Schpuzzle of the Week:
Firs, refrains and a phrase
Rearrange the twelve letters in these three words to spell a phrase you see and hear this time of year.
What is the part of fir trees? What are the last two words in the refrain of a Christmas song?
What is this phrase?
Appetizer Menu
Noddingly Prime Time Appetizer:
Cinematic Hamlet, Roll-calling names, Brain food, Smart talk, Random House at Poetry Corner
Hamlet goes to the movies
To this second phrase, add the last name of an American actor who won an Oscar for his role in a war movie.
What are the two phrases, who is the actor, and what is the movie?
Political name-calling
2. A.😮😮Think of two female former members of Congress.
The first one served in the 1970s and represented a district in New York.
The second one served in the 2010s and 2020s and represented a district in Florida. The second member was also a Cabinet member.
together spell something deadly.
Who are these Congress members, and what is the deadly thing?
B. Combine the last names of a former Cabinet member and a person associated with the Cabinet member’s boss to name a disease. Who are the persons, and what is the disease?
C. Take the first initial and last name of a nationally-known political journalist who was at one time associated with a presidential administration. Change the initial to the preceding letter of the alphabet and say the result aloud. Phonetically, you will name a popular sport. Who is the journalist, and what is the sport?
D. The last name of a well-known presidential advisor sounds like a phrase describing something American combatants did in the 19th Century. Who is the consultant, and what did the combatants do?
E. Take a word for a certain politician. Rearrange its letters to spell an action that might end their political career. What are the politician and the action that might end their career?
Food for thought
3. 📖Think of a famous 20th Century actress.
Rearrange her last name to get two words that describe a category of food those seeking to lose weight should avoid.
Who is the actress, what is the book title, and what should weight-loss seekers avoid?
Academically speaking
4. 🏫Guess the names of the following U.S. colleges and universities from the hints provided. (Some answers are phonetic. Others are heteronyms. Ignore any punctuation.)
1. Dairy item.
2. Kind of highway.
3. Climb sacred tree.
4. Apply something hot to something frozen.
5. King Solomon.
7. Large residence + former GM car model.
8. Money unit + bell sound.
9. (Woolly? Hirsuit? Hairy?) Ruffians.
10. Completely ticked off.
5. 🖆Using the same six letters, insert three words to complete the following verse.
First ______ of May. I open ______ once more,
As I have done on countless days before.
But all too soon, the unrelenting grind,
Weighs heavy, and a ______ claims my mind.
MENU
A 1940s Hors d’Oeuvre
First Noel and Film Noir
both associated with the Christmas season.
A homophone of the Yule-related adjective is
the second word in the prayer.
What are the character’s name, adjective and first two words of the prayer?
Just Another “Phrase-This-Time-Of-Year” Challenge! Slice:
“Often is heard / seldom is heard”
The result, spoken aloud, sounds like something seldom heard (no, never heard!) at any time of the year.
What are this phrase, this payment and this thing never heard?
Riffing Off Shortz And Ezekiel Entrees:
“Grape-upon-grape-upon-grape-(but-not-drupe!)...” is a “group”?
Will Shortz’s December 22nd NPR Weekend Edition Sunday Puzzle Challenge, created by Dan Ezekiel of Ann Arbor, Michigan, reads:
left to right and you’ll get a one-word brand name associated with the budget-conscious. What is it?
Puzzleria!s Riffing Off Shortz And Ezekiel Entrees read:
Take the first names of two NFL quarterbacks:
~ a Green Bay Packer (in four letters) who died in 2019, and
~ a current Minnesota Viking (in more than four letters) who was drafted into the NFL in 2019.
Rearrange these combined 10 letters to spell the first and last names of a puzzle-maker.
Who are these NFL quarterbacks?
Who is the puzzle-maker?
Note: Entrees #2 through #7 were created by Nodd, whose “Nodd ready for prime time” is this week’s featured Appetizer on this week’s Menu.
ENTREE #2
Think of an eight-letter brand name that is associated with upscale dining.
Rearrange its letters to spell a two-word
description of guys who probably aren’t particularly interested in upscale dining.
What are the brand name and the two-word description?
Hint: The two-word description starts with a five-letter food item typically associated with the U.S. Southwest.
Think of a seven-letter descriptive word that is associated with upscale dining.
Rearrange its letters to spell a two-word description of what you may get if you overindulge in upscale dining.
What are the descriptive word and the two-word description?
ENTREE #4
Rearrange to spell a five-letter fruit and a seven-letter word for the quality of something, especially a person’s ability.
What are the food item, the fruit, and the seven-letter word?
ENTREE #5
Rearrange to spell a six-letter brand of upscale
liquor and a three-letter brand name for a beverage that was introduced by a major bottling company in 1998. The 1998 beverage was marketed as a lower-calorie alternative to the company’s signature product.
