Ecoarchitectural Syll-abuses; We're missing the link between Jaguar & Bee; A pain in the nook? “My DEar, thou art so Far away!” Bucky Butter, Toothy Cheeky; Would “living on borrowed time” be called “bromicide”?

PUZZLERIA! SLICES: OVER 6!π SERVED

Schpuzzle of the Week:

We’re missing the link between Jaguar & Bee

What is the sixth creature in this series? Explain why.

1. Abe (honest emancipatory creature);

2. Babe (cute crib creature); 

3. Boa (serpentine constricting creature); 

4. Bat (nocturnal ecolocating creature); 

5. Bee (buzzy apian creature);

6. 

7. Jag (short for “Jaguar,” a car named for a feline creature)

8. Ape (simian jungle creature)

9. Cob (“swanny” cygnine creature)

Hint: “bay (equine creature)” may be substituted for “Bee (buzzy apian creature)” as the fifth creature in the series. 

Appetizer Menu

Vowel Movements Appetizer:

Ecoarchitectural Syll-abuses

1. Take the single-word, two-syllable title of a well-known song from the early 1970’s. Change the vowel sound in the first syllable and the result will phonetically be the title of another well-known song released the same year. Change the vowel sound in the second syllable of that song and the result will phonetically be the first two syllables of the title of another well-known song released the year before.

The band for the first song, the lead guitarist/singer of the second, and the singer-songwriter of the third are all in the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame. And the consonant sounds in all three titles are the same.

2. Name a well-known fictional character of books, television, and movies.  

Change one vowel sound in the last name, and the result will be a former candidate for US President, who was also quite the character.  

Who are the two characters?

3. Name another well-known fictional character of books, television, and movies.  

Change both vowel sounds in the first name, and the result will be something they never used in their work. 

Who is the character, and what didn’t they use?

4. Change one vowel sound in the last name of a famous actress of the past and the result will be the last name of another actress.

Both actresses were contemporaries, born 31 days apart, both had their names added to the Hollywood Walk of Fame on the same day, and one won the “least cooperative actress” award the year after the other won the “most cooperative actress” award.

What are their names?

5. Take the first name of the main character from a famous 1970’s television comedy. Change both vowel sounds in their first name, and the result will be the first name of one of this character’s fictional co-workers.  

Who are the characters, and what is the show?

6. Change one vowel sound in the last name of another famous actor/actress of the past, and the result will be the name of a place in Asia. The first two letters of the person’s name, in reverse, are the last two letters of the place. And the last three letters of the place, in reverse, are the first three letters describing the type of place. Who is the actor/ actress, and what is the place?

7. Name something legal people might do when filing taxes. 

Change the two vowel sounds to name something illegal people might do when filing taxes.

8. Change a vowel sound in a certain animal and phonetically the result will be something people might put on that animal. 

What is the animal and what is that thing? 

9. Name something you might hear at the beginning of a sporting event. Change one vowel sound and the result will be something you might see at the beginning of a non-sporting event.  

What are the two items?

10. A famous sporting event’s name includes its location. Change the two vowel sounds in that location and the result will be a term for things that likely would never participate in that sporting event. What is the event, and what is the term?

11. Name an indigenous people’s tribe.  Change the vowel sound and phonetically the result will be another indigenous people’s tribe. What are the two tribes?

12. Change the vowel sound of a popular brand name found in the grocery store and the result will be another popular brand name of the same product, though a slightly variant pronunciation. What are the two brands? 

13. Name a tennis player from the past, first and last names.  

Change a vowel in the first name to the vowel two places earlier in the alphabet (e.g. “i” becomes “a”), and change a vowel in the last name to the vowel two places later in the alphabet, and the result will describe a healthy body organ. Who is the tennis player and what is the organ?

14. Name an adjective that might describe a tied game.  

Change one vowel sound and the result will be another adjective that might also describe a tied game.  

What are these two adjectives?

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Two Pair Beats One Pair Hors d’Oeuvre:

Would “living on borrowed time” be called “bromicide”? 

Who wrote the bromide  “Living on borrowed time”? The solution to this puzzle is not to answer that question. Instead, your objective is to explain the relationship between two pairs of words in the text of this puzzle. 

What are these two pairs of words and their relationship?

Note: In each word-pair, the two words need not be adjacent in the puzzle text.

