Russian news, “Processcity,” State becomes city, Food & spice, Natural techno, Who or what am I? A kitchen sink, or Santa’s wink? He wore a holster, rode a horse; Get Brett! Smart Hart! Comedy, cargo, cars & chores outdoors; Not rocket science, yet no mean feat

PUZZLERIA! SLICES: OVER 6!π SERVED

Schpuzzle of the Week:

Not rocket science, yet no mean feat

This puzzle may not be rocket science. 

Still, solving it will be no mean feat.

The first – and perhaps best-known – work by a poet employs a figure of speech that is an anagram of the poet’s name. 

What is this figure of speech? 

Who is the poet?

Appetizer Menu

Worldplayful Appetizer:

Russian news, “Processcity,” State becomes city, Food & spice, Natural techno, Who or what am I?

News from Russia  

1. 🌄Take a hyphenated word that is used in connection with news. Exchange two letters in this word for two others. Rearrange the result to yield a major city in Russia. 

Rearrange the two letters and their replacements to spell a nearby mountain range in Russia. 

What are the newsy word, Russian city and mountain range?

“Processcity”

2. 🌍Take a European city. Place a copy of an internal letter next to the original letter. The result sounds like what you were just doing. What are the city and process?

State to city

3. 🌎Change two internal letters inside the name of a US state to a single letter. You obtain the name of the largest city in another state. What are the state and city?

Name that food, name that spice

4. 🥫Take the name of a food. Remove the abbreviation for a country from its middle. The
remaining letters name a spice. 

What are the food, country, and spice?

Natural technology

5. 🌅Think of a natural phenomenon that temporarily achieves a certain result. 

Remove a letter to obtain a word for a technological concept that achieves a similar result for a
longer time. Return to the original, natural phenomenon. Add a letter to the first word to yield a result that could be associated with either the phenomenon or the technology.

Who or what am I?

6. 🐫🐘Some call me a camel, an officer, a shooter, a messenger, a jester, a runner, or a standard-bearer. 

Originally I was an elephant. 

Who or what am I?

MENU

À La Carte Before The Horse d’Oeuvre:

He wore a holster, rode a horse

Name something sometimes worn by a horse. 

Delete a letter, leaving the last name of an actor in a role who rode a horse and wore a holster. 

What does a horse sometimes wear? 

Who is this actor?

“Serving Spoon” Slice:

Comedy, cargo, cars & chores outdoors

Spoonerize the name of a past comedian to get what sounds like a service that carries passengers, cars and cargo across bodies of water. 

Name a second comedian, one associated with that past comedian. Spoonerize this second comedian’s name, then insert a space and a “y” someplace. The result is three words: two verbs for outdoor chores and a noun for where these chores are done. 

Who are these two fellow comedians? 

What is the service that carries passengers, cars and cargo across bodies of water?

What are the two verbs for outdoor chores? 

Where are the chores done?

Riffing Off Shortz Slices:

Get Brett! Smart Hart!

Will Shortz’s July 23rd NPR Weekend Edition Sunday puzzle, created by Will Shortz, reads:

Name a classic TV show in two words, in which the respective words rhyme with the first and last names of a famous writer – four letters in the first name, five letters in the last name. Who is it?

Puzzleria!s Riffing Off Shortz Slices read:

ENTREE #1

“Spanning the globe to bring you the constant variety of ______: the ______ of victory, the agony of defeat. ...”

“One of the perks of being president is that you can ____ the ______ by making judicial
appointments.”

Two of the words in those four blanks rhyme with the first name of a puzzle-maker. The words in the remaining blanks rhyme with the surname.

Who is this puzzle-maker?

What are the four missing words? 

ENTREE #2

Name a classic TV sitcom, in two words, in which the first word rhymes with the nickname of a member of the United States Navy Fleet to whom a former Beatle alluded in song. 

Remove the last letter of the Navy Fleet member’s surname, then replace two consecutive letters with two new letters. The result is the second word in the classic TV sitcom.

