Friday, September 5, 2014

Septyllabification; POOCHTUS; The Scarlet Serpent


























Welcome to Joseph Young’s Puzzle –ria! It’s Friday, time for a fanfare.
Fridays and Fanfares just seem to go together. A fanfare is like a brassy blare heralding the weekend.

A fanfare, according to my Merriam Webster’s Collegiate Dictionary 10th Edition, is a “showy outward display” or “a short and lively sounding of trumpets.” The root is the French “fanfarron,” meaning braggart. The English word “fanfaronade” means empty boasting.

(Prefab fanfare: There were many a fan of Faron Young {no relation to Joseph Young, I don’t think}. Faron, a bonny lad from Shreveport who was also known as the “Hillbilly Heartthrob” and “Singing Sheriff,” was one day older than Johnny Cash.)


I was going to use the word “fanfare” in the title of this week’s Easy As Pie Slice because that puzzle uses words that echo fanfare, like find, France, fins, fancier, fine and financial. But because the puzzle’s answer has seven syllables, I opted instead to go with “Septyllabification,” which echoes “September,” the seventh… oops, I mean ninth month, on this September the Fifth.
 
I don’t like to boast (That’s a lie; I actually enjoy boasting. It’s bee-stings I don’t like.), but I predict that, Puzzleria-wise!, this September will be a month to remember. Now, if I could only remember if today is the fifth of the seventh or ninth month…

But enough of this folderol and fanfare. ’Tis high time we fan the flaring fires of our puzzle ovens and bake up some slices, which this week involve a world leader, a dog breed that is not a Samoyed, and a supremely, serpentinely challenging (we hope) alphabetical array.

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Easy As Pie Slice:
Septyllabification

Piece answers to the following four clues together in the proper order to form seven syllables that are, or sound like, the first and last names of a national head of state: 1. You’ll find it in the middle of France, 2. Twenty fins, 3. A fancier of fine shiny stones! 4. Financial bottom line. 

Who is this national leader? (Hint: The leader’s nickname sounds like a type of gun.)


Dogmatic Slice:
POOCHTUS

Name a generic dog breed, in two words. Reverse the words, insert four letters between them, and divide the result to form a two-word expression coined by a U.S. president. What are this dog breed and the expression?

Hint: One of the words in the expression can be altered slightly (that is, two consecutive letters are flip-flopped and the result is bisected) to form a collective description of “Biscuit Goes to School,” “Gizmo,” “Bad Dog Marley!” “Amelia Bedilia,” and Where’s Spot?” etc. 



Specialty Of The House Slice:
The Scarlet Serpent

In the alphabetical array pictured below explain the distinction shared by the 14 letters in red that “slither” snake-like in the green grass around the two rocky blue blocks of letters.









Every Friday at Joseph Young’s Puzzle -ria! 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 Tuesdays to post your answers and explain your hints about the puzzles. We plan to 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 puzzle-loving and challenge-welcoming friends about Joseph Young’s Puzzle -ria! Thank you.

38 comments:

  1. I have an interesting connection to the EAPS. More next Tuesday.

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  2. There is also a connection between the EAP and D Ss.

    ReplyDelete
  3. What seems to me like the perfectly natural, almost obvious answer to the Dogmatic Slice suddenly crumbles when I attempt to reconcile it with the hint. Is there an enormous red herring here, or am I just dull-witted?

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    Replies
    1. Paul,

      Use this cipher, with the two-word dog breed as the secret key:

      Jqy "rpxbyc" jcmf av "kongk bkujko" omd ky tzmdhjhizp fe oith "Bgf Ucv." Vxx jqy djawi ucuoqp, Y kyndqhu, jlg vnakc jwkbuub.

      Remember, the “subtraction” operation button must be activated. (I didn’t know that. I am new to such ciphers.)

      Lego…

      Delete
    2. Paul, I made some sense of the hint. Take the middle 2 letters of the added 4 letters and the first letter of the dog breed to get the start of the collective description.

      Delete
    3. My mistake. The 'rearrangement' aspect was in my 'blind spot', apparently.

      Delete
    4. Paul,
      Actually, the wording in my hint was less than precise. Your confusion is understandable; thanks for pointing it out. I have edited the hint to make it a bit more clear, I hope.
      Lego...

      Delete
    5. Very kind of you, Lego, but I think the ball actually went right between my legs and into left field. So to speak.

      Delete
    6. Paul,
      ...which reminds me, we haven't served up a Sporty Slice for a while.
      LegoInBetweenHop

      Delete
  4. I believe I've figured out SOTHS. I first thought I had it, then I thought, "Oops! L is blue. Hey, legolambda, are you sure that L isn't supposed to be red?" Now, I think I DO have the right idea. It's sorta like, suppose it had something to do with the books of the bible. (It doesn't, but I'm using a hypothetical example.) You at first think you've found it as your "rule" works with Genesis, Exodus, Leviticus, Numbers, Deuteronomy, Joshua, Judges, Ruth, 1st & 2nd Samuel,.... but then, it fails with 1st Kings! Well the rule only applied up to as far as 2nd Samuel! There has to be some limit to your "rule", or else A, B, C, D, M, Y, and some might argue Z as well would all be red!

