“The art & the heart of a puzzle”; Spilling-Over Urban-Sprawl!; Certifiably Sanctioned Cliché!; PauwPaul, LakeWake!; Surnames, first names and worstpelling!; TeeVee Dinnertime!

PUZZLERIA! SLICES: OVER 5πe² SERVED

Schpuzzle of the Week:

Surnames! first names! mispelling!

The second and fourth words in a five-word novel title are surnames of a past actor and past first lady. 

The actor’s first name is an anagram of a common misspelling of the first lady’s first
name. 

What are this novel and two first names?

APPETIZER MENU

Synonym of the Idiom!

“The art and the heart of a puzzle...”

The New York Times-Noooze

Thanks to “Shortzles” it prints

 Zzzaps all blahhzzz and all bluezzz...

(All these zzznore-words are hints!)

    And on NPR too...

    You’ll hear more than a few

    Of Will’s “Shortzles” to do...

    Don’t nod off, they’re for you!

Note: “Shortzle” is a word I coined a few years or so ago. I define it as:

“A clever puzzle with an economy-of-words of the type created by puzzlemaster Will Shortz and disseminated over National Public Radio airwaves, the Internet, print publications, and other media”

A Shortzle

Name a two-word idiom for a nocturnal activity. 

A synonym of the second word, preceded by the initial letter of the idiom, spells a synonym
of the idiom. 

What are this two-word idiom, synonym of the second word, and synonym of the idiom?

MENU

Cities Marked By Stars Hors d’Oeuvre:

Spilling-Over Urban-Sprawl!

Delete just a three-letter mixed-up bit of literature from a capital city. Eliminate any spaces that may appear.

The result is the maximum population that the
city can accommodate. 

What are this capital city, mixed-up bit of literature and maximum population that the city can accommodate?

American Capital Welsh River Slice:

Certifiably Sanctioned Cliché!

Name a common four-word expression that has achieved “cliché-status.” 

The initial letters of the four words spell a body part. 

The 12 letters of the expression can be anagrammed to spell:

* a capital city in the Americas, and 

* a 3-letter Welsh tributary that rises in Snowdonia and flows into the Irish Sea, and a 3-letter adjective that describes this river..

What are this “cliché-esque” expression, capital city, river, and adjective?

What is the body part spelled by the initial letters of the four-word expression? 

Riffing Off Shortz And Ellis Slices:

PauwPaul, LakeWake!

Will Shortz’s October 4th NPR Weekend Edition Sunday puzzle, created by Robbie Ellis of Chicago, reads:

Name two well-known colleges or universities from the same state. The last letter of one is the first letter of the other. Change each instance of this letter to the same new letter to get the names of two other well-known colleges or universities. What four schools are these?

Puzzleria!s Riffing Off Shortz And Ellis Slices read:

ENTREE #1

Name a puzzle-maker and his hometown, in 6, 5 and 7 letters..

The second syllable of the puzzle-maker’s first name and the two syllables of his surname sound like three letters of the alphabet.
Rearrange them, along with the last letter of the puzzle-maker’s hometown, to spell the a 4-letter word for “a slovenly or rude person.”

The 9 letters that remain can be anagrammed to spell the 5-letter surname of a 20th-Century Swedish actress and a 4-letter adjective describing the actress that contains a 2-word embedded greeting.

Who are this puzzle-maker, his hometown , the 3 syllables that sound like letters, the word for the slovenly, rude person, the  surname of the actress, and the adjective?

(Note: Entrees #2 through # 7 are creations courtesy of our good friend Nodd. His “Nodd ready for prime time” is a staple of Puzzlerian Puzzling.)

ENTREE #2

Name two well-known universities in the Eastern U.S. 

Remove the last letter of each. 

The result will sound like the name of a famous actor. 

What are the universities and who is the actor?

ENTREE #3

The first six letters of a college in Pennsylvania, plus the first two letters of one in Maryland, can be rearranged to name a school in the United Kingdom. 

What are the three schools?

ENTREE #4

Name a private college in New England and a state university in the mid-Atlantic. (The university is known simply by the name of the state.) 

