Cutting-edge car, or cutting-room floor? Alphanumeric Botany; Summer-Campy Lyrics; Natural look-down, Man-made look-up; Vowel times 2, then anagram too! The Rain & Reign in Spain stays Mainly on the Plane & island Chain; The all-you-can’t-eat menu; “Tell the secret? Rat?”

PUZZLERIA! SLICES: OVER 5πe² SERVED

Schpuzzle of the Week:

“Tell the secret? Rat?”

Take a three-word term that describes a fictional character whose first name is an anagram of a biblical book.

Replace the second and third words with a two-syllable synonym of the three-word term.

Replace the middle letter of that synonym with a Latin pronoun. The result is a female personification considered as the source and guiding force of creation. 

What are this three-word term, its synonym and the female personification?

Appetizer Menu

Lightning Round Appetizer:

Cutting-edge car, or cutting-room floor?  Summer-Campy Lyrics; Alphanumeric Botany; Natural, look down... Man-made, look up

Cutting-edge car, or cutting-room floor?

1. 🚗🚘Think of a famous car that was once thought to be ahead of its time, a forerunner of things to come. 

But rearrange its name and find that – disappointingly – it was no leader after all. 

Name the car.

Alphanumeric Botany

2. 🎜🎶🎝Note: Here’s something a little different – a  puzzle that rearranges letters and numbers together, in the same group of characters, to form a song title.

Start with a common four-letter word that names part of a plant. Then append four numeric digits that add up to 17. 

Finally, rearrange all eight characters to name a Top 10 hit song from the 1970s. What is it?

Summer-Campy Lyrics

3. 📨The lyrics of this famous ‘60s Top-Ten novelty hit are said to have been inspired by
an actual letter home from summer camp. 

The melody was inspired by a 19th century operatic composition. 

What’s the hit? Who sang it?

Natural look down, Man-made look up

4. 🌈👫Think of two common words – each begins with “c” and uses the same eight letters. 

One names something created by nature that you’d usually look down to see. The other names something created by man that you’d usually look up to see. 

What words are these?

MENU

Child’s Play Hors d’Oeuvre:

Vowel times 2, then anagram too!

Double a vowel that appears once in a world capital city. 

Rearrange the result to spell a popular children’s game. 

What are this city and game?

Not-So-Hungry Slice:

The all-you-can’t-eat menu

Name, in two words, breaded pieces of poultry seen on an appetizer menu. 

Remove the first and final letters, then hyphenate the first word. 

The result would likely be ordered only by dieters or the not-so-hungry. 

What is this menu Item before and after it is altered?

Riffing Off Shortz And Tuite Entrees:

The Rain & Reign in Spain stays Mainly on the Plane & island Chain

Will Shortz’s May 4th Weekend Edition Sunday puzzle challenge, created by Andrew Tuite, of Chicago, reads:

There are four countries whose names have one-syllable anagrams that rhyme with “Spain.” What are they?

Puzzleria!s Riffing Off Shortz and Tuite Entrees read:

ENTREE #1

Solve:

1.  a declared cease-fire (1 word, 5 letters),

2. why a freshly composed letter might smudge after it is folded (2 words, 3 & 3 letters),

3. a single, double, triple or homer by former Detroit Tiger infielder Don (2 words, 4 & 3 letters), and

4. a pot-smoking private instructor you hire to
teach your grade-schooler arithmetic (2 words, 4 & 5 letters). 

Anagram each of those answers to get answers to the four answers below, all which rhyme with one another:

1. A glass bottle used to hold a condiment
(such as oil or vinegar) for use at the dinner table (1 word, 5 letters),

2. What you might say if you solve this answer: “I ____ __!” (2 words, 4 & 2 letters),

3. What the former Detroit Tiger infielder Don did after fielding a ground ball (2 words, 5 & 2 letters),

4. The missing words in the following film title: “A River Runs _______ __” (2 words, 7 & 2 letters).

The surname of a puzzle-maker named Andrew is a fifth rhyme of those four rhymes.

Who is this puzzle-maker?

