Flip-180, weighty kin, Irish lass, Euro-city, UK slang, Attila in Italy! A food-and-vessel festival; Synonyms expressing themselves; “Cal-i-fornee, the San Francisco state!” “The Quad(ruplet) Cities?” One Dickens of a metro-mystery!

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Schpuzzle of the Week:

One Dickens of a metro-mystery!

A currently trending news story is “a tale of two cities... and one man.”

The last five letters of one of the cities can be rearranged to spell a word that explains how this man became a resident of that city: “He was _____.” 

The remaining letters of that city spell the first name of a second man whose surname is the same as the name of the other city. 

These two men share a rare distinction regarding their past professions. 

What are these two cities?

Who are the two men and what is their shared distinction? 

What is the missing word that describes how the man became a resident of the city? (“He was _____.”) 

Appetizer Menu

Skydiversionary Septet Appetizer:

Flip-180, weighty kin, Irish lass, Euro-city, UK slang, Attila in Italy!

1. Think of a major European city in three syllables. Change the order of the syllables to
phonetically form a two-word slang expression common in the UK. What are this city and slang expression?

2. Think of a common four-word idiomatic phrase, “____ of the ____,” that means the current situation or state of affairs. Switch the first and last words to get another phrase that phonetically describes our fiftieth state. What are these two phrases?

3. Write a five-letter adverb in lower case letters. Change the second letter to the same as the third letter to spell a noun that might be found where the adverb indicates. Now rotate the second and third letters of this noun 180 degrees to spell an adjective that describes the opposite of where the second word will be found. What are these three words?

4. Name what Attila hoped to become by going to Italy, in two words. Spoonerize these words to spell a feat many baseball players hope to accomplish. What did Attila hope to become, and what is this baseball feat?

5. Think of a three-syllable noun that you might use to privately refer to an overweight relative. What is this noun?

6. Spoonerize the name of a well-known film critic. Switch the order of the two words to describe a fair-complexioned Irish girl.

7. Think of a major European city in nine letters. Rearrange them into three words to sarcastically describe someone who constantly frequents cocktail lounges.

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Celebratory Hors d’Oeuvre:

A food-and-vessel festival

Name a multi-day seasonal festival in Europe.

Rearrange the letters in this name to spell two things you would see at this celebration: a food, and a vessel containing a beverage that complements that food.

What is this festival?

What are this vessel and food?

Commonality Of Capitals Slice:

“The Quad(ruplet) Cities?”

Put four U.S. capital cities in alphabetical order, followed by their locations. (“Boise, Idaho,” for instance, because Boise is situated in Idaho.)

In the second city, replace a pronoun with a state postal abbreviation to form a duplicate of the first city.

Change the third city to a duplicate of the first city by adding a consonant to the beginning, replacing a vowel with a different one, and inverting a consonant. 

After these revisions, all four capital cities, along with their locations, share one word in common. 

And two of the four share another word in common. 

What are are these four cities and the two commonly shared words?

Riffing Off Shortz And Sivakumar Slices:

“Cal-i-fornee, the San Francisco state!”

Will Shortz’s September 24th NPR Weekend Edition Sunday puzzle, created by Sid Sivakumar, who is one of the top crossword contributors for the New York Times, reads:

Name a major U.S. city in two words. Change the first letter of the first word and the next-to-last letter of the second word. Then rearrange all the letters to name the people who live in this city. What city is it?

Puzzleria!s Riffing Off Shortz And Sivakumar Slices read:

ENTREE #1

Name a puzzle-maker in two words. Change the third and fifth letters of his surname. Then rearrange all the letters in the name to name two Greek mythological figures. One is associated with gold; the other is a god of gardens and fertility. 

Who is this puzzle-maker? 

Who are the two Greek mythological figures?

Note: 

Entree #2 is a riff created by Ecoarchitect, whose “Econfusions” feature appears regularly on Puzzleria!

Entree #3 is a riff created by Tortitude, whose “Tortie’s Slow but Sure Puzzles” feature also appears regularly on Puzzleria!

ENTREE #2

“Pleasing” is perhaps the nicest “typewriter word,” a word that uses each finger once and only once on a standard keyboard.

But there are other nice “typewriter words” also, especially if you know your US
geography: 

🌆🏙 People from two US cities are typewriter words. 

🙎 A single person from one US city is a typewriter word. 

