Acro-Orca-Metro-Video-Puzzles! Feline fish? Piscine pussycat? “Nothing is Young under the sun” Changing sea water into red wine? Big screen larger-than-life actor becomes even larger! Turning this “couplet of claptrap” into a “legitimate limerick”

PUZZLERIA! SLICES: OVER 5πe² SERVED

Schpuzzle of the Week:

Turning this “couplet of claptrap” into a “legitimate limerick” 

Translate the following “couplet of claptrap” into the initial two lines of an original limerick:

“Three saw cone a name leaf no a god,

Eon sit stream matted-pet to golf...”

And, for “Extra Creative Credit...”

Try completing the limerick!

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Conundrumbstriking Appetizer:

Acro-Orca-Metro-Video-Puzzles!

Acronymic

1. 🥇OSSTU, CEFIU, and ACNRS could be well-known acronyms except that each string of letters is out of order and each one has had a letter removed. 

All missing letters can be found in the word ACRONYM, itself. 

To discover each acronym, first restore a string’s missing letter and then rearrange the result. What are these three acronyms?

Metropolitan

2. 🏙🌆There is a small (pop. 100,000 or less) but well-known, affluent city with a two-word name. 

The first word can be rearranged to name a gemstone. 

The second word, without rearranging, names
a kind of singer. 

What’s the city, gemstone, kind of singer?

Palindromic

3. 🐫🐪Think of a palindromic four-digit whole number – that is, one that reads the same forwards and backwards. 

Convert it to Roman numerals. Print it out in capital letters with the first two numerals turned upside-down. The result is a common abbreviation virtually everyone knows. 

What’s the four-digit number? What does the abbreviation stand for?

“Audio-vidual”

4. 📺Think of a TV series popular in the late 50s and early 60s. 

A character featured in the show was also featured in a Top Ten hit song.

 And if you change one letter in the character’s nickname, you’ll find a treat. 

Who’s the character? What’s the song? What’s the treat?

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Biblically Proportioned Hors d’Oeuvre:

Changing sea water into red wine?

Take a word for “the parting of the Red Sea” or “the changing of water into wine.” 

Spell it in reverse and insert a space. 

The result is an abbreviation for a biblical book and a creature in that book. What are this word, biblical book and creature?

Violent Detestable Moronic Slice:

Feline fish? Piscine pussycat?

Take a two-word term for a violent and detestable offense. 

Rearrange these twelve combined letters to
form an oxymoronic two-word term, like “canine cat” or “feline dog.” 

What are these four words?

Riffing Off Shortz And Young Slices:

“Nothing is Young under the sun”

Will Shortz’s January 21st NPR Weekend Edition Sunday puzzle, created by Joseph Young, who conducts the blog “Puzzleria!”, reads: 

Think of a familiar saying in seven words. The initial letters of the first three words in order spell a type of container. And the initials of the last four words in order spell something edible that might be found in this container. What’s the saying?

Puzzleria!s Riffing Off Shortz And Young Slices read:

ENTREE #1

Name a puzzle-maker who strives to foster in all of you faithful puzzle-solvers the “joy of solving enigmatic posers, happiness you obtain utilizing natural genius.”

Who is this puzzle-maker?

Note: Entree #2 is a riff contributed by Michigander Peter Collins whose puzzles have appeared often on NPR’s Weekend Edition Sunday. 

ENTREE #2

Think of a familiar saying in six words. The initial letters of the first three words in order spell a kind of container. 

And the initials of the last three words in order spell a kind of cover. 

These two three-letter words, taken together but divided by a space, form a 121-year old term for a metal helmet. 

What’s the saying?

Note: Entrees #3, #4 and #5 are riffs created by Greg VanMechelen (Ecoarchitect), whose “Econfusions” feature appears regularly on Puzzleria! Entree #3 is a riff of this week’s edible-in-a-container NPR challenge; Entrees #4 and #5 are riffs of the on-air NPR puzzle in which the guest had to solve for proper names that started and ended with the same two or three letters in the same order.

