“Compound it!” “...hee’s Jason... (Bateman, not Batman!)” Synonymous Syllabification; Camels’-food-words; Child’s play turns violent! Geometric Geography

PUZZLERIA! SLICES: OVER 5πe² SERVED

Schpuzzle of the Week:

Synonymous Syllabification

Place a pair of two-syllable synonymous nouns, in alphabetical order. 

Replace a vowel in the first synonym with two
different vowels. The result is a synonym of the first syllable of the second synonym.

 What are these two synonymous pairs?

Appetizer Menu

“Ecompounding” Interest Appetizer:

Compound it!  

We weren’t done with the Compounding Puzzles featured on April 3rd. There are many compound words in the language, made from two or more words or stems that combine to make a new word with a distinct meaning.  

For example:  Many will be _________ (9) this puzzle’s ___, __ ____ (3,2,4) cheers at the very least.  

ANSWER:  Many will be ENDORSING this puzzle’s END, OR SING cheers at the very least. As in this example, letter counts are provided.  

1.    ⏺🔊🕺We didn’t like old records and found the ____ ___ _____ (4,3,5) grandfather recommended to be ____________ (12).

2.    🔮The mystic could not _____________ (13) on what the ___-_______ ___ (3-7,3), since dinner already happened.

3.    ⛪For __, _ ____ (2,1,4) _______ (7) of a person’s morality is how they treat those beneath them.

4.    💊The drug addict I ___ ___ ___ (3,3,3) dose of _________ (9) on him.

5.    🚗🚘At the tunnel wash, the claustrophobic man opened his window during the last cycle and was __ ___ _______ (2, 3, 7) because he felt ____________ (12).  

[The seven-letter word may not be known to all.]

6.    🦎Upon completing its evolution, the new
land creature said “________ (8) !  That’s the last ___ _ ____ (3,1,4) !

7.   🖻⚖ 🖺 I granted my lawyer the power of attorney; when it comes to important documents she can ____ __ _ ____ (4,2,1,4), which is a ___________ (11) responsibility.

8.    💰💸As an aside, the corrupt MAGA billionaire said “____________ (12), the ___ ____ _ ____ (3,4,1,4) with has given me a lot of money!”

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Triangulation & Rotation Hors d’Oeuvre

Geometric Geography

Lop off the triangle-shaped half of a U.S. state. ROT10 a city in the remaining half of the state to spell a word that describes the shape of that remaining half. 

What are this state, city and descriptive word?

Dangerous Loom & Doom Slice:

Camels’-food-words

Anagram a three-word idiom for a looming danger to form the missing words in the following potentially dangerous phrase: “BLANK from BLANK of BLANK.” 

What are the idiom and phrase?

Hint: The initial letters in the three-word idiom spell a word for something that is broken or busted.

Riffing Off Shortz And Chaikin Entrees:

“...hee’s Jason (Bateman, not Batman)!”

Will Shortz’s June 1st NPR puzzle challenge,  from Andrew Chaikin of San Francisco, reads: 

Think of a famous current actor. His first name is also the name of a famous movie character. Drop the middle letter of his last name and you'll name another famous movie character.
Each character is a central figure in a dozen or more films. What actor is this? 

Puzzleria!s Riffing Off Shortz And Chaikin Entrees read:

ENTREE #1

Lop off the upper half of a lowercase letter in the name of a puzzle-maker to form a different lowercase letter. Rearrange the letters of this altered name to spell:

* the name of place in the Bible,

* something that was swallowed in that place,
and

* the generic name of what was swallowed.

Who is this puzzle-maker?

What are the place, what was swallowed, and the generic term for the “swallowable?”

Note: Entrees #2 through #7 were composed by Nodd, creator of “Nodd ready for prime time.”

ENTREE #2

Take the first name of the central figure in a five-film crime drama franchise. Follow this with the last name of a miserly character in a famous movie from the 1940s. The result will name the central figure in another multiple-film franchise. Who are these three movie characters?

Hint: The first names of the central figure in a five-film crime drama franchise and the miserly character in a famous movie from the 1940s share the same first, fourth and fifth letters.

