PUZZLERIA! SLICES: OVER 5πe² SERVED

Schpuzzle of the Week:

Recollecting Rejected Jettisoned Hijacked-Jet Words!

The headline read:

“Jet Hijacked, Suspect _______  _____ ” 

The missing words sound like the name of a Roman governor.

The first word of this name sounds like a form of exercise

The second word becomes a form of exercise if you add an “s” to the end.

What is this headline?

Who is the Roman governor?

What are the two forms of exercise?

(Note: This week’s Appetizer comes courtesy of a very inventive puzzle-maker and very valued friend of Puzzleria!)

Appetizer Menu 

“Enigmatic Gleanings” Appetizer:

The Former LieuTENant Was No 10; Screens Come in All Sizes; Good Sports All Round; They Taste Terrible if Mixed; Satire Inside Out Makes Irates;

The Former LieuTENant Was No 10

1. 🪖Name a military rank that contains a number.  That rank is held by one typically receiving, not giving, orders.  

Remove the number and replace it with another number.  The result is an order from which most members of the military are drawn.  What are the rank and the order?  

Screens Come in All Sizes    

2. 🎥The four famous actors who created the iconic screen characters Rowdy, Maverick, Hawkeye, and K all appeared together in only one movie.  That movie has a two-word title.  Consecutive letters in that title name the
profession of one of those characters.  Other consecutive letters in that title name something that most two-word titles have.  

What is the movie title, the profession, and the thing that almost all two-word titles have?  

Good Sports All Round  

[The following is a riff of the April 5, 2026, NPR Challenge.]

3. 🏈🚙Take the last name of a great sports figure.  Add two letters to the end and rearrange all those letters to get the names of
two popular Sport Utility Vehicle models.  

Who is the sports figure, and what are the SUV models?   

They Taste Terrible if Mixed

[The following is a riff of the December 31, 2025, Puzzle Fun Appetizer by Bobby Jacobs.]

4. 🧉🎸The first word in a drink followed by the brand name of personal care products spells, in order left to right, the name of a famous musician and recording industry executive. Who is it?    

Satire Inside Out Makes Irates 

[The following is a riff of a published cartoon by Skilly Creators Syndicate.]

5. 😠Take the surname of a current political newsmaker.  Reverse two adjacent consonants, and rotate the final letter in the name 180 degrees.  

The result is an expletive some say describes the politician.  

Who is the politician and the resulting epithet?  

MENU

Fife Takes A Wife Hors d’Oeuvre:

Thelma “Hononlulu” Lou!

Barney Fife and Thelma Lou were an “item” on “The Andy Griffith Show” for twenty-six episodes. “Thel” (as Barney called her) and Barney eventually tied their nuptial “Knotts” and jetted westward to celebrate their union with a honeymoon in Hawaii.

Where, in four and five letters, did they stay?

A Glow In The Gloaming Slice:

Sylvan Silvery Eloquence

A northern outpost shrouded in snowfall,

A solitary lantern white with frost,

Its flame Silver-tongued and eloquent,

Preserving etiquette, a Heavenly Holocaust!

Choose seven different words that appear in the quatrain above. Write each of them twice.

Rearrange these letters to spell the title of a
well-known 20th-Century novel... twice.

What are these seven words?

What is the title of the novel?

Riffing Off Shortz And Kalish Slices:

“Did Papa John Creach’s Fiddle make Screeches?!”

Will Shortz’s June 21st NPR Weekend Edition Sunday puzzle, created by Evan Kalish of Bayside, New York, reads:

Take the name of a nocturnal creature, in two words. The first word is a spooky sound. Move the last letter of the first word to the start of the second word and you'll get another spooky, nocturnal sound. What is the creature and what are the sounds?

Puzzleria!s Riffing Off Shortz And Kalish Slices read:

ENTREE #1

Take the  letters in Jesse Garon’s twin brother’s first name, the first name of Billie Jean Horton’s and Audrey Williams’ hubby, and of Vincent Furnier’s slightly misspelled first
name of his stage name. 

Use only those letters to spell the name of a puzzle-maker. Who is it?

(Note: Entrees #2 through #7 are the brainchildren of our friend and talented resident riffmeister Nodd.)

ENTREE #2

Name a mostly nocturnal creature. 

Change the third letter to the preceding letter of the alphabet. 

Rearrange to name two more nocturnal creatures. What are the three creatures?

