Thursday, July 30, 2026

Greek To Me (by R. Cane); What’s In A (Sur)name? (parts 1 2, & 3); Animal Instinct; Nobody Does It Better; Poetry Corner, by Anna Graham; Cornball moth-eaten comfy sweetie balderdash!; “Aircrafts & Criminal Courts”; “Creature matures, makes a move!”; “Shapeliness! Synonymy! Assembly!”

 PUZZLERIA! SLICES: OVER 5πe2 SERVED

Schpuzzle of the Week:

“Shapeliness! Synonymy! Assembly!”


Write a geometrical term in uppercase. 

Remove letters that can spell a synonym of “assembly.” 

What remains perfectly illustrates the geometrical term.

What is this geometrical term?

What is the synonym of “assembly”? 

What remains after it is removed?

Appetizer Menu

Hellenization “Surnominalization” “Instinky Creatures?” “Chitty Chitty” Appetizer:  

Greek To Me (by R. Cane): What’s In A (Sur)name? (parts 1 2, & 3); Animal Instinct; Nobody Does It Better; Poetry Corner, by A nna Graham

GREEK TO ME, by R. Cane

1. 📖📚The three words described below originated in ancient Greece but are found in standard English dictionaries. 

Guess the words from the descriptions provided.

I. Take an eight-letter word for a center or hub that is derived from a word for a body part.  

Remove one letter and rearrange the rest to
spell a word for something used on a different body part.  

What are these two words?

II. Take a seven-letter word for a phantom.  Four consecutive letters of this word, in order, spell a word for an icon. If those four letters are removed, the remaining letters, in order, spell a word for a period of time. What are these three words?   

III.  An ancient Olympic sport that is still around today contains ten letters.  

Put a space between the third and fourth letters, and a hyphen between the fourth and fifth letters.  

You will spell something that is used to prepare food, and a food item that needs no preparation.  

What are the sport, the item used to prepare food, and the food item?

2. WHAT’S IN A (SUR)NAME?, part 1

⚾ What famous American’s surname sounds like a description of the post-season 1963 New York Yankees?

3. WHAT’S IN A (SUR)NAME?, part 2

🎜🎝 Remove one letter from the surname of a classical composer and rearrange the remaining letters to name a bottled item you might find in a grocery store. 

The surname is also a brand of this item. 

Who is the composer and what is the item?


4. WHAT’S IN A (SUR)NAME?, part 3

🎾 What past actor’s surname sounds like part of
a score from a famous 1980 Wimbledon match?

5. ANIMAL INSTINCT

🎸 What might musician Eric Burdon have said to a moldy lasagne ingredient taking up space in his fridge?

6. NOBODY DOES IT BETTER

🔫 Double the fourth letter in the anglicized name of a major Asian city and add a space to get
something James Bond wanted to do and presumably did. 

What is the city, and what did 007 want to do? 

7. POETRY CORNER, by Anna Graham

🖋 Fill in the blanks with four seven-letter words to complete the verse.

She  _ _ _ _ _ _ _ , strove, achieved great heights,

But though they _ _ _ _ _ _ _ her flawless art,

 _ _ _ _ _ _ _ now plagues her days and nights,

As _ _ _ _ _ _ _ pile up, sleep departs,

Ah, bittersweet are motherhood’s delights! 

MENU:

Anti-Saloon League Hors d’Oeuvre:

“There’s 3 T’s (but no ‘Sousey’ Seas) in ‘Teetotal’”

In the midst of the dawn of the _________ Jazz era in the early 20th Century, Prohibition emerged. The U.S. government ___ ___ ___ and other alcohol sales. This movement, led by groups like the Woman's Christian Temperance Union and the Anti-Saloon League, culminated in the passage of the Eighteenth Amendment. This nationwide ban made the manufacture, sale, and transport of alcoholic drinks illegal starting in 1920.

Letters in the first blank can be rearranged to spell the words in the next three blanks.

What are those four missing words?

“Amphibious  Slice”

“Aircrafts & Criminal Courts”

Name a standard criminal court response – such as guilty, not guilty, or no contest – entered by a defendant who is legally competent and of sound mind, indicating that they are fully aware of their actions and able to assist in their own defense.

Name also any fixed-wing powered aircraft that can take off and land on water. It is an anagram of the criminal court response word.

What is this criminal court response?

What is the fixed-wing aircraft?

Riffing Off Shortz And Kalish Entrees:

Cornball moth-eaten comfy sweetie balderdash! 

Will Shortz’s July 26th Weekend Edition Sunday puzzle challenge, from Evan Kalish of Bayside, New York, reads:

There is a set of five five-letter words that vary by just their middle letter. If the middle is any letter from K through O, it makes a common word. However, no other letter can go in the middle to complete a word. What words are these?

Puzzleria!s Riffing Off Shortz And Kalish Entrees read:

ENTREE #1

Name a puzzle-maker, in ten letters. 

Rearrange these letters to spell:

~ a Hindu god of destruction and regeneration, and

~ a below-the-belt body part. 

Who is this puzzle-maker?

Who is the god? What is the body part?

Note: Nodd (our friend and riffmeister extraordinaire) notes that Entrees #2 through #7 are conundrums based on the Merriam-Webster online dictionary. Other dictionaries may include words not found in that dictionary. Proper nouns are excluded.

ENTREE #2

Find a set of five five-letter words that vary by
just their middle letter, using the consecutive letters V-Z as the middle letter.

ENTREE #3

Using the same first, second, fourth and fifth letters as in the previous Entree, find a set of three five-letter words that vary by just their middle letter, using the consecutive letters N, O &
P as the middle letter.

ENTREE #4

Find a set of three five-letter words that vary by just their middle letter. In alphabetical order, the three words are nautical, culinary, and botanical terms, respectively. 

The three middle letters can be arranged to spell a kind of animal kept as a pet. 

(Hint: No other letter, other than those five, can go in the middle to complete a word.)

ENTREE #5

Find a set of five five-letter words that vary by just their middle letter. 

In alphabetical order, the five words are academic, medical, botanical, carpentry, and jewelry terms, respectively. 

The four common letters can be arranged to
form two words, both of which sound like letters of the alphabet. No other letter can go in the middle to complete a word.

ENTREE #6

Find a set of eight five-letter words that vary by just their middle letter. 

The words begin and end with the same letter. 


The middle letters are L, M, P, S, T, W, X and Z. 

ENTREE #7

Find a set of seven five-letter words that vary by just their middle letter, using D, G, K-N, and R as the middle letters. 

No other letter can go in the middle to complete a word.

ENTREE #8

Fill in the missing letters in the nineteen empty blank spaces pictured at the left. 

Also replace the word in the lower-right-hand-most image with a four-letter synonym. What six words do you come up with?

(Note: One of the four-letter words in my answer to Entree #8 is not really a legitimate Merriam-Webster-approved word.)

Dessert Menu

Non-Repetitive Dessert:

“Creature matures, makes a move!”

Name a young creature spelled with letters that do not repeat.

Repeat the second letter. 

Rearrange this letter-longer result to spell this same
creature after a few years have passed, and a movement it may then make. 

What are these two creatures and this movement?

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 sometimesquestionable) 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.

7 comments:

  1. To place a comment under this QUESTIONS? subheading (immediately below), or under any of the three subheadings below it (HINTS! PUZZLE RIFFS! and MY PROGRESS SO FAR...), simply left-click on the orange “Reply” to open a dialogue box where you can make a comment. Thank you.
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    1. In the Hors d'Oeuvre: (1) Does the intended answer require that all letters in the first word be used in forming the other three words? (2) Can letters in the first word be used more than once in forming the other three words?

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