Are pears, oft pared, oft paired? Sins?... No, signs of omission! “Citified” television personalities; 12th Night and hour... and number! “Koalamazoo?” “Kalanmazoo?” “Patrick’s thirty-second Cryptic Crossword is no thirty-second solve!”

PUZZLERIA! SLICES: OVER 6!π SERVED

Schpuzzle of the Week:

Are pears, oft pared, oft paired?

Name a pair of often-paired foods. 

Change the first letter of one to a letter that doesn’t change that food’s pronunciation. 

Switch the initial letters of the result to spell a pair of synonyms. 

What are these foods and synonyms?

Hint: Most people would say that the often-paired foods are not “junk food.”

Appetizer Menu

Promethean Appetizer:

“Patrick’s thirty-second Cryptic Crossword is no thirty-second solve!”

Patrick J. Berry’s 32nd Cryptic Crossword Puzzle on Puzzleria! poses a particularly Promethean challenge. 

Astute Puzzlerian!s will notice a certain similarity in a handful of Patrick’s 26 clues. This similarity is not a coincidence. Suffice it to say that, in my humble opinion, this is one of Patrick’s most amazing cryptic crosswords yet... and that’s saying something!

If you have missed any of Patrick’s previous 31 cryptic crosswords on Puzzleria!, here are their links:

1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 

13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21

22 23 24 25 26 27 28 29 30 31

For those of you who may be new to cryptic crossword puzzles, Patrick has compiled the following list of basic cryptic crossword puzzle instructions:

Regarding the Across and Down clues and their format:

The number, or numbers, that appear in parentheses at the end of each clue indicate how many letters are in the answer.

Multiple numbers in parentheses indicate how letters are distributed in multiple-word answers. For example, (6) simply indicates a six-letter word like “puzzle,” (7,9) indicates a seven-letter and nine-letter answer like “cryptic crossword,” and (6-6) indicates a six-letter and six-letter hyphenated answer like “thirty-second.”

For further insight about how to decipher these numbered cryptic clues, see Patrick’s “Cryptic Crossword Tutorial” in this link to his November 17, 2017 cryptic crossword.

That Tutorial appears below the grid that contains the answers in that edition of Puzzleria!

Now, sit back on your sofa with a TV Dinner, turn on the tube and enjoy Patrick’s Cryptic Crossword #32: 

ACROSS

7. Starts once more to get booster shot?(7)

8. Favorite music fad from the 70s(3,4)

10. A soldier in trouble, being slow(6)

11. Significant 70s rock groups—one of them wasting energy, time?(8)

12. Drop drink and run(4)

13. I got rare, uh, “moves” in video game(6,4)

14. “Housewife” looking for stuff about what this puzzle doesn’t have?(6,5)

19. For example, her recording gets a little erotic, it’s clear(10)

22. Stone—some gem, maybe?(4)

23. Old dog, unmarried now, dating again?(3,5)

24. Wait for bits—no nonsense—in comic role(6)

25. “Housewife”, not perfect, gets very loud(7)

26. Start now, love(7)

DOWN

1. Worried, as trouble started(7)

2. “Housewife” could be liar? Go on!(8)

3. “Housewife” starts to toss recipes in air(6)

4. Sophisticated young lady, as it happens(8)

5. Depression, constantly missing husband(6)

6. Off-screen? Yes, getting set(7)

9. “Housewife” brings it up without hesitation:
“The chicken or the egg?”(4,7)

15. Walk with a purpose, initially, when in bar(8)

16. “Housewife”—the gal managed to get wild, defying the odds(8)

17. Some argumentative couple in hurry—hard to get away? Hard!(7)

18. Challenge writer’s vision(7)

20. Warn of it getting worse in New York(6)

21. “Housewife”—ultimately, man in drag?(6)

MENU

Sound & Fury “Signifying Nothing” Hors d’Oeuvre:

Sins? (No, signs!) of omission

Take a word for punctuation that points to an omission in the text. The word itself provides a partially omitted visual example of this punctuation mark. 

What is this word? 

What is the partially omitted example it provides?

Hint: A world capital, an island nation, and a synonym of shenanigans each provide a visual example of this punctuation that is not partially omitted.

Vidiot Box Slice:

“Citified” television personalities

Remove a letter and a space from the name of a TV personality to name a fictional TV show city. 

The surname of a related TV personality is a
non-fictional TV show city that is associated
with that fictional TV show. 

Who are these personalities? 

What are the fictional TV show city and non-fictional TV show city associated with it?

Riffing Off Shortz And Humphreys Slices:

“Koalamazoo?” “Kalanmazoo?”

Will Shortz’s October 1st NPR Weekend Edition Sunday puzzle, created by Jim Humphreys of Northampton, Massachusetts, reads: 

Name a well-known U.S. city in four syllables.
The first two syllables, with a letter inserted, will name an animal — one that might be found in the place named by the last syllable. 

