The Shortest Distance?; Or as a Canadian Might Say...; Weaving in Traffic; Black and Blue Backyards; “Black-Not-Red Letter Day”; Diamond, Court & Turf Wars; Spirits get Stirred, Get Sipped, Slip through a Straw!; Old Saxon contraption caption stupefaction! “Does S-O-U-P screw-up an O-P-U-S?”;

PUZZLERIA! SLICES: OVER 5πe² SERVED

Schpuzzle of the Week:

Diamond, Court & Turf Wars

Anagram the combined letters of three arbiters of disputes that involve courts, diamonds and turf to get four words associated with France, Egypt, Italy and India. 

Name these three arbiters and four words.

Appetizer Menu

Threads Run Through All Axes Appetizer:

The Shortest Distance?; Or as a Canadian Might Say...; Weaving in Traffic; Black and Blue Backyards

(Note: This week’s Appetizer was created and contributed by a very inventive puzzle-maker and very valued friend of Puzzleria!)

The Shortest Distance?

1. 🧥🎠Take two words meaning “roughly.”  Put them together in reverse alphabetical order and add a space after the first letter. 

The result is a term for something intended to make some transportation smoother. What is it?   

Or as a Canadian Might Say...

2. 🛥🎿 Speaking of transportation, name a mode of transport. 

Change the third letter, a vowel, to another vowel. The result spells half of a method of transport that, according to some lore, can take the user anywhere. 

What are the mode of transport and method of transport.   

Weaving in Traffic

3. 🪰 Speaking of lore, take the two-word name for aerial modes of transport celebrated in the folklore of certain cultures. 

Remove a mode of transport from the name and reverse the last two remaining letters. 

The result is  a two word description of a small,
often unpleasant creature. The creature, spelled in reverse, is the name of a product made famous by association with certain aerial activity. What is the creature? 

Black and Blue Backyards

4. 🏈Speaking of descriptions, name a two-word literary term that sounds like it describes Lego's local, as opposed to hometown, NFL franchise. 

The common designation of that franchise, reads, with slight modification, like the description of a group made up of Charles, Abdullah, Haakon, Frederik, Carl Gustaf, and Willem-Alexander. 

What are the literary term, the NFL designation, and the description of the group?  

MENU

Horrific Hors d’Oeuvre:

Old Saxon contraption caption stupefaction!

Write captions for the two sets of images pictured here. 

Wordplay is, of course, involved. The first  words of each caption rhyme with one another, as do the last words.

The wordplay involved in this puzzle is related to the surname of a person that rhymes with the singular form of the second words in the captions.

What are the captions? What is the wordplay, and who is its namesake?

“Forever-In-infamy” Slice:

“Black-Not-Red Letter Day”

Name a well-known phrase used to identify a particular historical date... one of those days that “shall forever live in infamy.”

Rearrange the letters to spell the vilest of four-letter words, along with a single letter of the
alphabet spelled-out thrice (for example, “bee, bee, bee” or “aitch, aitch, aitch”).

What is the two-word phrase? What are the four-letter word and the thrice-spelled letter?

Riffing Off Shortz Slices:

Spirits get Stirred, Get Sipped, Slip through a Straw!

Will Shortz’s September 13th NPR Weekend Edition Sunday puzzle reads:

Name a product in seven letters that people buy in a shop that typically sells only this product. The last four letters backward spell
what people often do to this product. Rearrange the first three letters to spell what people then do to this product. What product is it?

Puzzleria!s Riffing Off Shortz Slices read:

ENTREE #1

Name a product in three letters that you buy in a shop that typically sells only this product. However, to get a product that fits you, you must know  ____ ___ ____ (4,3,4 letters).

The first word is a pronoun.

The middle word is the three-letter product.

The third word is a homophone of breaths exhaled loudly and quickly... 

(These “breaths” are also the last word in the name of a Venetian bridge.)

There are six different vowels among the 11 letters. Remove all but one. 

Rearrange the remaining six letters to spell the surname of a puzzle-maker.

