Thursday, March 5, 2026

SuperZee's Imposing Posers! Who’s Afraid of Virgin Wool? Frozen Homophonic Fishin’ Scandalized, banned, manhandled! What cattle do (and a cat’ll do); Drawn and Quartered?

PUZZLERIA! SLICES: OVER 5πe2 SERVED

Schpuzzle of the Week:

Frozen Homophonic Fishin’

Take a pair of homophones, in six and five letters. Remove from each an identical pair of adjacent letters (like the “ri” in “write” and “right,” for example). 

What remains after those four letters are removed are seven different consonants. Add three vowels to this mix, then rearrange the result to spell what anglers might catch in a frozen lake and a tool they might use to gain access to the lake so that they can make their catch.  

What are these homophones, this catch and this tool?

Appetizer Menu:

Eight Brainbreaking Appeteasers:

SuperZee’s Imposing Zarkinian Posers!

1. 📻Start with a two-word phrase (in seven and three letters) that one might see on the agenda for a business gathering.

Then, rearrange its letters for when and why one tunes in to NPR on Sunday morning.

2. 🙅🙈🙉🙊Rearrange the letters in a term describing a religious period, to get something some might consider sinfully good.

3. 🐈Rearrange the name of a famous American of the past to get:

A) a term some might use to describe a current figure, and

B) a affliction feared by cat owners.

4. 📰Take the given name of a person in the news. 

Rearrange it to get someone he/she may be spending a lot of time with.

5. Rearrange the title of a sports personality, to get what some fans think of his/her acts.

6. 🏈Take the name of a device cherished by some sports fans, rearrange to get how they like to use it.

7. 🐕🐹Imagine you were standing in front of
a collection of mirrors. 

Rearrange how you might describe the
experience to get a beloved pet.

8. 🏅Take a term describing an Olympic athlete, rearrange to get how his/her body might feel after competing.

MENU

BoFeVineLine Hors d’Oeuvre:

What cattle do (& a cat’ll do)

1st: Name something some cattle do.

2nd: Replace the final letter with a “w” to get what these cattle do – in effect, more or less – when they graze.

3rd: Replace the second letter of that second word with an “e” to get what a cat will do. 

4th: If you instead replace not the second letter but rather the third letter of that second word, you will again get something that some cattle do.

What are these four words?

Not-So-Nice Slice:

Scandalized, banned and manhandled!

Spoonerize the two-word name of a scandalous chapter in the annals of a professional sports to get what sounds like two terms from a different sport. 

Those two terms might be yelled, for example, by an exasperated coach: “A ____ ensues if nobody ______!” (although the coach would likely not use the verb “ensue”)

What is the two-word name of this scandalous chapter in sports, and what are these two sports-related terms?

Riffing Off Shortz And Michaels Slices:

Who’s Afraid of Virgin Wool?

Will Shortz’s March 1st NPR Weekend Edition Sunday puzzle, created by Andrea Carla Michaels of San Francisco, California, reads:

Name a famous 20th century writer. Remove the last two letters of the first name and the last letter of the last name. The result will name a clothing material. What is it?

Puzzleria!s Riffing Off Shortz And Michaels Slices read:

ENTREE #1

Louisa May Alcott, Katherine Anne Porter and  Laura Ingalls Wilder are a trio of talented, triply-named female authors. 

Take a triply-named female puzzle-maker. The first three letters of her middle name spell the first word of a two-word profession. 

To spell the second word of the profession,
take the 1st, 6th, 3rd, 4th, 5th letters of her surname, followed by the 2nd letter of her first name, followed by the 2nd and 3rd letters of her surname. 

Who is this puzzle-maker?

What is the profession?

Note: Entrees #2 through #7 are composed and contributed to Puzzleria! by our friend Nodd, author of “Nodd ready for prime time.

ENTREE #2

Name a famous 19th-20th century English novelist and poet. 

The last two letters of this author’s middle name, followed without a space by the last name, spell a clothing material. 