What are the first four answers?

What are the four rhyming answers?

Note: Entrees #2-through-#7 were created by our friend Nodd.

ENTREE #2

The names of two countries contain the names of two other countries, in order but not consecutive. 

What are these four countries?

ENTREE #3

The names of four countries contain, in order and consecutively, the names of things to drink. 

What are these four countries?

ENTREE #4

Take the names of three countries. Each name contains consecutive letters that can be rearranged to spell the name of the same fourth country. What are these four countries? 

ENTREE #5

The names of two countries differ by just one letter. 

Both of them end with the name of an animal
whose native habitat is far distant from either of them. 

What are these two countries?

ENTREE #6

If you remove the last letter from the name of a
country and move the new last letter to the front, you will spell the national language of a different country. 

What are these two countries? 

ENTREE #7

Using the letters of a country on one continent, and repeating letters as necessary, you can spell the names of four other countries, none of which is located in the same continent as the first country. 

What are these five countries?

Note: Entree #8 was created by our friend Plantsmith.

ENTREE #8

Take two breakfast food components in four and six letters. 

Move the initial letter of second word to the front of first word. Place a consonant in the space left by the removal of that initial letter.

The result is two modes of transport.

What are these breakfast food components and modes of transport?

Dessert Menu

“Be Patient Then Pounce” Dessert:

“Be patient, then pronounce!”

What consonant, when it is the first letter in a
word, is usually pronounced as if it were the letter a few places later in the alphabet?

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.

Views and Satire from the Other Side of the Hill, Pond, Globe and Cosmos; beGINners' sCRABble; Arts & carts & crafts & rafts; “Suitely” circling movement; Playwrights who call plays right; Conakry, Guinea... Pig?

PUZZLERIA! SLICES: OVER 5πe² SERVED

Schpuzzle of the Week:

Conakry, Guinea... Pig?

Name a world capital. 

Replace a consonant that appears twice with a duplicate of the consonant next to it.

Divide the result into three parts. 

Spell each part backwards to name a test subject used in scientific research. 

What are this world capital and test subject?

Appetizer Menu

Apt & Applicable To Our Times Appetizer:

Views and Satire from the Other Side of the Hill, Pond, Globe, and Cosmos

Note: This week’s featured Appetizer is the six-part brainchild of a master-puzzle-maker and great friend of Puzzleria! 

laDy maCbeth

[The following is a riff of Lego’s January 30, 2025, Puzzleria! Schpuzzle of the Week.]

1. Take a five-word phrase attributed to one Lady MacBeth in Shakespeare’s “MacBeth.” 

Remove a vowel that appears in “team” from the second word and capitalize a consonant in that same word. Replace the fifth word as called for in the 1/30/2025 Schpuzzle. 

The result could be a fitting phrase mouthed by some who claim to have suffered through, and since, this past January. 

What are the phrases? 

“Not to boast, but...”

[The following is a riff of Lego’s February 13, 2025, Puzzleria! Brow-Furrowing headline Uppercase Hors d’oeuvre.]

2.  Name a headline you might have seen the week of February 13, 2025, in 12, 3, 6, and 4 letters – the same configuration as in the 2/13/25 Hors d’oeuvre. 

All three letters in the second word as well as
the first four letters in the first word, would be UPPERCASE letters. The headline would likely have been in a publication critical of the event to which the headline refers. 

What is the headline? 

“Make-up Games”

3. Take a nine-letter word that means to make up something. ROT 10 the eighth letter. Remove letters from the result that appear left to right, but not consecutively, which spell a
place where games are played. The remaining letters identify an organization that reputedly makes up things and plays games. 

What is the 9-letter word and the organization? 

“Creatures crash cruiser!”

[The following is a riff of Lego’s February 20, 2025, Puzzleria! Schpuzzle of the Week.]

4. A three-word personalized term was coined by a boater for the lingering effect experienced by the boater after seagoing creatures crashed into the boat, causing the boater to reel with great force into the railing. 