🌎Products named after one US city are a plural  typewriter word. 

What are the cities?

ENTREE #3

Name a two-word major American city that is located in a coastal state. 

Change the first letter to the one that is two letters before it in the alphabet (i.e., ROT24). Rearrange the letters to produce the name of an actor who was born in that city. The actor is known for starring in a twenty-first century sitcom that was set in a city that’s on the opposite coast.

What is the city? Who is the actor?

ENTREE #4

Name a major U.S. city in one word. Two consecutive letters in the city, in reverse, name a member of the U.S. armed forces. Replace these letters with a two-letter reviver of dead chrysanthemums. Rearrange the result to name any person who lives in this city. 

What city is it, and who lives there?

ENTREE #5

Name a major U.S. city in two words. Replace the first letter of the first word and the third and last letters of the second word. Then rearrange all these letters to name the people who live in
this city. What city is it?

Hint: The three replacement letters are the only consonants in the surname of an English poet and clergyman or in a word for any group of nine.

ENTREE #6

Name a major U.S. city (in two words and 11 letters) and a word for people who live in that city (in 12 letters). 

Remove the same seven letters from both words – letters that can be anagrammed to spell the oxymoronic phrase “sad grin.” 

Anagram the five remaining letters in the word for the city people to spell what church bells do. Change the long-i vowel sound in that word to a short-u sound to form a synonym of the dialectal noun that is an anagram of the four remaining letters in the word for the city.

What is the city and word for people in that city? 

What do church bells do? 

What are the dialectal synonym and the anagram of the four letters? 

ENTREE #7

Name a major U.S. city, in two words, that contains ten letters. 

Transpose the words. Remove the space. 

Replace two consecutive letters of this result with a single letter. (The two consecutive letters are the first and third letters of a nearly half-century-old late-night television show abbreviation; the single letter is the second letter in that abbreviation.) 

The result is the name of people who live in this U.S. city. What city is it, and what are its residents called?

ENTREE #8

Name a major U.S. city that is a college town (in two words and 11 letters) and a word for people who live in that city (in 10 letters). Remove the same seven letters from both words. These letters can be rearranged to spell an “auditory crop” and the name of the Roman god that is essential to its growth. 

The three remaining letters in the 10-letter word, spelled forward or backward, are the title of a novel by a Russian author. 

The four remaining letters in the college town can be rearranged to spell the brand name for an insecticide with an advertising campaign for which the future Dr. Seuss (then known as Theodor Seuss Geisel) created artwork.

What are this U.S. city and the word for people who live there?

What are the novel title and name of the insecticide?

What is the “auditory crop” and the name of the Roman god that is essential to its growth?

ENTREE #9

Name a major U.S. city in two words and eight letters. 

Change the first letter of the second word to a new letter that is two places later in the alphabet to spell the name of a rock group. 

Forget the rock group but remember the new letter. Add it to the eight letters of the U.S. city.

Three of these nine letters spell a word for a strong desire or craving. 

Remove them. 

Rearrange the remaining letters to spell the name of any resident of this city.

What are this city and one of its residents?

What are the rock group and the word for the craving? 

ENTREE #10

Name  a U.S. city in two words. The last two letters of each word, if you put a hyphen between them, spell a four-letter hyphenated chiefly British interjection used to express farewell.

Bid “farewell” to this interjection. Replace it with a four-letter word for “intelligence, news, facts and data.” Anagram the result to spell the people who live in this city.

What city is it?

Who are the people who live in this city?

What are the interjection and the word for intelligence and news?

Hint: The city can be anagrammed to spell a two-word term for a subject about which Lilith Starr has written.

ENTREE #11

Name a major U.S. city in one nine-letter word, and the residents of this city, in two words and eight letters. 

Place an apostrophe, an “s” and a three-letter noun after the city, implying that the city is Internet-friendly. This 13-letter result is also the title of a popular literary work. 

Each of the eight letters in the term for the city’s residents also appears in the literary title.

Remove these eight letters from the title, leaving five letters that can be rearranged to spell out, if you place a space someplace, the year twenty-and-a-quarter centuries ago.

What are this city and residents of this city?

What is the title of the literary work?

What is the year twenty-and-a-quarter centuries ago?

Dessert Menu

Scrabble-Legal Sea-Worthy Dessert:

Synonyms expressing themselves

Place two synonymous nouns next to each other to form a nine-letter string made up of five different letters. 

