Transporting parts of speech; MacBeth: Red King of Scotland; Fabrics non-fishy and fishy; Pronoun emerges synonymous! Fish parts depart from 2 pelicans; Deep-sixing of end-parts leaves Doll Part

PUZZLERIA! SLICES: OVER 5πe² SERVED

Schpuzzle of the Week:

MacBeth: Red King of Scotland

Take a five-word phrase from Shakespeare’s “MacBeth.” 

Delete “a vowel that is not in ‘team’” from the second word. 

Replace the fifth word with a word between “truth” and “the American way.” 

The result is a fitting phrase for the month of January. 

What are these phrases?

Appetizer Menu

Homographitity Appetizer:

Transporting parts of speech

Each pair of words hinted at in #1 through #7 below are spelled the same (they are “homographs”), but are different parts of speech and have different meanings. 

For example, the word “scale” appears twice in the following sentence – first as a verb meaning “climb,” then as a noun meaning “weigher”:

“After you scale a mountain, you may weigh less the next day when you step on a scale.”

Thus, “climb vs ‘weigher’” = SCALE...

or, for another example, “tilt vs roster” = LIST

Find the common word for each:

1. trim vs fruit 

2. a “coming in” vs mesmerize 

3. cry vs fat 

4. wrote  vs  calm

5. mope vs children

6. weigh vs purposeful

7. to anger vs strong-smelling stick.

In #8, changing one vowel in a trisyllabic word changes its meaning but retains its part-of-speech – like, for example, “internal” and “infernal.

8. Change one vowel in a nine-letter adjective to turn it from a word that means truthful into a word that means hungry.

And, in #9, changing two letters in a trisyllabic word changes its meaning but retains its part-of-speech” – like, for example, “containing” and “captaining.”

9. Two nine-letter verbs are synonyms. Change the first two letters of the first verb to obtain the  second verb thusly:  ROT-7 the first letter of the first verb; ROT-8 the second letter.

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Ruthlessly Yankee Hors d’Oeuvre

Fish parts depart from two pelicans

Place two words for two birds side-by-side. 

Yank a fish-part from the interior. 

The result is a synonym of “yank.” 

What are these bird-words, fish-part and yank-clone?

Unmerging A Merger Slice:

Pronoun emerges synonymous! 

Divide a pronoun into two parts. 

Change the last letter of the first part to
another letter. 

The result is a pair of synonyms. 

What are this pronoun and two synonyms?  

Riffing Off Shortz And Smith Entrees:

Deep-sixing of end-parts leaves Doll Part

Will Shortz’s January 26th NPR Weekend Edition Sunday puzzle challenge, created by Greg Smith of Roscoe, Illinois, reads:

Think of a popular singer whose first and last names each have two syllables. Drop the
second syllable from each name and you’ll be left with the piece of a toy. What singer is this?

Puzzleria!s Riffing Off Shortz And Smith Entrees read:

ENTREE #1

Name a puzzle-maker and the city from which he hails, in three words. Rearrange the combined letters in those words to spell:

~ a word that describes Mortimer and Minnie,

~ a word that follows Buck or Will,  

~ a word that precedes writer or Brewing (or -fish Brewing or Hawk Brewing or Town Brewing!

What are those three words? 

Who is this puzzle-maker?

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

ENTREE #2

Think of a popular singer whose first and last names each have two syllables. 

Drop the second syllable from each name and switch the order of the two first syllables.

You'll be left with something that is a necessary part of many toys. 

Who is the singer, and what is the toy part?

ENTREE #3

A popular singer’s first and last names have five syllables in total. 

Replace the last letter of the last name with an N and an A. 

The first syllable of the first name, followed by the last name as modified, spell a popular dance. 

Who is the singer, and what is the dance?

ENTREE #4

Take the first and last names of a popular singer. 

The first two letters of the first name, followed by the last two letters of the last name, spell the last name of a famous person in U.S.
history. 

The singer’s first name is the same as the last name of another famous person in U.S. history. 

There is a connection between the two historical persons. Who are the singer and the historical persons?

ENTREE #5

Think of a popular singer whose first and last names each have two syllables. 

Change a double letter in the first name to a double letter in the last name to get a word for
an oppressive person. 

Who is the singer, and what is the word for an oppressive person?

ENTREE #6

Think of a popular singer whose first and last names each have two syllables. 

The first letter of the first name, followed by the first letter of the last name and the last two
letters of the last name, spell the title of a popular movie. 