What city is it?

Puzzleria!s Riffing Off Shortz And Humphreys Slices read:

ENTREE #1

Take the aspect of music that comprises accent, meter, and tempo; a musical composition suggesting improvisation; and the first name of one of “The Three B’s.”

Rearrange the combined letters to spell the name of a puzzle-maker and his hometown.

Who is this puzzle-maker?What are the aspect of music, the musical composition, and the first name of one of “The Three B’s?”

Note: Entree #2 was composed by  a valued Puzzleria! contributor and “occasional correspondent.” Our thanks.

ENTREE #2

Think of a person whose surname sounds like a musical instrument and whose first name is an anagram of a body part. 

One football season during the 20th Century, this person led the nation in rushing yards, rushing touchdowns, and points scored. One word in the name of the institution for which he played in college spells the name of a place where an animal might be found. This animal is associated with the person’s post-college career.  

Who is the person?  

In what place might the animal be found?  

What is the animal?

ENTREE #3

Name a U.S. city in four syllables that is in the title of a nearly-century old song. Rearrange the combined letters of this city to spell two animals and the name of a human animal. The human animal is associated with non-human animals, including those two. 

What city is it?

Who is the human?

What are the animals?

ENTREE #4

Name a well-known southern U.S. city in two words. Delete the last letter of the first word, resulting in the first and final words in a four-word song by a group in the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame. 

The two-word name of the group consists of two cities — one in New York State, the other a state capital. One of the cities is also the name of an animal.

What are the southern city and the rock group?

What is the song title?

What are the New York city and the state capital?

ENTREE #5

Name a well-known southern U.S. city in four syllables. Remove consecutive interior letters that spell the first name of a sitcom character. 

The remaining letters, after you remove the gap left by the removed letters, spell the first word of a comedy troupe. The surname of the sitcom character and second word of the comedy troupe begin with the same two letters.

What city is it?

Who is the sitcom character?

What is the comedy troupe?

ENTREE #6

Name two well-known U.S. cities — one in a Rocky Mountain state, the other an Appalachian Mountain state. 

The first city and the first syllable of the second city spell the name of a poet whose poems sometimes feature animals.

What cities are these?

Who is the poet?

Hint: Animals the poet wrote about include a cow, pig, duck, llama, fly and octopus.

ENTREE #7 

Name a well-known U.S. city in three syllables. Place duplicates of the last two letters at the end of the city. (For example, “Amarillo” would become “Amarillolo,” and “Honolulu” would become “Honolululu.”)

The first four letters of the result spell the name of an American disco band. The remaining letters, after you insert two hyphens, spell a synonym of the noun “disco.”

What city is it?

What is the name of the disco band?

What is the synonym of “disco”?

ENTREE #8

Name a not-so-well-known southern Californian city in two syllables. Changing a vowel in the city to a different vowel results in
the surname of a gifted album cover artist who was one-half of a rock duo who helped pioneer the “California Sound” and vocal surf music.

Delete the penultimate letter of the city. Move the last letter into the fourth position and place a space after it. The result is two synonyms of “scurried.”

What city is it?

What is the rock duo?

What are the synonyms of “scurried?”

ENTREE #9

Name a well-known U.S. West Coast city in four syllables and two words. 

The first two syllables, with a letter inserted, will name an animal — one that might be found in a brook at the foot of the place named by the last
syllable. 

What city is this?

What is the animal?

Hint #1: Change the eighth letter of the city to a different consonant to name a woman who portrayed Rosina, Violetta and Elisabetta. 

Hint #2: Delete the first letter and second word of the city, leaving the surname of a harmonious pair of brothers. 

ENTREE #10

Name a well-known U.S. capital city. Move the penultimate letter into the third position and rotate the last letter 180 degrees around its vertical (“y”) axis. The result is a kind of ear.

What is this city?

What is this kind of ear?

ENTREE #11

Name a well-known U.S. city, in two words, that is an oxymoronic term consisting of an adjective and noun. 

Spoonerize these words by interchanging their initial consonant sounds. Keep the vowel sounds the same as they were. Reverse the order of those spoonerized words. The result sounds like an edible item consisting of an adjective and noun. 

What is this city?

What is the edible item consisting of an adjective and noun?

Hint: The U.S. city is in a state with a smaller city whose name consists of seven consecutive letters that appear twice in the puzzle text.

ENTREE #12

Name a well-known U.S. city, in three syllables, in both Minnesota and New York State. 

Take the last three letters. Move them to the beginning, followed by a space. Change the third letter to an “h” and place it between the first two letters. 

The two-word result is an all-female folky vocal trio from New Jersey. 

What’s this city that’s in two states? 

What’s the folky vocal trio?

