Changing the linens, what a relief ! The sorrow of celestial spheres? “Going-Troppo-sites” attract! “Non-synonymous nonprofit businesses” “Grant, genie, my wish: tell what’s next on the list!”

PUZZLERIA! SLICES: OVER 6!π SERVED

Schpuzzle of the Week:

“Grant, genie, my wish: tell what’s next on the list!”

What's the ninth word in the following sequence?

Oreo, net, worth, free, fir, vise, vexes, genie, _______

Hint: The word has seven letters and is associated with puzzles.

Appetizer Menu

Real Fun Nonpareil Puzzles Appetizer:

“Non-synonymous nonprofit businesses”

“To profit or not to profit?...”

1. 🏬Take the name of a department store. 

Remove the last letter. 

Rearrange the letters to get an acronym of a nonprofit organization. 

What is it?

“Addin’ on a NON” 

2. ⓸+⓷=💻 Take a four-letter word. 

Add the letters NON. 

Rearrange these seven letters to get a type of that four-letter word. 

What is it?

MENU

“Cosmorose” Slice:

The sorrow of celestial spheres?

Express one of the 365 days of the year (366 in a leap year) using the month and date.  

But instead of using the ordinal form of the date, use the cardinal form. 

(For example, The fifth day of November is usually expressed as “November Fifth,” not
“November Five.” For the purposes of this puzzle, however, the fifth day of November would be “November Five,” not “November Fifth.”

So, choose a date. Switch the inititial sounds of its month and the cardinal number of its date, forming what sounds like a verb and two nouns. 

Pluralize the first noun and move the second noun to the beginning. 

The result, spoken aloud, sounds like how a particular heavenly body, because it is lacking in heavenly bodily fluids, expressed sorrow. What is this date?

Riffing Off Shortz And Shteyman Slices:

“Going Troppo-sites” attract!

Will Shortz’s October 31st NPR Weekend Edition Sunday puzzle, created by Michael Shteyman of Freeland, Maryland, reads:

Think of a popular tourist attraction in two words. The second, fourth, and sixth letters of the second word, in order, spell the first name of a famous author. The last four letters of the first word spell the author's last name. Who is the author, and what is the tourist attraction?

Puzzleria!s Riffing Off Shortz And Shteyman Slices read:

ENTREE #1

Think of a puzzle-maker in two words. Spell it backward. (For example, “Will Shortz” would become “ztrohs lliw”.)

Remove eight letters that can be rearranged to spell two words: 

1. a synonym of “deceiver” or “pretender,” and 

2. an adjective describing such a person.

The remaining letters, in order, spell two words that appear together in the text of this puzzle about this puzzle-maker. Name him.

Name also the two words that appear together in the text of this puzzle. Finally, reveal the synonym of “deceiver” or “pretender” and the adjective describing such a person.

Hint: The adjective that describes the “deceiver” or “pretender” might also describe the puzzle-maker.

ENTREE #2

Think of a popular tourist attraction in two words. The interior letters of the first word, in order, spell a sensory organ. The last three letters of the second word, if rearranged, spell a poetic word for a second sensory organ. 

The first three letters of that second word, followed by the first letter of its first word, in order, spell the instument you will need, besides an organ, to perform Gary Bachlund’s 1994 composition “Jacob’s Ladder.” 

The final four letters of the tourist attraction’s first word, in order, spell the first name of “Eldrick the Tiger’s” father. The final three letters of the tourist attraction’s second word, in reverse order, spell the first name of an actor who played a sitcom son-in-law whose real-life father played the boss of a sitcom character with that same first name. 

What is the tourist attraction?

What are the two sensory organs?

What is “Eldrick the Tiger’s” father’s first name?

What is the first name of both the actor and the sitcom character? 

ENTREE #3

Think of a popular tourist attraction in two words. 

The first word is a homophone of the last name of a journalist who moderated a PBS news program for more than one-third of its
more-than-fifty-year existence. 

Two consecutive interior letters in the tourist attraction’s second word are also two consecutive interior letters in the journalist’s first name.

What is this tourist attraction?

Who is this journalist?

ENTREE #4

Think of a popular tourist attraction in two words. The first and last letters of the tourist attraction spell a pronoun, as do the ninth, second and fifth letters. 