Remove one letter from each. Rearrange the letters that remain to name a college in the Southern United States. What are the three schools?

ENTREE #5

A university in the Mid-Atlantic and a college in the Midwest end in the same four letters. 

Remove those letters from each name to get two words associated with teeth. 

What are the schools and the two words?

ENTREE #6

Name a college in the Mid-Atlantic region and a university in New England. 

Remove one instance of a repeated letter and
rearrange to spell a university in the Midwest. 

What are the three schools?

ENTREE #7

Name a college in the Midwest. 

Add a K. 

Rearrange to name a university in New England and a school in the United Kingdom. 

What are the three schools?

Dessert Menu

Sitcommy Dessert:

TV Dinnertime!

When prototypically traditional American families gather at their dinner table – as do the Bradys’, Taylors’, Cleavers, Andersons’ and Nelsons’ on TV sitcoms, for example – first they say grace, then they dine. Anagram the combined letters of synonyms of “say grace” and “dine” to spell a scroll containing ancient writing.

What two dinnertime things do these families do?

What is this scroll with ancient writing?

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!

Breeding creatures, screening crud!; “Spring, Sprank, Sprunk!”; Stumblebums & Humble Pie; Not just a few... A full-staffed raft!; “Complementary Homophonic Antonyms”; “Da Mountain, Da Refusal, Da Nile!”

PUZZLERIA! SLICES: OVER 5πe² SERVED

Schpuzzle of the Week:

“Breeding creatures, screening crud!”

Name a place, in two four-letter words, associated with breeding of livestock. Anagram each word to form two new words.

One of the words is the brand of a product that filters contaminants from motorized livestock machinery. 

The other word is one of the contaminants.

Name this brand name and contaminant name, and also the  two-word breeding place.

Appetizer Menu

“Leaning Tower of Pavyllon-London-Style Pizza” Appetizer:

Stumblebums & Humble Pie

After clearing the main-course dinnerware from our table, our snooty maître d’ at Great Britain’s Pavyllon London restaurant intoned: 

“For dessert, we shall now serve you a generous slice of humble pie. Select a napkin.”

Anagram just four of that maître d’s eight final words ("...generous slice of humble pie. Select a napkin.”) to spell two colors and two creatures that appear in a century-plus-old memoir by an author whose surname is appropriate to the setting of this puzzling scenario.

What are these colors and creatures?

Who is the author of the memoir, and what is its title?

Hint: The four-word title of the memoir is an anagram of and the surname of the combined letters of:

~ Billy Yank’s nemesis in the late 1850s, and

~ the surname of a Spanish poet/playwright/theatre director (whose first name was Frederico).

MENU

Jam-Packed Hors d’Oeuvre:

Not just a few... A full-staffed raft!

A word on a map consists of two names.

The first is associated with an animal... or two or three. The second is associated with a whole raft of animals!

What is this word on the map?

“Mystereophonics” Slice:

“Complementary Homophonic Antonyms”

The three-letter endings of two identically pronounced words are also identical, yet they
share no other letters in common. 

They are antonyms, yet somehow also strangely complementary. 

What are these words?

Riffing Off Shortz And Moren Slices:

“Da Mountain, Da Refusal, Da Nile!

Will Shortz’s September 27th NPR Weekend Edition Sunday puzzle, created by Dan Moren of Somerville, Massachusetts, reads:

Name a well-known U.S. geographic location in six letters. Move the last letter two places earlier in the name and you'll get a regular English word. Say that word out loud. It will sound like a well-known geographic location abroad. What places are these? 

Here's a hint: Neither place name is a city.

Puzzleria!s Riffing Off Shortz And Moren Slices read:

ENTREE #1

Name a puzzle-maker, first and last names, eight letters. Move the fourth letter one place earlier in the name. Reverse the order of the remaining letters on the right. 

You’ll get what ancient Romans might have cried because their emperor’s rule eventually devolved into a tinderbox of tyranny, corruption, familial murder, and public humiliation – culminating in infernal fiddling on his lyre in the midst of fire.