ENTREE #3

Name a mostly nocturnal creature. 

Move the fourth letter four places later in the alphabet to spell a garment worn during a kind of nighttime performance. Or move that letter two places earlier in the alphabet to spell the
first name of a musician who was famous for being a “night owl.” 

What are the creature and garment, and who is the musician?

ENTREE #4

Take an informal name for a diurnal creature. 

Move the fourth letter five places later in the alphabet to name a sound made by a nocturnal creature. What are the creature and sound?

ENTREE #5

Name certain nocturnal creatures, in two words. 

The first word is the name of a mostly nocturnal creature. 

The second word is an anagram of something seen at night. 

What are the creatures, and what else is seen at night?

ENTREE #6

Name a nocturnal creature. 

Change the first vowel to the next vowel in the alphabet. Rearrange to spell (1) a word describing the nighttime and (2) an event typically held at night. 

What are the creature, description, and event?

ENTREE #7

Take the name of a crepuscular creature, in two words (the first word is a color). 

Remove the fourth letter and change an A to an O. Rearrange to name two nocturnal creatures, one of which frequently eats the other. 

What are these three creatures?

ENTREE #8

Name a puzzle-maker, first and last names. Double the third letter of each name. Rearrange the result to spell a delicious dessert. Who is this puzzle-maker? What is the dessert?

Dessert Menu

Custardial Custodial Dessert:

Keys to Clinical Cleanliness

Write a caption for the eight images pictured here, in two 6-letter words.

Delete the first  letter in the first word, the second letter in the second word and the space between the two words. The result is keys you may see on keyboards. 

What is your caption?

What are the keyboard keys?

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.

Rob from the Rich?; Bird Bug “Crawler” Canine Feline; “ROT-10” (or-13?) Fish!; Four synonyms, two rhyming pairs; ROT! For these five letters five is the limit!; Takin’ a trip to the Piggly Wiggly; “It’s the Berries!” Splash Slash Lash Ashbackwards! “Our cookie jar lid is ajar!” “The Pause (Button) that Refreshes?”

PUZZLERIA! SLICES: OVER 5πe² SERVED

Schpuzzle Of The Week

“It’s the Berries!”

The Schuzzle of this week is all about the berries!

You are challenged to identify eleven kinds of berries... (like, say, “gooseberries” or “boysenberries”) that are pictured here — one kind in the “Schpuzzle of the Week” logo, and ten others in the illustration above, on the right.

Appetizer Menu

Mental ConTORTions Appetizer:

Rob from the Rich?; Bird Bug “Crawler” Canine Feline; “ROT-10”(or-13?) Fish!; Four synonyms, two rhyming pairs; ROT! For these five letters five is the limit! 

Rob from the Rich?

1.  🐦🎜⏺🎝Name two Top 10 songs by British artists that peaked in the same year during the mid-1970s. Remove the first letter from one title and you’ll have the title of the other song.

Both artists later had Top-20 songs with the same female vocalist. Both songs with this female “songbird” were on the same soundtrack album. 

The shorter song title also was also used in an earlier song by an act with a bird name. The longer title was used in an earlier song by an artist whose first name at birth is a bird. Remove the last letter from the last name, and it sounds like another bird. 

What are the two song titles? Who performed them? Who is the female vocalist? 

Bird Bug “Crawler” Canine Feline

2. 🐕🐈🐍🕷🐦 Name a six-letter animal in the canine family. ROT-13 the third letter and rearrange to get an animal in the feline family. Now change that letter to a different letter and rearrange to get a reptile. Change it again, and rearrange to get an insect. Remove the last two letters of the insect to get a bird.

What are the canine, feline, reptile. insect, and bird?

“ROT-10”(or-13?) Fish!

3. 🐟Think of a type of fish. ROT-13 each letter. You’ll have a type of insect. Now think of a famous fictional example of the fish. ROT-3
each letter to get a type of insect.

What are the fish, example of the fish, and two types of insects? 

Four synonyms, two rhyming pairs; 

4. 📖Think of two verbs that are synonymous. 

One word is six letters long and the other is five. 

They start with the same two letters. 

Now replace those two letters with two different
letters (same two new letters for both words). You’ll have two new synonyms that are synonymous with the first two words.

What are the words? 

ROT! For these five letters five is the limit! 