ENTREE #3

Take the first name of a famous movie actress from the 1930s-40s. Add a preposition to the beginning of the name. 

Follow this with the last name of a movie actor whose first name is the same as the first four
letters of the actress’s name. The result, phonetically, will name a famous character in a series of popular movies. 

Who are the actress, actor, and character?

ENTREE #4

Take the first name of a famous movie actor who appeared in films from the 1920s to the 1960s. 

Follow this with the first name of a retired actor who was primarily known for a television role as a police officer but also appeared in some movies. 

You’ll get the name of a character who has appeared in at least nine popular movies. 

Who are the actors and the character?

ENTREE #5

Take the first and last names of a famous maker of numerous films. 

Replace a T with an L and rearrange to name a character who has appeared in more than ten films. 

Who are the filmmaker and the character?

ENTREE # 6

Take the first name of a popular singer-songwriter who has also appeared in numerous films. 

Change the first letter to the letter three places before it in the alphabet. Follow this with an anagram of the past tense of a verb that describes what movie stars wish film critics would do about their performances. The result will name a central character in a well-known film franchise. 

Who are the singer and the character?

ENTREE #7

A movie released in the 1950s was a dramatization of a controversial novel. Take the names of two actresses who starred in the movie. The first name of one of the actresses, followed by the last name of the other actress minus its last letter, spell the name of a recurring character in a TV series the name of which may suggest cramped living conditions. 

Who are the actresses and the character?

ENTREE #8

The middle name of an actor (whose surname, minus its middle letter, is the name of a superhero) is also the surname of a famous movie character who, after he changed into his “superheroic” persona, wore a cape. 

The first name of this famous movie character is also the first name of a past famous movie actor known as the “King of Hollywood.”

Who are this actor, movie character and “King of Hollywood”?

Dessert Menu

Polite and Popular Dessert:

Child’s play turns violent!

Rearrange the combined letters in a polite and popular children’s game to spell two violent
synonyms. 

What is this game?

What are the synonyms?

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 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.

“The Turtle and the Bunny race through the Country”; Doth “heavenly” do thy body justice? ???? – (one r) = (π + e + s) = pies! “We’ve got Ed Pegged as a Puzzle Wiz!” Two chains, two missing links “Copy-Cattle?”

 PUZZLERIA! SLICES: OVER 5πe²  SERVED

Schpuzzle of the Week:

Two chains, two missing links

Place in alphabetical order a pair of two-word service-industry chains. 

Delete the second word from the first chain and most of the second word from the second chain. 

The result is a category and a member of that category.

What are these two chains, category and member of that category?

Hint: the two chains are in the same category – fast food, hospitality, insurance, technology, or etc. 

Appetizer Menu

Critters & Capitals Appetizer:

“The Turtle and the Bunny race through the Country” 

1. ⭐🐎 An animal appears in the name of a world capital. Replace the animal with a different animal. Change a letter outside of the animal’s name to the next letter in the alphabet. You will get another world capital. 

What are these two world capitals?

2. ⭐🐫 An animal appears in the name of a world capital. Replace the animal with a different animal. Change a vowel outside of the animal’s name to the next vowel in the alphabet. You will get another world capital. 

What are these world capitals?

MENU

Folk-Heroic Hors d’Oeuvre:

“Copy-Cattle?”

Take two words associated with making copies. 

Remove one letter from one and three consecutive letters from the other, leaving two words associated with a folk hero. 

What are these four words? 

Who is the folk hero?

Unique & Extraordinary Slice:

???? – (one r) = (π + e + s) = pies!

Remove one r from a word that means “something unique or extraordinary.” 

What is the word? 

What is the result when you remove one r?

A Red-Herring Hint: The author of “O   _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _!” is an anagram of “Lilac Wreath.”

Riffing Off Shortz And Pegg Entrees:

“We’ve got Ed Pegged as a Puzzle Wiz!”

Will Shortz’s May 25th NPR Weekend Edition Sunday Challenge Puzzle, created by Ed Pegg Jr., reads:

The onetime country duo “Montgomery Gentry” and the classic song “Go on With the Wedding” have a very unusual wordplay property in common. What is it?

