“Sign on the dotted ‘lane’ ” Purloining letters from literature? Talk the talk, squawk the squawk; Write no wrong words in the rungs; In movie roles, Mercedes & Janice Ruhle & Rule!

PUZZLERIA! SLICES: OVER 6!π SERVED

Schpuzzle of the Week:

“Sign on the dotted ‘lane’ ”

Take a word seen on a traffic sign. 

Double the second letter and double the last letter. 

Rearrange the result to form a word that describes drivers obeying the sign. 

What are these two words?

Appetizer Menu

Note: Puzzleria! this week presents for your solving enjoyment the debut of cleverly crafted creativity by a guest puzzle-maker named “Rudolfo.” Enjoy!

Five-Step Ladder Appetizer:

Write no wrong words in the rungs 

Here is a little chicken-oriented word ladder with a special condition: going down the ladder, one letter changes at a step ... with the changes taking place in the first letter of the first word below PLUCK, then the second letter of the second word, and so on to the fifth and final word CHEE*.  Here the stars “*” show the letter changes.  

All the words are fairly common ones.

    

 P L U C K

    * _ _ _ _

    _ * _ _ _

    _ _ * _ _

    _ _ _ * _

    C H E E *

MENU

Reading Room Slice:

Purloining letters from literature?

Remove a number of consecutive letters from something people read. 

The letters that remain spell a U.S. state. 

Add a diminutive suffix to the end of the letters you removed to spell something else people read. 

What two things do people read?

What is the U.S. state?

Riffing Off Shortz And Nash-Resnick Slices:

In movie roles, Mercedes & Janice Ruhle & Rule!

Will Shortz’s October 17th NPR Weekend Edition Sunday puzzle, created by Abe Nash-Resnick of Los Angeles, California, reads:

Name a famous actress, in eight and six letters. Change the next-to-last letter of her first name to an “s”. Then reverse the order of the last three letters, and you’ll name a famous ruler. The actress’s last name is an anagram of where you would find this ruler. Who are the actress and the ruler?

Puzzleria!s Riffing Off Shortz And Nash-Resnick Slices read:

ENTREE #1

Take the surname of a 19th Century German poet and journalist after whom a 20th Century European express train was named. 

Take places on that train, in two English words, where you can order kartoffelpuffers, quarkbällchen, zwiebelkuchen, buttered bayerische breze with tilset cheese or currywurst with a side of French fries.

Anagram the combined letters of that surname and the places on the train to name a puzzle-maker.

Who is this puzzle-maker?

What are the places on the train and the name of German poet?

ENTREE #2

Note: Entree #2, this second riff-off of the NPR puzzle, was composed by our friend GB, whose “GB’s Bafflers” feature appears regularly on Puzzleria! 

Name a famous actor with five letters in both his first name and his last name.  

Drop one letter from the first name. The remaining letters, in order, spell a creature.  

Duplicate one letter in his last name and
rearrange. The result is another creature.  

Who is the actor and what are the creatures?  

ENTREE #3

Name a past British actor, playwright and composer, in four and six letters.

Reverse the order of letters in his first name. Place, in front of these letters, four other letters that can be anagrammed to spell the French word for a male peacock. The result is the first name of a French military and political leader.

This first name is shared by a porcine character in a British author’s 1945 novella. The British actor’s surname is a noun that describes this character.

Now anagram the letters of the military leader’s surname to form a three-word phrase of 1, 4 and 4 letters that describes endosteum or periosteum.

Take another word, of 6 letters, that this three-word phrase describes. Invert its first letter and
divide the result in half to form a word associated with the military leader (and, actually, with any military leader) and a “smaller-scale” synonym of that word. 

Who is this actor/playwright?

Who is this French military and political leader?

Who is the character who shares the military leader’s first name, and what is the novella?

What is the three-word phrase that describes endosteum or periosteum?

What other word does that phrase describe?

What are the word associated with the military leader and the synonym of that word?

ENTREE #4

Jacob, with the assistance of his mother Rebekah, fooled his father Isaac into giving him the birthright and blessing intended for ___ brother ____. Subsequently, Jacob embarked on a journey to the city of Harran. 

On the way, during an overnight dream, visions danced in his head – visions of God’s angels descending and ascending a ladder in the sky. 

Jacob awoke in awe, exclaiming, “This is the house of God, the gate of heaven!” Thus he dubbed the place ______, which means “House of God.”

The three blanks above contain a pronoun and two proper nouns containing 3, 4 and 6 letters. Anagram those 13 letters to name a famous actress, in nine and four letters. 

Who is the actress?

What are the three words in the blanks?

ENTREE #5

Name a famous actress whose first and last names total ten letters. 

The first two and last three letters of her name spell the first name of an actor, singer, songwriter and activist. 

The fourth, fifth and sixth letters of the actress’s name, spelled backward, are the first three letters of the actor’s surname.

Who are this actress and actor?

ENTREE #6

Name a famous actress, first and last names, in four and seven letters. Change the seventh letter of her name to an “c” and move it into the fifth position.

Move the first two letters of this result so that they become the fifth and sixth letters. 

Divide the result into four and seven letters to form an adjective and a person in a profession. 

Alas, this result is, more often than not, oxymoronic and incongruous.

Who is this actress?

What is the often-oxymoronic-and-incongruous two-word expression?

ENTREE #7

Name a famous actress, in five and six letters, whose first name is an informal pejorative term. 

The possessive form of her surname sounds like a six-letter term associated with Elon Musk. 

Who is this actress and what is the term associated with Musk?

ENTREE #8

Name a famous actress, in three and six letters. Her first name, when put in ALL-CAPS, is also a 75-year-old acronym related to the military. 

The first half of her surname, when its letters are reversed and put in ALL-CAPS, is a 103-year-old British institution related to the military, which is also an acronym. 

If you replace the first letter of her surname with its last letter, the first three letters of the result spell a lowercase third word related to the military. 

Who is this actress?

What are the three words related to the military?

ENTREE #9

Name a famous actress, in five and five letters, who had a reputation for being mysterious, classy – and anything but “trashy.” 

However, you can anagram the ten letters in her name to spell a synonym of trash and a word related to that synonym.

Who is this actress?

What are the synonym of trash and the related word?

Dessert Menu

American Historical Dessert:

Talk the talk, squawk the squawk

Name a notable figure in American history, first and last names, who was known as a statesman and orator. 

Remove from this name three consecutive letters. The letters that remain name an animal and something such animals do. 

Who is this figure?

Hint: Rearrange the removed letters to spell a synonym of “squawk” that often accompanies what the animals do.

Every Friday 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.

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