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

PUZZLERIA! SLICES: OVER 5πe² SERVED

Schpuzzle of the Week:

Diamond, Court & Turf Wars

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

Name these three arbiters and four words.

Appetizer Menu

Threads Run Through All Axes Appetizer:

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

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

The Shortest Distance?

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

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

Or as a Canadian Might Say...

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

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

What are the mode of transport and method of transport.   

Weaving in Traffic

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

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

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

Black and Blue Backyards

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

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

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

MENU

Horrific Hors d’Oeuvre:

Old Saxon contraption caption stupefaction!

Write captions for the two sets of images pictured here. 

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

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

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

“Forever-In-infamy” Slice:

“Black-Not-Red Letter Day”

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

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

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

Riffing Off Shortz Slices:

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

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

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

Puzzleria!s Riffing Off Shortz Slices read:

ENTREE #1

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

The first word is a pronoun.

The middle word is the three-letter product.

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

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

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

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

Who is this puzzle-maker?

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

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

ENTREE #2

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

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

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

ENTREE #3

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

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

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

ENTREE #4

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

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

What are the product and the two brand names?

ENTREE #5

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

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

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

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

ENTREE #6

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

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

ENTREE #7

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

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

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

ENTREE #8

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

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

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

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

Dessert Menu:

Diva Dessert:

“Does S-O-U-P screw-up an O-P-U-S?”

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

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

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

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

What is the name of the Wisconsin town and eponym?

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

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

Every Thursday at Joseph Young’s Puzzleria! we publish a new menu of fresh word puzzles, number puzzles, logic puzzles, puzzles of all varieties and flavors. We cater to cravers of scrumptious puzzles!

Our master chef, Grecian gourmet puzzle-creator Lego Lambda, blends and bakes up mysterious (and sometimes questionable) toppings and spices (such as alphabet soup, Mobius bacon strips, diced snake eyes, cubed radishes, “hominym” grits, anagraham crackers, rhyme thyme and sage sprinklings.)

Please post your comments below. Feel free also to post clever and subtle hints that do not give the puzzle answers away. Please wait until after 3 p.m. Eastern Time on Wednesdays to post your answers and explain your hints about the puzzles. We serve up at least one fresh puzzle every Friday.

We invite you to make it a habit to “Meet at Joe’s!” If you enjoy our weekly puzzle party, please tell your friends about Joseph Young’s Puzzleria! Thank you.

Across (Not Down), Yet Down (Under)! “Halloween Hallucinatin’” “United States & ‘CalenDates’!” Light, Land... or “Punch an elevator button”; “Dogs led the dogsled!”; Accent the first 'si-lə-bəl or second sə-'la-bəl?

PUZZLERIA! SLICES: OVER 5πe² SERVED

Stressful Schpuzzle of the Week:

Accent the first 'si-lə-bəl or second sə-'la-bəl?

Stressing the first syllable of a heavenly body sounds like one word related to the number 1. 

Stressing its second syllable sounds like two words related to the number 2. 

What is this heavenly body?

Appetizer Menu

Cruciverbally Global Appetizer:

Across (Not Down), Yet Down (Under)!

Note: In our August 7th edition of Puzzleria! we treated you to a “Doubly-Sweet” Appetizer, courtesy of the creative cranium of our friend Mathew Huffman, an ingenious composer of word puzzles. 

It featured a pair of mini crosswords and was titled “Great British Bakeoff.”

Mathew – who has contributed literally hundreds of puzzles to Puzzleria! over our 16-plus years... and counting – is providing us this week with a “second helping,” titled “Global Cruciverbalism.”

His puzzle this time appears in the white-text-on-black-background graphic pictured here.

Enjoy!

Note: You may be able to access further  crosswordese courtesy of Mathew by opening the links below:

LINK #1

LINK #2

MENU:

“Mountain Peaks & Countin’ Weeks” Hors d’Oeuvre:

“United States & CalenDates!”

Take two words found on a map of the United States, in six and seven letters. 

Remove from the ends of these words three letters in an abbreviation of an organization that promotes amateur sports. The result is two words found on a calendar.

What are these “map words,” “calendar words” and amateur sports promoter?