Remove all vowels and two consonants, leaving a Scrabble-legal word for an expression of these synonyms.

What are these synonyms and the expression?

Hint: The letters you removed can be anagrammed to spell the name of a sea.

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.

Homographology 101 Pop Quiz; Icily idiomatic mixology; Maritime crime and “punnish”ment; Gunplay, Swordplay, Wordplay; Prominent geography, insignificant humanity; Seychelles seashells by the seashore

PUZZLERIA! SLICES: OVER 6!π SERVED

Schpuzzle of the Week:

Icy idiomatic mixology

Take the last four words of a well-known idiom.

Mix their combined letters to form a two-word drink made with an alcoholic beverage and sorbet. It is a drink you might garnish with those four words of the idiom. 

What are this two-word drink and this idiom?

Appetizer Menu

Stylish Strad-Steiff Appetizer:

Homographology 101 Pop Quiz

Sharpen your #2-lead pencils and park your backpacks beneath your desks... It’s Pop Quiz time, Strad-Steiff-Subtleties-Style!

Instructions: In each of the first 20 problems below, each of the two parts is a synonym for, or clue to, 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 answer to “horsehide” flung batterward vs piney substance on the batter’s bat would be PITCH. (These homographs are pronounced the same.) The answer to fault vs forsake one’s nation  would be DEFECT. (These homographs are usually pronounced differently)

Problem #21 is for extra credit!

Hint: In only one of the first 20 problems below are there homographs that are pronounced differently.

1. leg  vs  “baby moo”

2. nasty  vs  intend

3. slim  vs  skew

4. hurt  vs  clever

5. west  vs  went  

6. fast  vs  flesh 

7. foot  vs  only 

8. doodle  vs  pull

9. toys  vs  jams up

10. brain  vs  object 

11. here  vs  favor

12. cage  vs  sign

13.  mild expletive  vs  sew

14. tree  vs  long

15. rap  vs  weight

16.  wool  vs  tale

17. near  vs  shut

18. stand  vs  Yellowstone animal

19. safe  vs  leap

20. roster  vs  stiff encasement vs  mold

21. Add two letters to the front of a word having to do with movement and pulling to get something else that moves a person or pulls a person.

A note from “school principal” LegoLambda: 

“Time’s up! Congratulations to all who completed ViolinTeddy’s homographology test. Please place your test papers face-down on her desk. Class dismissed.”

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American Atlas Hors d’Oeuvre:

Significant geography, insignificant humanity

Write in lowercase letters a significant and prominent two-word American geograpical feature. 

Remove the space between words. 

Take the mirror image of the sixth letter. Place after it a letter that usually follows that letter. 

Replace the third and fourth letters with a duplicate of the first letter. The result is a synonym of a whippersnapper or twerp. 

What are this significant geograpical feature and synonym of a whippersnapper or twerp? 

“Weaponizing” Puzzledom Slice:

Gunplay, Swordplay, Wordplay

Remove the first syllable of a word associated with a sword.

Change a vowel to a different vowel. The result is a word associated with guns. 

What words are these?

Hint: Take the removed syllable. Change its vowel sound to form a weapon that functions similarly to a sword.

Riffing Off Shortz And VanMechelen Slices:

Seychelles seashells by the seashore

Will Shortz’s September 17th NPR Weekend Edition Sunday puzzle, created by Greg VanMechelen of Berkeley, California, reads:

Name a place where many people go for vacation, in three and ten letters. Change one of the vowels sounds from a long A to a long E, and the result phonetically will be one reason to visit this place. What place is it?

Puzzleria!s Riffing Off Shortz And VanMechelen Slices read:

ENTREE #1

Take three words:

1. an adjective that describes St. Bede (9 letters),

2. what people who seek forgiveness often do (5 letters), and

3. what people who seek forgiveness often ask for (5 letters).

Take these 19 letters. Replace an “r” with an “h”. 

Rearrange the result to spell the surname and hometown of a puzzle-maker.

Who is this puzzle-maker, and what is his hometown?

What are the three words of 9, 5 and 5 letters?

Extra Credit: The hometown of this puzzle-maker is in the same state as La Cañada’s St. Bede Church, a consecrated place where many people go to seek forgiveness. Anagram a 9-letter word for such a place to spell a two-word phrase in 5 and 4 letters, that describes Mrs. Reed (in “Jane Eyre” by Charlotte Brontë) or Josephine March (in “Little Women” by Louisa May Alcott).