What is this TV show? Who is the member of the United States Navy Fleet?

 Hint: The two letters you replace in the Navy member’s surname followed by the two letters that replace them spell the surname of three brothers who made Major League Baseball history when they played in the same outfield together in 1963.

ENTREE #3

Name a classic TV show’s title character, in two words. The first name rhymes with an author of classical literature. The surname rhymes with a word for Aeaea or Ogygia,
which appear in one of the author’s works.

Who is this TV character?

Who is the author of classical literature?

What is the word for Aeaea or Ogygia?

ENTREE #4

Name a classic TV show. Its two words rhyme with words that describe Wrangler, Dickies and Toughskins.

What is this TV show?

What words describe Wrangler, Dickies and Toughskins?

ENTREE #5

Name the title of a classic TV show, a two-syllable compound word, in which many characters who were “guest stars” often met their demise. The title of the show rhymes with a compound word for a life-threatening condition marked especially by cessation of sweating, extremely high body temperature, and collapse that results from prolonged exposure to high temperature and lack of shade.

What is this TV show?

What is the life-threatening condition?

ENTREE #6

“I think I’d miss you even if we’d never met.”

“You have bewitched me, body and soul, and I love… I love… I love you.”

“I’ll never let go, Jack. I promise.”

“You make me want to be a better man.”

“It’s like in that moment the whole universe existed just to bring us together.”

“You’re the first boy I ever kissed, Jake, and I want you to be the last.”

Name a two-word classic TV show in which the respective words rhyme with two words that describe each one of the six mushy utterances above.

What is the TV show?

What is the description of each mushy utterance?

ENTREE #7

Name a classic TV show in four words. 

Delete an article and preposition, leaving two words. 

Replace each word with a rhyming word, resulting in a side dish served at a restaurant, in six and five letters.

What are this TV show and side dish?

Hint: The singular form of the second word in the side dish rhymes with the color of the side dish.

ENTREE #8

Name a 1980s-90s TV sitcom in three words. Remove the “the” from the middle. 

The remaining words rhyme with a synonym of “hard liquor” and a slang term for liquor (that is sometimes preceded by “the”).

What is this sitcom?

What are the synonym and slang term?

ENTREE #9

Name a two-word 1980s-90s TV sitcom in which the respective words rhyme with a big bovine critter and a minuscule murine critter. 

These same words rhyme, respectively, with a two-word term for a woman’s winterwear
garment made from material produced by an ovine critter. 

What is this TV show?

What are the bovine and murine critters?

What is the woman’s winterwear garment?

Hint: The woman’s winterwear garment might seem incongruous, but apparently it’s “a thing.” 

ENTREE #10

Name a three-syllable word coined in the 1950’s. Delete its second syllable, which consists of two consecutive letters of the alphabet. The remaining syllables rhyme with a name in the news in the 1970’s. 

These remaining syllables also rhyme with two chess pieces. 

The first syllable rhymes with something in a yard that is the color of the third syllable.

What are this 1950’s word and 1970’s name?

What are the chess pieces?

What’s in a yard and what is its color?

ENTREE #11

Name a “much-prized” author, in two words. 

Spoonerize these words to get 1.) a verb meaning “to use your feet to force a floating log to spin” and 2.) a piece of hockey equipment. The author’s names also rhyme with two synonyms of “fling.”  

Who is the author?

What are the verb meaning “to use your feet to force a floating log to spin” and the piece of hockey equipment?

What are the two synonyms of “fling”?   

ENTREE #12

Name a mystery writer known for detective fiction. Remove from the name the four letters in a synonym of “nap...” but, ironically, leave the rest. (The four letters in the synonym of “nap” are in order but not consecutive.) 

The result is a four-letter term for what this writer might do to a part of a rough draft of his manuscript if he wants to improve, or simpy change, it.

Bonus: Anagram the combined letters in the name of a brilliant, obese and eccentric fictional armchair detective to whom this writer “gave birth” in 1934. The result is a protection on a house’s exterior and and a post on a house’s interior.