Puzzleria!s Riffing Off Shortz And Pegg Entrees read:

ENTREE #1

Print in lowercase letters the past tense of a Northern-England-dialect verb that means “to sprinkle or moisten.” 

Invert either the first or last letter of the result by rotating it 180 degrees along the z-axis. 

Rearrange the result to spell (in lowercase letters, like the poet “e.e. cummings”) the name of a talented puzzle-maker. 

What is this verb that means “sprinkled or moistened”?  Who is this this puzzle-maker?

(Note: Entrees #2 through #7 were composed by our friend Nodd. Our thanks!)

ENTREE #2                        

Think of the names of two musical duos. 

One was formed in 1997 and the other in 2001. 

Take the second word of each name and insert “and” between them to get the title of a 1972 hit song by a well-known rock band formed in 1967. 

Who are the duos and what is the song? 

ENTREE #3

Think of the titles of a famous eighteenth century opera and a hit song from 1968. 

They each have three words, one of which is in
both titles. 

What are the opera and the song and what do they have in common besides the word their titles share?

ENTREE #4

Think of the first and last names of two well-known female vocalists. 

The first came to prominence in the 1960s. The second released her debut album in 1971. 

Their last names begin with the same letter and their first and last names have something in common. 

Who are the vocalists and what do their names have in common?

ENTREE #5

Think of the names of a male and a female vocalist. 

The male vocalist died young in 1971. The
female vocalist is still performing. 

The first two syllables of their three-syllable last names sound the same but are spelled differently. 

The nine letters of their first names can be arranged to spell the first names of two singers who died young in 1970 and 2024. 

Who are these four singers?

ENTREE #6

Think of the first and last names of two male singers. 

One has been active since 1963 and the other was active from 1967 until his death in 2017. 

Both singers went by the same first name. 

Their first and last names have something in common. Who are these two singers, and what do their names have in common?

ENTREE #7

Think of three singers, two females and one male. 

The last name of one of the females is the first name of the male. Add to the end of that name the last two letters of the same female’s first name to get the first name of the other female. 

Who are these three singers?

ENTREE #8

Name a puzzle-maker who may or may not be an audiophile. But, for the purposes of this puzzle, let us assume that he is.

Indeed, let us assume further that this puzzle-maker is particularly particular in regards to his speakers: their amperage, tone, quality, spatial placement, timbre and tweeter-and-wooferability, for example.

We might identify this puzzle-maker using the following four-word phrase, in 4, 6, 6 and 4 letters: ____ ______, ______ ____.

This phrase contains a very unusual wordplay property. 

Who is the puzzle-maker?

What is the four-word phrase?

What is the wordplay property?

ENTREE #9

An author’s best-known novel employs gothic elements such as abandoned castles, secret tunnels, and dark, misty moors where many a certain tract of soft, wet land can be found.

The 16 letters that appear in the  name of this author (in 4 and 7 letters) and the tract of soft, wet land (in 5 letters) can boast a very unusual wordplay property. 

Who is this author?

What is the tract of soft, wet land?

What is the wordplay property?

ENTREE #10

Name a U.S. president who played Division I College Football, in six and four letters. 

In the less physical sport of ____, however (a pasttime in which he occasionally partook as president), this former gridiron great once hit a spectator in the head with his driver-driven ball!  

Michael, Jack, Steven and Susan, who were present in the gallery, whispered among themselves, “Did ___ ___?”

This president’s name contains 6 and 4 letters. The words in the three blanks each contain, respectively, 4, 3 and 3 letters. 

Who is this president?

What is the less  physical sport?

What are the missing words in “Did ___ ___?” 

Dessert Menu

An Oasis in a Dessert (sic)?

“Doth ‘heavenly’ do thy body justice?”

Rearrange the letters in a poet’s name to spell an adjective and a body of water it might describe.

Who is this poet?

What are the adjective and body of water?

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 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.

Poor Richard’s Almanac (A purely academic exercise); Take a swing at these “fore!” golf puzzles; Coining a phrase; A tourist site with character; Poetry Corner with (Professor) Anna Graham; Literature worth consuming; Collection proves legitimacy; “Dogs have feet? Dogs ARE feet!” “Pope Leo is in PeopLe? O!” Tossing a pasta salad?

