A Quartet of Terrific Riffs; Informal family-unit immunity; Dribblin’ Larry and Lyndon’s Lady; A fish acquired and a babe retired; Thrill of victory & agony of defeat; “U say ‘farewell’ and I say ‘O hell!’”

PUZZLERIA! SLICES: OVER 5πe² SERVED

Schpuzzle of the Week:

A fish acquired, a babe retired

A three-word photo caption of a recently reeled-in fish sounds like the whereabouts of a recently retired babe. 

What are the caption and the whereabouts?

Note: The four-ply Appetizer below is the handiwork a talented puzzle-maker who is a great friend of Puzzleria!

Appetizer Menu

Pleasingly Palatable Four-Ply Appetizer:

A Quartet of Terrific Riffs

Note: The following puzzle riff is “a tip of the Tirolerhut” to master puzzle-maker Bobby Jacobs and his, December 29, 2024, NPR Challenge:

Filling the “tank” at the Gasthaus

1.🍻A dehydrated American touring Munich strode into a Gasthaus and placed an order. 

The order can be spelled, reading left to right and eliminating spaces as required, with the first four plus the 7th, 8th, 9th (or 11th), and 12th letters in the name of a famous singer. 

The order can be served in a container spelled with an arrangement of the 3rd, 4th, 5th, 6th, and 9th (or 11th) letters in the name of that singer. Who is the singer? 

What is the order? What is the container?  

The following is a riff of Lego’s January 5, 2025, NPR Challenge:

Digital Shifting

2.✌Take the title of a song in five words. 

Drop a conjunction; change a preposition to a homophone of itself; and insert a mathematical
operation. 

The result is the digits, in another order, of the NPR Challenge. What are the song title and the mathematical operation? 

The following is a riff of the surreptitious January 19, 2025, NPR Challenge:

Misshhhion!

3. 💬🗨Take a word that might describe a secret mission. 

Take duplicates of the last and next to last letters of that word. Place the duplicates – last letter first and next to last letter second – at the
beginning of the original word. 

The result is a word that might describe a secret mission long after it is completed. 

What are the two words? 

The following is a riff of the Bird Hunting February 16, 2025, NPR Challenge:

Superheroes & alter egos

4. 🎥Name the alter ego of a famous, fictional superhero of the past and present. 

The alter ego’s name has five letters in the first name and five letters in the last name. In the first name, change one letter to a letter it rhymes with, drop one letter, and change one letter to a letter it is sometimes pronounced like (as, for example, the first letters in a word for a common pet and for the word for such a pet when it is newborn).

The result is the nickname of a famous actor of the past.  What are these two names?

MENU

Howdy Hors d’Oeuvre

“U say ‘Farewell’ and I say ‘O hell’”

Replace the last letter of a Pacific isle with a duplicate of its second letter.

Then remove consecutive interior letters that spell a greeting.

What’s left are letters that spell a farewell. 

What are this isle, the greeting and the farewell?

Hint: The isle is a part of an “overseas collectivity” of France. Rearrange the letters of the two-word name of that collectivity to spell something Juliette Binoche, Shirley MacLaine and other actresses have attempted to do.

Wide World Of Motorsports Slice

“The thrill of victory, the agony of defeat”

Remove the space from a competitive auto event. 

Replace a consonant-followed-by-a-vowel by a different vowel-followed-by-a-consonant. The result is a word for what you might feel after losing this competition. 

What are this event and what you might feel afterward if you lose?

Riffing Off Shortz And Vespe Entrees:

Dribblin’ Larry, Lyndon’s Lady

Will Shortz’s Weekend Edition Sunday National Public Radio challenge this week comes from Jim Vespe, of Mamaroneck, New York: 

Name a famous sports figure of the past. Change the third and fourth letters of the first name to a D, and you’ll have the nickname of another famous American of the past. 

Who are these two people?

Puzzleria!s Riffing Off Shortz And Vespe Entrees read:

ENTREE #1

Name a puzzle-maker, first and last names, and the city in which he lives. Replace an M with an O. 

Rearrange these 18 letters to spell:

~ an American automobile brand, now owned by multi-national corporation,

~ a compact Ford car sold in North America and Brazil during the 1970s, and

~ a past compact pickup truck that was produced by GMC.

Who is this puzzle-maker?

