Stradivari knotty homonyms etc.; In search of a mystery verb; Seeking periods of serial time; Bellicosity! Weapons! War! “Elementary, my dear Watson... and Crick”; “Movels” And “Novies”

 PUZZLERIA! SLICES: OVER 5πe² SERVED

Schpuzzle of the Week:

In search of a mystery verb

Subtract from a verb four consecutive letters of the “circular alphabet,” one of them twice, leaving three consecutive letters that appear elsewhere in the alphabet. 

Neither group of consecutive letters is in alphabetical order in the verb. 

What is this mystery verb?

Note: The “Monopoly Man & Mr. Peanut” illustration gives an example of an adjective (“monocled”) that can be formed by using strings of three and four consecutive letters of the alphabet.

Appetizer Menu 

Fine-Tuned Appetizer:

Stradivari knotty homonyms etc.

In puzzles #1 through #11, find the homonym that pertains to the clue words on either side of the “vs” abbreviations.

For two examples, the answer to “horsehide” flung batterward vs piney substance on the batter’s bat would be PITCH.
(These homonyms are pronounced the same.) 

The answer to “fault vs forsake one’s nation” would be DEFECT. (These homonyms are usually pronounced differently)

Then try solving #12, #13 and #14.

1. flower  vs  got up

2. metal  vs  ahead

3. costume  vs  company

4. climb  vs  calibrator

5. shore  vs  slide

6.  hint  vs  tilt

7. “trip around”  vs  “drink with tongue”  vs  “a seat”  vs   “hit gently”

8.   litter  vs  fret

9.  crewing  vs  kerfuffle

10. gun  vs  ransack

11. flee  vs  hardware

12. Name an exercise that is a palindrome.

13. Think of a past TV star, surname only. 

Remove the last letter, and reverse the remaining letters, to get the surname of someone who was “critical.”

14. A five-letter word has two different meanings, both of which are also five letter words, with only their second and fourth letters being different. 

What are these three words?

MENU

Lights! Camera! Literature! Hors d’Oeuvre:

“Movels” And “Novies”

Write down the name of a famous movie director in three words. Cross out the letters in the word noses to spell the name of a famous author in two words. 

Who are this director and author? 

Winter Spring Summer Or Fall Slice:

Seeking periods of serial time

Take periods of time that follow one after the other... as in the following categories:

Parts of the day: Dawn, Morning, Afternoon, Dusk, Evening, Night, etc.

Days of the week: Sunday, Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday, Thursday, etc.

Days of the month: First, Second, Third, Fourth, etc.

Months of the year: January, February, March, April, etc.

Seasons of the year: Winter, Spring, Summer, Autumn, (Fall)

Years of a decade: Twenty-twenty, Twenty-twenty-one, Twenty-twenty-two, Twenty-twenty-three, etc.

Decades of a century: Aughts, Teens, Twenties,
Thirties, etc.

Centuries of a millenium: Twenty-first, Twenty-second, Twenty-third, Twenty-fourth, etc. etc. etc.

Remove a “u” from one of these periods of time to form a word associated with a second, more blustery, period of time in the same category – a period of time that does not contain “u”. 

What are these two periods of time? 

What is the word associated with the second, more blustery, period of time?

Riffing Off Shortz And McAllister Slices:

“Elementary, my dear Watson... and Crick”

Will Shortz’s March 24th NPR Weekend Edition Sunday puzzle, created by Mae McAllister, from Bath, in the United Kingdom, reads:

As you may know, each chemical element can be represented by a one or two-letter symbol. Hydrogen is H, helium is He, and so on. 

McAllister points out that there are two commonly known elements whose names each can be spelled using three other element symbols. Name either one.

Puzzleria!s Riffing Off Shortz And McAllister Slices read:

ENTREE #1

Take the name of a puzzle-maker. Replace the last letter with the letter following it in the alphabet. Rearrange these combined answers to spell names of humpless camel-like creatures, murine mammals and “not-of-this-world” creatures.

Now take two five-letter words: something you might commit and where some folks say you will end up (or, rather, “down”) if you do so.

Rearrange these ten letters to spell the one-word name of an ancient Greek mathematician and inventor who was famous for making a discovery while he was displacing aitch-two-oh in a tub whilst taking a ____ (4 letters). As he made this discovery he exclaimed a pair of consecutive “_______!” (7 letters). 

The four-letter word is the hometown of the puzzle-maker. 

The seven-letter word, in “periodic code,” could be written as four numbers – numbers associated with Upshaw, Greene, Unitas and Baugh.   

Who is the puzzle-maker? 

What are the names of humpless camel-like creatures, murine mammals and “not-of-this-world” creatures?

What are the two five-letter words?

Who is the ancient Greek mathematician and inventor?

What are the 4-letter and 7-letter words in the blanks?

Why, in “periodic code,” do the numbers associated with Upshaw, Greene, Unitas and Baugh represent the seven letter word? 

