“Sic Semper Tyrannosaurus Rex” Two words... for the same bird; “Order in the Countdown Court!” Just a couple-a words in a couplet “A Nuclear (Family) Threat?” “It just don’t seem to add up... or subtract down!”

PUZZLERIA! SLICES: OVER 5πe² SERVED

Schpuzzle of the Week:

Just a couple o’ words in a couplet

Breezes toss and tickle rippling prints and tints,

Making taut the “sails” of clothes-pinned billowy chintz.

Within that couplet thou shalt find a pair

Of words that both a rare distinction share.

So (“unpoetically” now!) what unusual property do a couple of words in that couplet share?

Appetizer Menu

Delightfully Puzzley “Discophilia” Appetizer:

“Order in the Countdown Court!”

The list below  – if we base it on certain songtitles associated with the artists – is out of order. 

Can you put them in a more logical and “numerically fitting” order?  

On what did you base that order?  

What song titles did you use? 

Which song title was “doubly relevant”?

    1. David Bowie 

    2. The White Stripes 

    3. Bobby Bland 

    4. Three Dog Night 

    5. Freddie King 

    6. Sonny Boy Williams 

    7. Nina Simone 

    8. Dusty Springfield

    9. B.B. King  

    10. Merle Travis 

MENU

Unclear & Conflicted Hors d’Oeuvre:

A Nuclear (Family) Threat?

Name an informal term for a member of the nuclear family. 

Remove one of its letters to name a potentially life-threatening response triggered by the human immune system...

(Well, that’s kind of a downer... but consider this: If you replace a letter of that life-threatening response with a P, the result will be things that are enjoyable and refreshing!

What are this informal family-member term, life-threatening response, and things that are enjoyable and refreshing?

Birds-Of-Wordprey Slice:

Two words... for the same bird

Switch the initial sounds of two words:

~ some two-syllable colorful tropical birds and...

~ some two-syllable “Down-Under” mountain-dwelling endangered species of those same birds. 

The result (if you spell and pronounce the “Down Under” bird as if its last letter were a “y”) sounds like two foods that are often served together as a side dish. The colors of these foods share four common letters. 

What are these two birds and two foods?

Riffing Off Shortz Slices:

“Sic Semper Tyrannosaurus Rex”

Will Shortz’s June 7th NPR Weekend Edition Sunday puzzle reads:

Rearrange the letters of “NECESSARY MISPRINT” to spell a familiar phrase.

Puzzleria!s Riffing Off Shortz Slices read:

ENTREE #1

Name an American idiomatic phrase that means "being in an enviable, highly advantageous, or superior position," in five words of 2, 2, 3, 7 and 4 letters. Rearrange this 18 letters to spell three words associated with the Bible:

~ a synonym of Eden,

~ a unit of Ark measurement, and

~ the ordinal number of the commandment
that proscribes coveting.

What are this phrase and three biblical words?

(Note: Entrees #2 through #7 were composed by our friend Nodd, author of “Nodd ready for prime time” on Puzzleria!)

ENTREE #2

You can rearrange the letters in a two-word food item you might have on your breakfast table to spell a two-word description of the 1942 film “Kings Row.” What are the item and the description?

ENTREE #3

You can rearrange the letters in another two-word food item you might have on your breakfast table to spell a two-word description of what happened when the cold, hungry grasshopper implored the ants to let him into their shelter in the 1934 Disney film “The Grasshopper and the Ants.” 

What are the item and the description?

ENTREE #4

You can rearrange the letters in a third two-word food item you might have on your breakfast table to spell, in two words, what the producers of “Jeopardy!” undertook after Alex Trebek passed away. 

What is the item and what did the producers undertake?

ENTREE #5

Name a two-word phrase for something businesses are typically trying to achieve.

Rearrange its letters to get a two-word phrase for something that might get you arrested. 

What are the two phrases?

ENTREE #6

Rearrange the letters of a two-word subject currently in the news to get a phrase describing, in two words and one initialism, what the U.S. Air Force would be doing if they
were charged with evacuating the customers of a U.S. espionage organization from a foreign country. 

What are the subject and the phrase?

ENTREE #7

Rearrange the letters in the first and last names of a controversial business magnate to get the last names of a controversial baseball
manager of the past and a controversial current head of state. 

Who are these three persons?

ENTREE #8

If you rearrange the letters of TUTU and BERET (see image) you can spell three words: (1) a wager, (2) the name of a boy king, and (3) a synonym of the verb “regret.” 

Or, you can spell a whirlpool site, dimpled-sphere-prop and divot.

Or, You can spell a montana city and a synonym of “factual and accurate.”

Or... you can spell a familiar phrase.

What is this phrase? 

Dessert Menu

“Just sum screwy math... what’s the difference?” Dessert:

“It just don’t seem to add up... or subtract down!”

Explain how the six equations below might possibly be true:

1. Five minus two equals four.

2. Six minus one equals nine.

3. Seven minus four equals five.

4. Eight minus four equals one.

5. Eleven minus five equals five.

6. Twelve minus four equals fifty-five.

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.