What are the automobile brand, compact Ford car, and compact pickup truck?

Entrees #2 through #7 were created by our good friend Nodd, author of the recurring “Nodd ready for prime time” on Puzzleria!

ENTREE #2

Name a famous American baseball star of the past (5, 5). 

Change the third and fourth letters of the first name to a D, and you’ll have the nickname of a famous American movie star of the past. Who are these two people?

ENTREE #3

Name a famous American sports figure of the past who dominated his sport during his playing career (5, 7). 

Change the third and fourth letters of the first name to a D, and you'll have the last name of another famous American sports figure of the past. Who are these two people? 

(Hint: Adding a D to the first name of the first sports figure will spell the first name of the second one.)

ENTREE #4

Name a famous baseball player of the past (4, 4). Change the third and fourth letters of the first name to a D, and remove the last letter of the last name. 

Change the first letter of the first name to a T and remove the space between the first and last names. You’ll have the first name of a famous non-American who currently heads an international organization that is often in the news. Who are these two people?

ENTREE #5

Name a famous golfer of the past (5, 5). Change the third and fourth letters of the first name to a D, and change the first letter of the last name to a B. 

You’ll have a word for something of great importance to athletes, followed by a word for some of its parts. Who is the sports figure, and what are the two words?

ENTREE #6

Name a famous track star of the past (4, 5 ). 

Remove the last letter of the first name and the first letter of the last name. 

Also remove the last two letters of the last name and the space between the two names. 

You’ll have the last name of a famous baseball player of the past. Who are these two people?

ENTREE #7

Name a famous baseball player of the past (5, 5). Change the third and fourth letters of the first name to a D, and remove the last letter of
the first name. 

The first and last names will now spell a two-word phrase for an unwise investment. 

Who is the baseball player, and what is the phrase?

Entree #8 was created by our good friend Plantsmith, author of the recurring “Garden of Puzzley Delights” on Puzzleria!

ENTREE #8

Take the nickname of a colorful sports hero of the past. 

Replace two consecutive identical consonants with two consecutive identical different consonants to get a nickname of a current celebrity.

Two consecutive identical consonants in the nickname of this sports hero’s lesser-known brother appear consecutively in the in the first part of a two-part nickname of this same current celebrity. 

Finally, take how a polite young autograph-seeker might have addressed either of these sports-hero brothers (using a 2-letter abbreviation and their 4-letter surname). Replace the first letter of the surname with the letter two places before it in the alphabet to get the name of an eponymous title character in a British sitcom.

Who are these past colorful sports heroes?

What are the real name and nicknames of the current celebrity?

How might a polite young autograph-seeker have addressed either of these sports-heroes? Who is the British sitcom title character?

ENTREE #9

Name a Hall of Fame sports figure of the past, first and last names. Remove the space. The result is fitting, because this figure often “on base...” and reportedly did not possess an acidic personality. What’s more, this figure amassed not just 7 (but 30 more than 7!) pinch Hits (pH) during his career. 

Alas, he was an outfielder (not a pitcher or catcher, which would have been more fitting, given his adjectival full name).

Who is this Hall of Famer?

Why would it have been more fitting if he was a pitcher or catcher?

ENTREE #10

Take the first and last names of a past comedian who was also a serious actor and philanthropist. Write the letters in lowercase.

Remove the leftmost instance of a consonant that appears twice. Insert a space someplace. Place a “grave accent” above a vowel. The result indicates a way of preparing food served in a cream sauce with mushrooms and pimiento or green peppers.

Who is this comedian?

What is this way of preparing food?

Dessert Menu

All In The Family Dessert:

Informal family-unit immunity

Name an informal term for a family member. 

Remove its second letter to name a potentially life-threatening response of the immune system. 

What is this term for a family member?

What is the life-threatening response?

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!

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.

Elements, Names and Dreams; Paws 'n' Claws 'n' Santa Claus? “Auto-party” Drinking? No driving! “I love you, Olive! O Yu!” Pinning down a Greco-Roman wrestling puzzle; Brow-furrowing headline;

PUZZLERIA! SLICES: OVER 5πe² SERVED

Schpuzzle of the Week:

Paws 'n' Claws 'n' Santa Claus?

Consider the incomplete couplet below: 

“On a black ________ pair of front paws

Can be found ___ _____ flesh-ripping claws!”