Who is the writer and what is the material?

ENTREE #3

Take the last name of the writer in the preceding Entree. 

Add the first three letters of the first name of a famous 19th-20th century female American author. 

Rearrange to name a clothing material. 

Who are the writers and what is the material?

ENTREE #4

Name a famous 18th-19th century writer, first and last names. 

Rearrange the letters to name the first name of a former U.S. Poet Laureate and a clothing material. 

Who are the writer and poet, and what is the material?

ENTREE #5

Take the first and last names of the 18th-19th century writer in the preceding Entree and change the fourth letter of the last name to a D. 

Rearrange to spell the last name of a famous 20th century poet and an article of clothing. 

Who are the writers, and what is the article of clothing?

ENTREE #6

Think of two famous American writers, both of whom lived during the 19th and 20th centuries. Take the first name of the pen name of one, plus the last name of the other. 

There will be a duplicate letter as a result; remove one instance of it. 

Rearrange the remaining letters to name a clothing material. Who are the writers, and what is the material?

ENTREE #7

Take the last name of an award-winning 20th-21st century American author who was known for his writings about the African American experience. 

Between the second and third letters, insert a word for a type of poet. The result will name certain clothing materials. 

Who is the author, and what are the type of poet and the materials? 

Note: Entree #8 is composed and contributed to Puzzleria! by our friend Plantsmith, author of “Garden of Puzzley Delights.”

ENTREE #8

Name a 20th-Century American-British novelist. 

Remove letters 4 and 7 from the first name and the first letter from of the last name. The result is a haberdashery professional who specializes in working with a particular kind of material.

Who is this writer?

ENTREE #9

Name an author. Place a space within the first name and a question mark after it. Delete the middle name. 

Then, in the surname, transpose adjacent vowels, replace the first letter with a “D” and place an exclamation mark at the end.

The result is a three-word comment perhaps overheard at a truck stop (perhaps even at the “Cordial Teahouse” truck stop!

Who is this author?

What is the comment?

ENTREE #10

Name an author who lived more than a century, was a regular contributor to The New Yorker magazine and served many years as one of its editors. He had been dubbed a “Babe Ruth of sportswriters.

From his first name, delete the first letter, then transpose the last two letters. The result is a horrible, frighteningly monstrous demon. 

From the author’s surname, remove the last letter. The result is a compassionate and kindhearted heavenly creature.

Who is this author?

What are the demon and heavenly creature?

Dessert Menu
Pigmentary Dessert:
Drawn and Quartered?
Remove consecutive letters that spell a color from a longer word for a second color. 
Remove a letter from what remains and rearrange to spell a third color. 
Add an “o” to a noun that appears intact within the original color and rearrange the result slightly to spell a fourth color. 
What are these four colors?

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.

Thursday, February 26, 2026

Decrepit Car: Contemporary Character, Anagram Plantation, Prophesying Profitability? Three Species; Anagramable Lifesavers; Bad Bunny: Bummer of a Slumber! Seldom seen or seen more? Limerick ’bout a Lexicon; No watering required

PUZZLERIA! SLICES: OVER 5πe2 SERVED

Schpuzzle of the Week:

Limerick ’bout a Lexicon

Fill in the three blanks in the limerick below with words of 9 letters, 8 letters, and about 14-or-so letters: 






Peg, a speed-reading abecedarian,

Begged a lexicon from her _________,

Began *scanning at aardvark,

Never needing a ________...

Ergo, now shes an ______________!

* (See: verb, definition 2b)

(Note: The word in third blank, no matter how you spell it, is one that Peg will not find in the dictionary... nor will you, alas.)

Appetizer Menu

Conundrumbstruck By Chuck Appetizer:

Three Species; Prophesying Profitability? Anagram Plantation; Decrepit
Car... Contemporary Character

Three Species

1. 🐼🐦🐟Think of a species of mammals in 8 letters. 

Without rearranging, delete the name of another species of animals in consecutive letters. 