Alphabetical Segments Slice:

“My DEar, thou art so Far away!” 

Take three consecutive letters of the alphabet. 

When the first two letters are the first two letters in a word, that word sounds as if it begins with the third letter. 

What are these three consecutive letters?

Riffing Off Shortz And Egan Wright Slices:

Bucky Butter, Toothy Cheeky

Will Shortz’s August 20th NPR Weekend Edition Sunday puzzle, created by Paula Egan Wright of Cheyenne, Wyoming, reads:

Name part of the human body above the neck
in nine letters. Rearrange them to name another part of the human body found below the neck. Only some people have the first body part. Everyone has the second one. What parts of the human body are these?

Puzzleria’s! Riffing Off Shortz And Egan Wright Slices read:

ENTREE #1

Take the full name of a puzzle-maker and that puzzle-maker’s hometown and its state. Rearrange the letters to spell four words found in the bible:

1. a synonym of “gaping” that appears in
Jeremiah and Psalms;

2. a word that is paired with, and rhymes with, “light” in a Gospel simile;

3. The singular form of a plural word for merchants who incurred the wrath of Jesus that appears in the Gospels of Matthew and John; and

4. a Hebrew Scriptures (Old Testament) word associated with leprosy and frogs.

What are these four words?

ENTREE #2

Name parts of human bodies above the neck in ten letters. Rearrange these letters to name another part of the human body found below the neck and a verb for what the human who
has this other body part might do to it if he is itchin’ for a fight. 

Only some people have the body parts above the neck. Everyone has the other one, but not all the time.

What parts of the human body are these?

ENTREE #3

Name part of the human body above the neck, in nine letters, that only some people have. Remove and anagram five consecutive interior letters to spell a verb for what this body part (unlike “stubble,” for instance) would not do were it to come into contact with soft, delicate skin.

The four remaining letters, in order, spell a synonym of “ridd,” “enig,” or “conund.”

What is this part of the body?

What would it not do were it to come into contact with soft, delicate skin?

What is the synonym of “ridd,” “enig,” or “conund”?

ENTREE #4

Name part of the human body, in ten letters, that is neither above nor below the neck. Rearrange them to name something a magician or card sharp might do using a body part below the neck. 

What parts of the human body are these – one neither above nor below the neck, the other below the neck?

What might a magician or card sharp do?

ENTREE #5

Name part of the human body above the neck, in eight letters, that might get a real workout if its owner were, for example, to ____ on ____ (especially if the word in the second blank is a
“chewing challenge”). The letters in the blanks are a rearrangement of the eight letters in the human body part.

What is this body part?

What are the words in the blanks?

ENTREE #6

Name part of the human body above the neck in ten letters. Only some people have this body part.

Anagram the letters to describe in a hyphenated term (of 5-letters-and-5 letters) a steamer ship headed for San Antonio.

These letters can also be anagrammed to spell 

1. a word for repetition that is heard, and 

2. a global capital city that sounds like a synonym of “carbon-copying” or “duplicating.”

What is this part of the human body?

What is the hyphenated description of a steamer ship headed for San Antonio?

What are the word for repetition that is heard and the capital city?

ENTREE #7

Name a large tubular and muscular part of the human body above the neck and below the neck, in nine letters. Rearrange them to name another large part of the human body – this one that is only below the neck, not also above the neck – and a synonym of “large.” 

Everyone has both body parts. 

What parts of the human body are these?

What is the synonym of “large”?

ENTREE #8

Name parts of human bodies below the neck, in eleven letters and three words. Rearrange these eleven letters to spell a noun defined as “a number of warships under a single command” and an adverb followed by an adjective that may describe this noun.

What are this adverb, adjective and noun?

What are the body parts?

Hint: Some fans of “Seinfeld” suggested that the character Elaine Benes possessed these body parts during one of the episodes.

ENTREE #9

Name part of the human body above the neck, in nine letters, that only some people have.

Rearrange the letters to form two words:

1. Essential, functional features of that body part, and

2. a slang term for a body part below the neck. 

What is this part of the human body that only some people have?

What are its essential functional features?

What is the slang term for the below-the-neck body part? 

ENTREE #10

Name parts of the human body above the neck that only some people have.

Rearrange these nine letters to spell:

1. the first name of a jazz singer and bandleader associated with the Cotton Club in Harlem,

2. an adjective associated with four Liverpudlian lads, and

3. a band regarded as progressive rock pioneers.

