name a pretty popular rock artist — one that many people know. 

Take just his surname. Interchange its syllables and add a “d” to the end. 

The result is a word for any one of many instruments played by using the mouth.

Who is this rock artist?  

What is the word for an instrument played by using the mouth?

Hint: This artist was in a group with a bandmate whose surname was the same as the second syllable in the artist’s surname. This bandmate played saxophone, flute and other such instruments. 

ENTREE #7

Take the three-word name of the front man in a punk-rock-power-pop band. Ignore the compound third word, which consists of a noun and adjective.

Let A=1, B=2, C=3, etc. Take the sum of the numbers corresponding to initials of the first and middle names of this front man. Take the letter corresponding to that sum and place it at the end of the middle name. Change the two letters at the end of the first name to a “y”. The result is the name of a more mainstream and well-known rock star.

Who is the front man and what is his band?

Who is the more well-known rock star?

ENTREE #8

Name an enduring blues and boogie rock band
— one that many people know. Move its first two letters to the end, and replace the first of the two with the letter succeeding it in the circular alphabet.  The result is a gem you might see in a wedding band — not the kind of band that plays at a wedding reception but rather the kind of band worn around a finger.

What are this band and this gem?

ENTREE #9

Name a popular rock band — one that most everyone knows. Remove the first letter and divide what remains in half. 

The first half spells the name of a Greek god. 

Change a letter in the second half to the only letter in the alphabet that rhymes with it; the result is a word associated with any Greek god.

What rock band is this?

Who is the Greek god and what is the word associated with any such god?

ENTREE #10

Name a rock singer  — one that not everyone knows — who led an influential 1960s avant-garde band. The singer’s three-letter first name has a homophone, also a first name, that shares only one letter with the singer’s first name.

The first two letters of the singer’s name and the third letter of the homophone can be rearranged to spell a woodland creature. 

The singer’s surname, spelled backward, spells a second woodland creature. 

Who are this singer and band?

What are the two woodland creatures?

ENTREE #11

Take the first and last names of a popular rock singer who once fronted a band of Jersey boys.

Remove consecutive letters from that full name that spell a world capital. The remaining letters can be rearranged to spell an eight-letter compound  meteorological word for something that is measured in that capital — during at least some of the four seasons — averaging about 13.5 inches annually.

Who is this singer and what is the band of Jersey boys?

What are the world capital and compound meteorological word? 

Dessert Menu

Not-A-Hot-Pocket Dessert:

Converting hot pods into hot rods

Name a food that might not be called a “Hot Pocket,” but that may well be called a “hot pod.”  Switch the fourth and eighth letters. Replace the last three letters of this result with a single  letter in the alphabet that sounds as if it might be in the word for the food, but is not. 

The result is a vehicle that might be converted into a “hot rod.” 

What are this food and vehicle?

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.