Who is this writer? What might he do to a part of his rough draft?

What is the name of his fictional detective? What are the exterior and interior house parts?

ENTREE #13

Name a poet/preacher from the past, indeed centuries ago. Take a homophone of his surname and a rhyme of his first name. This homophone and rhyming word are identical except for their initial letters. Both words are suggestive or perhaps even indicative of the past.

Who is this past poet/preacher? 

What are the words associated with the past?

ENTREE #14

Name a classic TV sitcom in two words. Take rhymes of these words – rhymes of three and four letters – that form a phrase that applies to any one of the following items: compressor, combustor, turbine, afterburner or supersonic nozzle.

What is this sitcom?

What is the description?

ENTREE #15

Name a famous past author whose first and last names rhyme with:

* a member of a jury who acts as chairman and spokesman, and

* a  person in court who may emerge after the
verdict is read.

Who are this author and two courtroom players?

ENTREE #16

Name an actor, in two words, from a classic 1950s-60s TV show. The respective words in the name, if you go by how they are spelled, appear to rhyme with a two-word term for “clever sayings, phrases, witticisms or witty ripostes in dialogue.” 

But the actor’s name does not rhyme with that two-word term. Instead it rhymes with a two-word caption (not beginning with “mug”) for the images shown here – the kind of images the actor’s character was quite familair with.

Who is this actor?

What is the two-word term for “clever sayings, phrases, witticisms or witty ripostes?”

What is the two-word term for the images?

ENTREE #17

Name a Hall-of-Fame quarterback – five letters in the first name, five letters in the last name. 

Move the 5th letter so that it is between the 9th and 10th letters. Delete from the result the first and third letters of the 3-letter International Telecommunication Union designation for the range of radio frequency electromagnetic waves. Place the second letter in that designation in the middle of the eight letters that remain. Remove a space. The result is a somewhat famous writer.

Who is it?

Who is the quarterback?

What is the 3-letter International Telecommunication Union designation for the range of radio frequency electromagnetic waves?

Dessert Menu:

Christmas Kitsch In The Kitchen? Dessert:

A kitchen sink, a Santa’s wink?

Name something seen in a house around the kitchen. 

Remove the first letter and interchange the two vowels to spell something seen in a house around the winter holidays. 

What are these things?

Hint: Both things are usually the same color.

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.

Chopper, chain, ship & savory; Poem, periodical & newspaper; Dennis the first-stone caster; “Mixed review” of an early role? “Strangers in the Night, Frank’s in a tray!” A square is “just right” angles, four of ’em;

 PUZZLERIA! SLICES: OVER 6!π SERVED

Schpuzzle of the Week:

A square is “just right” angles, four of ’em

Square a number. Multiply the result by ten. 

The first three digits of this product form a number that Goldilocks might think is “just right.” 

What number did you square?

Appetizer Menu

Lightning-Round Appetizer:

Chopper, chain, ship & savory

“Poached Eggbeater”

1. 🚁Last night I dreamed our helicopter was stolen. 

Of course, we don’t really own a helicopter – this was just one of those totally crazy dreams people have sometimes. 

Anyway, in the dream the fictional police tried to find it and got nowhere. 

Then we engaged a fictional detective who recovered the helicopter in short order. 

You can discover the detective’s name by rearranging the letters in consecutive words in this puzzle. Who is it?

Purchasing Personal Care

2. ⛓Name a well-known brand of personal care products. 

Swap the first and last halves of the brand name and you’ll identify a chain of stores where similar products are sold. 

What’s the brand? 

What’s the chain?

“The Yankee Clipper?”

3. 🚢The last name of a famous 20th century athlete sounds a lot like a word that identifies one side of a ship. 

The title of a 1980 Top Ten hit identifies the other side of a ship. 

Name the athlete, word, and hit.

State, Star & Scale

4. 🗣🌠⚖Start with a state abbreviation. 