Add a  P to the remainder and rearrange to name yet another species of animals. Name all three.

Prophesying Profitability?

2. 🏬Name a well-known company in 4 letters whose business activities go up and down in the short run but are profitable in the long run. Then add an h”  to its name, rearrange, and identify one of its essential activities. 

What’s the company? 

What’s the essential activity?

Anagram Plantation

3. 🏭🪴

The brand name of one grocery item anagrams perfectly with the name of another
grocery item. 

One is made in a plant, the other is a plant. 

Identify the brand name and the plant

Decrepit Car... Contemporary Character

4. 🚗A classic old car and a modern movie character are called by the same 5-letter name. 

What is it?

MENU

“Thirstfree” Hors d’Oeuvre:

No watering required

Remove the first two letters from a synonym of watering and move the third-last letter to the end. 

The result is a food that requires no watering, planting or harvesting. 

What are this synonym and food?

Beach Blanket Slice:

Seldom seen or seen more?

“One seldom shall see 

a _____ in the ___...

But a _____ on the shore?

... Not just one, many more!”

(and beach blankets galore!)

~ 1st blank: an anagram of a synonym of the word in the second blank...

~ 2nd blank: a homophone of a non-blank word in the poem...

3rd blank: a word that is one-letter-different from another word in the poem...

What are the three missing words?

Riffing Off Shortz And VanMechelen Entrees:

Bad Bunny: Bummer of a Slumber!

Will Shortz’s February 22nd National Public Radio Weekend Edition Sunday puzzle, created by Greg VanMechelen of Berkeley, California, reads:

Name something you don’t want to have at night using two words (3,5). Shift each of the letters of the second word nine spaces later in the alphabet. If your count reaches the end of the alphabet, continue counting from the start. The result will name a famous singer.

Puzzleria!s Riffing Off Shortz And VanMechelen Entrees read:

ENTREE #1

Move the first four letters of a puzzle-maker’s name 8 places later in the alphabet (that is, ROT-8 those letters). The result begins with where Dorothy ventures via yellow bricks and
ends with the postal code of the state across the Mississippi from her home state.

ROT-14 the next 3 letters in the name to get a general 3-letter word for a specific 3-syllable profession that is spelled by the last 75% of a pseudonym this puzzle-maker uses.

ROT-6 the next 4 letters in the name to get an organ that accounts for about 15% of a person’s total body weight. 

ROT-10 the fourth-last-though-penultimate and ROT-10 the antepenultimate-through-final letters in the name to get a 3-letter egg and a 3-letter voice.

Who is the puzzle-maker?

Where does Dorothy venture? What is the postal code location of the state adjacent to her home state?

What is the puzzlemaker’s pseudonym?

(Note: Entrees #2 through #7 were created and contributed by our friend Nodd, author of Puzzleria!s recurring “Nodd ready for prime time” feature.)

ENTREE #2

Name a three-letter term for something that may happen during sleep. Double the last letter and
add a J. Move these five letters nine places earlier in the alphabet and rearrange to get the first name of a famous deceased singer.

Now name something in five letters that may keep you awake at night. Move the fourth letter four places later in the alphabet. Then move all five letters, using the changed fourth letter, six places earlier in the alphabet. Rearrange the letters to get the last name of the singer.

What may happen during sleep, what may keep you awake, and who is the singer?

ENTREE #3

Name something in three letters that a child may take to bed. Add to the beginning of this word a two-letter rating given to films that may be suitable for children. Move all of the letters six places earlier in the alphabet to get the first name of a famous deceased singer.

Now name a six-letter bedding material. Move the first letter six places earlier in the alphabet to get the last name of the singer.

What may a child take to bed, what are the film rating and the bedding material, and who is the singer?

ENTREE #4

Name something in five letters that a child may take to bed. 

Move the first four letters ten places later in the alphabet, but leave the fifth letter as it is. 

You’ll get the first name of a famous singer.

