3-Factorial Gordian-Knotty Enigmas; Cardiac Stress Fracture! “Was Millie a Meeter of Senta?” "Stir up some soup on the spur of the moment" “Gamboling, in love?”... or “Gambling on love?” Diplomas, degrees & deep pockets

PUZZLERIA! SLICES: OVER 5πe² SERVED

Schpuzzle of the Week:

Cardiac Stress-fracture?

“Sal’s dear sister’s heart, alas, is rather stressed.”

What somewhat unusual property does that sentence (above, in red and blue) possess?

Note: This week’s Appetizers are the creative contributions of a valued friend of Puzzleria! who doubles as a justifiably vaunted puzzle-maker. 

Appetizer Menu

Appealing Pleasant Appetizers:

3-Factorial Gordian-Knotty Enigmas

A Substantial Subject Matter

1. 🧠Take a word for substance or subject. 

Change one letter to get a word for the environment in which a substance or subject can be evaluated and understood. 

What are those two words? 

An All-thumbs Author?

2. 👍👎In the novella “The Misadventure of the Keys,” the protagonist was to embark on an “ambitious” quest. 

However, a drafting error made the quest sound cryptic and mysterious. 

The author erred by striking adjacent keys for two consecutive letters on a standard keyboard, changing a “key” descriptive word for the adventure. 

What word did the author inadvertently substitute for “ambitious,” and how did that occur? 

Interjection Rejection

3. 🗺Name a country. Remove an interjection
and the space created by the removal. 

The result is the name of another country. 

What are the two countries? 

“Two’s company, three’s too LOUD!”

4. 🗽name a well known American company. The first three letters of the name, reversed, equal the last letter of the name. 

What is the company name?

(Note: The following is a riff of the October 12, 2025, NPR Challenge.)  

Messing with Endings of “Leading” Maintains its Sense

5. 👦Think of a word that means leading. 

Remove two letters at the end to make a term that means leading. 

Then change the letter at the end of the term to make a word that means leading. 

What words and term are these? 

Unsportsmanlike Conduct Penalty Puzzle

6. 👙Think of a two-word term (sometimes hyphenated, sometimes not) for an unsportsmanlike activity that is related to current sports news. 

Take the 12 letters in that term, and arrange them to describe a loss of part of the beachwear which is the subject of the October 23, 2025, Puzzleria! Schpuzzle. 

Then arrange those letters to get an unpleasant loss that could be associated with the unsportsmanlike activity or a pleasant loss experienced by a successful dieter). 

What are the activity, the description, and the losses? 

MENU

How Our Body Parts Measure Up Hors d’Oeuvre:

“Was Millie a Meeter of Senta?”

Name a four-letter body part with its letters in alphabetical order (like the three-letter body part “hip,” for example). 

Arrange the letters in this four-letter body part to spell a unit of length. 

Name another four-letter “alphabetically ordered” body part that can be arranged to spell a unit of length.

Wooing Or Wagering Slice:

Gamboling, in love... or gambling on love?

Madison Avenue envisions young couples – hand-in-hand, heart-and-heart – gamboling across glistening groomed grass, embracing within the embrace of a bracing breeze, and setting sail upon a lifelong journey together.

What plural two-word synonym of  “glistening groomed grass” – if you change an “a” to an “e” – is a one-word anagram of such couples?

Riffing Off Shortz And VanMechelen Entrees:

“Stir up some soup in the spur of the moment”

Will Shortz’s November 23rd NPR Weekend Edition Sunday puzzle, created by Greg VanMechelen of Berkeley, California, reads:

Name some equipment an equestrian might use. Remove the second, third and fourth letters, and reverse those that remain. The result will be some more equipment an equestrian might use. What things are these?

Puzzleria!s Riffing Off Shortz And VanMechelen Entrees read:

ENTREE #1

Write down the name of a puzzle-maker in 4 blanks  _ _ _ _, followed by 11 blanks _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ . Number them 1 through 15.

~ Blanks 6, 7, 4, 12 and 13 spell the second word in the nickname (“Wisconsin _ _ _ _ _”) of a Civil War-era nurse who organized relief for Wisconsin soldiers and their children during and after the Civil War.

~ Blanks 1, 9, 2, 8, 6 and 15 spell the ethnic heritage of many Wisconsinites, especially ofearly settlers in Milwaukee. 

~ Blanks 6, 7, 4, 13, 3 and 2 spell a common Wisconsin summertime sight along the shores of lakes and rivers.

~ Blanks 4, 6, 15, and 1 followed by 4, 2, 14, 12 and 15 spell a collective name for Green Bay Packer fans.