ENTREE #3

Think of a “Big Bang Theory” character. 

What Shakespearean play would logically be his or her favorite?

Who is this “Big Bang Theory” character?

What is the Shakespearean play?  

ENTREE #4

Name “a writer at the heart of cruelty” whose surname starts and ends with the same two letters in the same order.

ENTREE #5

Name a famous person whose surname starts
and ends with the same three letters in the same order.

Note: Entrees #6 through #10 are NPR puzzle riffs created by our friend Nodd, whose “Nodd ready for prime time” puzzles are featured regularly on Puzzleria!

ENTREE #6 

Think of a familiar saying in four words. The initial letters of the words, in order, spell a verb describing an imperfect pronunciation of certain sounds in English. (This verb may be more often used in the UK than in the US.)  

What is the saying, and what is the verb?

ENTREE #7 

Think of a familiar saying in three words that is also the title of a 2021 song by a European singer. The initial letters of the words, in order,
spell a word describing a small amount of a kind of beverage, the partaking of which may be an illustration of the truth of the saying.  What is the saying, and what is the word?

ENTREE #8

Think of a familiar saying in eight words. The initial letters of the words can be rearranged to
spell a kind of food and a kind of person who might particularly enjoy eating it.  What is the saying, and what are the food and the person?

ENTREE #9

Think of a familiar saying in six words. The initial letters of the words can be rearranged to spell a kind of food container and a substance that the food inside might contain.  

What is the saying, and what are the container and the substance?

ENTREE #10

Think of a familiar saying in seven words. The initial letters of the words can be rearranged to
spell a two-word phrase for something associated with a country in Asia that involves a kind of beverage.  

What are the saying and the phrase?

Note: The following riffs – Entrees 11, 12 and 13 – were created by our friend Tortitude, whose “Tortie’s Slow But Sure Puzzles” feature appears regularly on Puzzleria!

ENTREE #11

Name a well-known British actor of the twentieth century. His last name is the first word of a two-word container. Take the first two letters and last letter of his first name. Change the last letter to the letter before it in the alphabet. You’ll have the second word of the container. Take the first three letters of his first name to name something that may be found within the container. 

Who is the actor? What is the container? What item may be found within the container? 

ENTREE #12

Think of a familiar phrase in six words that an unhappy customer of a dating site might utter. Take the initial letters of those words. Now pretend that the customer actually found a good match. 

The first two letters of the six-letter initials spell a kind of symbol that might be used in the correspondence between the two romantic partners. The last four letters show an acronym that might be used when one significant other describes the other. 

What is the initial phrase? What is the symbol used in correspondence? What is the acronym used by the romantic partners? 

ENTREE #13

Think of a familiar saying in six words. The fourth word is a thing visible on the first word. The fifth word is a collective term for the first word. 

Place the fourth word before the initial letters of the first three words in order. You’ll have a
type of apparel.

What is the phrase? What is the apparel? 

ENTREE #14

Literary historians reportedly have unearthed an early folio of Shakespeare’s “Hamlet” – one with text that differs slightly from the “generally accepted canonical” version. For example, in the  unearthed-folio version of Act I, Scene 4, the sentry Marcellus remarks to Horatio, Prince Hamlet’s closest friend and most trusted confidant, “Something is rotten in the state of Denmark... death. Sir, it’s odd!”

The generally accepted canonical” version of the play omits the words that follow the triple-dotted ellipsis: “death” and “Sir, it’s odd!”

The word “death” in the early folio is an obvious allusion to the fratricide of King Hamlet committed by Prince Hamlet’s Uncle Claudius, whereas “Sir, it’s odd!” follows naturally from “Something is rotten in the state of Denmark... death.”

Explain how “Sir, it’s odd!” follows naturally from “Something is rotten in the state of Denmark... death.”