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    Replies
    1. Oh, I left out a letter! Who can guess the one letter I left out?

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    2. ...Besides L, of course!

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    3. Ok, the last sentence in my first post should have read, "There has to be some limit to you 'rule', or else A, B, C, D, L, M, Y, two other letters as well, and some might argue Z as well would all be red!"

      Now who can guess those two other letters?

      Delete
    4. Enya_and_Weird_Al_fan,

      Congrats on the solve. I believe this to be one of my tougher slices thus far.

      Yes, my choosing up sides for the “battle of the blue and red” was arbitrary all right. I based my limit on our old buddy from an early Puzzleria! puzzle slice, Al Kaline, baseball legend.

      As for the next letter to “switch from Democrat to Republican,” “L”, of course, is a prime candidate, but one might also make an argument for “Z”.

      (Any “elegance” this SOTHS puzzle possesses rests in the “array-gement,” really.)

      LegoWayTo Go!

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    5. Ryvi myg, grkd'c dro Ukvsxo myxxomdsyx!?

      Delete
    6. Paul,
      I would be able to read your comment if it were a car and I had keyless entry. But it isn't and I don't so I can't. But I want to.
      LegoKeyless And Clueless

      Delete
    7. Sorry. Lego, rotten trick on my part.

      Delete
    8. But you DID have keyless entry -- the capital 'U"!

      Delete
  5. I believe I've solved the others as well, but I have a serious question about one of the clues in EAPS. To avoid giving anything away, I've used the same cipher that you used above to encode my concern.

    For my encryption key, I've used the first and last names of the national head of state:

    Vms yor lzij nios ewzus'h wbxn gssmf wr ochdjf diens. W ybpifib ojfh gphur pj "qpazo" wm "ljkomra", piy bpk ht qo uzdzpfnr ht mpime tdmj ssuunf "mfbpc" ns "pjq-dor"?

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    Replies
    1. K iwno’g cvwse J kzt opnqwlmr, NoKFz, cis nitdj W kn. Odh ttl b gddwif yvosr R hvtohvs zwp yjfo uehwbl np dtmt v ubwpu bws cs gf.

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    2. K *boc* dbwgwiyswmh xjuywxh n "wsjjl nwme" wiej W rbq ocisx ihsqa://zp.bwujcnrwf.isu/vjsd/Afvyp_(Tdzznpff%27r_Uzvxjzc)

      Delete
  6. Try entering the blue letters in a Google search.

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  7. Well, David, this is what I get when I enter "A, B, C, D, J, K, L, M, P, Q, Y, Z" in Google's search box and hit the search icon; and this is what I get when I enter "How are the letters A, B, C, D, J, K, L, M, P, Q, Y, and Z different from the other letters?" in Google's search box and hit the search icon.

    Boy, am I glad I already figured out SOTHS on my own! I don't see any of those results hinting at the correct answer at all!

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    Replies
    1. Looks like all animals are created googly, but some are googlier than others.

      Delete
  8. http://shawnthefang.tumblr.com/page/10 (Towards the bottom of the page.)

    Sorry I don't know how to link. I googled "abcdjklmpqyz", no commas, no spaces. There were only 2 results, both basically the same.

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  9. EAPS:
    BENJAMIN NETANYAHU “BIBI” = BB GUN.
    Middle of France = AN
    Twenty fin = $100 = a “Benjamin”
    Financial bottom line = NET
    Fancier of shiny stones = ? (YAHU)

    DS:
    PIT BULL = BULLY PULPIT (Coined by Theodore Roosevelt) PUP LIT. (puppy literature)

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  10. From Wikipedia:

    "A Yahoo is a legendary being in the novel Gulliver's Travels (1726) by Jonathan Swift.

    Swift describes them as being filthy and with unpleasant habits, resembling human beings far too closely for the liking of protagonist Lemuel Gulliver, who finds the calm and rational society of intelligent horses, the Houyhnhnms, greatly preferable. The Yahoos are primitive creatures obsessed with "pretty stones" they find by digging in mud, thus representing the distasteful materialism and ignorant elitism Swift encountered in Britain. Hence the term "yahoo" has come to mean "a crude, brutish or obscenely coarse person"."

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  11. Comments on my comments above.