Who is the singer, and what is the movie?

ENTREE #7

Take the alliterative first and last names of a famous singer. 

Together, the names describe someone you might see at a grocery store. Who is the singer, and who might you see at a grocery store?

Note: Entrees #8 and #9 were created by our good friend Plantsmith, author of “Garden of Public Delights.” 

ENTREE #8

Take a popular singer who goes by one name. 

Drop last letter and replace a vowel with a different vowel to get a musical instrument that is likely often used in the production of the singer’s songs.

ENTREE #9

Name a popular singer, first and last names, in three and two syllables. 

Drop first two and last two letters of the first name and the last three letters of the last name. The result is a toy piece.

Who is this singer?

What is the toy piece? 

ENTREE #10

Think of a popular singer whose first and last names each have two syllables. 

Take either syllable of the last name followed by the first syllable of the first name to spell a festive celebration.

Who is the singer and what is the celebration?

ENTREE #11

Name a singer whose ____ of work is indeed impressive. The first two letters of this singer’s
first and last names spell the word that belongs in the blank. 

Who is this singer?

ENTREE #12

Write the three-letter monogram of a writer twice without a space to name to name a kind of fly. 

Who is this writer?

What is this fly?

ENTREE #13

Remove from the name of a novelist six consecutive letters, leaving letters, in order, that spell the name of barnyard creatures. 

Rearrange the removed letters to spell the surname of a Barry who scribbled down a ballad about berets.

Who is the novelist?

Who is the ballad scribbler? 

ENTREE #14

From a novelist’s surname, remove a Second-Millennium year that is the product of two consecutive integers, leaving a Romance-language translation of “she.”

From the novelist’s first name, remove a synonym of “adult male,” leaving the English translation of the Romance-language possessive pronoun (also called a possessive

adjective) “son”

Who is this novelist?

What are the product of two consecutive integers and “she” in a Romance language?

What is the synonym of “adult male”?

Dessert Menu

Piscine Parts Dessert:

Fabrics non-fishy and fishy

Name a fish followed, without a space, by a hard fish part. 

Name also non-aquatic animals followed by a
hard animal part. 

The result is a  pair of fabric patterns. 

What 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.

5 pop icons in an 8-decade purse; Pulling strings brings lulling winds; An “Over-the-top” Cover-up?; Baseball, bulls and “belletrism” Shakespeare, Isolation & Cyclops! Pulling strings brings lulling winds; “Wouldn’t It Be Loverly... or maybe ‘Slopperly’?”

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Schpuzzle of the Week:

“Wouldn’t It Be Loverly... or maybe ‘Slopperly’?”

Capitalize the second-last letter of a word in a world atlas. 

Change the last letter to a different vowel. 

The result looks like a synonym of “sloppy.” 

What are this world-atlas word and “sloppy synonym?”

Appetizer Menu

Tortitudinal Appetizer:

Five pop “icons” in an eight-decade “purse” 

Name a singer who was mostly popular in the late 1950s and 1960s. 

Anagram the singer’s name into the last name of a popular actor of the past and the first word of one of his film titles. 

The actor starred in two movies that were released in the same year. 

Rearrange the last name of one character to produce the last name of the other character. 

Take the last name that appears first alphabetically. 

Place the last letter in the beginning, and add a space. Phonetically, you’ll have the name of a singer who had a hit with a song recorded in the same year as when the movies were released. The song reached #1 in the following year. 

Now take the first name of the first singer, and then add the full name of the second singer after that. 

Phonetically, you’ll have the name of another singer. This singer’s biggest hit was later a bigger hit by another singer. That singer replaced the first singer at the top of the Billboard charts with a different song. 

Who are the four singers? Who is the actor? What is his film? Who are the characters he portrayed? 

MENU

Anagrammatical Hors d’Oeuvre:

Shakespeare, Isolation & Cyclops!  

Anagram the letters of a Shakespearean character to spell either the name of some isolated spot on earth or a two-word phrase associated with Cyclops. 

Who is this character? 

What are the isolated spot and two-word phrase?

Hint: The two words of the two-word phrase begin with the same letter, but they do not “alliterate.”

Surnominal Slice:

Baseball, bulls and “belletrism” 

Divide the surname of an author into two parts.

The first part of the surname is a short synonym of a rearrangement of the combined ten letters of:

👣 a metrical foot,

🟥 a word heard at a bullfight, and

⚾ a word heard at a baseball game.

The second part of the surname is what the first part is more apt to do during high winds or speeds. 