5. 📬Think of a common five-letter word. If you ROT-1, ROT-2, ROT-4, or ROT-5 the first letter,
you’ll have additional common words; however, no other changes to the first letter yield words.

What are these words?

MENU

Hard Copy & Soft Drinks Hors d’Oeuvre:

“The Pause (Button) that Refreshes?”

A word on the keyboard contains four consecutive letters of the alphabet – the last one twice, making it five. 

Remove three of the five, including one of the duplicate letters. Add an“app.” Rearrange the result to spell a soft drink brand.

What are this word on the keyboard and soft drink brand?

Clean-Up In Aisle-Nine Slice:

Takin’ a trip to the Piggly Wiggly

Name an “over-the-counter” item you might  purchase from your local supermarket, in two words.

Four consecutive letters spell what you might then purchase in the fruits section of the grocery.

The remaining letters, if your place the second letter at the end, spell a food you might purchase in either the produce section or baking aisle.

What are this “over-the-counter” item and two other possible purchases?

Riffing Off Shortz And Pickard Slices:

Splash Slash Lash Ashbackwards!

Will Shortz’s June 14th NPR Weekend Edition Sunday puzzle, created by listener Michael Pickard, reads:

Name something in 10 letters that's found in a kitchen. Drop its sixth letter to name something
on a keyboard. Then drop the new word's fifth letter to name something no one wants to get. What words are these?

Puzzleria!s Riffing Off Shortz And Pickard Slices read:

ENTREE #1

Name a three-word command a sleight-of-hand practitioner may give you or other member of his audience. 

Remove the two spaces, then remove two
adjacent letters that appear elsewhere in the command.

The result is the surname of a puzzle maker. 

Who is this puzzle-maker? What was the command?

(Note: Entrees #2 through #7 are the brainchildren of our friend and master riffmeister Nodd.

ENTREE #2

1. Name something in two words totaling 10 letters that’s found in a kitchen. Move the first letter of the second word to the fourth position of the first word. 

Then switch what are now the first and third letters of the second word. The result will name something no one wants to get. What are these two things?

ENTREE #3

Name something in six letters that’s found in a kitchen. Add a “C” and an “M” somewhere to
name things you put on breads. 

Remove four consecutive letters from the second word to name something no one wants to get. What words are these?

ENTREE #4 

Name something in 10 letters that is found in a kitchen. 

Rearrange its letters to name a dish that might
be made using this item, and a word for what the cook might do if the dish turned out poorly. 

What words are these?

ENTREE #5

Name something in two words totaling 11 letters that is found in a kitchen. 

Replace its third letter with an “E” to describe something a person in Ireland might read. 

What words are these?

ENTREE #6 

Name something in nine letters that is found in a kitchen. 

Replace its middle letter with a space to name a part in the 1970 film “Pufnstuf.” 

What is found in a kitchen, and what is the part?

ENTREE #7

A 10-letter brand name often found in kitchens describes a character from the Disney movie “Peter Pan.” 

What is the brand name and who is the character? 

(Note: Entree #8 was created and contributed by our talented friend and riffmaster Plantsmith.

ENTREE #8

Take a nine letter item that could be found in the kitchen. 

Drop letter four to get someone
who might be found in a kitchen.

Then remove two letters that are found in a famous movie. 

They replace them with abbreviation used often  in texting, to get animal associated with the kitchen item.

Dessert Menu

Midnight Sweet Snack Dessert:

“Our cookie jar lid is ajar!” 

“Don’t get me wrong,” my next-door neighbor Gabe confided in me during one of our frequent over-the-fence conversations. 

“My wife Mabel and I love her nephew Timothy very much, and we enjoy having him as a guest at our home. But it would be difficult to estimate the number of her homemade cookies Tim ate during his midnight visits to the cookie jar in our kitchen!”

What is a tad repetitive in that narrative?

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.

“Sic Semper Tyrannosaurus Rex” Two words... for the same bird; “Order in the Countdown Court!” Just a couple-a words in a couplet “A Nuclear (Family) Threat?” “It just don’t seem to add up... or subtract down!”

PUZZLERIA! SLICES: OVER 5πe² SERVED

Schpuzzle of the Week:

Just a couple o’ words in a couplet

Breezes toss and tickle rippling prints and tints,

Making taut the “sails” of clothes-pinned billowy chintz.

Within that couplet thou shalt find a pair

Of words that both a rare distinction share.