PUZZLERIA! SLICES: OVER 5πe² SERVED

Schpuzzle of the Week:

“Dogs have feet? Dogs are feet!”

 “_____ HAVE FEET,” written in uppercase letters, is a true statement. Replace the word “HAVE” with the word “ARE.” 

Write in lowercase the first of the five UPPERCASE letters in the blank.

The result is what appears to be a second true statement.

What is the UPPERCASE word in the blank? What are the two true statements?

Appetizer Menu

Quintuple Befuddlers Appetizer:

Poor Richard’s Almanac (A purely academic exercise); Take a swing at these golf puzzles; Coining a phrase; A tourist site with character; Poetry Corner with (Professor) Anna Graham

Poor Richard’s Almanac (A purely academic exercise)

1.🏫 Find six related words or phrases lurking in the text below to discover the theme of this puzzle. (Ignore spacing, capitalization, and any punctuation.)

Professor Anna Graham’s English student, Richard, had seemed to like the class, but based on his final exam, Anna had  to give him a C. Be that as it may, she hoped he would understand, but feared he would not.

“Hello,” Richard said as he arrived at Anna’s office to find out his grade. Reluctantly, Anna told him, and explained, “You haven’t been taking learning the material seriously enough.” 

“Professor Graham, let me explain,” Richard said. “When I took your exam I had a 104-degree fever. I barely made it over here for the exam!” 

At this, Anna was outraged. “You aren’t being honest with me, Richard. Five minutes after the exam was over, I saw you playing Ultimate Frisbee with your friends, running and jumping and screaming your head off!”

Crestfallen, Richard, who thankfully had turned 21 just a week earlier, walked disconsolately toward the bar down the street.

Take a swing at these fore! golf puzzles

2.🏌 (1) Which Hall of Fame golfer’s name suggests he was at a comparative size disadvantage?

(2) Players come and go, but one was indisputably the best of them. Who was it?

(3) The first and last names of which 1960s-70s PGA golfer suggest he might have had two non-golf occupations?

(4) What golf legend’s  surname suggests he was a “magician of the links,” strong-of-arm yet “sleight-of-hand?”

Coining a Phrase 

3.📰 From the clues provided, guess the following phrases that are heard in the news a lot. Letter counts for each of the words in the phrases are also provided:

1. Alterations to street-cleaning schedule. (8, 7)

2. Airport display of arrivals and departures. (4, 2, 3, 5)

3. Surges or interruptions in electrical power. (7, 6)

4. Terminate an attempt to grow bacteria. (6, 7)

5. Control lever in a Lincoln sedan. (11, 5)

6. Report of street dancing. (8, 4)

7. Dow Jones, mutual fund, return on investment, etc. (5, 7)

8. Using a pickaxe. (14)

9. Sometime around sunset. (2, 3, 3, 2, 3, 3)

10. Stem of a head of lettuce. (3, 2, 3, 7)

11. Trimming a liner to fit the drawer, e.g. (7, 4)

12. Descriptions of Willie Mays’ outfield feats. (5, 7) 

13. Advocacy of phoning. (7, 11) 

14. Narrative of film processing. (10, 5)

A tourist site with character

4.📺 The first and last names of a character from a 1960s TV series rhyme with a two-word European tourist site. 

Who is the character, and what is the tourist site? 

(Hint: the character worked in the healthcare field.)

Poetry Corner with (Professor) Anna Graham

5.🖋 Fill in the blanks to complete the verse.

The brethren ______ their ______ ______ anon.

Though sun like ______ glows, they journey on.

MENU

Proof Of Adherency Hors d’Oeuvre:

Collection proves legitimacy

Take a word for an adherent or follower of a school of thought, pastime or pursuit. 

Replace a vowel with a different vowel.

Insert a greeting someplace within the result to name a person whose collection is proof of their legitimacy as such an adherent. 

What are these words: 

~ the general term for any adherent, and 

~ the more specific term for the person with a collection?

Two Carnivores And One Herbivore  Slice:

Literature worth consuming

 Name three creatures – two carnivores and one herbivore. 