The phrase references the creatures and,
when said aloud, sounds like an island whereabouts popular with retirees and vacationers, babes and non-babes alike. 

What is the phrase and the whereabouts? 

“Out-of-this-world, Found-on-this-world”

[The following is a riff of Lego’s March 16, 2025, NPR Challenge.]

5. Name an event that is out of this world. 

Reverse its spelling to get the name of a legendary geographical feature that is found on this world. 

Insert into the spelling of that particular feature an exclamation that might be uttered by one witnessing the out of this world event. 

The result is the name of a legendary island. 

What are the event, the particular geographical feature, the exclamation, and the legendary island?

“Dredged from the sod & name of a god”

[The following is a riff of the April 13, 2025, NPR Challenge.]

6. Name a famous intercontinental landmark and tourist attraction in nine letters. The first four letters are the name of a deity spelled backward. 

The last five letters name a part of some body parts. 

What is the landmark/tourist attraction? 

MENU

Orchestral Hors d’Oeuvre:

“Suitely” circling movement

Take the seven-letter first word in the title of the final movement of an orchestral suite by an English composer. 

Reverse the order of letters in the first syllable of that word, followed by a space, an article, another space and the second syllable. 

The result is what the composer had to do to as he composed this movement. What are this suite, first word in the final movement, and what the composer had to do as he composed?

Keep On Keeping On Slice:

beGINners’ sCRABble

Name a two-word presidential edict. The first word can be anagrammed to spell two verbs we might define as “to keep on keeping on.” 

The second word can be anagrammed to spell an the name of a Greek philosopher and surname of an Italian inventor. 

What are this edict, the two verbs, and the philosopher and inventor?

Hint: A three-letter beverage is embedded within the edict’s first word and a four-letter shellfish is embedded within the second. 

Riffing Off Shortz And Guttman Entrees:

Arts & carts, crafts & rafts

Will Shortz’s April 27th NPR Weekend Edition Sunday Challenge puzzle challenge, created by Alan Guttman of Hampton, Virginia, reads:

Name an activity in the form of “blank and blank.” Move the first letter of the second word to the start of the first word. The result will be two modes of transporting things. What is the activity and what are the modes of transport?

Puzzleria!s Riffing Off Shortz And Guttman Entrees read:

ENTREE #1

Name a puzzle-maker whose surname begins with a synonym of stomach. The seven different letters of his name, if you use some of them as many times as you need to, can be used to spell:

MANNA, LLAMA, MALT, TUNA, TANG & NUT.

The seven different letters, if each is used just once, can be used to spell a three-letter tree that is a homophone of something edible and a three-letter sudden or hurried flight, especially from the law, that is a homophone of something else that is edible.

Who is this puzzle-maker?

What are the three-letter tree and the three-letter sudden, hurried flight that are homophones of things edible?

Note: Entrees #2 through #7 are the brainchildren of our good friend Nodd:

ENTREE #2

Name something that, in Greek mythology, transported people, and one of the people who was transported in it. 

Move the first letter of the second name to the start of the first name. 

The result will be something often transported using this form of transportation, and the last name of a famous American who died while using this form of transportation. What are the three names and the thing that is transported?

ENTREE #3

Name two body parts. 

Everyone has the first one, but only some people have the second one. 

Move the first letter of the second part to the start of the first part to get two modes of transportation. 

What are the body parts and the modes of transportation?

ENTREE #4

Name two kinds of weather. 

Remove the second letter of the second one. 

Move the first letter of the second one to the start of the first one to get a mode of transportation and where belongings are often stored when using this mode of transportation. 

What are the kinds of weather, the mode of transportation, and the place where belongings are stored? 

ENTREE #5

Name two works by a Scottish novelist and put them in chronological order. 

Remove the fifth letter of the first title and replace the first two letters, which form a Roman numeral, with another Roman numeral. Remove the fourth and fifth letters of the second title. 

You will end up with a mode of transportation and a brand name associated with another mode of transportation. 

What are the titles, the mode of transportation, and the brand name?

ENTREE #6

Name a two-word food item that is supposed to have health benefits. 