    1. Benjamin Netanyahu graduated from my high school (2 years ahead of me). I have no recollection of him from back then.

    2. The connection between the EAP and D Ss. EAP wrote "The Pit and the Pendulum."

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  12. David,
    Good work, ron and David,
    Edgar Allen Poe, Easy As Pie... I like it.
    Regarding your secondary school brush with Benjamin Netanyahu: Do I recsll correctly that Golda Meir was educated in Milwaukee?Have any of our presidents been educated at Hebrew uUniversity of Jerusalem (HULJI) or at Ben-Gurion University of the Negev (BGU)?

    For the record:
    Puzzleria! answers:

    Easy As Pie Slice:
    Septyllabification
    Piece answers to the following four clues together in the proper order to form seven syllables that are, or sound like, the first and last names of a national head of state: 1. You’ll find it in the middle of France, 2. Twenty fins, 3. A fancier of fine shiny stones! 4. Financial bottom line.
    Who is this national leader? (Hint: The leader’s nickname sounds like a type of gun.)
    Answer:
    1. The letters AN are in the middle of “FrANce.”
    2. 20 x $5 = $100 = a “Benjamin” (Franklin, who appears on the hundred dollar bill)
    3. In Jonathan Swift’s “Gulliver’s Travels,” Yahoos are fascinated by shiny stones.
    4. The “line” at the “bottom” of a financial report shows the “net” profit or loss.
    The order of the answers is 2-4-1-3 = Benjamin net-an-Yahoo = Benjamin Netanyahu, current Israeli prime minister. His nickname, Bibi, sound like BB, as in BB gun.

    Dogmatic Slice:
    POOCHTUS
    Name a generic dog breed, in two words. Reverse the words, insert four letters between them, and divide the result to form a two-word expression coined by a U.S. president. What are this dog breed and the expression.
    Hint: One of the words in the expression can be altered slightly (that is, two consecutive letters are flip-flopped and the result is bisected) to form a collective description of “Biscuit Goes to School,” “Gizmo,” “Bad Dog Marley!” “Amelia Bedilia,” and Where’s Spot?” etc.
    Answer:
    Dog breed = Pit Bull
    Presidential expression = Bully Pulpit
    Hint: “Pulpit” can be altered to form “Pup Lit.” The books listed are stories about puppies.

    Specialty Of The House Slice:
    The Scarlet Serpent
    In the alphabetical array pictured below explain the distinction shared by the 14 letters in red that “slither” snake-like in the green grass around the two rocky blue blocks of letters.
    Answer:
    The blue letters do not appear in the integers, spelled out, from 1 to 10. All the red letters do.

    In my Sept. 6, 11:46 PM comment to Enya_and_Weird_Al_fan, I wrote:

    "Yes, my choosing up sides for the “battle of the blue and red” was arbitrary all right. I based my limit on our old buddy from an early Puzzleria! puzzle slice, Al Kaline, baseball legend. "

    In other words, I confined my numbers to the integers from 1 to 10. Our "old buddy" is Al Kaline = alkaline = has a pH greater than 7 = it is our "base" (ten)

    LegoAcidic

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  13. I'd forgotten about Kaline's 10 pinch hits. He won 10 Gold Gloves, but his uniform number was 6. Phil Rizzuto's uniform number was ten, and he had a career fielding average of .968.

    I think if you guess 'Ukvsxo' means 'Kaline' and then try to reverse-engineer a Vigenere key to my cryptic comment, you'll get 'J' (or Jjjjjj, or whatever -- like I said, a rot-10 trick).

    When I Googled 'efghinorstuvwx', I got 4 results; this was the one in English:
    [Convert 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, and 9 to "one", "two", "three", etc
    codegolf.stackexchange.com/.../convert-1-2-3-4-5-6-7-8...
    Stack Exchange
    It occurred to me that the string one two three four five six seven eight nine contains only the letters efghinorstuvwx and a space separator - 15 character values ...]

    I think Google tailors the search results to the individual user, so you might get something different.

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    Replies
    1. I no longer use Google, but only this search engine: DuckDuckGo!

      Read about it here: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/DuckDuckGo

      Then go to it here: https://duckduckgo.com/

      This search engine, unlike Google, won’t profile you or track your searches, so you will receive the same results of a specific search as everyone else making the same search, whereas Google adjusts your searches to your profile. Each person receives different results of the same search according to each person’s profile using Google.

      Try it out.

      Delete
  14. I am reading Merde, a funny tome about FrANce. That's as close as I got this week.

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  15. Since we're all revealing our answers, here's the info about all the other letters that would turn red if legolambda had not limited his numerical names to the numbers 1 through 10.

    My conclusion at the end, "and some might argue Z as well would all be red!", refers to zero.

    My first reference to a blue letter I had thought at first should be red; of course L is in eleven.

    Y will show up in twenty, D in one-hundred, A in one-thousand, M in one-million, B in one-billion and C in one-octillion.

    And what are the two other letters?

    Q occurs in one-quadrillion and P in one-septillion!

    So J and K are the only letters to never show up in any of the names of the numbers?

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