The word in the first blank is an anagram of the words in the second and third blanks. What are these three words?

Appetizer Menu

Paradiddlley Riddley Appetizer

Elements, Names and Dreams

1. 🂡 🂽 🃄 🃅 🃊 🂿 🃂 Think of an atomic element in
seven letters, the British spelling. 

Shift each letter a single-digit number of places earlier in the alphabet. 

The result will be a six-centuries-old gambling card game. 

What are this element and this card game?

2. 🏛Think of the name of a U.S. state capital. Shift each letter a single-digit number of places earlier in the alphabet. The result will be a female first name that is an anagram of a word that means to “temper” or “harden.”

What are this capital and first name?

3. 🕮 🐄🐮Joseph in the biblical Book of Genesis interpreted the dreams of Pharoah – dreams of creatures like fat cows and thin cows, for example.

Name a two-syllable creature. Move its letters a single-digit number of places later in the alphabet to name an interpreter of dreams (similar to Joseph in Genesis) who may have interpreted dreams involving this creature. 

What is this creature?

Who is this interpreter of dreams?

MENU

Uppercase Hors d’Oeuvre

Brow-furrowing headline

Name a headline you might have seen earlier this week, in 12, 3, 6 and 4 letters.

All three letters in the second word would be UPPERCASE letters, whether the headline was or was not written in all-capital letters.

What is this headline?

Compound (Fracture?) Slice:

“Auto-party” Drinking? No driving!

Name a compound word for a part of a particular vehicle – a part associated with not driving. 

This compound word is also a beverage associated with not driving. 

Remove the initial letters of the two parts of this compound word. 

Remove also the space that remains. 

The letters that remain spell what sounds like how a 20th-century president pronounced a word that has a 3-to-1 ratio of vowels to consonants. 

What is this compound word that is a beverage as well as a part of a vehicle?

Who is the 20th-century president?

How did this 20th-century president pronounce the word with a 3-to-1 ratio of vowels to consonants, and what is that word?

Riffing Off Shortz And Hartenstein Entrees:

“I love you, Olive! O yu!”

Will Shortz’s February 9th Weekend Edition Sunday puzzle, created by  Ward Hartenstein, of Rochester, New York, reads:

Name a well-known cartoon character in eight letters. Change the last letter to a U and rearrange the result to make a phrase you might see on a Valentine's Day card.

Puzzleria!s Riffing Off Shortz And Hartenstein Entrees read:

ENTREE #1

Name a puzzle-maker in 15 letters. Rearrange these letters to form three words:

* a two-word unfair advantage that a competitor in a track-and-field event ought not
be given, and

* a noun likely eventually given to any competitor who is given such an unfair advantage.

Who is this puzzle-maker?

What are the three words?

Note: Entrees # 2 through #7 were created by Nodd, whose “Nodd ready for prime time” appears regularly on Puzzleria!

ENTREE #2

Name a feline cartoon character in nine letters. Change a T to an S. 

Rearrange the result to get a two-word phrase
for what you might see on a Valentine’s Day card penned by a cunning would-be paramour. 

Who is the character, and what is the phrase?

ENTREE #3

Name a female cartoon character in six letters.
She frequently appeared in a comic strip named after a kind of legume. Her name is a word you might find in a verse on a Valentine's Day card. Who is she?

ENTREE #4

Name two cartoon characters from a TV show. 

Upon seeing them, you would be likely to think of two words that are often found in verses on Valentine’s Day cards. 

Who are the characters, and what are the words?

ENTREE #5

Take a two-word phrase meaning “advocates in the sagest manner.” 

Rearrange the letters to spell a three-word
phrase you might see on a Valentine’s Day card. 

What are these two phrases?

ENTREE #6

Name a cartoon character who is known by a three-word description of her name and what she likes to do. 

Reverse the two syllables of her name and it will sound like a word you might see on a Valentine’s Day card. Who is the character, and what is the word? 

ENTREE #7

Name a two-word cartoon character in eleven letters. 

From the second word, remove a two-letter
abbreviation for a health care professional. 

Rearrange the rest of the letters of the second word to spell a word often associated with love. 

The first and second words together will now name something you might see on a Valentine’s Day card. 

Who is the character, and what might you see on a Valentine’s Day card?

