It’s Paradiddle-Riddle-Time! Colony becomes a composer; “Home, home on the habitat...” “...Like a fish needs a bicycle!” “Lustrous” versus “Rusty”

PUZZLERIA! SLICES: OVER 5πe² SERVED

Schpuzzle of the Week:

Experiment (with toy and tool!)

Rearrange the combined ten letters of two creatures from folklore to spell; 

(1.) a tool, and  

(2.) a toy... 

that were used in an 18th-century scientific experiment... and,

(3.) what the conductor of the experiment did in order to carry out the experiment (in 3, 4 and 3 letters). 

What are these creatures, the tool, toy and what the experiment’s conductor did?

Appetizer Menu

Tough Huffmanian Appetizer

It’s Paradiddle-Riddle-Time!

1. 

Think of a nine-letter word for a place away from risk. Remove two letters to name a job concerned with risk.

2. 

Think of a non-plural six letter word with only one vowel, O (where Y counts as a vowel). 

Change the O to a double E to get another word.

3.

MENU

Vowel Shift Hors d’Oeuvre:

Colony becomes a composer

Name a United Kingdom colony. Change a vowel in it to the following vowel in the alphabet. 

Anagram the result to get a surname of a composer and an informal word for the name of that composer’s nationality. 

What are this colony, surname and description?

One Fish Two Fish Red Fish Blue Fish Slice:

“... Like a fish needs a bicycle!”

Place a space within the first word of a two-word fish, forming three words. 

Move the first letter of the third word to the beginning of the first word. 

Swap the first letters of the second and third words. Replace a “u” in the third word with an “a” and delete the space between the second and third words. 

The result is two modes of transport. 

What are these modes of transport and this fish?

Riffing Off Shortz And Young Slices:

“Home, home on the habitat...”

Will Shortz’s March 22nd NPR Weekend Edition Sunday puzzle challenge, created by Joseph Young of St. Cloud, Minnesota, reads:

Name an animal. The first five letters of its name spell a place where you may find it. The last four letters of this animal will name another anaimal — but one that would ordinarily not be found in this place. What animals are these?

Puzzleria!s Riffing Off Shortz And Young Slices read:

ENTREE #1

Posters of online material and comments tend to hide behind what is known online as a “Screen name,” “Username,” “Handle,” “Display name,” or “Profile name.”

A decade-plus-or-so ago, one particular future puzzle-maker (who was-then-and-still-is-now, alas, also often uncertain of what the heck he is doing!) “grabbed” a two-word “handle” from some ghastly combination of the blogosphere and the vacuummy void within his cranium. 

He used this handle to post nonsensical
comments on Blaine’s Blog, and retained it when he signed off on comments he posted on a puzzle blog he launched thanks to invaluable assistance from Word Woman (who had recently launched her own blog, “Partial Ellipsis of the Sun: A Blog for Scientists who like Words and Writers who like Science”

Partial Ellipsis of the Sun: A Blog for Scientists who like Words and Writers who like Science

The “handle” that the “particular future puzzle-maker” picked contains four syllables.

The first syllable is a part of a geometrical figure.

The second syllable is the “fifteenth in a series,”

The third syllable, if you change a vowel, is a part of a tree that is also a general term for the first syllable when it’s a part of a human, rather than geometrical figure.

The fourth syllable is one-half of a past nihilistic and antiesthetic movement in the arts.

What is this “handle?”

(An amusing musing: I hear that “George” is a fine handle... but “Frideric”... Not so much!)

Note: Entrees #2-through-#7 are the brainchildren of our friend and “riffmaster” Nodd, author of his “Nodd ready for prime time,” featured regularly on Puzzleria!...

ENTREE #2

1. Name an animal. The first four letters of its name describe the places where you may find it. The four letters immediately preceding the last letter name other animals you may find in those places. 

What animals are these and what word describes the places they be found in?

ENTREE #3

Name an animal. The first five letters of its name, with the fourth and fifth letters reversed, spell the place in which this animal is believed to have originated. The first three letters of the name, plus the next-to-last letter, can be rearranged to name animals that did not originate in that place. What animals are these and where is the first animal thought to have originated?

ENTREE #4

Name an animal. Move the fourth letter of its name seven places earlier in the alphabet. Now rearrange the last six letters, as modified,
to spell where this animal lives. 

The first three letters of this animal’s name, in reverse order, name another animal, one that generally does not live in such a place. 

What animals are these and where do they live?