Who is this author?

What are its two parts?

What are the metrical foot and two words heard?

Riffing Off Shortz And Weisz Entrees:

An “Over-the-top” Cover-up?

Will Shortz’s January 19th NPR Weekend Edition Sunday puzzle challenge, created by Sandy Weisz of Chicago, reads:

Think of a familiar two-word phrase that means “a secret mission.” 

Move the last letter of the first word to the start of the second word. 

The result will be two words that are synonyms. What are they?

Puzzleria!s Riffing Off Shortz And Weisz Entrees read:

ENTREE #1

Think of a word that means “I love” in a language that is the root of all Romance languages, followed the first name of a puzzle-maker. The result is a two-word expression that Will Shortz – as well as those who follow him on National Public Radio (many who are versed in this root language!) – might exclaim after presenting another of this prolific puzzle-maker’s puzzles on NPR’s Weekend Edition Sunday “The Puzzle” segment.

Move the space between that “root-language word” and the puzzle-maker’s first name one place to the right, resulting in the first names of the two title characters in a long-running pioneering American radio show.

Who is this puzzle-maker?

What is the root-language translation of “I love”?

What might Will and his followers exclaim?

What is the long-running American radio show?

Note: Entrees #2 through #7 are the brainchildren of Nodd, of “Nodd ready for prime time” fame.

ENTREE #2

Think of an adjective that describes a secret mission. Remove the last letter and double the third and fourth letters. 

Rearrange to get a pair of  antonyms. 

What are the adjective and the antonyms?

ENTREE #3

Think of a word that describes the objective of many a secret mission conducted against a foreign adversary. 

Remove the third, fourth, and fifth letters. 

The remaining letters spell something that may become necessary if the secret mission is discovered by the foreign adversary. 

What is the word that describes the objective, and the word for what may become necessary? 

ENTREE #4

Think of a word for damaging an adversary’s asset to gain a political or military advantage. 

Remove the last letter. Rearrange the rest of the letters to spell a two-word vehicle that might be useful in damaging the adversary’s asset. 

What is the word for damaging an asset, and what is the two-word vehicle?

ENTREE #5

Think of a two-word phrase meaning a prearranged hiding place for the deposit and pickup of information obtained through espionage. 

Switch the order of the words in the two-word phrase and you will get an expression of intense scorn or dislike. 

What is the hiding place, and what is the expression?

ENTREE #6

Think of a slang term for an espionage agent who assumes the names of dead persons to create false identities for undercover work. 

Add an S. Rearrange to spell a word for a swamp. 

What is the word for such an agent, and what is the word for a swamp?

ENTREE #7

The names of two mammals are often used to describe persons who incriminate others. 

A two-word expression consisting of a place to sit, followed by the name of a bird, is also used in that way. 

What are the mammals, and what is the expression?

ENTREE #8

Think of a past very gifted artistic genius who had a physical handicap. 

You and others who DO NOT share this handicap are privileged  to  ____ ___ ___ __ ___iculated – in blanks containing 4,3,3 and 2 letters... and the first 3 letters of an 11-letter verb. 

These blanks contain the consecutive letters of a 5-letter body part, repeated thrice. 

The abbreviation “ICU” (Intensive Care Unit, which is associated with “death”) and the word “late,” which means “deceased,” appear consecutively in the 11-letter verb.

You, however, are still alive, and so can answer the following:

Who is this artistic genius?

What are the 5-letter body part and the words in the blanks?

ENTREE #9

In a grassy pasture or meadow (3 letters), an equine creature marked with patches of white and another color (5 letters) frolics and gambols , not “playing the horses,” but “playing
with the other horses.” 

In order to beat the heat, this “horse of two different colors,” along with a few of its “gambol-mates,” ____ ____ a nearby pond.

The two 4-letter words in the blanks contain the same letters in the same order as the 3-letter and 5-letter words.

What are this meadow and equine creature?

What do these horses do to enter the pond? 

ENTREE #10

Some war veterans choose to bring home medals, ribbons, weapons or other mementos of their service. 

But some vets also bring home mementos that are impossible for them to leave behind, examples of which are pictured here. 

Write a 3-and-5-word caption for that image. Move the space in that two-word description of mementos, forming “two new missing words” of 4 and 4 letters. This is a fitting caption for the second image pictured here. 

What are these two captions, in 3 & 5 and in 4 & 4 letters?

ENTREE #11

Professional carpenters grab their hammers, hit the nail on the head and keep pounding.