Who is this puzzle-maker? What might Romans have cried?

(Note:Entrees #2 through #7 were created by our friend Nodd, author of the regularly featured “Not ready for prime time’’ on Puzzleria!)

ENTREE #2

Name a U.S. national park. One of the letters sounds like a common English word. 

Replace that letter with the first letter of the English word. Rearrange to name a well-known foreign city. What places are these?

ENTREE #3

Name a river in the Eastern U.S. One of the letters sounds like an informal name for a mode of transportation. 

Replace that letter with the first two letters of another word for that mode of transportation. 

The result will name a famous foreign location. What places are these?

ENTREE #4

Name a two-word place in the Eastern U.S. 

Double one of its letters and add the copy of that letter to the end of the first word.  The result will name a place in a foreign country and a geographical term describing the place. What places are these?

ENTREE #5

Name a two-word place in the U.S. Change the third letter of the second word to the letter that precedes it in the alphabet. Then switch the third and fourth letters.  Finally, change the next-to-last letter of the second word to a different vowel. Leave the first word as is. 

The result will name a foreign place. What are these places?

ENTREE #6

Name a two-word U.S. city. 

Say the last letter of the first word and then the complete second word. 

It will sound like the name of a foreign country. 

What places are these?

ENTREE #7

A foreign city name sounds like what someone might do to restrain a famous American architect. 

What is the city and what might someone do?

Dessert Menu

Purple Prankery Green Mountain Boys Black Hills Dessert:

“Spring, Sprank, Sprunk!”

Name a word associated with summits of a
certain hue. 

Interior letters of the word spell a prank. 

The remaining letters spell the month after the prank was sprung. What are this word, this prank and the month after it was sprung?

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!

DES-PISA-BLE or BLE-S-SED?; HorseSense & Sleighbells; POTUS name repetition on the Potomac?; Boundless... except for beginning & end!; Does-The-Nepal-Rain-Stay-Mainly-On-The-Plane? & Chain-Gang-Of-Four; Pour Sangria Pour

PUZZLERIA! SLICES: OVER 5πe² SERVED

Schpuzzle of the Week:

POTUS name-repetition on the Potomac? 

Rearrange the combined letters of a presidential monogram and a synonym of “verity” to spell a “repetitive word” that is a synonym of highly-skilled “gurus” or “wizards”?

What are the monogram and synonym of
“verity”? 

What is the synonym of “gurus” or “wizards”? 

How does it qualify as “repetitive?”

Appetizer Menu

Leaning Tower of Puzzleria! ApPetISer:

DES-PISA-BLE or BLE-S-SED?

We are introducing on this week’s edition of Puzzleria! a new “to-be-occasionally-featured” Appetizer, titled “Leaning Tower of Puzzleria!”

Consider the four-pane collage pictured here. 

Fill in the 23 blanks with letters that spell the five words that belong in the four captions.

Rearrange the result to spell something new, in 23 letters.

What are your four captions?

What is the “something new?”

MENU

“Parlez-Vous Franglais?” Hors d’Oeuvre:

Boundless... except for  beginning & end!

The four middle letters of an eight-letter English noun that means “boundlessness” is a French adjective that means “ended.”

The first four letters of that English noun are a rearrangement of that French adjective.

The last four letters of that English noun are an anagram of an English adjective that means “very small.” 

What are this eight-letter noun, four-letter French adjective and four-letter English adjective?

“What The Maven Found” Slice:

“Pour Sangria Pour...”

The first name of a long-past math maven is a homophone of a synonym of “conflagration.” He and other “number-nutty” colleagues and buddies visited a bistro one evening to do some after-work-unwinding.

After a few rounds of refreshment, the maven, suddenly, out-of-the-blue, blurted:

“J’ai trouvé! Applaudissons! Sangria pour tout le monde, Patron!”

But, because many of his colleagues spoke only English, he then immediately translated,
re-blurting:

“Eureka!” (or perhaps he instead said “I have
found it!”)... “Let’s clap! Sangria for all, Barkeep!” 