What are these body parts?

Who is the jazz singer?

What are the Liverpudlian adjective and progressive rock band?

Hint: Change one letter in the “parts of the human body” to name something that inevitably appears more than a bit below the neck of the “some people...” often settling in an anagram of the word “repaid.”

ENTREE #11

Name parts of the human body below the neck that everyone has, in nine letters. 

Rearrange those letters to name a royal trio who two millennia ago, according to some, touched those body parts to rural Bethlehem soil in genuflection.   

What parts of the human body are these?

Who is the royal trio?

ENTREE #12

Name parts of the human body above the neck, in nine letters, that most but not not all people have. Rearrange these letters to name:

* a discoloration of the skin in a somewhat lower part of the human body, but still above
the neck, and

* the surname of a pugilist who had inflicted his share of these discolorations during his lifetime. 

What parts of the human body are these?

What are the discolorations and the surname?

ENTREE #13

Name part of the human body below the neck, in two words and nine letters, that the great majority of people have.

Now take a kind of precipitation, in four letters, whose first and third letters are the first two letters of the first word in the body part. Replace those two letters with the second and fourth letters of the precipitation. Rearrange these nine letters (the seven original ones and two new ones) to spell two singular and similar words that are found above the neck, in the mouth – one in humans, the other in creatures.

What is the below-the-neck human body part?

What are the above-the-neck body parts?

Dessert Menu

“House of pain” Dessert:

A pain In the nook?

Name two places in a house.

The first is a general term for a place.

The second is a specific place.

When spoken together, these places sound like a word associated with pain in the body. 

What three words are these?

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.

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.

A passage athletic and prophetic; Otter in water, frog in a bog? Title’s the same, so is the name; “Quintuple Creature Feature!” Commonalities and categories; Here a “moo,” there a “moo,” everywhere a “muumuu!”

 PUZZLERIA! SLICES: OVER 6!π SERVED

Schpuzzle of the Week:

A passage athletic and prophetic

Take a twelve-word statement that the Bible ascribes to Jesus.

Replace the third and ninth words with words that rhyme with those respective words. (For example, the previous instructional sentence might read: “Replace the bird and ninth words with words cat rhyme with those respective words.”)

If you choose the correct rhyming words to substitute into the biblical passage, the result will be a “prophecy” regarding competition during the nine-day 2023 World Athletics Championships that begin tomorrow, August 19 in Budapest, Hungary.

This “prophecy,” more specifically, is a prediction about track & field events, which is what the World Athletics Championships are all about.

What is this twelve-word statement in the Bible?

What is this “prophecy”?

Note: The biblical source used in this puzzle is either the New Revised Standard Version or the New International Version.

Appetizer Menu

Unbeatable Conundrums Appetizer:

Commonalities and categories

“An In-Common Quintet”

1. Consider the following five words:

* Decapitation, 

* Petard, 

* Attorney, 

* Decision, 

* Examination.

What do they have in common? 

Can you name a sixth word with the same property?

“Categorical Thinking”

2. Name a category of a device, and a thing this

device uses. (For example: a printer uses ink.) 

Drop one letter and rearrange the result to get
a trademarked name for the device.

What are this device, what it uses, and the trademarked name for the device?

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Implementary Hors d’Oeuvre:

Otter in water, frog in a bog?

Delete the first letter of a two-word implement seen in the kitchen. 

Spoonerize the result to name a creature spotted in lakes and other wetlands. 

What are this implement and creature?

Coincidental Slice:

Title’s the same, so is the name

A 1960s novel and a 1970s TV series have the same title. 

The author of the novel and a leading actor in the TV series have the same surname. Name the author, the actor and the common title of the novel and TV series.

Hint: Other than the title and common surname, the novel and TV series are not related.

Riffing Off Shortz And Pitt Slices:

Here a “moo,” there a “moo,” everywhere a “muumuu!”

Will Shortz’s August 13th NPR Weekend Edition Sunday puzzle, created by Dan Pitt of Palo Alto, California , reads:

Name a famous contemporary singer (6,4). The second, fourth, sixth, eighth, and ninth letters, in order, spell a repeated part of a song that everyone knows. What is it?