ENTREE #5

Take a plural form of the name of an animal. Insert two letters between the second and third
letters. 

The result will describe these animals’ living arrangements in their native environment. 

What are the animals and how do they live?

ENTREE #6

Take the plural form of the name of an animal. Change the first letter to the letter three places
later in the alphabet. Rearrange the result to get an adjective describing these animals and others related to them. 

What are the animals and the adjective?

ENTREE #7

Name an animal. The first four letters of the name, plus one letter, spell a place where you
may find it. 

The last five letters of the name are the first five letters in the name of an animal that would not ordinarily be found in this place. 

What animals are these and what is the place?

ENTREE #8

Name a two-word seven-letter animal whose first three letters spell a place where you’ll find it, and whose first four letters spell a second animal found in this place. 

Three consecutive interior letters of this animal, if reversed, spell something sometimes found on the surface of this place. Its 1st, 3rd, 5th and 4th letters spell something else sometimes found on the surface.

What are this animal and place, second animal, and two things sometimes found the place’s surface?

ENTREE #9

Name an animal. Its first five letters spell a place where you may find it. Its last four letters spell a bird of any kind, including many that would ordinarily not be found in this place. 

The final three letters of this animal spell a
chiefly nocturnal bird of prey.

An anagram of the aforementioned “bird of any kind” is a predatory canine creature.

~ Letters #3, 4, 2 & 9 another creature found in the water, a dabbling duck.

~ Letters #6, 9, 4 & 2 spell an insect that feeds on other animals.

~ Letters #5, 2 & 3 spell a rodent.

What are this animal, where you might find it, bird of any kind, bird of prey, canine creature, dabbling duck, insect and rodent?

Extra Credit: ROT-22 the first four letters of the original animal to get an anagram naming many animals’ feet. What is this “ambulatorial” anagram?

Dessert Menu

“Said The Spider To The Fly” Dessert:

“Lustrous” versus “Rusty”

Rounded lustrous body parts associated with a synonym of “parlor” are spelled the same as pointed rusty fasteners associated with a synonym of “bar.”

However, although the rounded lustrous body parts are spelled identically to the pointed rusty fasteners associated with a synonym of “bar,” these synonyms of “parlor” and “bar” are spelled a tad differently. 

The synonyms would be spelled identically if you doubled an “O” in the shorter synonym.

What are the body parts, fasteners, and two 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.

“Don’t know much about geography, What a wonder full world this would be”; Constellatory Creature Clusters; Buzzer beater? Nothing Sweeter! A Critter Created aMIdST Chaos; Checkmating and matrimony; “Beam us up, Shtrekkie!”

PUZZLERIA! SLICES: OVER 5πe² SERVED

Schpuzzle of the Week:

Buzzer beater? Nothing Sweeter!

You are a power forward on the Puzzleria! Posers, a semiprofessional team in the NCAA (National Conundrum-Ask-it-all Answer-ciation).

You grab a defensive rebound, down by only two points, but with only two seconds left on the game clock. 

Alas, you are out of time-outs! You cannot stop
the clock!

And so, you choose, wisely, to immediately shoot for one option instead of initiating a second less-likely-to-work option. Both options contain two words, and they are anagrams of one another. 

What are these two options?

Appetizer Menu

Ecoarchitectural Appetizer:

“Don’t know much about geography,

Around the World in 8.0 daze” 

1.    🏈📺Name an athlete recently in the news.  

Rearrange the letters in the last name to get a two-word phrase of where you might have seen this athlete.  

Who is the athlete and what is the place?

2.    🗺Name an ethnic group, rearrange the letters to get a nationality.  

What is the ethnic group and nationality? 

Note, the ethnic group’s global population is more than 20 times the nation’s.  

3.    🏝Name a well-known 11-letter geographic location that contains seven consecutive letters of the alphabet. 

(Note: The letters do not appear consecutively, however, in the geographic location.)

4.    📖Name two geographic features.  

Combine the words and the result is a well-known fictional character as well as an old comic strip.  

Each word (with a duplicated letter in one removed) combines with the same word to make well-known brand names in two words.

What are the two geographic features, the fictional character/comic strip, and two brand names?

5.    🌍What do the African countries of Kenya, Mali, and Rwanda have in common? 

What two other countries share this property?

6.   🞻🗺What does a person from Spokane have in common with people from Peoria and Topeka?