~ Blanks 10, 11, 9, 14, 5, 12 and 2 spell the surname of an American author who made a brief cameo appearance in the 1968 film adaptation of his short story “The Swimmer,” which is set in Waukesha, Wisconsin.

Who is this puzzle-maker?

What are the nickname, ethnic heritage, summertime sight, collective name for Green Bay Packer fans, and American author?

(Note: Appetizers #2 through #7 were created by Nodd, riffmeister-extraordinaire and author of “Nodd ready for prime time” on Puzzleria!)

ENTREE #2

Name something an equestrian might wear. 

Remove four letters and rearrange the
remaining letters to get something else an equestrian might wear. 

What things are these?

ENTREE #3

Name some equipment an equestrian might use. Between the first and second letters, insert the singular form of a brand of sneakers. The result will be something a horse might do unexpectedly because of perceived danger. What things are these?

ENTREE #4

Name some equipment an equestrian might use and remove the next-to-last  letter. 

Add, without a space, someone associated
with equestrianism. The result will name someone who might, in a while, be feeling “reined in.” 

What is the equipment and who are the two persons?

ENTREE #5

Think of a word for an event at which you might see a person referred to in the preceding Entree, #4. 

Change one letter of this word to name a piece of equipment you might use with horses. What are the event and the equipment?

ENTREE #6

Take the combined letters of two types of a piece of equestrian equipment. 

Remove one letter and change another to the letter two places later in the alphabet. Rearrange the resulting letters to spell a word for what you might hear around horses and the name of a horse ridden in the movies by actors such as John Wayne and Gregory Peck. 

What are the two types of equipment, the word for what you might hear around horses, and the name of the movie horse?

ENTREE #7

Think of a word for a kind of horse, a word for something racehorse breeders are concerned with, and a word for a piece of equipment that
may be attached to a horse collar, with the last letter removed. 

The resulting letters, in order and with one space inserted, spell the stage name of an actress who rode a horse in several movies. 

What are the three words and who is the actress?

ENTREE #8

Name two tools mountain climbers use, in seven and five letters. Add a pair of “e’s” into the mix. 

Rearrange the result to spell an afternoon snack you might enjoy and a musical, dramatic or cinematic performance where you might  enjoy it.

What are these tools?

What are the snack and where you might  enjoy it?

ENTREE #9

Name an eight-letter piece of equipment a lumberjack might use. 

Rearrange the letters to name the site of miracle that involved a mother’s hope and her son’s compliance. 

What is this equipment?

What is the miracle site?

What was the mother’s hope?

How did her son comply?

ENTREE #10

Take a two-word term for an “albacore, yellowfin, bluefin, bigeye and skipjack fanatic.” 

Move the space between the two words one place to the left. Spell the result backwards to
get a two-word term for an “albacore, yellowfin, bluefin, bigeye and skipjack fanatic.”

What are these two two-word terms for an “albacore, yellowfin, bluefin, bigeye and skipjack fanatic”?

Dessert Menu

Well-To-Do Dessert:

Diplomas, degrees & deep pockets

Spell in reverse a word for folks with diplomas and degrees. Insert a space someplace. The result sounds like a two-word description of rich people... many who are rich solely because they possess diplomas or degrees. What is this word for folks who have diplomas or degrees?

What are the two words that describe these folks?

Every Thursday 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 Thursday.

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.

Classic Juvenile Lit I & II; Animation in an Amemone; Mangoes and Melons in the Mail? Two-Tool-Toodle-Loo! Alpaca, Arabian, Bactrian, Guanaco... Vicuna! Amateurs versus Prose; "Puzzley fuzzy but was he buzzy?" "Kalamari Hari Kiri Arms Mars! Knives slice, forks stab, spoons stir! "Hail Morpheus, King of Things Amorphous "

PUZZLERIA! SLICES: OVER 5πe² SERVED

Schpuzzle of the Week:

Amateurs versus Prose?

Remove the space between words perhaps seen on a banner in the bleachers of an American Conference college football game. 

The result is the name that two literary characters share in common – one in the works of Shakespeare, the other in the works of Dante. 

What are the words on the banner? 

What is the common name of the two characters that Shakespeare and Dante wrote about? 

Appetizer Menu

Slow But EspeSHELLy Sure Appetizer:

Classic Juvenile Lit I & II; Mangoes and Melons in the Mail? Two-Tool-Toodle-Loo! Animation in an Anemone; Alpaca, Arabian, Bactrian, Guanaco... Vicuna!

Classic Juvenile Lit I

1. 📖Name a character mentioned in a title of a classic children’s book. 

Duplicate three of the letters and rearrange the letters to produce the first and last names of a famous children’s book author. 