Puzzleria!s Riffing Off Shortz And Pitt Slices read:

ENTREE #1

Take a noun, in fourteen letters, that means “sadness or displeasure caused by the nonfulfillment of one’s hopes or expectations.”

The first, fourth and ninth letters spell a puzzle-maker’s first name. The fifth, eighth, tenth and
fourteenth letters spell the last name.

Who is this puzzle-maker?

What is the “sad and unfulfilling” noun?

Note #1: The “downer of a noun” is no reflection on the puzzle-maker’s current NPR puzzle. It is a fine and dandy puzzle.

Note #2: You can also spell this puzzle-maker’s name by taking a verb, in twelve letters, that means “spoke or expressed opinions in a pompous or dogmatic way.” The twelfth, ninth and third letters spell the puzzle-maker’s first name. The first, fifth, fourth and tenth letters spell the last name. What is this verb?

ENTREE #2

Take the seven letters of a repeated part of a song that almost everyone knows. The letters also spell the title of the song. These seven letters, respectively, are the sixth, fifth, fifteenth, fourth, eleventh, first and eighth letters in a fifteen-letter noun associated with
this repeated part of this song.

What is the seven-letter repeated part of the song?

What is the fifteen-letter word associated with this seven-letter word?

Hint #1: An object seen in this coronation photograph of Queen Elizabeth is an anagram of the song title.

Hint #2: The fifteen-letter-long word is one of the “character” dimensions in Cloninger’s Temperament and Character Inventory, and is defined as “a personality trait that concerns how much a person is generally agreeable in their relations with other people as opposed to aggressively self-centered and hostile.” 

ENTREE #3

Name an eleven-letter adjective (other than “Escheresque”) that describes the artwork pictured here.

The second, third, ninth and tenth letters of that adjective, in order, spell a repeated part of a song that almost everyone knows. 

What is this song?

What is the adjective?

ENTREE #4

Take the five-letter title of a folk song often sung by children who gleefully spell out the letters in the lyrics. In the song, the title is the name of a pet. It is also the name of a sedentary game of chance often played in a group setting.

These five letters, in order, are the first, fifth, sixth, seventh and second letters of a less sedentary activity, a sport that requires skill as well as a ball.

What are the song title and game of chance?

What is the less sedentary activity?

ENTREE #5

The title of a somewhat “kinky” more-than-half-century-old song is spelled out, but only once, in its lyrics. Those lyrics also mention a drink that, though is tastes like a certain soft drink (also spelled out once in the lyrics), contains an intoxicant.

Spell a synonym of “intoxicant” backwards and remove the middle three letters to spell the song title.

 What is the song title?

ENTREE #6

The title of an acclaimed rock & roll song is spelled out four times in the lyrics of its chorus. Double its second letter. Move those double letters between two vowels at the end of the title to spell a creature.

The ninth, eighth, fourth, eighth, second and third letters of the songwriter’s name, in order, spell a synonym of this creature.

What is the song title?

What are the creature and its synonym?

Who is the songwriter and lead singer?

ENTREE #7

The first word in the two-word title of an acclaimed rock & roll song is spelled out, but only once, in a funky intro to the main body of the song. This word is associated with the Western Hemisphere.

Add two different vowels to this word, neither of which appears in the word. Rearrange the letters of this result to spell a word for an enthusiast, in ten letters, of a certain place in the Eastern Hemisphere.  

What is the song title?

What is the word for an enthusiast of the place in the Eastern Hemisphere?

ENTREE #8

The first word in the two-word title of a “bubblegummy” rock & roll song is spelled out four times in a shouted-chant-intro to the main body of the song.

Remove the eight letters of that word from a longer word associated with “good fat.” 

Rearrange the seven letters that remain to spell a synonym of “sumptuous” or “plush.” 

What is this song title?

What are the word associated with “good fat” and the synonym of “sumptuous” or “plush?”

What is this song title?

What are the “good-fat” and the “plush” words?

ENTREE #9

The one-word title of a country song is spelled out twice in the chorus as well as once in the
actual title!

Other words spelled out in the lyics of this song are “J-o-e,” “t-o-y,” “s-u-r-p-r-i-s-e” “c-u-s-t-o-d-y,” and “H-E-double-L.”

Anagram the title to spell a verb that means “to navigate a vehicle – or a project, marriage, et cetera – jointly with somebody else.”

What is this country song?