Rearrange their combined letters to get a name associated with literature worth consuming.

What are these carnivores, herbivore and name associated with literature?

Riffing Off Shortz And Baggish Entrees:

“Pope Leo is in PeopLe? O!”

Will Shortz’s May 18th Weekend Edition Sunday puzzle, created by Steve Baggish of Arlington, Massachusetts, reads:

Name a popular magazine. Rearrange its letters. Then add an O at the end and you’ll name a prominent subject in this magazine’s new issue. What magazine is it? Hint: You don't need to read this magazine in order to guess the answer.

Puzzleria!s Riffing Off Shortz And Baggish Entrees read:

ENTREE #1

Take the surname of a prolific puzzle-maker and his hometown. Rearrange these combined letters to name three things that might make contact with your body:

~ an undergarment (5 letters),

~ something (besides a cravat) an injured person might wear around the neck (5 letters),

~ something hidden in the dashboard of your automobile (3 & 3 letters). 

Who is this puzzle-maker?

What are these three things?

(Note: Entrees #2 through #7 were created by our friend Nodd who, for some time now, has been contributing a half-dozen-or-so riffs on every edition of Puzzleria! He is truly a “Riffmeister par excellence...” as are others who contribute NPR Sunday Puzzle Challenge riffs in this space. My Thanks! Our thanks!)

ENTREE #2

Name a popular magazine and add an N at the end. Follow this with a space and a word for something that is found in the magazine. 

Capitalize this word and you'll name a former movie actress. The magazine has featured several articles about this actress. 

What is the magazine and who is the actress?

ENTREE #3

Name a popular magazine. 

Rearrange the letters of the last two words of its name to spell two words to complete this
sentence: “Readers of Runner’s World magazine often _____ about experiencing ____ problems when training for a race.” 

What are the magazine and the two words?

ENTREE #4

Name two popular magazines that publish articles about popular magazines. 

The names of the two magazines start with the same word.

ENTREE #5

Name a popular magazine. 

Remove the fourth letter and rearrange the remaining letters to spell a two-word phrase to complete this sentence: “The magazine has published numerous pieces about publisher William Randolph Hearst and ___ _______.” 

What are the magazine and the two-word phrase?

ENTREE #6

Name a popular magazine. 

Remove a T. Arrange the remaining letters to spell a two-word phrase describing a Disney character whose name starts with an M. Life magazine featured this character in 1958. What are the magazine and the two-word phrase?

ENTREE #7 

Name a popular magazine. 

Spell the name backwards and add an H at the end. 

You’ll spell something that the covers of and pictures in this magazine typically feature a lot of. 

What magazine is it?

ENTREE #8

Name a popular magazine. 

Replace its ninth letter with a letter that precedes it – both in the alphabet and in the magazine’s name. 

Rearrange these letters to spell one of two 45-RPM recordings (each one an “______’ ______”) that might have been reviewed in the
magazine had either been recorded in 1967 instead of in 1962. 

What is this magazine? 

What are the two missing six-letter words? 

What are the two song titles that qualify as an “______’ ______?”

Hint: One song involves a telephone, the other involves a dance.  

ENTREE #9

Name a popular magazine. 

Replace a “u” with a pair of “o’s. 

Rearrange the result to get a two-word question similar to the one featured in a 1990s ad campaign designed to promote consumption of a beverage. 

What magazine is it? 

What is the question? 

ENTREE #10

Name a popular magazine that promotes health. 

Invert its middle letter. Move the last letter to the front,  replacing the first letter. 

Replace an “e” with a “p.” Insert a hyphen in the middle. 

The result is an exercise featured in the magazine, with instructions on how to perform it properly.

What are this magazine and exercise?

Dessert Menu

Suzie Q Dessert:

Tossing a pasta salad?

Take just the first word of a two-word pasta. 

Replace its first two letters with the letter of the alphabet that they spell. 

Move that letter to the end to spell what the pasta may be served in.

What is this pasta, and what may it be served in? 

Hint: The second word in the pasta is an anagram of the last name of the guy who once vanquished an alliterative opponent with a “Suzie Q.” 

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.