7.    👰★ Insert the letter (O) within the full name of a well-known actress, then remove the first 4 letters and the last letter of her full name, and the result will be the name of a world capital.  

Who is the actress and what is the capital? 

8.    Ⅻ💃What is unusual in the small Upstate New York cities of Rome and Utica?  

And can you name a 1) Western US city, 2) world capital, 3) country, 4) ancient kingdom, 5) sports venue name and 6) sacred site that all share this property?  

And a variant of this might also include 1) a
mountain range, 2) the 4th largest population settlement in a state, 3) a California city, 4) an American university, 5) a sacred site in ancient history, and 6) a term for lands in the United Kingdom. 

MENU

Half-a-Dozen Different Letters Hors d’Oeuvre:

A Critter Created Amidst Chaos

You can spell a seven-letter creature using only the missing letters in the answers to the five hints (in green) below:

Note: Two of the seven letters in the creature are the same (like the E in ELEPHANT or B in RABBIT), and only those six different letters are used to spell the five answers to the clues  below.)  

~ Hawk-like (six letters)

~ Noisy quarrel (three letters)

~ Box (four letters)

~ Something you may also take when you take a bow (five letters)

~ Anti-tank rocket launcher (four letters)

What are the creature and the answers to the five clues above?

Midnight Menagerie Slice:

Constellatory Creature Clusters 

Insert a vowel followed by a space within a word from astronomy. 

The result is an adjective associated with an animal, followed by a noun for a creature. 

What are this word, adjective and animal?

Riffing Off Shortz And Reiss:

“Beam us up, Shtrekkie!”

Will Shortz’s March 15th NPR Weekend Edition Sunday puzzle challenge, written by Mike Reiss (who’s been a showrunner, writer, and producer “The Simpsons”) reads:

Think of a popular movie franchise with many sequels. Hidden in consecutive letters inside its name is a food. Replace that food with a single letter and you’ll get another popular film franchise. What films are these?

Puzzleria!s Riffing Off Shortz And Reiss Appetizers read:

ENTREE #1

“Bart Simpson, who presumably engaged in occasional barfing in public, also likely tended to annoy those who may have witnessed it.”

Rearrange the letters in the name of one of Bart’s “producers” and “motivators” to spell synonyms of a 7-letter word and of a 5-letter word that appear in that sentence. 

Who is this “producer-motivator” of Bart Simpson? What are the 7-letter and 5-letter words? What are their synonyms?

(Note: Entrees #2-through-#7 were composed by Nodd, whose “Nodd ready for prime time” is a Puzzlerian staple.)

ENTREE #2

Name the title character in a multi-film franchise. 

Ten consecutive letters in the name spell (1) the given name of the title character in a second film franchise, followed by (2) the last
name of the title character in a third film franchise. 

Who are these three characters?

ENTREE #3

Think of a popular movie franchise with several sequels. Consecutive letters in its name spell the brand name of a food. 

Replace that name with a single letter and you'll get the title of several other films, most notably a 2005 action-comedy. 

What are the franchise, the brand name, and the film title?

ENTREE #4

The name of a popular film franchise is also the last name of the main character in a second franchise that includes radio, TV, and movies. 

What are the two franchises and who is the character?

ENTREE #5

Think of a popular movie franchise with many sequels. 

Consecutive letters in its name can be rearranged to spell another popular film franchise. 

What are these two franchises?

ENTREE #6

Think of a popular two-word movie franchise. Consecutive letters inside its name spell the first name of the main character in a popular one-word movie franchise. 

The first part of the one-word franchise name is an object that typically contains the first part of the two-word franchise name. 

The second part of the one-word name is also the second word in the two-word name. 

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

ENTREE #7

Name the title character in a popular 21st century movie franchise with many sequels, first and last names. 

The first three, sixth, and last two letters in the
names, in that order, spell the last name of the title character in a 20th century two-film franchise. 

Both franchises were based on novels. What are the two franchises?

ENTREE #8

(Note: Entree #8 is an appetizing riff composed by Plantsmith, whose “Garden of Puzzley Delights” is a Puzzlerian staple.)

ENTREE #8

Take the title a two-word cinematic political action thriller that begins with an article. 

The second word contains a food. Drop the first vowel that appears in that food. As a result, the second word becomes a medical device, transforming the film’s “love over war” theme into “life over death.”

What are the movie title, food, and medical device?

ENTREE #9

Think of a popular three-word movie franchise that spawned a sequel, a prequel, and the third-longest-running musical in Broadway history. Ignore the first word, an article. 