“Apple-Bobbin’ Bucket” Slice:

“Halloween Hallucinatin’”

Name a peculiar hallucination, in two words, arising particularly from heavy drinking or use of narcotics... like what might occur, perhaps, at a wild, raucous, out-of-control Halloween party bash.

If a partygoer experiencing these hallucinations (the plural form) bobs for apples and takes a bite out of one of ‘em, does this apple then sink to the bottom of the “bobbing-for-apples bucket?” 

And if so, do similarly once-bitten apples also sink bottomward? (a rhetorical question... no need to answer) 

Is “just one bite of the apple” indeed all partygoers get? (another rhetorical question)

But... is this whole Halloween Party Bash perhaps just a part of some subtly insidious weight-reduction routine/procedure (which is also an anagram of the hallucination)? (a speculative question... no need to answer)

But, what might be the name of such a routine/procedure? (answer this one!) 

What is the peculiar two-word hallucination? 

What string of three consecutive words in the puzzle’s second paragraph is an anagram of the plural form of the hallucination? 

What is this subtly insidious weight-reduction routine (which is an anagram of the hallucination)?

Hint: The plural form of the second word of the hallucination, if properly anagrammed, describes a physical feature that applies to that second word in the hallucination. (which is what an elephant has).

MENU

Riffing Off Shortz And Schwartz Slices:

“Dogs led the dogsled!”

Will Shortz’s September 6th NPR Weekend Edition Sunday puzzle, created by Michael Schwartz of Florence, Oregon, reads:

Think of a means of transportation in seven letters. Change the fifth letter to a U and read the result backward. You’ll get a common Latin word followed by its English synonym. What words are these?

Puzzleria!’s September 6th “Riffing Off Shortz And Schwartz” Slices  read:

ENTREE #1

Take a trio of five-letter words:

~ an onomatopoeic synonym of “smash,” (5 letters)

~ what church bells do, and

~ a Disneyesque-Dizzying” Dance?

Anagram to get the name of a puzzle-maker.

Who is it?

What are the three words?

(Note: Entrees #2 through #7 are compositions posed by our friend Nodd, author of “Nodd ready for prime time” on Puzzleria!)

ENTREE #2

Name a means of transportation in two words of six and seven letters. 

Consecutive letters in the first word spell a common English word. Non-consecutive letters in the first word, in reverse order, spell the Latin equivalent of the English word. 

What are these words?

ENTREE #3

Name a means of transportation in nine letters. 

Change the first letter to an E and the fifth letter to an R. Rearrange to spell a common Latin word and its English equivalent. 

What are these words?

ENTREE #4

Think of a plural word for a means of transportation in ten letters. 

Change the sixth letter to an A. Rearrange to
spell a common Latin word and its English equivalent. What are these words? 

ENTREE #5

Think of a nine-letter type of wagon or trailer. 

Add a five-letter means of transportation. 

Remove the fourth letter of the nine-letter word and change the seventh letter of that word to an A. Rearrange to spell a common Latin word and its English equivalent. What are these words?  

ENTREE #6

Name two means of transportation in five and three letters. 

Change the first letter of the five-letter word to a D. Rearrange to spell a common Latin word and its English equivalent. 

What are these words?

ENTREE #7

Name an iconic U.S. car model in seven letters and a common means of transportation in five letters. 

Remove the first letter of the five-letter word.

Rearrange to spell a common Latin word and its English equivalent. 

What are these words?  

(Note: Entree #8 is a cleverly crafted composition posed by our friend Plantsmith, author of “Garden of Puzzley Delights” on Puzzleria!)

ENTREE #8

Take a seven-letter Latin word that is not that obscure. 

Double letter number-five. 

Switch letters one and two. 

Replace the new letter-number-two with the first word of a three-letter exclamation you might hear from a chef watching a rat running through her
kitchen. 

The first four letters of the result, reading from left-to-right, sound like a synonym of the remaining six letters, reading from right to left (reverso).

What are this Latin word and the two synonyms.

Hint: the Latin word ends with the surname of a past DJ. 

ENTREE #9

Take an eight-letter word that means having, containing, or producing “hissy sounding ‘essy’” words. 