Note: The following fourteen “self-riff-offs” of this week’s NPR puzzle (Entrees #2 through #15, below) were created by Greg VanMechelen, the author of that puzzle. These riffs reflect a global diversity, incorporating geographic locations in Africa, Asia, Europe, North America, South America, Oceania and Australia/New Zealand. All “corners” of the “spherical” earth are represented.

ENTREE #2

Name an island you might visit for vacation.
Change a vowel sound and the result will sound like a body part.

What are this island and body part?

ENTREE #3

Name a country illegally attacked in the past by the US. Change a vowel sound and you’ll hear the name of a major big box retailer. What are this country and retailer?

ENTREE #4

Name a country that is an anagram of a two-word term for what the U.S. won in 1969. Change a vowel sound and the result will be a homonym for the last name of a major filmmaker. What did the US win in 1969, what is the country, and who is the filmmaker?

ENTREE #5

Name a place where you might have sought your fortune 125 years ago. 

Change nothing and phonetically the result will be the popular shorthand name of an educational institution. 

What are this place and shorthand institutional name?

ENTREE #6

Change a vowel sound in a world capital. The result will “give an audience” to a popular sport. 

What are this capital and sport?

ENTREE #7

Change a vowel sound in a world capital. 

Aurally, the result will be an historical coin from another country. 

What are this capital and coin?

ENTREE #8

Change a vowel sound in a small but well-known US city. 

The result will be an abbreviated term for a not-so-small animal that is not native to the US. What are this city and animal?

ENTREE #9

Name an island you might visit for vacation. 

Change a vowel sound and the result will have an auditory resemblance to a well-known very affirmative phrase from a foreign tongue. 

What are this island and phrase?

ENTREE #10

Change a vowel sound in a nationality and the result will sound like a structure where you might live, though the people of that nationality generally don’t use that term for this structure. What are this nationality and structure?

ENTREE #11

Change a vowel sound in a world capital. The result will verbally describe the fabulous place where a certain animal lived. 

What are this capital and fabulous place?

ENTREE #12

Name a major city in the US.  

Change the vowel sound and the result will sound like a major airport in the US.

What are this city and airport?

ENTREE #13

Change a vowel sound in a major US city. Listening to the result will yield the most populous city in another country nearly one quarter the way around the world. What are these two cities?

ENTREE #14

Change a vowel sound in a world capital. You’ll hear an animal associated with that country. What are the capital, country and associated animal?

ENTREE #15

Name a continental-sized geographic feature in five letters that generally runs north-south. 

Change a vowel sound from a “short a” to a “short i”. The result phonetically will be two locations: one preceded by east, the other by west.  

What are this geographic feature and two locations?

ENTREE #16

Name a tropical isle where many people go for vacation, in seven letters.

Change one of the vowel sounds from a long A to a long O, and the result phonetically
will be a Ghirardelli chocolate and coffee-flavored milkshake that predated the frappuccino.

What are this isle and milkshake?

ENTREE #17

Name an African archipelago where many people go for vacation, in eight letters. 

Replace the last two letters (that are pronounced like the letter “R”) with a rearrangement of the three letters in a synonym of “allow.” The result, more-or-less phonetically, will be a brand of men’s casual trousers that have a wide webbed elastic band sewn into the waist. 

What archipelago is this?

What is the brand of trousers?

Note of apology: Entree #17 is kind of a “s-t-r-e-t-c-h.”

ENTREE #18

Name an American rapper, in five and four letters.

Remove two adjacent letters and switch the order of two others to name a popular vacation destination in the United States. What is this destination? Who is the rapper?

ENTREE #19

Name one of the “ABC” Caribbean Dutch islands where many people go for vacation, in five letters. Remove the middle letter.

Take the two vowels in a trendy, much-in-the-news acronym. Place the first vowel where the middle letter was. Place the second vowel in front of the last letter. The result is a large peninsula flanked by two large continents. What are this island and peninsula?

Dessert Menu

Just Deserts Dessert:

Maritime crime and “punnish-ment”

Take a synonym of “criminals” and a synonym of “maritime crime.” 

Place these synonyms side-by-side to spell “a plot to commit a crime.” 

What are these three crime-related 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.