Around the World in 8.0 Daze PART II; “Be not Led Astray!”; “Stylish Chic Hip Duds, Dude!”; “Do macho-chaps wear chaps?”; Pia“No Man Is An Island...”; Herculean Circular Logic;

PUZZLERIA! SLICES: OVER 5πe² SERVED

Schpuzzle of the Week:

Herculean Circular Logic

Note: Use logical rational reasoning to solve this puzzle: 

Print, in clockwise order along the perimeter of a circle, an eight-letter word containing seven different letters. It is a word associated with logical, rational reasoning. 

~ Rearrange a number of consecutive letters along this perimeter to spell the name of a country. 

~ A number of other consecutive letters, in
order clockwise along the perimeter, spell many a waterway in this county.

~ A number of consecutive counterclockwise letters spell an urban area. 

What are these four words? What specific city do the three shorter words suggest?

Appetizer Menu

“Ecosmopolitan” Appetizer:

Around the World in 8.0 Daze, Part II

Note: We featured Ecoarchitect’s “Around the World in 8.0 Daze Part I” in our March 19, 2026 edition of Puzzleria! 

That “World Tour” continues with this, his second installment, Part II:

“On this isle I’ll not be...”

1. 🏝 Name a well-known island. Replace the fourth letter with the letter two places later in the alphabet, and the resulting word is what you don’t want to be while visiting. 

What is the place and what don’t you want to be?

“Sex-change operation was reversed?”

2. 🌎Take a personal pronoun and add two related nouns, each three letters. 

Change the last letter of one of the nouns, and rearrange the words to come up with a well-known city in the US. 

What are the three words, and what is the city? 

A City Divided

3. 🏙The name of a well-known US city, can be divided into two words that are synonyms.

What is the city?

Ninety-six, South Carolina?

4. 🌆Name a well-known geographic feature in the world. 

The name of a well-known US city is a specific example of that feature. What is the feature, and what is the city?

Alps becomes “El Paso?”

5. 🏞Take the name of a European geographic feature in one syllable. 

Move the first letter to the end and the result will be a common word with three syllables. 

What is the feature and what is the word? 

“‘Doggod’ Bygone Deities!”

6. 🐕Reverse the name of a geographic location. 

The result will be a god of the past. 

What is the location and what is the god’s name?

Move a letter back, go back in time

7. ♔Move the middle letter of a country two places later in the alphabet and phonetically

the result will be the name of an ancient kingdom. 

What is the country and what is the kingdom?

Deleware, hawaii, new mexico, West virginia?

8. 🗽Delaware, Hawaii, New Mexico, and West Virginia all have something in common. 

What is it, and what three states could be
added to the list?

MENU

Art Studio Hors d’Oeuvre:

“Be not Led Astray!”

Take the title of a 21st-Century creation by a painter whose surname, if you delete one letter, is a sport.

The second syllable of the title is an anagram
of an adjective that describes the painting.

The first five letters of the title word are an anagram of a general term for the contents of that title word. 

The first three letters of the title word spell a specific noun for the contents of the title word.

What is the title of this creation?

Who is the painter? What is the sport?

What adjective describes the painting? What is the general term for the contents of the title word? What is the specific noun for the contents?

Affected Pretentious Slice:

“Stylish Chic Hip Duds, Dude!”

Write down the letters of an adjective that means “affectedly or pretentiously elegant or refined in manners or tastes.”

Add a letter to the end. Subtract a letter from the beginning. The result is an apparel brand marketed as stylish, chic, hip and cool. 

What are this word and brand?

Riffing Off Shortz And Reiss Slices:

Pia“No Man Is An Island...”

Will Shortz’s May 31st NPR Weekend Edition Sunday puzzle, created by Mike Reiss, a longtime writer and showrunner for “The Simpsons,” reads:

Name a classic song with a two-word title. Drop the first letter. Add an R after the new first letter. The result will be the names of two countries one after the other. What song is this?

Puzzleria!s Riffing Off Shortz And Reiss Slices read:

ENTREE #1

Take an eight-letter plural noun that sometimes describes certain characters on the television show “The Simpsons.” This same noun may also occasionally describe viewers of “The Simpsons.” 

The six different letters in that noun, if you use three of them twice, can be arranged to spell the name of a puzzle-maker.

What is this plural noun?

Who is the puzzlemaker?

Entrees #2 through #7 are riffs created by Nodd, author of Puzzleria!s “Nodd ready for prime time.”

ENTREE #2

Take the first and last words in the four-word title of a classic R & B song. (5,7). 

Drop the last letter of the first word and move the third letter of that word to the beginning.
The result will be the names of two countries. 

What are the song and the countries?

ENTREE #3 

Take the two-word title of a rap song by a now-deceased artist (5,6). 

Change the second letter of the first word to a copy of the fourth letter. 

Rearrange the letters of the first word, as modified, to name a country in the Middle East. Insert an “A” somewhere in the second word of the song title to name a country in Europe. 

What are the song and the countries?

ENTREE #4 

Name a two-word (6,5) 1997 Indie Rock song. Change the first vowel in the first word to the next vowel in the alphabet and add a state postal abbreviation to the front of the word to get the name of a country in Africa. 

Move the first letter of the second word two places back in the circular alphabet and double the last letter, then rearrange to get the name of a country in Central America. What are the song and the two countries? 

(Hint: The first word in the song title is a Taylor Swift song title, and the second word is the name of a book. The name of the band that released the 1997 song appears in the book.)

ENTREE #5 

Name a 1974 folk-rock song with a two-word title (7,5). Remove the first letter of the first word and change the last letter of the second word to the next letter in the alphabet. 

The result will be the official currency of one country and the name of another country. 

What are the song, the currency, and the country?

ENTREE #6 

Name a 1983 New Wave/pop rock song with a three-word title (4,2,4). 

Add a letter to the beginning of the third word.
The result will describe the head of state of a certain country. 

What are the song and the description?

ENTREE #7 

Take the two-word title of a 1997 song by a renowned artist (4,4). Replace the last letter of the first word with an acronym for a civil rights law which is also the first word in the title of a 1969 novel by an Oscar-nominated author. 

Add the acronym for a Midwestern U.S. state university to the beginning of the second word of the song title. The result will be the names of two countries. 

What are the song and the countries?

ENTREE #8

The two-word title of a classic song can be anagrammed to spell a heavenly food and a Hawaiian food.

Or, if you are a masochist, the first two and last two letters of this song title can be rearranged to spell an unpleasant bodily sensation, while the remaining interior letters can be rearranged to spell a possible reaction to this unpleasantness.

What is this song title?

What are the two foods?

What are the unpleasant bodily sensation, and the possible reaction to it?

Dessert Menu

Dead-lifting the Weight of the World Dessert:

“Do macho chaps wear chaps?”

Name a strong muscular chap whose first name begins with the first half of a Latin American ballroom dance.

This chap’s surname is the same as the name of a Greek deity who is also associated with strength.

Our chap, however, is no deity. Indeed, he is only _____ (an anagram of a biblical book). 

Replace the second letter of this anagram with a different vowel, followed by a hyphen. The result, and a synonym of “non-Greek,” both end with the same three letters. Delete those identical endings. The remaining letters, in order, spell a noun describing the deity. 

Name this dance, chap, anagram of the biblical book, hyphenated term, and noun.

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 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.