Dessert Menu

Sequential Dessert:

12th Night and hour... and number!

Name the twelfth number in the following sequence:

1, 2, 3, 4, 4, 9, 5, 1, 1, 10, __, __

Note: You might notice that we are not asking you to name the eleventh number in the sequence. 

That is because there are arguably as many as
four possible “correct-answer” numbers for that eleventh number – all plausible, but none definitive. 

Because of this ambiguity, you need not concern yourself with what those four “candidates” for the eleventh number might be... unless you want to, of course.

Hint: You may be bullish-green on a part of the accompanying image, but it may be a bit of a bearish-red herring, one that is also cardinal-red.

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.

Flip-180, weighty kin, Irish lass, Euro-city, UK slang, Attila in Italy! A food-and-vessel festival; Synonyms expressing themselves; “Cal-i-fornee, the San Francisco state!” “The Quad(ruplet) Cities?” One Dickens of a metro-mystery!

PUZZLERIA! SLICES: OVER 6!π SERVED

Schpuzzle of the Week:

One Dickens of a metro-mystery!

A currently trending news story is “a tale of two cities... and one man.”

The last five letters of one of the cities can be rearranged to spell a word that explains how this man became a resident of that city: “He was _____.” 

The remaining letters of that city spell the first name of a second man whose surname is the same as the name of the other city. 

These two men share a rare distinction regarding their past professions. 

What are these two cities?

Who are the two men and what is their shared distinction? 

What is the missing word that describes how the man became a resident of the city? (“He was _____.”) 

Appetizer Menu

Skydiversionary Septet Appetizer:

Flip-180, weighty kin, Irish lass, Euro-city, UK slang, Attila in Italy!

1. Think of a major European city in three syllables. Change the order of the syllables to
phonetically form a two-word slang expression common in the UK. What are this city and slang expression?

2. Think of a common four-word idiomatic phrase, “____ of the ____,” that means the current situation or state of affairs. Switch the first and last words to get another phrase that phonetically describes our fiftieth state. What are these two phrases?

3. Write a five-letter adverb in lower case letters. Change the second letter to the same as the third letter to spell a noun that might be found where the adverb indicates. Now rotate the second and third letters of this noun 180 degrees to spell an adjective that describes the opposite of where the second word will be found. What are these three words?

4. Name what Attila hoped to become by going to Italy, in two words. Spoonerize these words to spell a feat many baseball players hope to accomplish. What did Attila hope to become, and what is this baseball feat?

5. Think of a three-syllable noun that you might use to privately refer to an overweight relative. What is this noun?

6. Spoonerize the name of a well-known film critic. Switch the order of the two words to describe a fair-complexioned Irish girl.

7. Think of a major European city in nine letters. Rearrange them into three words to sarcastically describe someone who constantly frequents cocktail lounges.

MENU

Celebratory Hors d’Oeuvre:

A food-and-vessel festival

Name a multi-day seasonal festival in Europe.

Rearrange the letters in this name to spell two things you would see at this celebration: a food, and a vessel containing a beverage that complements that food.

What is this festival?

What are this vessel and food?

Commonality Of Capitals Slice:

“The Quad(ruplet) Cities?”

Put four U.S. capital cities in alphabetical order, followed by their locations. (“Boise, Idaho,” for instance, because Boise is situated in Idaho.)

In the second city, replace a pronoun with a state postal abbreviation to form a duplicate of the first city.

Change the third city to a duplicate of the first city by adding a consonant to the beginning, replacing a vowel with a different one, and inverting a consonant. 

After these revisions, all four capital cities, along with their locations, share one word in common. 

And two of the four share another word in common. 

What are are these four cities and the two commonly shared words?

Riffing Off Shortz And Sivakumar Slices:

“Cal-i-fornee, the San Francisco state!”

Will Shortz’s September 24th NPR Weekend Edition Sunday puzzle, created by Sid Sivakumar, who is one of the top crossword contributors for the New York Times, reads:

Name a major U.S. city in two words. Change the first letter of the first word and the next-to-last letter of the second word. Then rearrange all the letters to name the people who live in this city. What city is it?

Puzzleria!s Riffing Off Shortz And Sivakumar Slices read:

ENTREE #1

Name a puzzle-maker in two words. Change the third and fifth letters of his surname. Then rearrange all the letters in the name to name two Greek mythological figures. One is associated with gold; the other is a god of gardens and fertility. 

Who is this puzzle-maker? 

Who are the two Greek mythological figures?

Note: 

Entree #2 is a riff created by Ecoarchitect, whose “Econfusions” feature appears regularly on Puzzleria!

Entree #3 is a riff created by Tortitude, whose “Tortie’s Slow but Sure Puzzles” feature also appears regularly on Puzzleria!

ENTREE #2

“Pleasing” is perhaps the nicest “typewriter word,” a word that uses each finger once and only once on a standard keyboard.