Remove these five letters. The remaining letters, in order, spell two other pronouns that, when separated by a hyphen, name a relationship identified by a Austrian-Jewish-Israeli philosopher.

What is this tourist attraction?

What are these four pronouns?

Who is the philosopher?

Hint: The philosopher’s name is an anagram of “Truman bribe” 

ENTREE #5

Think of a popular tourist attraction in two words. Two consecutive interior letters from the first word appear consecutively, but in reverse order, in the second word. Remove these four letters.

What remains is a word for occurs from time to time at the attraction, most recently in 2013, 2005, 1978, 1958, 1939, 1922, 1903...

What is this attraction?

What occurs from time to time?

ENTREE #6

Think of a popular U.S. tourist attraction/historic neighborhood in two words. 

The name of this attraction might also describe a particular coin – the copper-nickel 25-centime piece minted in Europe and circulated in the first half of the 20th Century. 

What is the tourist attraction?

Hint: This coin (see illustration) is topologically akin to a life saver or doughnut.

ENTREE #7

Think of a popular tourist attraction, in two words, that attracts those who are adventurous. 

Remove four consecutive interior letters that can be rearranged to spell a synonym of “ditty.”

The remaing letters, in order, spell a four-letter verb and its antonym.

What is this tourist attraction for the adventurous?

What is the synonym of “ditty?”

What are the verbal antonyms?

ENTREE #8

Think of a popular tourist attraction in three words. 

Swap the first letter of the first word with the second letter of the third word.

Remove the last letter of the second word as well as the fifth, third and (new) second letter of the third word. Anagram those four letters to form a word that precedes “fixe” to create a two-word synonym of “obsession.”

What remains of the three words are three terms associated with baseball:

1. a mask-wearer,

2. ERA, RBI, ave. or BB, for example, and

3. a slang term for the playing field.

What is the tourist attraction?

What is the synonym of “obsession?”

What are the three terms associated with baseball? 

Dessert Menu

Home Of The Braves (And Brewers) Dessert:

Changing the linens, what a relief! 

The Atlanta Braves (formerly based in Boston and Milwaukee) have just won the 2021 World Series. 

A former Braves pitcher might well be in the Hall of Fame were it not for a major league career that was injury-plagued. He participated in four MLB All-Star Games as a Milwaukee Brewer.

The pitcher’s “swan song” came nine years ago after he was signed by the Atlanta Braves and, in mid-July, made his first starting appearance on the mound in two years. 

In that game, he pitched six scoreless innings against the New York Mets, giving up only two hits and striking out five before being lifted for relief pitcher by the Braves manager.

“It was a tough decision to ____ ___, but we have great confidence in our _______,” said the manager in a post-game interview. (This manager is likely the only MLB manager in history whose first name ends with an “i”).

Switch the initial letters in the first two blanks and remove the space to form the word in the third blank.

Who is this pitcher?

What are the words in the three blanks?

Hint #1: If you remove the space in the pitcher’s name and then change the third letter, the result is oblong pieces of cotton or linen cloth associated with slumber.

Hint #2: The word in the third blank has lately been in the news, thanks to PETA.

Every Friday 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.

Hallowe’en mixed “boo-quet” bag; “Smart, punchy hipster jive!” “Don’t forget the a la mode!” “...Even educated fleas do it...” “Bona ‘fidiom’ ”

PUZZLERIA! SLICES: OVER 6!π SERVED

Schpuzzle of the Week:

“Bona ‘fidiom’ ”

Anagram a four-word idiom to form a three-word description of a book that suggests that the idiom is true. 

What are the idiom and description?

Hint: One word in the idiom appears, intact and  unchanged, in the description.

Appetizer Menu

Frightfully Delightful Puzzley Appetizer:

Mixed  Halloween “boo-quet” bag 

A “wacky” word for “wacky tobacky?”

1. 🚒Indigenous people, especially in the Ohio valley, once smoked a tobacco substitute consisting of dried leaves from a plant – a plant that has an interesting name. 

The plant contains 12 letters, but only four different letters: 

* 4 of the same vowel, 

* 4 of the same consonant, 

* 3 of the same consonant, and

* 1 other consonant.

If you speak the word aloud, its sounds as if you are repeating yourself, or are perhaps speaking from an echo chamber. Compared to this “common” name for the plant, its scientific name is not nearly as interesting...