Delete the final two letters and reverse the order of the result to spell a Latin-rooted six-letter word for excuses that involve being “elsewhere” (a word that is only moderately “essy”).

Write that six-letter word in all-lowercase letters. Rotate the fourth letter 180-degrees around its  x-axis. 

The 2nd, 3rd, 4th & 6th letters spell body parts that are essential in pronunciation of words.

The 2nd, 5th, 6th & 4th letters spell a speech impediment in which a person misarticulates “essy sounds,” often substituting them with “th” sounds when pronouncing words.

What are this eight-letter and six-letter words?

What are the body parts and the speech impediment?

Dessert Menu 

Utch-Day-Eat-Tray Dessert:

Light, Land... or “Punch an elevator button”

Describe “Rotterdam” or “Amsterdam” using and adjective-and-noun that rhyme with the verb-and-noun-combo “clutch crown.” Spoonerize this description to spell what sounds like a word related to “landing strips”
or “six.”

What are this adjective-noun combo and word related to “landing strips” or “six?”

Hint: An (aptly-nicknamed) inductee into the College Football Hall of Fame inaugural class of 1951 and the Pro Football Hall of Fame inaugural class in 1963 played collegiately and professionally exclusively in a U.S. state that boasts an equally aptly-named Great Lakeshore Port that features a Big Red Lighthouse, a centuries-old windmill, and a “Tulip Time Festival” that recalls the city’s rich European roots.

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.

“Powderpuff MiddLe-Lineback(Lett)er-shift!”; “Beheading” + “Befooting” Becomes “Big-Brotherly?;” “Name-Tagalong Triple Roulette!”; “Boy Meets Girl”; “Bide my time... I’ll get to Phonics!”; A Two-Couplet-Four-Car Hellbound Quatrain; “Picking-up After a Piggy Neighbor”; Subtract letters, add syllable; “Library-Book ‘Em Danno!”

PUZZLERIA! SLICES: OVER 5πe² SERVED

Schpuzzle of the Week:

Subtract letters, add syllable

Delete adjacent letters from a novel title. 

The one-syllable-longer result is a name that appears on world maps followed by an adjective describing what is named. 

What are this novel title, name on the map and adjective?

 Appetizer Menu

Bobby’s 33rd “Puzzle Fun” On His 33rd Birthday Appetizer:

“Powderpuff MiddLe-Lineback(Lett)er-shift!”; “Boy Meets Girl”; Beheading” + “Befooting” Becomes “Big-Brotherly?”

“Name-Tagalong Triple Roulette!”

Note: Break out the bubbly (or beverage of your choice)! Thanks to our great friend Bobby, we at Puzzleria! are observing a “Doubly Signifcant Celebration”:

~ The 33rd edition of the ever-popular-and-always-challenging “Puzzle Fun by Bobby Jacobs,” and...

~ Bobby’s 33rd Birthday!

We all wish this talented young man the happiest of birthdays and gifts galore.... In the meantime Bobby has showered us with gifts!... a foursome of his always-fantastically-fun puzzles! Enjoy!

“Powderpuff MiddLe-Lineback(Lett)er-shift!”

1. 🏌🏃Take the name of a famous athlete. Change the first letter of the last name to L. 

Rearrange the letters to get the name of another famous athlete. Who is it?

“Boy Meets Girl” 

2. ⚤Take a 5-letter boy's name.  Move the middle 3 letters 4 places back in the alphabet.  You will get a girl's name. 

What are these two names?

“Beheading” Plus “Befooting” Becomes “Big-Brotherly?”

3.👦Take a 6-letter boy’s name. Remove the first and last letters to get a shortened form of a department of the United States Government. 

What is it?

“Name-Tagalong Triple Roulette!”

4. 📛The name Patrick consists of two nicknames put together (Pat, Rick). 

What are three nicknames such that the first and second nicknames put together are a full first name, the second and third names put together are a first name, and the third and first names put together are a first name?

Here are Links to Bobby’s previous 32 “Puzzle Fun...” appearances on Puzzleria!:

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   32

MENU

Overdue Hors d’Oeuvre:

“Library-Book ‘Em Danno!”