Three of the six words in the maven’s English translation are an anagram of what the maven had found.

What are those three words.

What had the maven found?

Riffing Off Shortz And Hochbaum Slices:

Does-The-Nepal-Rain-Stay-Mainly-On-The-Plane? & Chain-Gang-Of-Four

Will Shortz’s September 20th NPR Weekend Edition Sunday puzzle, created by Alan Hochbaum of Duluth, Georgia, reads: 

There are two neighboring countries whose names have anagrams that rhyme with each other. What are the countries and their anagrams?

Puzzleria!s Riffing Off Shortz And Hochbaum Slices read:

ENTREE #1

Rearrange the 12 letters in the name of a puzzle-maker to spell:

~ entertainment enjoyed by those at a Hawaiian luau,

~ A pineapple-glazed holiday meat that, although not normally served at an authentic
Hawaiian luau – where kalua pig (or kalua pork) is king – may sometime appear on the menus of mainland “Hawaiian-luau-themed” parties.

~ A “culinary cousin” of that pineapple-glazed holiday meat that may be served at luaus as a garnish served wth Lomi Lomi Salmon, or as a “wrap-around” for appetizers like pineapple or water chestnuts glazed in teriyaki.

Who is this puzzle-maker?

What are the entertainment, holiday meat, and its “culinary cousin”?

(Note:The following six riffs, Entrees #2-thru #7, were composed by our friend Nodd, creator and composer of “Nodd ready for prime time” on Puzzleria!)

ENTREE #2

Name an Asian country and remove the last letter. 

The remaining letters can be rearranged to spell a word that rhymes with an anagram of the name of an adjoining country. What are the countries and the anagrams?

ENTREE #3

Name a country in Europe and two countries that border it, in alphabetical order. 

Remove the first letter of the first country and rearrange to spell a word that rhymes with the third country. Change the last letter of the name of the second country, without rearranging, to spell another word that rhymes with the third country. 

What are the countries and the rhyming words?

ENTREE #4

Remove two letters from an African country and rearrange to spell a word that rhymes with an anagram of the name of an adjoining country. What are the countries and the rhyming words?

ENTREE #5

Name two adjoining African countries. 

Remove one letter from one and two letters from the other. The remaining letters of the first country can now be rearranged to spell a word
that rhymes with an anagram of the remaining letters of the second country. 

What are the countries and the rhyming words?

ENTREE #6

Remove one letter from a European country and rearrange to name the monetary units used by this country and a country that borders it. 

What are the two countries and the currency?

ENTREE #7

Change the last letter of a European country and rearrange to get a word that rhymes with the name of an adjoining country. 

What are the two countries and the rhyming word?

(Note: Entree #8 was composed by our friend Plantsmith, creator of the popular “Garden of Puzzley Delights” on Puzzleria!)

ENTREE #8

Anagram two country names to spell an adjective and noun. Put them one after the other to get something you would not like to have anytime soon. 

What are these two names? What would you not like to get?

Hint: Anagram either the two country names or the adjective and noun. The result is a different adjective and noun describing the graphic on the mug pictured above.

ENTREE #9

Name a six-word statistic regarding the U.S military that begins with four words, in 13 letters, that use only the five different letters in the name of a Southeast Asian nation. 

What is this nation?

What are the first four words of the statistic?

Hint #1: The remainder of the statistic that begins with those four words reads:

“... is enlisted. The ratio of enlisted soldiers to officers is roughly four-to-one.”

Hint #2: The seven missing letters in the graphic are an anagram of the Southeast Asian nation.

Dessert Menu

“Tri-Media” Dessert:

HorseSense & Sleighbells

Name the three-word title of:

~ a 1977 album and song, or

~ a1988 film, or

~ a 2012 book subtitled “You’re Not Lazy, You’re Burnt Out:...”

All three bear the same title. The 14 combined letters of these three words can be rearranged to spell the three words missing from the purple-framed section of the image pictured here. 

What is this three-word album/song, film and book title?

What are the three missing words in the image?

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.