Move the first letter of the second word to the start of the first word. The result will be a mode of transportation and the past tense of a verb describing another mode of transportation. 

What are these four words?

ENTREE #7

Name a favorite American activity in two words. 

Move the first letter of the second word to the
start of the first word. 

The result will be a mode of powering vehicles for transporting things and places between which things are transported. 

What are these four words?

ENTREE #8

Name an activity in the form of “BLANK for the BLANK” that indicates that there is indeed grain that is ready to be ground. 

Interchange the first two letters of the first word and the first letter of the fourth word. The result describes a weather condition that is conducive to maintaining a shiny front end on a 1974 Cadillac Coupe deVille.

What is the “blank for the blank” activity?

What is the weather-condition description?

ENTREE #9

After an afternoon of dark purple skies and intermittent downpours at Boston’s Fenway Park, the  sun finally BLANK BLANK, began burning off the haze, heating up the humidity, and nurturing a BLANK in the throat of every Fenway fan for a hoppy cold BLANK poured out by a peripatetic Fenway concessionaire. 

Replace the first letter in the first blank with the first two letters in the second blank to get what sounds like the word in the third blank. 

Move what had been the first letter of the first word to the spot vacated by the first two letters of the second word to get what sounds like the fourth word.  

What are the four words in the blanks?

ENTREE #10

When the leprechaun _ _ _ _, 

all of Erin did _ _ _ _ ...

Mourners flocked to his gravesite, 

his memory to keep.

His tomb was not oversized: _ _ _ _, 

long or _ _ _ _...

So no tossing or turning, 

just eternal sleep.

The first and third missing words rhyme, as do the second and forth missing words.

The first and fourth missing words begin with the same consonant, as do the second and third missing words.

What are the four missing words?

ENTREE #11

Name a brand name in the form of “blank and blank.” Move the initial letter of one word to the beginning of the other word. 

The first result sounds like a place to keep tools and implements. The second result sounds like places to put your cigarettes. 

What is this brand name? What are the place to keep tools and places to put your cigarettes?

Dessert Menu

Huddled-up Play-caller Dessert:

Playwrights who call plays right

Take a surname in the news. This surname begins with the nickname of a playwright and ends with a guy who is paid to call plays right. 

What are this surname, nickname and guy?

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.

Worlds-apart yet common tongues; The letter “en” that numbers ten; Nine-digit deficit; Cloudy Klein Contortionist; Super-duper coughing creature! Serena, Simone, Mia Hamm! Double-hockey-sticks-critters triplet; Phenomenal surnominal songbird; E______ of S_______!

 PUZZLERIA! SLICES: OVER 5πe² SERVED

Schpuzzle of the Week:

Cloudy Klein Contortionist

Fill in the blanks of the title and the final line of the following “poem.”

E _ _ _ _ _ _ _ of  S _ _ _ _ _ _ _

Like some great, grey weasel

Or jumbo smoke-filled/smoke-engulfed Klein bottle turning itself outside-out,

He makes movements of a madman, strait-jacketed

(Locks unopen, chains unbroken),

And then, to the amazement of all...

P_ _ _   o _ _   o _   h _ _   t _ _ _ _!

Appetizer Menu

Skydiversionary Appetizer:

Worlds-apart yet common tongues; The letter “en” that numbers ten; Nine-digit deficit 

Worlds-apart yet common tongues

1. There are two well known major languages that are almost half a world apart from each other and yet they each have something very unusual in common with each other. 

Do you know what it is?

The letter “en” that numbers ten

2. Looking carefully at the Earth Globe you can find a well-known land mass where you might see ten n’s. Can you locate it?

Nine-digit deficit

3. Maria had been teaching beginning Spanish for about twelve years now, and loved both her job and the students. It was mutual, and one of her students at the end of her first year had given her a small gift in appreciation. It was ten plastic words that each spelled a different digit in Spanish. She loved these toys and proudly displayed them in order on her desk. 

I am sure you can feel her disappointment when one morning, arriving at her desk, she found all but one of these digits missing. Can you determine which digit remained, and how you came to your conclusion?