Who are the character and the author?

Classic Juvenile Lit II

2. 🎥Name a writer who wrote a children’s book that was later made into a famous movie.

Remove the first two letters of the first name and the last two letters of the last name. 

Place what remains of the last name before what remains of the first name. Phonetically, you’ll have things that the book’s title character might use for nourishment. 

Who is the writer? Who is the character? What might the character use for nourishment? 

Melons, Mangoes in the Mail?

3. 🍈🍈🥭🥭📬Name a nine-letter fruit name that starts with four consecutive two-letter U.S. postal code abbreviations and also ends with one. 

Now name an eight-letter fruit variant that also
consists of four consecutive two-letter U.S. postal code abbreviations. 

What are the fruit and fruit variant?

Two-Tool-Toodle-Loo!

4. 🧰🔨🪚Name two six-letter tools that basically serve the same purpose, although one tends to be larger. 

Three letters are in the same position in both words. Two of the other letters share the same position, but differ by one place in the alphabet.

What are the tools?

Animation in an Anemone

5. 📽Name the classic animated film
encapsulated by a sea anemone.

Alpaca, Arabian, Bactrian, Guanaco... Vicuna!

6. ♭♯🎜🎝🐪🐫What classic 1950s song is implied by the first 60% of a relative of a camel?

MENU

Two Creatures Great And Small Hors d’Oeuvre:

Puzzley, fuzzy, but was he buzzy?

Name a large 13-letter creature that ends with
letters that spell a much smaller creature.

Both creatures are a bit fuzzy. What are they?

“Putting A Price on A Puzzle” Slice:

“Hail Morpheus, King of Things Amorphous!”

Name a shapeless substance. 

Replace the first third of that word with a synonym of that first third, followed by a space. The result is worth, roughly, 66 dollars. What are this substance and synonym? Why is the result worth about $66?

Riffing Off Shortz And Shukan Entrees:

Kalamari Hari Kiri Arms Mars

Will Shortz’s November 16th NPR Weekend Edition Sunday puzzle, created by Dave Shukan of San Marino, California. reads:

Take the name of a famous person in American politics (6,6). Hidden in this name reading from left to right, but not in consecutive letters, is the name of a well-known place that's very dry, in 4 letters. Remove these letters. The remaining 8 letters in order from left to right will name another well-known, very dry place. What politician is this?

Puzzleria!s Riffing Off Shortz And Shukan Entrees read:

ENTREE #1

Take the name of a puzzle-maker (4,6). 

Hidden in this name reading from left to right, but not in consecutive letters, is the name of a piece of furniture where this puzzle-maker may compose his puzzles. The remaining six letters – if you replace one off them with an “a” and then rearrange the result – is the name of a world capital city.

Who is this puzzle-maker?

What is the world capital city?

Note: Riffs #2 through #7 are cryptic creations composed by our friend Nodd.

ENTREE #2

Take the first name of a former U.S. government official who became a controversial political figure during the Cold War. 

Add to the end of the name the postal
abbreviation of a U.S. state that was dry for 12 years in the 1800s. The result will name a very dry place in the world. 

Who is the figure and what are the state and the dry place?

ENTREE #3

Take the first name of a major American political figure who rose to prominence in the 1950s and 1960s. Add to the end of the name a copy of the fifth letter to get something that is often dry. Alternatively, insert a copy of the second letter of the name just before the last letter to name a fictional inhabitant of a dry place. 

Who is this figure and what are the dry thing and the fictional inhabitant?

ENTREE #4

Take the first name of an American political figure who rose to national prominence in the early 21st Century. Double the first and second letters. Rearrange to name one of the driest places on earth and an area of the U.S. that is comparatively dry, especially in its Western portion. 

Who is this figure, and what are the two dry places?

ENTREE #5

Take the name of a famous American political figure who was also a prominent general in the Revolutionary War (7,6). 

The first and last names have four letters in common. 

These four letters can be arranged to name a place that’s often in the news and is very dry. Who is the figure and what is the place?

ENTREE #6

Take the last name of a former U.S. president. Remove a word meaning dry and a liquid that may be dry. 

The remaining two letters, in reverse order, are the postal abbreviation of a state in which a city once known as the Dry Capital of the World is located. 

Who is the president and what are the word, the liquid, and the abbreviation?

ENTREE #7

Take the middle and last names of a famous person in American politics. 

Replace the third letter of the middle name with the letter that is four places earlier in the alphabet. 

Replace the fourth letter of the last name with a copy of the second letter of that name. 

Rearrange the letters to spell a word meaning dry and the name of a dry place in the U.S. 

Who is the politician and what are the word and the place?