The scientific name is, however, an anagram of three artistic/creative professions:

* AUTHOR

* SCULPTOR, and

* VAISYAS (people from a Hindi caste characterized by cleverness, creativity, and selfish motivations – a merchant, for example)

What is this plant?

What is its scientific name?

Hint #1: The last 58.3% of the plant is the name of a Midwest stadium.

Hint #2: Removing the peniltimate letter of this mystery plant turns it into a palindrome.

“Take me to the river”

2. 🌎Name a major North American river that ends with a U.S. state postal code. Replace its last letter with another U.S. state’s postal code to get a pretty flower. The river forms much of the border between two U.S. states. 

What is this river?

What is the pretty flower?

What are the four words and the tributary? (See “Extra Credit,” below.)

Extra Credit:

Anagram the combined letters of the river and its main tributary to form four words:

* one of two things every river has,

* what those two things consist of,

* a Greek letter heard on a dairy farm, and

* a “bullet” in the hand.

Texting is bad for your health...and your plant’s health!

3. ♯♭Take a two-letter abbreviation often used in texting and place it at the beginning of a famous singer’s stage name to get an unhealthy plant. 

Who is the singer?

What is this abbreviation?

“Currency in the stream”

4.🏅Name an athlete who was in the 2011 headlines, first and last names. 

Remove a four-letter unit of currency from the middle of this full name. The result contains two instances of one letter. 

Move both of these letters six places later in the alphabet (so, A becomes G, B becomes H, etc.). 

The result is the name of a streaming service.

Who is this athlete?

What is the streaming service?

Hint #1: The athlete also made some news this past summer by advocating for U.S. women’s soccer team salaries. 

Hint #2: The athlete shares a surname with a TV character who had a sidekick named Illya, and also shares the surname with a movie character whose sidekick’s name sounds like he is masticating the mystery plant in the “wacky tobacky” Appetizer Puzzle #1 above:  

MENU

Jive Talkin’ Slice:

“Smart, punchy hipster jive!”

Hipsters speak in “smart, punchy jive.” 

That three-word phrase in quotation marks contains 15 different letters – all you will need
to spell all eight members of a particular group. 

What group is this?

Note: Most of the 15 letters are used more than once in spelling the eight members of the group.

Riffing Off Shortz And Reiss Slices:

“Don’t forget the a la mode!”

Will Shortz’s October 24th NPR Weekend Edition Sunday puzzle, created by Mike Reiss, reads:

Think of a two-word phrase you might see on a laptop computer menu. Remove five letters. What remains, in order, is a three-word phrase you might see on a restaurant menu. What phrases are these?

Puzzleria!s Riffing Off Shortz And Reiss Slices read:

ENTREE #1

Take a synonym of “blunder” or “sin of omission.” Remove three letters. What remains, in order, is the first name of a puzzle-maker.

Take an adjective describing someone who commits a “sin of omission” while “asleep at the switch.” Remove one letter. What remains, in order, is the last name of that same puzzle-maker.

Who is this puzzle-maker? 

What are this synonym and adjective?

Hint: Take a seven-letter synonym of a word that appears more than once in this puzzle. Remove three letters that can be arranged to spell a negative conjunction which, when spelled backward, is man’s first name. What remains, in order, is the first name of the puzzle-maker that is the answer to this puzzle.

ENTREE #2

Take a  Windows Explorer feature, in two words, that gives you a “sneak peek” of a preview that gives information about a file (images, text, videos or documents) without actually opening it.

Remove five letters. What remains, in order, is a two-word object a baker uses. 

What is this Windows Explorer feature?

What does a baker use?

ENTREE #3

Think of a two-word phrase you might see on a laptop computer menu while you and your spouse visit a married couple you know for an enjoyable evening of playing a game of charades.

Remove from the phrase the letters of the brand of soft drink your hosts serve with the hors d’oeuvres. Remove also, embedded in the phrase, a word for an amorous glance your host accuses you of making – a glance that
was not directed at your spouse!

What remains of the phrase, in order, is a two-word exclamation your host subsequently sputters! 

What phrase is seen on the laptop?

What are the cola brand, amorous glance, and sputtered exclamation?

ENTREE #4

Think of a two-word phrase you might see on a laptop computer menu. Remove the last letter from each word. 

What remains is the title of a documentary film about guys named Donald, Roger, Neville and Wallace. 

What phrase is this?

What is the film title?