Then add the name of the iconic fictional star of several action movies. 

Finally, add the name of a musical note in the Do-Re-Mi scale. 

You’ll name something that’s quite tasty. 

What is it?

MENU

Anagrahamcracker Hors d’Oeuvre:

Poem, periodical & newspaper

Name a kind of poem, a kind of periodical and a newspaper snippet.

Rearrange the combined letters in these three
words to form the title of a famous work of fiction. 

What are this title and these three words?

“A Palindrome Of Boundless Proportions?” Slice:

Dennis the first-stone caster

A palindrome is a phrase whose letters read the same backwards as forwards, as in “Dennis and Edna sinned.”  

Your task is to find a related palindrome about Dennis that refutes or denies that one!

Note: The inspiration, core, crux and content of the above puzzling creation come courtesy of Rudolfo, whose “Puzzles Rufolfo” appears often on Puzzleria! Lego Lambda suggested “the bookends.” 

Riffing Off Shortz And Picciotto Slices:

“Strangers in the Night, Frank’s in a tray!”

Will Shortz’s July 16th NPR Weekend Edition Sunday puzzle, created by  Henri Picciotto of the National Puzzlers’ League, reads:

Name a famous singer (first and last names, 12 letters in all). Add a Y at the end, and the result, with respacing but not rearranging any letters, will spell a possible contribution to a picnic and how it might be served. What singer is it?

Puzzleria!s Riffing Off Shortz And Picciotto Slices read:

ENTREE #1

“When David ____ played for ‘The Crimson Hose’ he would occasionally have to  _____ to _____ Hunter who played for ‘The Twinkies’.”

Rearrange the 14 letters in those three blanks to spell the name of a puzzle-maker.

Who is this puzzle-maker?

What three words belong in the blanks?

ENTREE #2

Note: Entree #2 was suggested by an NPR Sunday Puzzle/Puzzleria! listener/reader, and friend of Puzzleria!

Name a famous Tennessean singer (first and last names, 11 letters in all). Replace the last two letters of the last name with the last letter of the first name, forming words of four and five letters. 

Switch the order of these altered names to spell the title of a 1950’s rock ’n’ roll song written and recorded by a young Texan.

Who are these Tennessean and Texan singers?

What  is the title of the Texan’s song?

Hint: The young Texan’s name is a synonym of “cohort” followed by word that follows “Fort.” 

ENTREE #3

Note: This Entree #3 riff-off was composed and contributed by our friend Jeff Zarkin, whose “Jeff Zarkin Puzzle Riffs” appears regularly on Puzzleria!

Take the name of a famous singer. 

Reverse it to phonetically get a place where one might eat.

Add a letter to get what one might order there.

Who is the singer, what is the place, and what might you order?

ENTREE #4

Name a character (first and last names, eight letters in all) that appeared on a teen drama television series that debuted on the Fox TV network two decades ago. 

Replace the last letter with an M, and the result, with respacing but not rearranging any letters, will spell a synonym of an anagram of a synonym of “dog tag.” 

What is this character’s name?

What are the synonym of “dog tag,” anagram of that synonym, and synonym of that anagram?  

ENTREE #5

Name a somewhat obscure character actor (first and last names, 14 letters in all) who nevertheless appeared in more than 100 films – including, “It’s a Wonderful Life,” “Mr. Blandings Builds His Dream House,” “Pat and Mike” and “Mighty Joe Young.” 

This name is also a phrase for what an employee of the valet service offered by restaurants, stores, hotels, et cetera would become if a patron of such an establishment drives up in an air-cooled automobile manufactured in Syracuse between 1902 and 1934.

Who is this character actor?

What would an employee become?

ENTREE #6

Name a famous author (first and last names, ten letters in all). Add a Y at the end of the first name. Change the last letter of the last name to an “s”. The result is what you might witness on an athletic field in the wake of a competition.

Who is this author?

What might you witness on the field?

ENTREE #7

Name a German writer, historian and Nobel Prize laureate. Number the fourteen letters in the name 1, 2, 3...14. 