Now name a four-letter word meaning sleepy. Double the third letter and add an X. Move these six letters 11 places earlier in the alphabet and rearrange to get the singer’s last name.

What may a child take to bed, what is the word meaning sleepy, and who is the singer?

ENTREE #5

Name something in two words of six and four letters that may keep you awake at night. 

Move the first five letters of the first word six places later in the alphabet and replace the last letter with the postal abbreviation of a Western US state. Rearrange to spell a musical genre that was popular during the 1950s to mid-1960s.

Now remove the last letter of the second word and move the remaining letters 14 places later in the alphabet to get a second musical genre.

What may keep you awake, and what are the musical genres?

ENTREE #6

Name a five-letter word for something that may keep you awake. 

Move the letters 13 places later in the alphabet to name a fictional institution that was featured in a 1978 film that also featured a fictional musical group. What may keep you awake, and what are the institution and musical group?

ENTREE #7

Name, in alphabetical order, two things you might find on a girl’s bed, ten letters total. Move the third and fourth letters ten places earlier in the alphabet. 

Move the sixth letter four places later in the alphabet. The result will name a famous deceased singer. 

What are the two things and who is the singer?

Note: Entrees #8 and #9 are were created by our friend Plantsmith, author of Puzzleria!s “Garden of Puzzley Delights.” 

ENTREE #8

Take a two-word experience you don’t want to have at night. 

Drop one instance of a letter that is repeated. 

Mix it up to get a two-word description of a particular singer during a 1991 concert in Utah. 

What are the two-word experience and two-word description of the singer?

ENTREE #9

Name something, in words of 3 and 5 letters, that you don’t want to have at night.
Move the first letter of the first word so that it replaces the first letter of the second word. Add an “s” to first word, and drop last letter from the second word. Remix the letters of each altered word to get a two-word description of  a country singer during her March 1991 concert tour. 
What are the two descriptive words? Who is the singer?

Note: Entree #10 is a “self-riff” created by our friend Ecoarchitect, author of “Econfusions” on Puzzleria! and also author of this week’s National Public Radio’s “Weekend Edition Sunday Puzzle.”

ENTREE #10

Name a well-known fictional character from the 19th Century.  

Remove 5th and 6th letters from the first name, then add a letter to the front.  The result
will be the first and last name of a well-known singer from the 20th Century.  

Who are the character and the singer?  

Added bonus: Both hailed from the same state.

Dessert Menu

Maritime Dessert:

Anagramable Lifesavers

Anagram the 13 letters of a life-saving device to spell a two-word simulated emergency exercise that promotes maritime safety. 

What are this pair of potential life-savers?

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.

Thursday, February 19, 2026

Landing some seafood, Skydiveboy-style; Appliance mixed up a mess o’ Applesauce! “Well I’ve been to the Desert playInn’ games with two names...” Beauty & the Bug? A couplet for couples; Souped-up car, kinda fishy!

PUZZLERIA! SLICES: OVER 5πe2 SERVED

Schpuzzle of the Week:

“Well I’ve been to the Desert playInn’ games with two names...”

Pool or Billiards? Hoops or Basketball? Clue or Cluedo? Words with Friends or Scrabble? Monopoly or Rich Uncle? Quidditch or Quadball? Table Tennis or Ping-Pong? (...Sorry, Will Shortz!); Soccer or Football? Tenpins or Bowling? Bingo or Housey-Housey
Squash or Zucchini? (Oops, ignore that last one... zucchini is no game, just a gourd!)

The following trio of clues (which is actually a sextet of clues) point to one game that goes by two different names (the clues for the name of the second game appear in purple within parentheses):

~ the first word of a lullaby (or, just the first half of it) 

~ something made from mixed-up mash (or, just mixed-up “mash”) 

~ what Bernice does to her hair... (no BS!) 

What are the two names of this one game?

Appetizer Menu

Skydiversionary Appetizer:

Landing some seafood, Skydiveboy-Style!

Landing some seafood

🐟🦀Think of a seafood in seven letters. 