Note: Entrees #2 through #8 were created by our friend Nodd, whose “Nodd ready for prime time” is featured regularly on Puzzleria!

ENTREE #2

Arrange three chemical element symbols to get a word for a resident of a  country to the south of the U.S. (The word also is the last name of a prominent U.S. resident.) 

What are the elements and the word their symbols spell?

ENTREE #3

Arrange four chemical element symbols to get the last word in the title of a work of historical fiction by a famous American author. (You will use one of the symbols twice.) The author’s first and last initials are the symbol for an additional element. What are the elements and the fictional work, and who is the author?

ENTREE #4

Arrange five chemical element symbols to get a word for a frightening mythical being. (It’s also the name of an American rock band formed in the 1990s.) 

What are the elements and the word? 

ENTREE #5

Arrange four chemical element symbols to get a word for a disease that usually affects the nose, throat or sinuses.

What are the elements and their symbols? What is the word for the disease? 

ENTREE #6

Arrange chemical element symbols as specified below, to get the following names of world leaders. 

Hint: all of the non-U.S. countries of these
leaders are English-speaking, and all are close U.S. allies.

(1) Last name of a current prime minister (four elements).

(2) Last name of a former prime minister (five elements).

(3) First name of a former U.S. president (four elements).

(4) First name of a former prime minister (four elements).

(5) Last name of a current prime minister (four elements).

ENTREE #7

In the mood for a snack? Think of a kind of nut and a soft drink. You can spell each one using two-letter element symbols that also happen to be state postal codes. What are the two words, the elements, and the states?

ENTREE #8

Feeling chilly? 

Spell the name of a nice warm fabric using, as 

in the preceding Entree, two-letter element symbols that are also state postal codes. 

What are the fabric, the elements, and the states?

ENTREE #9

Name the word for the union of atomic nuclei to form heavier nuclei resulting in the release of enormous quantities of energy when certain light elements unite. 

Then name the word for the splitting of an atomic nucleus resulting in the release of large amounts of energy. These names, respectively, can be spelled using five other element symbols and six other element symbols. 

What are these two names and eleven element symbols?

ENTREE #10

Name a seven-letter adjective that might be used to describe scientist-types who know the periodic table of chemical elements better than they know the back of their hands. 

The word is spelled using seven single-letter element symbols from the table. If you ignore the sixth letter of the adjective, the other six letters appear in the word in reverse alphabetical order.

The initial letters of these elements (two which are not the initial letters of their symbols) can be rearranged to spell an ingredient in a popular beverage and an ingredient in a container in which it was canned during the pre-World-War-II Era. 

The ingredient in the container is also an element on the periodic table.

What is this adjective?

What are the ingredient in the beverage and the ingredient in the container?

ENTREE #11

The surname of a scientist who was a friend of the farmer is composed of four consecutive chemical element symbols. The chemical elements themselves end with only “n’s” and “m’s”.

Who is this farmer-friendly scientist?

Hint: The first half of the surname is a kind of vehicle; the second half, spelled backward is something one might do to that vehicle. 

ENTREE #12

Take the first and last names of a scientific pioneer who added a pair of elements to the periodic table. The numbers of these elements differ by four. The first, fifth and third letters of the scientist’s first name followed by the scientist’s surname phonetically sounds like the element on the periodic table that differs by four from the lower of these two element numbers.

Now take the first half of the scientist’s lower-numbered element followed by a space and the higher-numbered element; replace the first letter of that higher-numbered element with the two that follow it in the alphabet. The result is a sports venue where you can cheer both humans and equines. 

Who is this scientific pioneer, and what pair of elements were added to the periodic table?

What is the sports venue?

What element do the first, fifth and third letters of the scientist’s first name followed by this scientist’s entire surname sound like phonetically?

ENTREE #13

Take not three B’s but four, yet no Ludwigs van...

(Of the four, two had powdered-pale-hued wigs on).

Add one C and one W,

(Sure, one B had no stubble, true!)

Still, all six played 

symphonic-etude gigs, shone!

This sextet was quite gifted and able.

You can spin their discs on your turntable...

And can slice up each surname,

(All five he’s, plus one “her name”)

Into symbols on Mendeleev’s Table! 

What are these six surnames that can be sliced into symbols on Mendeleev’s Periodic Table?

A note of great urgency!: Believe it or not (and, to be honest, the second option is the better of the two), I have just emerged from my basement chemistry lab and, after minutes of grueling research, I believe I have discovered a new element, Miscueum, Atomic Number 119, Symbol MS. If you like, you may use the symbol of this element (MS) to solve Entree #13... Indeed, You will not be able to solve it if you do not use my newfound Miscueum element symbol! Good luck!

Dessert Menu

Triple-Threat Dessert:

Bellicosity! Weapons! War! 

Anagram the letters in a well-known name associated with war to spell either a synonym of weapons or of bellicose beasts. 

What are these three 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.