From the remaining two words (each containing 4 letters), remove 4 consecutive letters that are an anagram of sound a barnyard animal makes. The four remaining letters, in order, spell a word for a “hake” or a “burbot.” 

The first and third of those four letters are consecutive even-numbered letters in the alphabet (B, D, F, H, J, etc.). Take the even number-numbered letter that

follows them in the alphabet. Place it in front of the second and fourth letters (in the word for “burbot”) to spell the critter that makes that barnyard sound.

What are this movie franchise, critter and the sound it makes?

ENTREE #10

Name a woman who was born and buried in Kansas – in 1898, then in 1996. Before she wed her future hubby, a politician (a marriage that lasted a “Heinz-Variety” number of years!), she had to wait for him to be first divorced and then widowed. 

Her close friends were aware that this Kansan miss would have to pray long and hard in order to “___ if ___ is her man!”

Replace one of the 14 letters in a film franchise with a 3-letter homophone that is a verb (a verb that is the word in the first blank). The 13 remaining letters can be rearranged to spell the remainder of the quotation:  “... if ___ is her man!”

Who are this wife and husband?

What is the whole the quotation? 

What is “a film franchise?”

Dessert Menu

“Loyal” Gambit Dessert:

Checkmating and matrimony

Name a word for a calculated maneuver or ploy that a chess master may employ in an attempt to outwit an opponent. 

One part of that word may remind you of something associated with weddings. The
other part is where it may come from.

What is this calculated maneuver?

What is the thing associated with weddings?

Where may it come from?

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.

Words, in a word; Cut!; The Name’s the same; Disorder in the court; Poetry Corner with Anna Graham; Singer-Songwrighteous Brothers; Instrument... or “in-strumpet?” Javelin? Jackknife? Jar of Jam? Fight or Flight? AlphaBeethoven-Baked Puzzle-Poem;

 PUZZLERIA! SLICES: OVER 5πe² SERVED

Schpuzzle of the Week:

Javelin? Jackknife? Jar of Jam?

Rearrange the combined letters of two William Shakespearean play titles to spell a weapon and a synonym of “preserve.”

This weapon and this synonym each appear but once in Shakespeare’s oeuvre (in two histories, both with “Henry” in the title).

What are this weapon and this synonym of “preserve?”

What are these two play titles?

Appetizer Menu

A Much-Better-Than-A-Wink Appetizer:

Words, in a word; Cut!; The Name’s the same; Disorder in the court; Poetry Corner with Anna Graham;

WORDS, IN A WORD

1. 👚🥫👟Think of a word that can be a noun, verb, or adjective. 

The first three letters spell an article of clothing; the first four letters spell a food; the last four letters spell part of a shoe; the middle three letters spell the past tense of a common verb; and the last three letters spell a word that appears in this puzzle. What are these six words?

CUT!

2. 🎥📖 What film title is only half as long as the title of the book it is based on?

THE NAME’S THE SAME

3. ⚾🎾A baseball player won the World Series as both a player and manager for the same team. 

A tennis player of the same first and last names won the NCAA championship as both a player and coach for the same team. 

DISORDER IN THE COURT

4. 🔥🐟🥔What former tennis star...

(1) might not remember to show up for a match?

(2) might like fly fishing in the Shenandoah Valley?

(3) should work for UPS? 

(4) might be a couch potato?

(5) might be dangerous in the water?

(6) might put aromatic blossoms on his fence? 

Hint: Except for the first, they are all in the International Tennis Hall of Fame. 

POETRY CORNER, WITH ANNA GRAHAM

5. 🎕Fill in the blanks with words that are anagrams of one another to complete the verse.

She _____ the _____ she _____ from gardens
lush,

The cheeks upon her _____ frame shyly blush,

Should any _____ seek to _____ this verse,

Let vengeance’s _____ dispatch them for the worse.

MENU

Period Piece Hors d’Oeuvre:

Fight or Flight?

Write a pair of two-word captions for the two illustrations that accompany the text of this puzzle. 

Interchange the initial consonants in either one of the captions to spell the two words in the other caption. One of the words in one of the captions is an abbreviation (as you can tell by the period.)

What are these two captions?

Note from Lego: I wrote, formatted and laid-out the above Hors d’Oeuvre onto my draft of this edition of Puzzleria! on the evening of March 14th. This was several hours before I heard our friend Nodd’s puzzle challenge broadcast the following morning during NPR’s airing of “The Puzzle” on “Weekend Edition Sunday.”

