A Fortnightly Dose Of “MisJeffous” Homophonics; Reading in the Restroom; “Heavaughnly” sweetness from Sarah; “See no evil, hear no evil... but speak your heart out!” Letters later or early, all done; Apparatus “empartners” a pair of hearts

PUZZLERIA! SLICES: OVER 5πe² SERVED

Schpuzzle of the Week:

Letters later or early, all done

Name a color. 

Move its letters three places earlier in the circular alphabet to spell a word associated with a name from the Old Testament of the Bible. 

If you instead move the color’s letters fourteen places later in the circular alphabet you’ll spell a word associated with a different Old Testament name. 

What are this color, the two four-letter names and the words associated with them?

Appetizer Menu

“To ThysElf Be True” Appetizer:

A Fortnightly Dose Of “MisJeffous”
Homophonics

12/18: After the 25-mile hike the weary ______ complained their ____ were weary. 

12/19: At the home goods store, _____ said,
“Those are too shiny, I want a _____ _______.” 

12/20: Not having seen the speed camera, Jeff was surprised to _____ he’d been _____. 

12/21: Looking out the window of her alpine retreat, Sarah felt _____ that she couldn’t get a ______ at the _______. 

12/22: You must use a large _____ rifle when hunting ______. 

12/23: To properly play a ______ instrument,
first learn to _____ music. 

12/24: Carl was the ____ miner in the _____ mine. 

12/25:  ______ and _____ worked together in the ______ lab. 

12/26: One of the joys of living near the shore was being able to _____ at the ships tied to the _____. 

12/27: Paul was ______ after shouting when his ____ won the Derby. 

12/28: While it may seem unholy, Sin is the
___ for ___. 

12/29: Without some time off you may feel ___ at the end of the _____. 

12/30: Many felt that _____ on coronation day was an inauspicious start to William’s ______. 

12/31: With his crew cut,______ was truly _____. 

MENU

Hear No Evel Knievel Hors d’Oeuvre:

“See no evil, hear no evil... but speak your heart out!”

Replace the last letter of a word you might hear at a Catholic Mass with a three-letter synonym of that letter to spell something you might see at such a Mass. 

What might you hear and see?

Our Lad Our Lady Slice:

Apparatus “empartners” a pair of hearts

Two teens in love wish to wed but their parents disapprove. 

So, the teens devise a one-word plan – one that requires an apparatus that is constructed of a two-word anagram of that plan. 

What are the plan and the apparatus? 

What is the apparatus made of?

Riffing Off Shortz And Flood Entrees:

“Heavaughnly” sweetness from Sarah

Will Shortz’s December 14th Weekend Edition Sunday puzzle, created by Robert Flood of Allen, Texas, reads:

Name a famous female singer of the past (five letters in the first name, seven letters in the last name). Remove the last letter of her first name and you can rearrange all the remaining letters to name the capital of a country (six letters) and a food product that its nation is famous for (five letters).

Puzzleria!s Riffing Off Shortz And Flood Entrees read:

ENTREE #1

Name a capital city in Africa an and a capital city in Europe.

* In the African country capital, replace the first vowel with the first letter of contraction that appears in a national anthem; then replace the second vowel with the rest of that contraction. The result is the puzzle-maker's first name. 

* In the European country capital, replace a consonant that appears twice with an “F” and rearrange the result to spell the puzzle-maker's surname. 

Who is this puzzle-maker?

What are the capital cities?

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

ENTREE #2

Name a famous female singer (5, 5). Remove the last letter of her first name and the first letter of her last name. 

Rearrange the remaining letters to name the capital of a country and a staple food of the country. 

Who is the singer and what are the capital and the food? 

ENTREE #3

Name a famous female singer of the past (6, 8). Remove the last letter of her first name and double the fifth and eighth letters of her last name. 

Rearrange these 15 letters to name the capital of a country, an informal name for a food originating in Europe but commonly eaten in the U.S., and the form in which the food is served. 

Who is the singer and what are the capital, the food, and the form in which it is served?

ENTREE #4

Name a famous female singer of the past (5, 6). Rearrange these 11 letters to name the capital of a country and a flowering plant native to the country of the singer’s ancestry. 

Who is the singer and what are the capital and the plant?

ENTREE #5

Name a famous female singer (5, 7). 

Remove the first letter of her last name. Rearrange the remaining 11 letters to name
the capital of a country and a word for shrewd. 

Who is the singer and what are the capital and the word?

ENTREE #6

Name a famous female singer (5, 6) and add one A. Rearrange these 12 letters to name the capital of a country and a word for expensive. 

Who is the singer and what are the capital and the word?

ENTREE #7

Name a famous female singer (5, 5). Change the third letter of her last name to a K. 

Rearrange these 10 letters to name the capital of a country and a different country in the same hemisphere. 

Who is the singer and what are the capital and the country?

Note: Entree #8 is the brainchild of Plantsmith, author of “Garden of Puzzley Delights.”

ENTREE #8

Think of a famous jazz singer, first and last names.

Remove the last two letters from their whole name and mix to get a malady which (according to their autobiography) they may have suffered from.

Who is this singer? What is the malady? 

ENTREE #9

Think of a living new wave, blues, and country singer-songwriter, first and last names. 

His name contains nine letters. Letters 3, 7, 8 & 5 followed by letters 1, 2, 6, 4 & 9  spell – in
an “archaically biblical manner of speaking” – that this singer may have occasionally enjoyed smoking a marijuana cigarette.

Who is this singer?

What archaic phrase suggests that he may have smoked marijuana?

ENTREE #10

Think of an alternative/indie American singer-songwriter in five and four letters. Her first and last names, respectively, end with a double-vowel and double-consonant. 

Rearrange these nine letters to spell a pair of homophones:

* a U.S. state, and

* long and heavy hair growing about the neck and head of some mammals (such as those in the title of title of a 1975 punk-rock album).

Who is this singer-songwriter?

What are the pair of homophones?

Dessert Menu

Tidy Dry “Lunar” Dessert:

Reading in the Restroom

A fellow who is a guest at his friend’s house enters a room with a door that can be locked from the inside. He reads a section of a mystery novel during his relatively brief stay in
the room. 

Take the surname of the novel’s protagonist and of a synonym of “section of a novel.” Rearrange their combined letters to spell a two-word receptacle within this room. 

What are this surname, “section of a novel,” and receptacle?

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.