Remove the initial letter and say the remainder out loud to phonetically name a land food.

What are these foods?

MENU

Ubiquitous Ambiguous Hors d’Oeuvre:

Beauty and the Bug?

Take a U.S. State Postal abbreviation followed by a ubiquitous abbreviation that contains more than just two letters.

The result is a word that is a beauty... or a bug!

 What is this “ambiguous beauty-or-bug” result?

Hint: The second abbreviation is embedded in the middle of a major U.S. city that is home to a vibrant street motor-racing scene.

Blissful Slice:

A couplet for couples

Name a pair of blissful things that peaceful creatures do:

One is like a kiss, the other’s sung by two who woo.

Do as the couplet suggests. 

Name the two blissful things.

Riffing Off Shortz And Streit Entrees:

Appliance mixed up a mess o’ Applesauce!

Will Shortz’s February 15th Weekend Edition Sunday puzzle, created by Tom Streit, of Crozet, Virginia, reads:

 A man said to a friend: “I’m thinking of a 9-letter word that contains my name, Ian (“I-A-N”), embedded somewhere inside it. 

If you replace my 3-letter name with your 4-letter name, you’ll get a familiar word in 10 letters.” What are the two words, and what is the name of Ian’s friend?

Puzzleria!s Riffing Off Shortz And Streit Entrees read:

ENTREE #1

Take the last word in the title of an Alfred Hitchcock-directed movie and the only word in a second such Hitchcock movie, both from the 1950s. 

Also take the second word of a 4-word 1970s movie with the director as its leading man. 

Change the last letter of this second word with the only letter in the alphabet that rhymes with it.

Rearrange these combined 17 letters to spell the first name, surname and home state of a puzzle-maker.

What are these three movie title words and the name of the puzzlemaker?

Note: Appetizers #2 through #7 are the handiwork of our friend and riffmaster-general, Nodd.

ENTREE #2

An 8-letter word contains actor-director Ron Howard’s first name somewhere inside it. If you replace his name with the 3-letter first name of another famous actor, you’ll get a different 8-letter word. 

What are the two words, and who is the other actor?

ENTREE #3 

A 9-letter word contains actress Ari Graynor’s first name somewhere inside it. 

If you replace her name with the 4-letter first name of another famous actress, youll get a 10-letter word. 

What are the two words, and who is the other actress?

ENTREE #4

An 8-letter word contains actress Mena Suvari’s first name somewhere inside it. 

If you replace her name with the 4-letter first name of a famous fictional character, you'll get another 8-letter word. 

What are the two words, and who is the character?

ENTREE #5

A 7-letter word contains political commentator Ann Coulter’s first name somewhere inside it. 

If you replace her name with the 4-letter first name of another famous commentator, now deceased, youll get an 8-letter word. 

What are the two words, and what is the name of the other commentator?

ENTREE #6

A 9-letter word contains actor Tim Allen’s first name somewhere inside it. If you replace his name with the 5-letter first name of another famous actor, youll get an 11-letter word. 

What are the two words, and what is the name of the other actor?

ENTREE #7

A 13-letter word contains past singer-songwriter Reg Presley’s first name somewhere inside it. 

If you replace his name with the 3-letter first
name of another famous past singer, you
ll get a another 13-letter word. 

What are the two words, and who is the second singer?

ENTREE #8

A plural 6-letter word for certain birds contains the first name of a Tarzan-portrayer (not surnamed Weissmuller) somewhere inside it. 

If you replace this first name with the 3-letter first name of an actor who appeared on “Seinfeld” you’ll get a different plural 6-letter word that pertains to people named Hunt, Mirren and Thomas. 

What are the two words, and who are the two actors?

Dessert Menu

Fishtailing Dessert:

Souped-up car, Kinda fishy!

Name two words that mean to speed away from someplace in a souped-up car, motorcycle, van or other vehicle.

Move the first letter into the space between the words to form a word for a kind of fish.

What are these three words?

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.