If there were such a profession as “library policeman” (or “library policewoman”), talking ___ ____ would not be _______! And, _____ would be _____ to those who commit this breach of library etiquette by engaging in such inappropriate, insensitive and disruptive __________!

The word in the third blank echoes the words in the first two blanks. The words in the fourth and fifth blanks are an anagram of the word in the sixth blank.

What are these six missing words?

“Clumpy” Slice:

“Picking-up After a Piggy Neighbor”

Name a two-word term for an ugly clump of garbage in your yard.

Translate the first word into Pig Latin to name a relatively small garbage receptacle.

Translate the second word into Pig Latin to name what your generous and neighborly
next-door neighbor may say to you regarding the removal of the ugly clump of garbage in your backyard across the fence from him.

What is this ugly clump of garbage?

What is the relatively small garbage receptacle?

What may the next-door neighbor say?

MENU

Riffing Off Shortz And Bass Slices:

“Bide my time... I’ll get to Phonics!”

Will Shortz’s August 30th NPR Weekend Edition Sunday puzzle challenge, created by Ben Bass of Chicago, Illinois, reads:

Think of a state capital and say it out loud.
Change one vowel sound in it to name something many schoolkids study. What things are these?

Puzzleria!s Riffing Off Shortz And Bass Slices read:

ENTREE #1

Battery Energy Storage Systems face primary risks centered around thermal runaway, where damaged or overheated lithium-ion cells spark hard-to-extinguish fires, release toxic gases like hydrogen fluoride, and carry a potential for delayed reignition. As a result, a number of environmentalists seek to  _ _ _  _ _ _ _.

Transpose the two vowels in the words in the blanks to name a puzzle-maker.

What are the words in the blanks?

Who is the puzzle-maker?

(Note: Entrees #2 through #7 are clever creations created by our friend Nodd, composer of “Nodd ready for prime time” on Puzzleria!)

ENTREE #2

Anagram a state capital to spell a word for something kids may be provided with at school.

What is this state capital? With what may kids be provided?

ENTREE #3

Name a state capital. The name contains two letters that are consecutive in the alphabet, though not in the name. 

Replace those with two other consecutive letters of the alphabet. 

Rearrange to spell a subject kids typically study in school.

ENTREE #4

Think of a state capital that ends in the two-letter abbreviation for a different state.  

Replace the abbreviation with a single letter.

Insert a space somewhere to name what a kid at an exclusive prep school might have.

ENTREE #5

Think of a state capital and move one letter one place earlier in the alphabet. 

Rearrange to spell something that may interfere with kids’ learning in school. 

ENTREE #6

The name of a state capital contains five consecutive letters that can be rearranged to spell a word for something used extensively
for teaching in schools. 

What are the capital and word?

ENTREE #7

Remove one letter from a state capital to spell a subject that may be studied in school, but
usually only in very advanced science classes. 

What are the capital and subject?

(Note: Entree #8 is is the brainchild of our friend Plantsmith, masterful composer of “Garden of Puzzley Delights” on Puzzleria!)

ENTREE #8:

Take a U.S. state name.

Replace its last letter with the postal abbreviation of a second state.

Replace a perfectly symmetrical lowercase letter with an “a”. Replace the third letter with a “tittled” letter. The result spells an art form.

What are this state, second state, perfectly symmetrical lowercase letter, “tittled” letter and art form?

ENTREE #9

Think of a state capital and say it aloud. Change one vowel sound in it to name a subject that prospective physicians study as post-graduates.

What is this state capital?

What do prospective physicians study?

Dessert Menu

Befuddlingly Muddled “Blank-Verse” Dessert:

A Two-Couplet-Four-Car Hellbound Quatrain

A poem I composed about clear and clean _ _ _ _

From ethereal heights fell to depths more _ _ _ _ _ _ _.

There, it mingled with me, where its sense I could _ _ _ _ _ _

And render its ending profound as a _ _ _ _ _ _!

Fill in the blanks with whatever words seem to work for you.

The words that seemed to work for me contain
4,7,6 and 6 letters. If you find them, fine...

But I would prefer to see your words. They need not rhyme.

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.