What is the verb? 

ENTREE #10

The first word (in six letters) of a two-word title of a song by a new wave/synth-pop band is spelled out twice in the lyrics of the song.

Add a “double- hockey-sticks” to the letters in this word and rearrange the result to spell an eight-letter adverb that describes how participants in the music video of the song are dancing.

What are the song and the adverb?

ENTREE #11

The two nouns that flank a preposition and article in the title of a four-word song are spelled out. (The second noun is an abbreviation.) The rustic image on the cover of the album that contains this song is a photograph of the song’s singer striking a pensive pose while leaning against a
fencepost on a farm or ranch.

Rearrange the combined seven letters in the two nouns, after adding two or three other letters, to spell:

* a synonym of  “cowboys” or “bronco busters” (after adding OB)

* a synonym of certain farm or ranch vehicles (after adding BBD)

* quantities of produce loaded up and transported from the farm to market (after adding LTD).

* the following missing word: “The __________ of the movie ‘The Waterboy’ features a hit single from the album on which this four-word song is also featured.” (after adding NDT). 

What are this song title and title of the album on which it appears?

What are the four words: the two synonyms, the quantities of produce, and the “missing movie word”?   

ENTREE #12

The one-word title of a popular hit song from the 1960s is spelled out once in the title and six times in the lyrics. The eight letters in the title are the first, fourth, third, eighth, ninth,
tenth, eleventh and twelfth letters in a synonym of “song.”

What is this song title?

What is the synonym of “song”?

Hint #1: Take the letters of the synonym of “song” that you did not use: the fifth, sixth, seventh (twice) and second, in that order, to spell the name of a contemporary female singer/rapper.  

Hint #2: The singer of the song, who also composed its lyrics, is the first woman ever to reach No. 1 on the Billboard Hot 100 record charts – a feat she accomplished with this recording, which is just one of her 53 career hit records.

ENTREE #13

Name a fourteen-letter adverb meaning “regretfully acknowledging fault or failure.” Its second, first, fourth, and third letters, followed by its eleventh, twelfth, eighth and fifth letters spell the two-word hometown of a puzzle-maker.

What is this adverb?

What is this hometown?

Who is the puzzle-maker?

Note: There is no reason for this NPR puzzlemaker to “regretfully acknowledge fault or failure” for the fine recent NPR puzzle he created.

Dessert Menu

Five-Alive Dessert:

“Quintuple Creature Feature!”

Some of the letters of (1.) a five-letter creature can be rearranged to spell:

(2.) a four-letter creature, or 

(3.) a three-letter creature, or 

(4.) a three-letter word that sounds like the
name of a fictional creature, 

(5.) or (using one of the letters twice) a three-letter creature. 

What are these five creatures?

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.

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.

Do the math, Pair and re-pair, Green means Stop! & three more; One dickens of a dumbfounder! Candy that’s dandy, but “dawdly” Frowning freely and fraternally; East & West twains meet in Merrie Olde England! “No, no, you can’t do that!” “These puzzles are making me thirsty!”

 PUZZLERIA! SLICES: OVER 6!π SERVED

Schpuzzle of the Week:

“These puzzles are making me thirsty!”

Name something you might grab during summer to get rid of thirst. 

Add two letters to the beginning and say the result aloud.

It will sound like something you might grab during summer to get rid of something else you don’t want. 

What two things might you grab to get rid of thirst and of something else you don’t want?

Appetizer Menu

“PrimO’clock” Appetizer:

Do the math, Pair and re-pair, Green Means “STOP!” & three more

Finding literary commonality

1. 📚What do these five classic works of literature have in common?

1. Don Quixote; 

2. The Swiss Family Robinson; 

3. Book of Numbers, Old Testament; 

4. A Midsummer Night’s Dream; 

5. Pinocchio 

Green means “STOP!”

2. 𝅘𝅥𝅮Phonetically speaking, what Irish city might a certain American country music singer want to avoid, and who is the singer? 

“Haven’t I heard your name before?”

3. 𝅘𝅥𝅯𝅘𝅥𝅰𝅘𝅥𝅱The last names of two performers are anagrams of one another.  

One starred in the original Broadway production of a popular musical, and the other one starred in the same role in the film version of the work.  

Who are they, and what role did they play?  

Do the math

4. − +  A. Take the seven-letter surname of a film star of the 20th Century.  