Now imagine a verbless five-word exclamation of incredulous disgust perhaps spoken by a gentleman who had just used a public restroom that had not been well-maintained. The exclamation is in the form:

“___   ____’  ____   ____...  ___!”

Use the letters in the German writer’s name to reveal the exclamation:

 “(1 2 3)   (11 13 14 12’)  (7 6 9 8)  (4 5 6 7)...  (11 9 10!”)

Note: In the last word of the exclamation (the one before the exclamation mark) letters #10 and #11 must be inverted. However, those two letters need not be inverted if the gentleman who had just used the not-well-maintained public restroom is a very young gentleman –say, age 10 or less.

Who is this German writer?

What is the exclamation?

ENTREE #8

Name a famous American preacher (first and last names, 14 letters in all) who was a pal of Jerry Falwell and whose divorce caused a minor controversy in the major denomination he led.

Remove a Y from the end. Put in its place a double-letter. 

The result – with respacing but not rearranging of any letters – will spell two possible pieces of advice a parent might give:

* to a young’un attempting to roast a marshmallow to make a s’more, and

* to a teen who may be sunbathing a bit too much.

Who was this preacher?

What are the two possible pieces of parental advice?

ENTREE #9 

Name a very successful past major league pitcher (first and last names, 11 letters in all). Remove the fourth and tenth letters.

The result, with respacing but not rearranging any letters, will spell a two-word description of Princess Diana of Wales, Queen Letizia
of Spain, or Great Britain’s Queen Elizabeth II.

Who is this pitcher?

What is the two-word description? 

Hint: The pitcher also went by the nickname of a famous gunslinger.

ENTREE #10 

Name a probably-ought-to-be-more-famous actress (first and last names, nine letters in all) who shares a rare distinction with actress Betty White. 

Move the first letter of this actress’s last name so that it becomes the last letter of her first name, forming two new words. The result is the possible name of a store that specializes in certain clothing worn below the neck.

Who is this actress?

What is the possible store name?

ENTREE #11 

Name a famous novelist, poet, and journalist (first and last names, 12 letters in all). Lowercase the uppercase letters, and the result, with just one instance of respacing and just one instance of rearranging letters, will
spell:

1. a plural word (the first four letters of the novelist’s name, in reverse)

2. a female bird, and 

3. a rail-like bird.

The first, plural word might apply to the second and third “bird words.” 

Who is this novelist?

What are the three words?

ENTREE #12 

Name a 20th-Century prime minister (first and last names, 16 letters in all). Replace the first name with a more informal six-letter first name that was commonly substituted. Replace the fourth letter in this name with a “p”, resulting in a kind of bird.

The prime minister’s surname is a possible
word for this bird when it’s building its nest.

Remove the first letter of the prime minister’s surname to spell a word for this bird when it’s in the process of propagating its species.

Who is this prime minister?

What is the bird?

What might you call this nest-building bird and species-propagating bird?

ENTREE #13 

Name an American politician who also served as United States Secretary of State (first and last names, 17 letters in all). 

The first four letters of the first name can be used to spell “a fermented beverage made of
water and honey, malt, and yeast.” Remove also the sixth letter of the first name and the first two letters of the surname, three letters that can be used to spell “a type of beer with a bitter flavor and higher alcoholic content.”

Reverse the order of the two words that remain. Place a hyphen between them. 

The result is a hyphenated word describing a
kind of distinction that may provide an unambiguous criterion or guideline, especially in law or in diplomacy, which was this American politician’s bailiwick and forté.

Who is this politician and diplomat?

What are the beverage and the beer?

What is the hypenated descriptive word?

Dessert Menu

English as a Second Language Dessert:

A “mixed review” of an early role?

Name an actress. Anagram her surname to spell a verb that a small child might use – or that an ESL (English as a Second Language) student might use – to describe what this actress did in one of her early TV roles. 

Who is this actress and what is the verb?

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.