But there are other nice “typewriter words” also, especially if you know your US
geography: 

🌆🏙 People from two US cities are typewriter words. 

🙎 A single person from one US city is a typewriter word. 

🌎Products named after one US city are a plural  typewriter word. 

What are the cities?

ENTREE #3

Name a two-word major American city that is located in a coastal state. 

Change the first letter to the one that is two letters before it in the alphabet (i.e., ROT24). Rearrange the letters to produce the name of an actor who was born in that city. The actor is known for starring in a twenty-first century sitcom that was set in a city that’s on the opposite coast.

What is the city? Who is the actor?

ENTREE #4

Name a major U.S. city in one word. Two consecutive letters in the city, in reverse, name a member of the U.S. armed forces. Replace these letters with a two-letter reviver of dead chrysanthemums. Rearrange the result to name any person who lives in this city. 

What city is it, and who lives there?

ENTREE #5

Name a major U.S. city in two words. Replace the first letter of the first word and the third and last letters of the second word. Then rearrange all these letters to name the people who live in
this city. What city is it?

Hint: The three replacement letters are the only consonants in the surname of an English poet and clergyman or in a word for any group of nine.

ENTREE #6

Name a major U.S. city (in two words and 11 letters) and a word for people who live in that city (in 12 letters). 

Remove the same seven letters from both words – letters that can be anagrammed to spell the oxymoronic phrase “sad grin.” 

Anagram the five remaining letters in the word for the city people to spell what church bells do. Change the long-i vowel sound in that word to a short-u sound to form a synonym of the dialectal noun that is an anagram of the four remaining letters in the word for the city.

What is the city and word for people in that city? 

What do church bells do? 

What are the dialectal synonym and the anagram of the four letters? 

ENTREE #7

Name a major U.S. city, in two words, that contains ten letters. 

Transpose the words. Remove the space. 

Replace two consecutive letters of this result with a single letter. (The two consecutive letters are the first and third letters of a nearly half-century-old late-night television show abbreviation; the single letter is the second letter in that abbreviation.) 

The result is the name of people who live in this U.S. city. What city is it, and what are its residents called?

ENTREE #8

Name a major U.S. city that is a college town (in two words and 11 letters) and a word for people who live in that city (in 10 letters). Remove the same seven letters from both words. These letters can be rearranged to spell an “auditory crop” and the name of the Roman god that is essential to its growth. 

The three remaining letters in the 10-letter word, spelled forward or backward, are the title of a novel by a Russian author. 

The four remaining letters in the college town can be rearranged to spell the brand name for an insecticide with an advertising campaign for which the future Dr. Seuss (then known as Theodor Seuss Geisel) created artwork.

What are this U.S. city and the word for people who live there?

What are the novel title and name of the insecticide?

What is the “auditory crop” and the name of the Roman god that is essential to its growth?

ENTREE #9

Name a major U.S. city in two words and eight letters. 

Change the first letter of the second word to a new letter that is two places later in the alphabet to spell the name of a rock group. 

Forget the rock group but remember the new letter. Add it to the eight letters of the U.S. city.

Three of these nine letters spell a word for a strong desire or craving. 

Remove them. 

Rearrange the remaining letters to spell the name of any resident of this city.

What are this city and one of its residents?

What are the rock group and the word for the craving? 

ENTREE #10

Name  a U.S. city in two words. The last two letters of each word, if you put a hyphen between them, spell a four-letter hyphenated chiefly British interjection used to express farewell.

Bid “farewell” to this interjection. Replace it with a four-letter word for “intelligence, news, facts and data.” Anagram the result to spell the people who live in this city.

What city is it?

Who are the people who live in this city?

What are the interjection and the word for intelligence and news?

Hint: The city can be anagrammed to spell a two-word term for a subject about which Lilith Starr has written.

ENTREE #11

Name a major U.S. city in one nine-letter word, and the residents of this city, in two words and eight letters. 

Place an apostrophe, an “s” and a three-letter noun after the city, implying that the city is Internet-friendly. This 13-letter result is also the title of a popular literary work. 

Each of the eight letters in the term for the city’s residents also appears in the literary title.

Remove these eight letters from the title, leaving five letters that can be rearranged to spell out, if you place a space someplace, the year twenty-and-a-quarter centuries ago.

What are this city and residents of this city?

What is the title of the literary work?

What is the year twenty-and-a-quarter centuries ago?

Dessert Menu

Scrabble-Legal Sea-Worthy Dessert:

Synonyms expressing themselves

Place two synonymous nouns next to each other to form a nine-letter string made up of five different letters. 

Remove all vowels and two consonants, leaving a Scrabble-legal word for an expression of these synonyms.

What are these synonyms and the expression?

Hint: The letters you removed can be anagrammed to spell the name of a sea.

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.