Note: Entree #8 was created by Plantsmith, whose “Garden of Puzzley Delights” appears regularly on Puzzleria!

ENTREE #8

Rearrange the letters of a well-known comic book character to get a rather blasé Valentine greeting... (or, one might also say “a rather meh” Valentine greeting).

Who is this comic book character?

What is the Valentine greeting?

Hint: The greeting includes a one-letter homophone of its verb.

Entree #9

Name a professional sports team in a dozen letters. 

Three consecutive letters spell a color associated with Valentines.

Letters 12 and 10 with an apostrophe between ‘em, and letters 2 and 3 with an apostrophe
between ‘em, are both associated with Valentines (or a breath mint plus a digit).

Letters 4, 5, 1, 8, 2, 7, 6 11, 4, 4, 2, 1, 8, correctly divided, spell the beginning of some well-known Shakespeare.

What is this sports team?

What are the color and the apostrophized two-letter words  associated with Valentines?

What is the beginning of some well-known Shakespeare?  

Entree #10

Take a  three-word greeting (in 2, 2 and 9 letters) on a February 14th greeting card.

Anagram these combined letters to spell an 8-letter adjective modifying a 5-letter noun.

These two words suggest that even though the
sender and recipient clearly love one another, each occasionally perceives the other as an _____ (the 5-letter noun).

The 8-letter adjective suggests, however, that, even given that sporadic animus or tension, the “positive chemistry” (that is, the “degree of mutual attraction the sender and recipient possess) will obviate that animus or tension.

What is this greeting on the card?

What are the adjective and noun?

Entree #11

Two members of a musical combo – after each played their respective wind instruments a tad too “enthusiastically” and “frenziedly” – were airlifted from the nightclub where they were playing a gig to the emergency room of a hospital.

Both had somehow swallowed their instruments! 

The doctors tried in vain to remove the larger instrument of the first player. After an abortive attempt to fish it up though his windpipe, they next tried to extract it by cracking open his sternum (last syllable of the instrument). Alas the man was soon thereafter declared (“first syllable of the instrument, spelled in reverse”).

However, the second musician, fortunately, pulled though. The attempt to pull the smaller instrument up through his windpipe, along with “(a 2-word anagram of the final five letters of his instrument) or two,” proved successful and kept this musician “out of (the first four letters of his instrument)’s way.”

What are the two instruments?

What was the first man declared?

Dessert Menu

Divinity Dessert

Pinning down a Greco-Roman wrestling puzzle

Name objects with which a Roman deity is associated that sound similar to the name of its Greek counterpart. 

Name these things and deities.

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!

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.

My Friend Flicker! (Skydi Version); ...From Goldsmith to Greek myth; Fumbles! Blunders! Bobbles! Science fiction and Superheroes; Toenail, tailbone (but “No Tail!”) Nightingale and Guitarist

PUZZLERIA! SLICES: OVER 5πe² SERVED

Schpuzzle of the Week:

Going from Goldsmith to Greek myth

Take a three-syllable adjective followed by a two-word-two-syllable brand-name food. 

Replace the adjective with a near-rhyming adjective. 

Scrunch together two adjacent letters in the fourth syllable to create what appears to be one different letter. 

Replace the fifth syllable with a rhyming word.

Remove the space between the fourth and fifth syllables. 

The result, in five syllables, is the adjectival form of a proper name –  a proper name that is the first of two words naming a psychological concept associated with Greek mythology that is “a group of repressed desires and memories that exerts a dominating influence upon the personality.” 

What are these ten syllables?

Hint: The three-syllable adjective and near-rhyming adjective begin, respectively, with an “e” and “O”.

Appetizer Menu

Skydiversionary Appetizer:

“My Friend Flicker!” (the Skydi Version)

Note: The following puzzle, created by Mark Scott (aka “skydiveboy,” his screen name) is associated with the the “de-light-ful” illustration, below, that accompanies the puzzle text. 

It is an image of a classic 97-year-old lantern (date-stamped “February 1928”)  given to Mark’s mother by a friend of hers who inherited it from her grandfather. The friend knew the Scott family liked to go tent camping several times each summer, and she had no use for it herself. Mark still has it, and it has not required any restoration other than his replacing the cap gasket. He says the older lanterns were the better ones, and that he loves restoring them.

That said, here is Mark’s latest “skydiversion”:

There is a well known American genius inventor whose middle name must have been restraining during his long life... or at least at the end of his long life.