Amateur carpenters grab their hammers, hit the nail on their thumb and stop pounding (although the throbbing pain in their thumb keeps pounding!)

And predictably, after the amateur carpenter hits his thumb, he will usually ____ “__!” Those blanks contain a 4-letter verb and 2-letter exclamation! 

Remove the space and punctuation from that “blank-blank” expression to get a color.

What words belong in the blanks?

What is the color?

ENTREE #12

Often, a bull is slain by a toreador’s sword. 

But sometimes, the toreador is gored!

Think of a familiar term for sporting equipment,
in words of 3 and 5 letters, that comes in pairs.

Move the space one place to the right. The result is what happens after the toreador is gored... from that point of the bullfight on, the “mano a toro” spectacle will necessarily ___ ____. (The blanks contain a verb beginning with an “s” and a Spanish exclamation, in its plural form, beginning with an “o”.)

What is the sporting equipment?

 What happens when the toreador is gored?

ENTREE #13

Think of a mostly verbal three-word party game requiring two or more players, in 5, 2 and 4 letters.

The third word can be anagrammed to form two words associated with a personal letter in your mailbox.

Take the the first two words of the party game: 

Move the space between them two places to the left,  forming words of 3 and 4 letters:

🐘 The truncated first name of a novelist, and

🪚 A god with a carpenter’s tool.

The novelist and god are both associated with “Holly Golightning (sic).”

What is this party game?

What are the anagrams of the third word?

Who are the novelist and god?

Dessert Menu

Orchestral Dessert:

Pulling strings brings lulling winds

 Remove a letter from a stringed instrument. 

Change the first letter to the letter following it in the alphabet, then move it to the end. 

The result is a wind instrument. 

What are these instruments?

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 Thursday.

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.

Shoreside trees, Prolific puzzler, Tunes and “spoons,” Buds and “duds,” Making and breaking laws; Letters playing “musical chairs” “Something’s ROT-thirTEEN in the state of Greenland!” “Birds of a feather...” “OH HO-HUM OUT frOM My MOUTH, THOU MOTH!” “Contrarian Conundrummery”

PUZZLERIA! SLICES: OVER 5πe² SERVED

Schpuzzle of the Week:

Contrarian Conundrummery

Take a word meaning “cunning” followed, without a space, by a word meaning “foolish.” 

Remove the first letter to get a word that describes the contrary relationship between those two words.)

What are these three words? 

Appetizer Menu

Plantsmithian Appetizer:

Shoreside trees, Prolific puzzler, Tunes and “spoons,” Buds and “duds,” Making and breaking laws 

Shoreside trees

1. 🌲🌳🌲Picture a fir tree or a stand of fir trees in very close proximity to the shoreline of many a body of water in Minnesota (and perhaps even rooted within the body of water!). 

What celebrity might this picture suggest?

Prolific puzzler

2. 🎥The surname of a prolific puzzle-maker consists of  a kind a container and the last name of “The First Lady of  American Cinema?”

The fourth, second and sixth letters of this surname spell a natural energy source. The sixth, seventh, second and third letters spell a kind of carpet.

Remove the first and last letters of the puzzle-maker’s surname and place a letter that appears twice in his first name within the result to spell the nickname of some college athletes
from Texas.

Who is this puzzle-maker?

What are the container and the last name of “The First Lady of  American Cinema?”

What are the natural energy source, kind of carpet and the nickname of some college athletes from Texas?

Making and breaking laws

3. ⚖ Mix up the letters of a name of a type of
lawbreaker to get a legal term.

What are these two words?

Buds & “duds”

4. 🎕🌹🏶 Spoonerize a two-word botanical item you sometimes see in winter to get what might be considered a wardrobe malfunction.

What are this botanical item and wardrobe malfunction?  

Hint: 

The plant with which the item is associated could be found in a Shakespeare garden.

Tunes & “spoons”

5. 𝅘𝅥𝅯𝅘𝅥𝅰𝅘𝅥𝅱𝅘𝅥𝅲 🥄🥣 Name something seen on a golf course, something heard on a golf course, and a preposition, in 3, 4 and 2 letters. The result sounds like the title of a catchy tune.

What are these two golf-related words,
preposition, and tune title?

MENU

“Who Was That Masked Man?” Hors d’Oeuvre

“Birds of a feather...”

Switch the beginning sounds of two verbs (neither, however, is “flock”) that birds of a particular feather and species do. 