What are the seafood item and the two beverages?
ENTREE #6
Think of an eight-letter word for a person who enjoys eating and drinking but is not particularly associated with upscale dining.
What are the eight-letter word, the two fruits, and the generic word?
Think of an upscale European dessert, in eleven letters. Rearrange to spell a verb thatdescribes what an executive chef at an upscale restaurant does during mealtimes. What are the dessert and the verb?
Note: Entrees #8 and #9 are a couple of clever contributions from a very valued and intensely talented friend of Puzzleria!
ENTREE 8
Remove the last two letters of the first word
and the first letter of the second word.
Read the result from left to right and you’ll get a one-word brand name associated with the budget-conscious.
What are these two brands?
Hint #1: You might slather the obscure-brand product onto the budget-conscious product.
Hint #2: Consecutive letters of the brand name can be rearranged to spell a container for the product.
ENTREE #9
The following is a riff of last week’s Evergreen Dessert: “Name that Tannenbaum title!”
Subject: If the World Served up the Dessert...
1. It would just be another term...
3. “The Conductor” of a certain (uncertain?)
puzzle blog would merely be a mere psychological concept...
4. “The glossy patina of the Holiday Ham, as we behold it” would be a...
5. The Georgia/Washington Puzzler would deal in clothing and not vegetation...
6. The leggy moll in the film noir wouldn’t have to be completely alluring...
ENTREE #10
Think of a two-word American clothing brand name. The first letter of the first word and the second half of the second word spell one of three creatures feared by a trio of fictional characters.
The 9th, 7th, 8th and 3rd letters of the brand spell a medium that featured the three creatures in the late 1930s.
What is the brand? What is one of the creatures that the three characters fear?
What do the characters exclaim?
What is the medium that featured the three creatures?
Think of a two-word regional hamburger restaurant chain with its greatest presence in the Midwest and New York metro area.
Remove four consecutive interior letters and the space they leave, leaving what certain diminutive woodworkers do.
Remove four consecutive interior letters that overlap with the first four, and the space they leave, leaving what these woodworkers might do while doing the first thing.
What is this hamburger chain?
What to things might woodworkers do?
ENTREE #12
Take the multiple-word historical name of a fast food chain. The first three and last three letters of this name spell the name of a 20-year old math-and-logic puzzle.
The 14th-through-17th letters spell a synonym of “hip.”
What is this historical fast food chain name?
What is the math-and-logic puzzle?
What is the word preceded by a homophone of “fryer”?
What is the synonym of “hip”?
Hint: The hip bone's connected to the thigh bone...
Think of a two-syllable American footwear and clothing brand.
Its first three letters and last letter spell a verb for what its footwear begins to do after months of constant use.
The letters that remain spell the first name of an athlete who appeared in TV spots advertising a competitor of this brand.
What is this clothing brand? What is the verb? Who is the athlete?
ENTREE #14Think of an ice cream company with nine letters in its name. The 1st, 5nd, 6th, 7th and 8th letters, in order, spell one of the ingredients (a non-plural word) in some of its flavors. The 1st, 2nd, 6th, 7th and 8th letters, in order, spell that same non-plural ingredient.
What are this company and ingredient?
Hint #1: The unused 2nd, 3rd and 4th letters, in order, can be rotated 13 places in the alphabet to spell the word “raw.” The unused 3rd, 4th and 5th letters, in order, can be rotated 11 places ahead in the alphabet to spell the word “yup.”
Hint #2: The name of the ice cream company includes one of those “special characters” you see on an upper row of typewriter keys.
ENTREE #15
A soft drink brand was originally marketed as, and is still commonly referred to, in two words of six and four letters.
The 1st, 2nd, 8th, 9th and 10th letters of this brand, in order, spell either:
* the same five-letter word for what you might do if food you swallow goes down the trachea instead of your esophagus.
The remaining 3rd-through-7th letters can be rearranged to spell:
* a five-letter variant spelling of “one who wails,” or
* the surname of an actor who portrayed a character named “Ducky.”
What is this brand? What are the two five-letter words?
ENTREE #16
Think of a two-word 17-letter brand name for a famous piece of sports equipment with a place on the U.S map in its name.
What is this brand name?
Who harvests its raw material?
Hint: The 11 letters you removed can be rearranged to spell the missing words in the following brands:
“The ___ Kiss”
“____lemon”
“____ Strauss”
Dessert Menu
Canton-Cooperstown Dessert:
Christmas carol and gay apparel
ornaments and gift wrap.
Switch the beginning letters of the two syllables.
The result is:
~ an urban shopping area featuring a variety of retail stores that teem with shoppers during the holiday season, and
~ the first word in the lyrics and title of a nearly-three-centuries-old Christmas carol.
What is this American company?
What are the shopping area and the word in the Christmas carol?
Every Thursday 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!
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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