ENTREE #8

Spell the screen name of a riff-master in reverse. (For example “LegoLambda” (who is more of a “riff-gifter”) would become “adbmaLogeL”.) 

Divide this reversal into three equal parts: 

~  an academic website domain,

~ a fine-feathered tweeter, and

~ decay.

What is the riff-master’s screen name?

ENTREE #9

Spell the screen name of a riff-master in which a letter appears twice. Remove the duplicate letter that appears first in the name.

Five nearly consecutive letters of the result
spell a suffix that means “formative or formed material (as of a cell or tissue).” The remaining letters can be rearranged to spell an adjective that describes this “formative or formed material” that encapsulates this cell or tissue.

Who is this riff-master?

What are the suffix and adjective?

ENTREE #10

Take the name of a puzzle-maker (4,6). Read this name in reverse order, from right to left.

Letters 1, 2, 3, 7 and 10 of this reversal, in order, spell an adjective that describes this
puzzle-maker during the first minute (more-or-less) of his life. 

Replace Letter #4, a vowel, with a different vowel. 

Rearrange these five revised remaining letters to spell a verb for something this puzzle-maker might do, periodically, to retain his newborn appearance.

Who is this puzzle-maker?

What adjective describes this puzzle-maker during the first minute of his life?

What might this puzzle-maker might do, periodically, to retain his newborn appearance?

Dessert Menu

Kick-In-The-Pants Dessert:

Knives slice, forks stab, spoons stir!

What beverage, if you stir it with a “spoon,” is likely the most “kick-in-the-pants” drink there is?

Every Thursday 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 Thursday.

“Snail” becomes a “Hail!”? , Space in a Spice, Weapon word, Jobs Good & Bad, Shortzwave Radio? “Use your wit a bit to solve it!” Swappin’ while stoppin’ ‘n’ sniffin’; “Hosannas!” during Heavenly hurdling; “Where often is heard a disgustfulsome word...” Did Drew Barrymore Brew Dairy More?

PUZZLERIA! SLICES: OVER 5πe² SERVED

Schpuzzle of the Week:

“Use your wit a bit to solve it!”

The initial letters in an eleven-word proverb are a rearrangement of the letters in HABIT, WIT and BIT. 

The initial letters of the eighth, ninth and tenth
words in the proverb spell a specific creature. The second word in the proverb is a general term for this creature.

What is this proverb?

What are the general word and the specific word for the creature?

Appetizer Menu

Delightfully Puzzley Appetizer:

“Snail” becomes a “Hail!”? Weapon word, Shortzwave Radio? Jobs Good & Bad, Space in a Spice

“Snail” becomes a “Hail!”?

1. 🐌Delete one letter from a male animal. 

Mix the result to get a salutation. 

What are this animal and salutation?

Weapon word

2. 🎥Take the name of a weapon seen in the 1941 movie “Sergeant York.” 

Add a letter to this “weapon word” (at either end, or somewhere within it) to get, without rearranging, a name that an antagonist calls
one of the main characters in the 1993 movie “Tombstone.” 

What weapon is this and what was the character called?   

Who is the antagonist?

Shortzwave Radio?

3. 📻Take the name of a clever journalist who appears on National Public Radio. 

Replace the final vowel in the surname with copy of a vowel that appears in both the first name and the surname of the journalist.

Mix the result to get a country.

Who is this journalist?

What is the country?

Jobs Good & Bad

4. 🚗Take a word used in an English speaking country to signify a job not done well – that is, a bad job.  

Delete the fifth letter. Change a vowel to a
different vowel. 

The result is a word that could be used to describe your DeLorean after comes back after receiving a good job from the detailing shop. 

What are these two words?

Space in a Spice

5.🧂Put in a space within a spice to get what sounds  like a description of an unfortunate event that occurs in a famous American novel.

What are this spice and this unfortunate event?

MENU

Two-Birds-In-A-Bush Hors d’Oeuvre:

Swappin’ while stoppin’ ‘n’ sniffin’ 

Swap the initial sounds of a two-syllable place where you might “stop and smell the roses.” 

Remove a vowel and the space it leaves, leaving two birds. 

What are this place and two birds?

Psychological Slice:

“Where often is heard a disgustfulsome word...”

Rearrange the letters in the first half of a word from psychology to get a variant spelling of a disgusting word. 

Rearrange the letters of the second half twice to get two different disgusting words. 

What are these four words?

Riffing Off Shortz And Scott Entrees:

Did Drew Barrymore Brew Dairy More?

Will Shortz’s November 9th Weekend Edition Sunday puzzle, created by Mark Scott of Seattle, Washington, reads:

Think of a famous actress – first and last names. 