Subtract one letter to get a word for something that may be shot at. 

Subtract a second letter and rearrange to get a
word for what journalists often do. 

Subtract a third letter to get a tree. Subtract a fourth letter to get a food. Subtract a fifth letter to get another letter. 

Finally, subtract one of the remaining  letters to get a word that is a homophone for a body part. 

Who is the film star, and what are the six additional words?  

B. Take a two-word phrase for “man talk.” Add the two words together to get something you would not want to have directed at you.  

C. Take an award and add an animal to get a synonym for the award.  

D.  Take a word for something sweet you might spread on bread and add a word meaning repugnant, to get a word meaning lyrical.  

E.  Take a word for a restraint and add a perennial plant, to get a word for a kind of return.  

Pair and re-pair

5. 🐠Take a word for a kind of aquatic animal.  Add a letter to get a word for a kind of pen.  

Now take a word for a kind of music. Add a letter to get a kind of musical composition.

You now have four words comprising two pairs of homophones. 

What are they?  

Hint: all four words start with the same letter.

Anagrammatically correct verses

6. 🖋Fill in the blanks in the poem below with five words that are anagrams of one another. What are these five words?

The ______ seekers ______ as the sage

Seeks ______ to ______ each mortal soul,

His words, alas, despite his righteous rage,

Are merely ______, empty and unwhole. 

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A Bonus Riff Of Nodd’s App #4 Image:

“No, no, you can’t do that!”

Consider the image of the third-grade girl student in Nodd’s Appetizer #4 image. To what do the words on the chalkboard (ME minus THAT) and the words in her thought-bubble allude? 

Brit Lit Hors d’Oeuvre:

One Dickens of a dumbfounder!

Divide a Dickensian-type character into three equal parts. 

The third, second, first and second parts spell, in two words, where he might sleep. 

Who is this character? 

Where might he sleep?

Killin’ Cap’n Crunch! Slice:

Frowning freely and fraternally

Take an adjective associated with a fraternal organization. Spell it backward. 

The first three letters sound like a word the organization frowns upon. Change the vowel sound in that word. The whole backward word, spoken aloud, now sounds like the nickname of a serial killer – one the organization would also surely frown upon.

What is this adjective?

What word and serial killer would the organization frown upon?

Riffing Off Shortz And Schwartz Slices:

East & West twains meet in Merrie Olde England!

Will Shortz’s August 5th NPR Weekend Edition Sunday puzzle, created by Michael Schwartz of Florence, Oregon, reads:

Name something found on a map of England.
Two words. The last two letters of the first word are the same as the first two letters of the last.
If you go to England, you can’t see this place. You can see it only on a map. What is it?

Puzzleria!s Riffing Off Shortz And Schwartz Slices read:

ENTREE #1

Name, in two words, “an alcoholic solution of a distillate of the bark of a small tree or shrub used as a soothing and mildly astringent lotion.” Some claim that this solution may make vanish (or “vamoose”) maladies such as psoriasis, eczema, diaper rash, insect bite itches, poison ivy and razor burn .

Rearrange the combined letters of those two words and a synonym of “vamoose” to spell the name of a puzzle-maker.

Hint: There is a historic neighborhood 178 miles northeast of this puzzle-maker’s residence with the same name as the “solution used as a soothing lotion.” 

This neighborhood is in a city that is an anagram of “shrill boo!”

Who is this puzzle-maker?

What is the alcoholic solution used as a soothing and mildly astringent lotion?

What is the synonym of “vamoose”?

What is the city that is an anagram of “shrill boo!”?

ENTREE #2

You can see the “Boot of Italy” on a map of Italy, so-called because it is shaped like a boot. It is also known as the Italic Peninsula or by its Italian name, “Lo Stivale.” 

You could also perhaps see its boot-shape if you were orbiting the earth in a space capsule. But if you were actually to go and set foot on this peninsula, you will not be able to actually see this boot. You would be too close to the earth to have the proper perspective.

Name, however, another place in Europe, also associated with “footwear,” that you can see on a map of England and can also see if you visit it.

What is this place in England?

ENTREE #3

Name a town found on a map of Texas, and a city found on the map of Ohio. Two words, and one word.

The town’s name is associated with “campanology.”

Now take a second term associated with “campanology,” in one word.