So (“unpoetically” now!) what unusual property do a couple of words in that couplet share?

Appetizer Menu

Delightfully Puzzley “Discophilia” Appetizer:

“Order in the Countdown Court!”

The list below  – if we base it on certain songtitles associated with the artists – is out of order. 

Can you put them in a more logical and “numerically fitting” order?  

On what did you base that order?  

What song titles did you use? 

Which song title was “doubly relevant”?

    1. David Bowie 

    2. The White Stripes 

    3. Bobby Bland 

    4. Three Dog Night 

    5. Freddie King 

    6. Sonny Boy Williams 

    7. Nina Simone 

    8. Dusty Springfield

    9. B.B. King  

    10. Merle Travis 

MENU

Unclear & Conflicted Hors d’Oeuvre:

A Nuclear (Family) Threat?

Name an informal term for a member of the nuclear family. 

Remove one of its letters to name a potentially life-threatening response triggered by the human immune system...

(Well, that’s kind of a downer... but consider this: If you replace a letter of that life-threatening response with a P, the result will be things that are enjoyable and refreshing!

What are this informal family-member term, life-threatening response, and things that are enjoyable and refreshing?

Birds-Of-Wordprey Slice:

Two words... for the same bird

Switch the initial sounds of two words:

~ some two-syllable colorful tropical birds and...

~ some two-syllable “Down-Under” mountain-dwelling endangered species of those same birds. 

The result (if you spell and pronounce the “Down Under” bird as if its last letter were a “y”) sounds like two foods that are often served together as a side dish. The colors of these foods share four common letters. 

What are these two birds and two foods?

Riffing Off Shortz Slices:

“Sic Semper Tyrannosaurus Rex”

Will Shortz’s June 7th NPR Weekend Edition Sunday puzzle reads:

Rearrange the letters of “NECESSARY MISPRINT” to spell a familiar phrase.

Puzzleria!s Riffing Off Shortz Slices read:

ENTREE #1

Name an American idiomatic phrase that means "being in an enviable, highly advantageous, or superior position," in five words of 2, 2, 3, 7 and 4 letters. Rearrange this 18 letters to spell three words associated with the Bible:

~ a synonym of Eden,

~ a unit of Ark measurement, and

~ the ordinal number of the commandment
that proscribes coveting.

What are this phrase and three biblical words?

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

ENTREE #2

You can rearrange the letters in a two-word food item you might have on your breakfast table to spell a two-word description of the 1942 film “Kings Row.” What are the item and the description?

ENTREE #3

You can rearrange the letters in another two-word food item you might have on your breakfast table to spell a two-word description of what happened when the cold, hungry grasshopper implored the ants to let him into their shelter in the 1934 Disney film “The Grasshopper and the Ants.” 

What are the item and the description?

ENTREE #4

You can rearrange the letters in a third two-word food item you might have on your breakfast table to spell, in two words, what the producers of “Jeopardy!” undertook after Alex Trebek passed away. 

What is the item and what did the producers undertake?

ENTREE #5

Name a two-word phrase for something businesses are typically trying to achieve.

Rearrange its letters to get a two-word phrase for something that might get you arrested. 

What are the two phrases?

ENTREE #6

Rearrange the letters of a two-word subject currently in the news to get a phrase describing, in two words and one initialism, what the U.S. Air Force would be doing if they
were charged with evacuating the customers of a U.S. espionage organization from a foreign country. 

What are the subject and the phrase?

ENTREE #7

Rearrange the letters in the first and last names of a controversial business magnate to get the last names of a controversial baseball
manager of the past and a controversial current head of state. 

Who are these three persons?

ENTREE #8

If you rearrange the letters of TUTU and BERET (see image) you can spell three words: (1) a wager, (2) the name of a boy king, and (3) a synonym of the verb “regret.” 

Or, you can spell a whirlpool site, dimpled-sphere-prop and divot.

Or, You can spell a montana city and a synonym of “factual and accurate.”

Or... you can spell a familiar phrase.

What is this phrase? 

Dessert Menu

“Just sum screwy math... what’s the difference?” Dessert:

“It just don’t seem to add up... or subtract down!”

Explain how the six equations below might possibly be true:

1. Five minus two equals four.

2. Six minus one equals nine.

3. Seven minus four equals five.

4. Eight minus four equals one.

5. Eleven minus five equals five.

6. Twelve minus four equals fifty-five.

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.