Interchange the first and last letters of those names. 

That is, move the first letter of the first name to the start of the last name, and the first letter of the last name to the start of the first name. 

Say the result out loud, and you’ll get some advice on fermenting milk. What is it?

Puzzleria!s Riffing Off Shortz And Scott Entrees read:

ENTREE #1

In order to _____ ______ (5, 6 letters) and their progress, a puzzle-maker (after opening his parachute, post-free-fall) made it a practice to monitor and document the ___ __ _____  (3, 2, 5 letters) camera, so as to monitor the path an “extreme weather event” might take.

Delete the fourth and sixth letters of the
second missing word. Rearrange the remaining nine letters in those two words to spell the name of a puzzle-maker. 

The combined letters of the third, fourth and fifth missing words can be rearranged to spell the screen name of this puzzle-maker.  

Who is this puzzle-maker and what is his screen name?

What words belong in the five blanks?

(Note: Entrees #2 through #7 were created by our friend and terrific riffer Nodd.)

ENTREE #2

Think of a famous actress – first and last names. 

Interchange the first letters of those names and insert a space to get three words. 

Interchange the first and second words to get a phrase that might describe a school field trip. 

Who is the actress and what is the phrase? 

ENTREE #3

Think of a famous actress – first and last names. (Use the British pronunciation of the last name.) 

Interchange the first letters of the names and
say the result aloud. You’ll get what sounds like a description of hair styling aids from an island nation. 

Who is the actress and what is the description?

ENTREE #4

Think of a famous actress – first and last names. 

Interchange the first letters of those names and say the result aloud to complete this sentence: Kids can acquire knowledge by watching ____ _____ while exploring with her friends on TV. 

Who is the actress and what words complete the blanks?

ENTREE #5

Think of a famous actress – first and last names. 

Interchange the first letters of those names. Say the result aloud to get what sounds like a
three-word description of what to do if you have a dirty article of hosiery. 

Who is the actress and what is the description?

ENTREE #6

Think of a famous actress – first and last names. 

Interchange the first letter of the first name with
the first two letters of the last name. 

Say the result aloud to get what sounds like a three-word description of what to do if the front of your glass cupboard is dirty. 

Who is the actress and what is the description?

ENTREE #7

Think of a past actress – first and last names. She started her film career in the 1930s, mostly appearing in B movies. 

Interchange the first letters of her first and last
names and say the result aloud to get what sounds like a description of a correctional facility for hit men. 

Who is the actress and what is the description?

(Note: Entrees #8 and #9 were created by our friend and terrific riffer Tortitude.)

ENTREE #8

Name a famous actress, first and last names. Swap the first letter of each name. Phonetically, you’ll get a flavor, followed by the brand name of a fermented milk product. Visually, you’ll have a color followed by the
brand name.

While the brand name doesn't sell this flavored product, some recipes call for mixing them together; however, the brand doesn’t sell products with the color.

Who is she? What is the phonetic spoonerism? What is the visual one?

ENTREE #9

Name a famous actress whose first name is a fermented milk product. She won a Best Actress Oscar for a certain movie with an average 8.1 IMDb rating. 

Add a definite article in front of the movie. You’ll have an infamously bad movie, with an average 3.6 IMDb rating.

A certain adjective describes the actress’s first
name, as well as the bad movie.

Who’s the actress? What are the two movies? What adjective describes the name and the bad movie?

ENTREE #10

On Easter Monday Morn, while roaming the South Lawn of the White House, “if you see an ___, ____ __!”

Treat the first blank as a single word, and the
second and third blanks as a single word. Spoonerize these “single words” to spell what sounds like the name of a long-serving American governor.

What are the words in the blanks?

Who is the governor?

Note: When you are asked to spoonerize two words or two syllables in which one of the two does not begin with a consonant or a consonant sound, simply move the single consonant sound to the beginning of the other word  or syllable. For example, “peal out” (as a church bell) would become “eelpout.”

ENTREE #11

Take a Hall of Fame NFL quarterback, first and last names, who played nearly 20 years for the same team, and yet  was rarely “Missing In Action.” 

Swap the first and fourth letters of his name. Move the space five places to the right. Add the word “range” to the end. The result is a two-word fruit associated with the state where he plied his professional trade.

Who is this quarterback?

What is the two-word fruit?

Dessert Menu

Track & Elysian Fields Dessert:

“Hosannas!” during Heavenly hurdling

Remove a letter from a hurdle in the heavens to spell what a hurdler may have exclaimed while hurdling it. Name this hurdler, this hurdle and this exclamation!

Every Thursday 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 Thursday.

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.