ENTREE #5

Think of a two-word phrase you might see on a laptop computer menu. Remove the last letter. What remains, in order, after you move the space and add a second space someplace, are:

1. something potentially messy a kindergartner might use to make a collage,

2. a kind of club at a college,

3. the kind of class the collage-crafting kindergartner is in.

Take that same two-word phrase you might see on a laptop computer menu. Remove the last two letters. What remains, in order, after you add a second space someplace, are:

1. a two-and-a-half-millennia-old board game,

2. an amorous glance,

3. a word that follows “bug’s” or precedes “plugs.”

What phrase is this?

What are the six words?

ENTREE #6

Think of a two-word phrase you might see on a laptop computer menu. 

Remove the first three letters, the last three letters, and the last letter of the first word. 

What remains, in order, is a two-word slang term for a sheriff in the United States. 

What phrase is this?

What is the slang term?

ENTREE #7

Think of video editing software you might have on your laptop, in three words. Remove the second word and two letters from the first word – the seventh and eighth most frequently used letters in the English language. 

What remains, in order, is a hyphenated synonym of a loose branch hanging or falling from a tree, or a blockage in a branch of the left coronary artery.

What video editing software is this?

What is the synonym?

ENTREE #8

Think of a two-word phrase you might see on a laptop computer menu. Remove nine consecutive letters. What remains, in order, are seven letters that spell what a policeman in a squad car sometimes does to protect property. The first six of the nine removed letters spell a kind of property. The last three of the nine removed letters spell a kind of person that may be up to no good on the property. 

What phrase is this?

What does a policeman in a squad car sometimes do?

What is the kind of property?

What person might be up to no good?

Dessert Menu

“Meet the Beetles” Dessert:

“... Even educated fleas do it...”

Name something some insects do. 

Spell it backward. 

Remove one letter of this result to spell some insects. 

Now return to the “something some insects do,” spelled backward. This time replace one letter. The result is other insects. 

What do some insects do? 

What are the two insects?

Every Friday 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.

“Sign on the dotted ‘lane’ ” Purloining letters from literature? Talk the talk, squawk the squawk; Write no wrong words in the rungs; In movie roles, Mercedes & Janice Ruhle & Rule!

PUZZLERIA! SLICES: OVER 6!π SERVED

Schpuzzle of the Week:

“Sign on the dotted ‘lane’ ”

Take a word seen on a traffic sign. 

Double the second letter and double the last letter. 

Rearrange the result to form a word that describes drivers obeying the sign. 

What are these two words?

Appetizer Menu

Note: Puzzleria! this week presents for your solving enjoyment the debut of cleverly crafted creativity by a guest puzzle-maker named “Rudolfo.” Enjoy!

Five-Step Ladder Appetizer:

Write no wrong words in the rungs 

Here is a little chicken-oriented word ladder with a special condition: going down the ladder, one letter changes at a step ... with the changes taking place in the first letter of the first word below PLUCK, then the second letter of the second word, and so on to the fifth and final word CHEE*.  Here the stars “*” show the letter changes.  

All the words are fairly common ones.

    

 P L U C K

    * _ _ _ _

    _ * _ _ _

    _ _ * _ _

    _ _ _ * _

    C H E E *

MENU

Reading Room Slice:

Purloining letters from literature?

Remove a number of consecutive letters from something people read. 

The letters that remain spell a U.S. state. 

Add a diminutive suffix to the end of the letters you removed to spell something else people read. 

What two things do people read?

What is the U.S. state?

Riffing Off Shortz And Nash-Resnick Slices:

In movie roles, Mercedes & Janice Ruhle & Rule!

Will Shortz’s October 17th NPR Weekend Edition Sunday puzzle, created by Abe Nash-Resnick of Los Angeles, California, reads:

Name a famous actress, in eight and six letters. Change the next-to-last letter of her first name to an “s”. Then reverse the order of the last three letters, and you’ll name a famous ruler. The actress’s last name is an anagram of where you would find this ruler. Who are the actress and the ruler?

Puzzleria!s Riffing Off Shortz And Nash-Resnick Slices read:

ENTREE #1

Take the surname of a 19th Century German poet and journalist after whom a 20th Century European express train was named. 

Take places on that train, in two English words, where you can order kartoffelpuffers, quarkbällchen, zwiebelkuchen, buttered bayerische breze with tilset cheese or currywurst with a side of French fries.