Can you name him?

MENU

Freeloading Hors d’Oeuvre

Fumbles! Blunders! Bobbles!

Place a space within an adjective that is associated with fumbles, blunders and bobbles. 

The result is two nouns: 

1. a lazy freeloader, and 

2. something that freeloader likely does not possess. 

What are this adjective and two nouns?

Naive Newcomer Slice:

Science fiction and Superheroes

Remove the name of a science fiction character from a superhero’s name to get a word for a naive or inexperienced newcomer.

What are these two names? 

What is the word for a naive or inexperienced newcomer?

Riffing Off Shortz And Terrien Entrees:

Toenail, tailbone (but no tail!)

Will Shortz’s February 2nd NPR Weekend Edition Sunday puzzle, created by Lindsay Terrien of Chicago, Illinois, reads:

Name a part of the human body in seven letters. Add a B and rearrange the result to get another part of the human body.

Note: Lancek, who posts regularly on Blaine’s Blog, deserves credit for the parenthetical part of the headline: (but no tail!).

Puzzleria!s Riffing Off Shortz And Terrien Entrees read:

ENTREE #1

Name a puzzle-maker from Chicago, first and last names. 

Rearrange these 14 letters to spell the two-word name of a fictional street dog in Mexico who finds a home in Washington State where
he overcomes challenging situations “while keeping his head up and tail a-waggin’ through life’s predicaments.”

Who is this puzzle-maker?

What is the dog’s name?

Note: Entrees #2 through #7 were created by our good friend Nodd, author of “Nodd ready for prime time” on Puzzleria! 

ENTREE #2

Name a part of the human body in seven letters. 

Add a B and rearrange the result to get a card game. 

What are the body part and the card game?

ENTREE #3

Name a part of the human body in seven letters. 

Replace a D with a B and rearrange the result to get a word for a short work of fiction that has a word count limitation. 

What are the body part and the word for a work of fiction?

ENTREE #4

Name a part of the human body in seven letters. 

Rearrange its letters to get a word for a kind of cheese. 

What are the body part and the cheese?

ENTREE #5

The same five letters can be arranged to spell two different body parts. 

What are the body parts?

ENTREE #6

Name a part of the human body in eight letters. 

Rearrange the letters to spell a two-word phrase that describes a steep slope or cliff.
(The first word of the phrase is an indefinite article.) 

What is the body part, and what is the two-word phrase?

ENTREE #7

Name a part of the human body. 

Rearrange the letters to spell the last name of a popular singer who is not of Asian descent.

What is the body part, and who is the singer?

Note: Entrees #8 through #10 were created by our good friend Plantsmith, author of “Garden of Puzzley Delights” on Puzzleria!  

ENTREE #8

Add a B to a seven-letter body part. 

Subtract the letters of a major broadcast channel. Mix the result to get a second body part.

Hint: The two body parts are not far from one another.

ENTREE #9

The following Plantsmith puzzle is a riff on ViolinTeddy’s Strad-Steiff Subtleties from last week:

Think of two near-homophones relating to the following two items: 

Trump Tower vs French dip. 

What are these two near-homophones?

ENTREE #10

Name something, in two words, seen on the back of most marine and freshwater vertebrates. 

Rearrange the letters to spell a two-word headline that might have appeared, but fortunately did not appear, in U.S. newspapers in early September 1975 and, if not then, later in September 1975.

ENTREE #11

Name an enclosure in which a creature may be fluttering. 

Five of its letters are the first five in the alphabet. 

Remove one of those five, then reverse the order of the letters to its left. 

The result is an enclosure in which a heart may be fluttering.

What are these two enclosures? 

ENTREE #12

Name a part of the human body in seven letters. 

Reverse the order of the last three letters and move the result to the beginning. The final result is a name that is preceded by Eddie, Lily or Herman. 

What are this body part and name?

ENTREE #13

Rearrange the eight letters in a part of the human body to spell a two-word description of
one of the people pictured in the image accompanying this puzzle text.

What are the body part and the description?

Dessert Menu

Anagram Hall Of Fame Dessert

Nightingale and Guitarist

Name two Hall of Fame music artists, a female singer-songwriter and a male guitarist, whose first names are anagrams of  each other. 

Who are they?

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!

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.