MENU

Oval Office Hors d’Oeuvre:

Super-duper coughing creature!

Take a pair of two-word terms: one who dupes others into giving him money and something a
critter may cough up. 

Rearrange the combined letters to spell the first and last names of a president. 

What are these two-word terms and presidential name?

Muscat & Salalah Slice:

Serena, Simone, Mia Hamm!

Remove the first and seventh letters from a word that describes Serena Williams, Simone
Biles or Mia Hamm. 

The result is a pair of words associated with Muscat and Salalah. 

What are these three words?

Riffing Off Shortz And Goodman Entrees:

Double-hockey-sticks-critters triplet

Will Shortz’s April 20th Puzzle Challenge, created by Philip Goodman, of Binghamton, New York, reads:

Name an animal in five letters. Add two letters
and rearrange the result to name a bird in seven letters. Then add two letters to that and rearrange the result to name another animal in nine letters. What creatures are these?

Puzzleria!s Riffing Off Shortz And Goodman Entrees read:

ENTREE #1

Name a puzzle-maker in thirteen letters. Rearrange these letters to spell a five-letter creature, two three-letter creatures and a French pronoun that can refer to either of the three-letter creatures... but only if both of them are not bitches.

Who is this puzzle-maker?

What are the three creatures and the pronoun?

Note: Entrees #2 through #7 were composed by our friend and riff-meister extraordinaire Nodd.

ENTREE #2

Name an animal in three letters. 

Add four letters and rearrange the result to name a bird in seven letters. 

Change the first letter to an A and remove the last letter. 

Rearrange the six remaining letters and follow them with the three-letter animal to name a nine-letter, two-word animal. 

What creatures are these?

ENTREE #3

Name an animal in three letters and a bird in six letters. Change the third letter of the bird name to an S and rearrange the combined nine letters of the animal and the bird to name another bird. What creatures are these?

ENTREE #4

Name two animals in three letters each. 

To these six letters add three more letters and rearrange the result to name an animal in nine letters. 

What creatures are these?

ENTREE #5

Name an animal and a bird, nine letters in all. 

Change one letter from an M to a V and rearrange to name another animal. What creatures are these?

ENTREE #6

Name a fish and a bird, nine letters in all. 

Change one letter from an O to a C and rearrange to name another animal. 

What creatures are these?

ENTREE #7

Name an insect and add three letters to name a bird. 

Change an E to a U, add two more letters, and rearrange the result to name an animal in nine letters. 

What creatures are these?

Note: Entree #8 was composed by our friend and riff-meister extraordinaire Plantsmith.

ENTREE #8

Take some five-letter animals. 

Add two letters and mix the result to get some birds. Add two more letters and mix to get some more animals. 

What are these three creatures?

ENTREE #9

Name a eight-letter bird whose color may be a hue that rhymes with a black liquid.

Some letters of this bird, in order but not consecutive, spell:

* an oral animal part, and

* a Spanish pal.

Some letters of this bird, not in order, spell:

* an animal that has that above-mentioned oral animal part, and

* the newborn animal born of a creature that might be gray (but is not yet old).

What are this bird, oral animal part, Spanish pal, animal with the oral part, and newborn animal?

ENTREE #10

Name a creature in three letters. 

Add two letters and rearrange the result to name a holy human creature. 

Then add four additional letters and rearrange
the result to name a thick-skinned third creature. 

What three creatures are these?

ENTREE #11

Name a bird in three letters. 

Insert two adjacent letters within the name to name a bird in five letters. Then add five letters and rearrange the result to name a non-avian creature in ten letters. 

What three creatures are these?

Dessert Menu

“Bye Bye Baldness” Dessert:

Phenomenal surnominal songbird

Spell the surname of a  singer backwards. Add a space. The result is a description of this singer’s music. 

Who is the singer? 

What is the description?

Hint: This surname can be anagrammed to spell a two-word description of a word that follows “Bye Bye” and a word that follows “Bald.” 

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.