Anagram the combined letters of that surname and the places on the train to name a puzzle-maker.

Who is this puzzle-maker?

What are the places on the train and the name of German poet?

ENTREE #2

Note: Entree #2, this second riff-off of the NPR puzzle, was composed by our friend GB, whose “GB’s Bafflers” feature appears regularly on Puzzleria! 

Name a famous actor with five letters in both his first name and his last name.  

Drop one letter from the first name. The remaining letters, in order, spell a creature.  

Duplicate one letter in his last name and
rearrange. The result is another creature.  

Who is the actor and what are the creatures?  

ENTREE #3

Name a past British actor, playwright and composer, in four and six letters.

Reverse the order of letters in his first name. Place, in front of these letters, four other letters that can be anagrammed to spell the French word for a male peacock. The result is the first name of a French military and political leader.

This first name is shared by a porcine character in a British author’s 1945 novella. The British actor’s surname is a noun that describes this character.

Now anagram the letters of the military leader’s surname to form a three-word phrase of 1, 4 and 4 letters that describes endosteum or periosteum.

Take another word, of 6 letters, that this three-word phrase describes. Invert its first letter and
divide the result in half to form a word associated with the military leader (and, actually, with any military leader) and a “smaller-scale” synonym of that word. 

Who is this actor/playwright?

Who is this French military and political leader?

Who is the character who shares the military leader’s first name, and what is the novella?

What is the three-word phrase that describes endosteum or periosteum?

What other word does that phrase describe?

What are the word associated with the military leader and the synonym of that word?

ENTREE #4

Jacob, with the assistance of his mother Rebekah, fooled his father Isaac into giving him the birthright and blessing intended for ___ brother ____. Subsequently, Jacob embarked on a journey to the city of Harran. 

On the way, during an overnight dream, visions danced in his head – visions of God’s angels descending and ascending a ladder in the sky. 

Jacob awoke in awe, exclaiming, “This is the house of God, the gate of heaven!” Thus he dubbed the place ______, which means “House of God.”

The three blanks above contain a pronoun and two proper nouns containing 3, 4 and 6 letters. Anagram those 13 letters to name a famous actress, in nine and four letters. 

Who is the actress?

What are the three words in the blanks?

ENTREE #5

Name a famous actress whose first and last names total ten letters. 

The first two and last three letters of her name spell the first name of an actor, singer, songwriter and activist. 

The fourth, fifth and sixth letters of the actress’s name, spelled backward, are the first three letters of the actor’s surname.

Who are this actress and actor?

ENTREE #6

Name a famous actress, first and last names, in four and seven letters. Change the seventh letter of her name to an “c” and move it into the fifth position.

Move the first two letters of this result so that they become the fifth and sixth letters. 

Divide the result into four and seven letters to form an adjective and a person in a profession. 

Alas, this result is, more often than not, oxymoronic and incongruous.

Who is this actress?

What is the often-oxymoronic-and-incongruous two-word expression?

ENTREE #7

Name a famous actress, in five and six letters, whose first name is an informal pejorative term. 

The possessive form of her surname sounds like a six-letter term associated with Elon Musk. 

Who is this actress and what is the term associated with Musk?

ENTREE #8

Name a famous actress, in three and six letters. Her first name, when put in ALL-CAPS, is also a 75-year-old acronym related to the military. 

The first half of her surname, when its letters are reversed and put in ALL-CAPS, is a 103-year-old British institution related to the military, which is also an acronym. 

If you replace the first letter of her surname with its last letter, the first three letters of the result spell a lowercase third word related to the military. 

Who is this actress?

What are the three words related to the military?

ENTREE #9

Name a famous actress, in five and five letters, who had a reputation for being mysterious, classy – and anything but “trashy.” 

However, you can anagram the ten letters in her name to spell a synonym of trash and a word related to that synonym.

Who is this actress?

What are the synonym of trash and the related word?

Dessert Menu

American Historical Dessert:

Talk the talk, squawk the squawk

Name a notable figure in American history, first and last names, who was known as a statesman and orator. 

Remove from this name three consecutive letters. The letters that remain name an animal and something such animals do. 

Who is this figure?

Hint: Rearrange the removed letters to spell a synonym of “squawk” that often accompanies what the animals do.

Every Friday 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.