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.