Who is this puzzle-maker?

What are the pronoun, the product, what you must know to get a product that fits, and "breaths" that are also the name of a Venetian bridge?

(Note: Entrees #2-through-#7 are a product of the creative mind of our friend Nodd, whose “Nodd ready for prime time” is featured regularly on Puzzleria!)

ENTREE #2

Name products in seven letters that people sometimes buy in a shop that sells only these products. 

The first five letters in order spell something typically used to make the products. The first letter and the last four letters can be rearranged to spell where people often put the products. The first four letters and the last two letters can be rearranged to spell another place people often put the products. 

What are the products? What is typically used to make them? What are the two places people often put them? 

ENTREE #3

Name products in two words of ten letters that people sometimes buy from a seller that sells only these products. 

Five consecutive letters can be rearranged to spell the name of one of these products, which came out in 1989. The sixth, seventh, ninth, and tenth letters can be rearranged to spell the name of one of the leading manufacturers of these products. 

What are the products, the 1989 product, and the manufacturer?

ENTREE #4

Name a product in six letters that people sometimes buy in a shop that sells only this product and related items. The first three letters backward spell the brand name of a product that people may use with this product. 

The first letter and the last three letters can be rearranged to spell another brand name of a product that people may use with this product. 

What are the product and the two brand names?

ENTREE #5

Name products in seven letters that people sometimes buy in a shop that sells only or mainly these products. 

The first three letters in order spell what people do with these products. 

The last four letters can be rearranged to spell what people
would like to be able to do with these products. 

What products are they, what do people do with them, and what would people like to be able to do?

ENTREE #6

Name a kind of libation in eight letters that people sometimes buy in a shop that sells only or mainly these kind of products. Double the sixth letter, and then rearrange the result  to spell a popular example of this kind of libation and a nectar often added to the mix during its  production process. 

What are this libation, a popular example of it, and added nectar?

ENTREE #7

Name a product in seven letters that people may buy from a seller that sells only this product. 

The last four letters in order spell something often used in making this product. The second through fourth letters in order are an abbreviation for a country known for this
product. The third through fifth letters in order are an abbreviation for a country in which this product became popular in the mid to late 19th century. 

What is the product and what is often used to make it? What are the two countries?

ENTREE #8

Name a product in seven letters that people buy in a shop that typically sells only this product.

The 4th, 6th & 5th letters, if you remove and ROT-7 them (that is, move their letters 7 places later on in the circular alphabet), spell a slang term for where this 7-letter word begins
its “alimentary journey.” 

The remaining letters, if you move the first one to the end, spell an informal, impolite term for what this seven-letter product becomes when it reaches the end of its “alimentary journey.”

What are this product, and where begins its “alimentary journey,” and what it becomes at journey’s end?

Dessert Menu:

Diva Dessert:

“Does S-O-U-P screw-up an O-P-U-S?”

(Note: This puzzle is fictional, not factual.)

The world-renowned mezzo-soprano opera singer very much enjoyed indulging in her favorite beverage... but not when she was performing. Based on past experience, she realized that consuming it before her stage appearances adversely affected the timbre of her voice.

The diva was a native of a northwestern Wisconsin town, named for a U.S. senator, not the British clergyman whose surname is the root of a wordplay-related eponym that ends in “-ism.” Nevertheless, the singer was still familiar with the clergyman and the wordplay named for him. Thus, whenever she thought of her favorite beverage, she subconsciously applied to it that wordplay, which resulted in two-words that are inimical to opera singers!

The taste of the beverage, therefore, was not the problem. She found it delicious! But, due to her familiarity with the wordplay, she nevertheless experienced an unsettlingly queasy feeling in the pit of her diaphragm every time she tasted, or even merely heard mention of, the beverage!

What is the name of the Wisconsin town and eponym?

What is this beverage? Why may it have unsettled her?

Hint: Audiences were routinely stirred by the singer’s performances. Her beverage was also stirred.

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.