National Public Rascoe Slice:

AlphaBeethoven-Baked Puzzle-Poem

Take the Ninth, take the Fifth, the Fifth turned on its head,

Drop a “double-u sound,” like a bug from a bed...

But Beethoven? No! You ’ll get ______ instead!

Fill in the blank. It contains six letters (and three syllables).

Riffing Off Shortz And Dimichele Slices: 

Singer-Songwrighteous Brothers

Will Shortz’s March 8th NPR Weekend Edition Sunday puzzle, created by Donn Dimichele of Redlands, California, reads:

Name a famous musical duo. Remove four consecutive letters of the duo’s name and phonetically you’ll name a famous nonmusical duo. Who are they?

Puzzleria!s Riffing Off Shortz And Dimichele Slices read:

ENTREE #1

Name a prolific puzzle-maker, first and last names. 

Remove three interior letters that are an anagram of a farm creature that is  provided with a home (actually a “house”). 

The remaining letters are an anagram of either one of the two two-word terms that are correct answers in the “six-circle illustration” at the left:

~ a term (beginning with an “m” and an “i”) that describes the cloud, and

~ a term (beginning with an “m” and a “c”) that describes the quarter.

What is the farm creature?

What are this pair of two-word terms?

Who is the prolific puzzle-maker?

(Hint: The “i” and “c” stand for 4-letter words that are anagrams of one another.)

(Note: The next six Entrees, #2 through #7, are creations from Nodd, who notes that the names of the duos in some of the answers are sometimes preceded by “The.” Ignore the “The” in solving.)

ENTREE #2

Think of a famous comedy duo. 

Their last name, minus the first letter, is a synonym of the nickname of another famous comedian. 

Who are the duo and the comedian? 

ENTREE #3

Name a famous musical duo in two words. Remove the last letter from the first word and rearrange the remaining letters of that word. 

The rearranged first word, followed by the second word, is the former name of a major consumer goods company. Who are the duo and what is the company? What is their name?

ENTREE #4

Name a famous musical duo. The last name of one, with a letter removed, is a food. 

The combined last names of both, with two letters removed, can be rearranged to spell another food. 

Who are the duo and what are the foods?

ENTREE #5 

Two comedy duos and a tech duo each had a member with the same last name. 

Who are these three duos?

ENTREE #6

The two-word name of a musical duo anagrams to the first name of an Indian actress and model and the last name of an American actress and singer. The Indian actress is deceased; the American actress is still living. Who are the duo and the two actresses?

ENTREE #7

Take the last names of two co-creators of a famous Broadway show featuring rock music. 

Remove two letters, and rearrange the rest to spell a word that often describes fans of rock musicians. 

Who are the co-creators, and what is the word?

ENTREE #8

“The magician ____ a ____ within his fist. After unclenching, his palm revealed a ____.” 

Each missing word contains four letters. Double the last letter of one of them. Rearrange these 13 combined missing letters to spell the first and last names of a prolific puzzle-maker.

Who is it?

What are the three missing words?

ENTREE #9

Name a famous two-word musical “girl group” duo that began as a trio. Then name a two-word rapper whose first word consists of letters that, when spelled out, are a synonym of “host for a program of entertainment.” The second words of the group and the rapper, together without a space, spell a “tool wielded with two hands.” 

The combined 8 letters of the first words, if you remove a letter that appears twice, are an anagram of a word for a “standard of measurement.”

Who are this girl group and rapper?

What are the “two-hand-held tool” and “standard of measurement?”

ENTREE #10

Use two words to name a pair of 19th-Century folklorists who collected, revised and published medieval legends and fairy tales. 

Name, also in two words, a popular 20th-Century psychologist who, via radio, television, print and other media, offered advice on child rearing, love, marriage, sex, etc.

The first word of the folklorists is the same as the second word of the psychologist. The first 80% of the folklorists’ second word (an adjective) and the first 60% of the psychologist’s first word (a noun) would form an oxymoron if placed side-by-side.

Who are these folklorists and this psychologist? What is the oxymoron?

Dessert Menu

Risqué  Dessert:

Instrument... or “In-strumpet?”

Replace a vowel in a musical instrument with the next vowel in the alphabet. 

Remove the fourth letter, leaving a space.
Switch the order of the two resulting words.

The result is a two-word term for risqué remote conversations.

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.