Replace its first and fourth letters with a “C” and a “C”.  Then delete letters 9, 10, 11, 12, 15 and 16.

The result is the name of the Ohio city.

What are this town and city?

What is the second term associated with “campanology?”

ENTREE #4

Name a suburb of a “Down Under” city, in 13 letters.

The first eight letters spell something you weave and what you might use to weave it.

Letters 7, 8, 9 and 10 spell a novel by Herman Melville.

Letters 8, 9 and 10 spell a bovine synonym of the fourth, third and first letters.

Letters 11, 12 and 13 spell a word for an old card game that is also a British bathroom.

What is this suburb?

What do you weave and what do you use to weave it?

What is the Melville title?

What is the bovine synonym?

What is the card game/British bathroom?

ENTREE #5

Name a Turkish municipality known for its ancient archaeological ruins. The name of this municipality is also the name of a counterpart, and perhaps rival, of a superheroic blog persona adopted by the creator of the August 6th National Public Radio Puzzle. 

What is this Turkish municipality?

What is the blog persona adoped by the puzzle-maker?

Hint: An anagram of the Turkish municipality is a comic book publisher that is a rival to the two-letter publisher that publishes the superheroic exploits of our puzzle-maker’s superheroic persona as well as those of his rival.

ENTREE #6

Name a pair of singular synonyms, in five and four letters, found in one eight-letter city on a map of Minnesota. The last letter of one synonym serves as the first letter of the other.

Some residents of neighboring rival cities
might claim good-naturedly that, if you go to this city, you can’t see either of these synonyms. You can see them only on a map.

What is this city on the Minnesota map?

What are the two synonyms?

ENTREE #7

Name a quite populous city found on a map of Asia, in one word. 

Move the last letter, followed by an apostrophe, to the front. 

Then move the new last letter into the third position.

Then move the new last letter into the fourth position.

Add two spaces in two places.

The result is something Red Skelton might have been telling himself while portraying the character “Freddie the Freeloader.”

What is this Asian city?

What might Red Skelton have been telling himself?

ENTREE #8

Name a quite populous city found on a map of Europe. One word, two different vowels.

Change the vowel that is later in the alphabet to the earlier-in-the-alphabet vowel in the city.

Rearrange the letters. Uppercase half of them.
Add a space.

The result is what you might do if you’re looking to speed up your poky computer. 

What is this city?

What might you do to “de-pokify” your computer?

ENTREE #9

Name a quite populous city found on a map of Asia, in one word. 

Anagram the letters to form a variant spelling (substituting an “s” for a “z”) of a common thrush of Eurasia and northern Africa having an orange bill and black plumage.

Anagram the letters of this bird to spell a small, flat, wingless insect.

What is this city?

What are the common thrush and wingless insect?

ENTREE #10

Name a quite populous city found on a map of North America, in one word. 

Remove the last two letters and reverse their order to form a standard abbreviation of a word seen in this puzzle text.

The remaining letters can be anagrammed to spell an antonym of that word.

What is this city?

What are the abbreviation and the antonym?

ENTREE #11

Rearrange the letters in an abbreviation you could see on past maps of the Eastern Hemisphere for about 35 years, followed by the two-letter postal abbreviation of a U.S. state. The result is a word you can still see on current  maps of the Eastern Hemisphere. (Past maps added an “n” to the end of this word, thereby changing a noun to an adjective.)

What are this former abbreviation and U.S. state postal abbreviation?

What is the word you can still see on current  maps of the Eastern Hemisphere?

ENTREE #12

Name a word found on a map of Outer Space. Place a duplicate of its first letter at the end. 

Reverse the order of the first two letters and place a space after them.

Insert two words within that space:

1. a common article, and 

2. a noun that is used as a synonym for only one of the nine planets in our solar system: Mercury, Venus, Earth, Mars, Jupiter, Saturn, Uranus, Neptune and Pluto, the “dwarfy” planet.

The result is the title of a quite long-running television show.

What is the word found on a map of Outer Space?

What is the title of the quite long-running television show?

Dessert Menu

“No Sugar Tonight In My Coffee” Dessert:

Candy is dandy... but relatively “dawdly”

Slice a piece of candy into two pieces. 

The first piece sounds like a beverage. 

The second piece is something one might add to that beverage. 

What are this candy, beverage, and what one might add to the beverage?

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.

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.