ENTREE #15

The sign on the church door read, simply, “This door...”

Below that, in much smaller print, were the somewhat cryptic words:

Vanity? Yonder Creator, Furious? Sunset? Handshake!

Those eight words on the church door pose a puzzle that will help you find eight other words that are more apropos of a house of worship.

Think of the words “This door” as the key that can unlock the meaning of the six, more cryptic, words beneath them.

Rearrange the combined letters in “Vanity,” “Sunset” and “Handshake” to spell four words (one of them apostrophized) that begin with T, H, I and S.

Then rearrange the combined letters in “Yonder,” “Creator” and “Furious” to spell four words that begin with the letters D, O, O and R.

Place a comma between this pair of four-word clauses to spell the sentiment apropos of a house of worship.

What is this eight-word sentiment?

Note: The following Entree is a riff created jointly by valued Puzzleria! contributor Greg VanMechelen and Joseph Young.

ENTREE #16

Take an acronym and two words:

AFTA: an acronym of the ASEAN Free Trade Area, an agreement established by the Association of SouthEast Asian Nations (another acronym, ASEAN!) member countries to promote economic integration and regional cooperation within Southeast Asia.

TSAR: an emperor, specifically the ruler of Russia until the 1917 revolution; or, generally, one having great power or authority.

TOMATO: a large, rounded, edible, pulpy berry of an herb of the nightshade family native to South America that is typically red but may be yellow, orange, green, or purplish in color.

AFTA are the initials of a novel title. 

TSAR are the initials of a novel title.

TOMATO, if you replace the last word of a novel title with a synonym, are the initials of that altered novel title.

All three novels are penned by the same author.

Who is the author?

What are the three titles?

ENTREE #17

In the 1974 movie movie “Harry And Tonto,” Art Carney, who won the Best Actor Oscar, wears a HAT in practically every scene.

Name the following film titles:

1. a 1980s Best Picture Oscar winner in which
Cleveland Browns place-kicker Lou Groza should have made a cameo appearance;

2. a 1990s black comedy set in the Roaring 20s in which the female leads sported a hairstyle (as did F. Scott’s Bernice) that was all the rage during that Flapper era;

3. a late-1980s romantic drama in which Rod Steiger ought to have made a cameo appearance, reprising his title role as “The Illustrated Man” and flaunting his “skin illustrations”;

4. a 1970s American romantic period drama film starring Richard, Brooke, Sam and Linda... but which could have benefitted from a fellow named Homer making a cameo appearance and blurting out his famous apostrophized catchphrase!;

5. a 1980s American drama film set during the Great Depression in Texas which would have been more fun had the costume designer fitted all members of the cast with those unmistakable symbols of imperialism: certain helmets also known as solar topees;

6. a mid-1930s Oscar award-winning one-reel short film about honey bees released by Educational Pictures could have even been better had it included footage of a dairy farm and had been retitled “Land of Milk and Honey”;

7. a 1960s American romantic comedy film adapted from a 1950s novella of the same name which would have been even more boffo at the box office had it been promoted by paraphasing Teddy Roosevelt’s “Walk softly and carry a big stick” as instead, “Go lightly and carry a big Louisville Slugger!” 

8. a 1930s animated Oscar-winning Disney film that shows forest flora (and a few fauna) doing calesthenics and dancing, thereby staying FIT and not becoming the three-letter alternative that differs by one letter,

Dessert Menu

Cinematic Dessert:

Big screen larger-than-life actor becomes even larger!

Name a famous cinematic actor, first and last names. 

Replace the last letter in each name to form two new words. The replacement letters are consecutive in the alphabet. 

Name the same same actor, first and last names.

This time replace the second letter in each name to form two other new words. This time the replacement letters are the same letter in the alphabet.

The four new words you formed all suggest “great size.”  

Who is the actor and what are these four “supersized” words?

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.