The result sounds like the first word of a shout directed at a masked man, which is often followed by a shout of disapproval. What are these birds and what do they do, and what are the two shouts?

Anatomical Slice:

Letters playing “musical chairs”

Move one letter in the name of a nation three places to the right. 

Insert a space someplace. 

The result is a pair of body parts.

What are this nation and two body parts?

Riffing Off Shortz And VanMechelen Entrees:

“Something’s ROT-thirTEEN in the state of Greenland!”

Will Shortz’s January 12th NPR Weekend Edition Sunday puzzle, created by Greg VanMechelen of Berkeley, California, reads:

Think of a well-known international location in nine letters. Take the first five letters and shift each of them 13 places later in the alphabet. The result will be a synonym for the remaining four letters in the place's name. What place is it?

Puzzleria!s Riffing Off Shortz And VanMechelen Entrees read:

ENTREE #1

ROT-16 a shortened form of the screen name of a puzzle-maker to spell a verb that Will Shortz will often do with puzzles this puzzle-maker submits to him. 

Who is this puzzle-maker and the short form of his screen name? 

What does Will Shortz often do with his puzzles?

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

ENTREE #2

Think of a well-known place in Europe, six letters. 

The first four letters can be arranged to spell a food named after the region of Europe from which it originated. 

The last two letters spell the abbreviation for a U.S. state. What is the place in Europe? 

What is the food? 

What is the U.S. state?

ENTREE #3

Think of the name of a country, eleven letters. 

Arrange five letters of the country name, plus a P, to spell the name of a city in Europe. (Use
the spelling for the city name that is used in the country in which the city is located.) 

What are the country and the city?

ENTREE #4

Think of a European city, eight letters. Rearrange the letters to spell a four-letter informal term for a resident of the U.K, and a four-letter abbreviation for a U.S. state. 

What are the city, the informal term for a U.K. resident, and the abbreviation?

ENTREE #5

Think of the eleven-letter, two-word name of a city in Europe. 

Seven of its letters, in order but not consecutive, spell a word for something of concern to travelers. 

What city is it? 

What is of concern to travelers?

ENTREE #6

Think of a ten-letter, two-word geopolitical region that is frequently in the news. 

Remove the first letter and rearrange the rest
to spell a food grown throughout the region and a word for a kind of restaurant. 

What are the geopolitical region, the food, and the kind of restaurant?

ENTREE #7

Think of the eight-letter name of a city in Africa. Remove the third, fourth, and fifth letters. 

The remaining letters, in order, will spell a word for an inhospitable expression. 

What city is it, and what is the word for an inhospitable expression?

ENTREE #8

Take an American singer-songwriter whose stage name begins with a word which, when you ROT-23 its letters, spells a new word for the genre of music he produces.

This singer’s first and middle “non-stage names” are identical to the first and last names of a “country lawyer” who played a role during the Watergate scandal. The singer’s surname is a word that follows “sun-” or “moon-” to form a compound word.

What are the stage name and real name of this singer-songwriter, and his genre of music? What is the name of this “country lawyer?”

ENTREE #9

“An ____ contestant has a scant chance to ___ _ beauty pageant.”

ROT-X the missing letters in the first blank (where “X” is a number from 1 to 25) to get the letters that belong in the second and third blanks.

What are these three words? 

ENTREE #10

Take a six-letter word for what the Earth and other planets do, what farmers do to crops, and what mechanics do to the kinds of Continentals or Coopers that do not have engines. 

Move the first letter into the third position followed by a space. ROT-15 the result to form the two missing words in the following excerpt from Proverbs in the Bible: “Whosoever shall ___ a ___ for others shall fall into it himself!”

What is the six-letter word? What are the two missing words from the biblical proverb?

ENTREE #11

Think of a well-known American city in a western state. 

ROT-14 its letters to get  an ethnic group of people, also  known as the Hmong, who live in southern China and parts of Southeast Asia. 

What is this city?

What is this ethnic group of people?

ENTREE #12

Think of a well-known American city in a western state. 

ROT-10 its letters to get  an adjective describing the northern half of the state. (The southern half might be described, geometrically, as triangular.) 

The city is situated near the southern edge of this northern half. 

What is this city?

What is this adjective?

Dessert Menu

Small fry Dessert:

“OH HO-HUM OUT frOM My MOUTH, THOU MOTH!”

Remove a letter from a part of the mouth. 

Spell the result backward to name a second part of the mouth. 

What are these mouth parts?

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 Thursday.

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.