Thursday, June 18, 2026

Rob from the Rich?; Bird Bug “Crawler” Canine Feline; “ROT-10” (or-13?) Fish!; Four synonyms, two rhyming pairs; ROT! For these five letters five is the limit!; Takin’ a trip to the Piggly Wiggly; “It’s the Berries!” Splash Slash Lash Ashbackwards! “Our cookie jar lid is ajar!” “The Pause (Button) that Refreshes?”




PUZZLERIA! SLICES: OVER 5πe2 SERVED

Schpuzzle Of The Week

“It’s the Berries!”

The Schuzzle of this week is all about the berries!

You are challenged to identify eleven kinds of
berries... (like, say, “gooseberries” or “boysenberries”) that are pictured here — one kind in the “Schpuzzle of the Week” logo, and ten others in the
 illustration above, on the right.

Appetizer Menu

Mental ConTORTions Appetizer:

Rob from the Rich?; Bird Bug “Crawler” Canine Feline; “ROT-10”(or-13?) Fish!; Four synonyms, two rhyming pairs; ROT! For these five letters five is the limit! 

Rob from the Rich?

1.  🐦🎜⏺🎝Name two Top 10 songs by British artists that peaked in the same year during the mid-1970s. Remove the first letter from one title and you’ll have the title of the other song.

Both artists later had Top-20 songs with the same female vocalist. Both songs with this female “songbird” were on the same soundtrack album. 

The shorter song title also was also used in an earlier song by an act with a bird name. The longer title was used in an earlier song by an artist whose first name at birth is a bird. Remove the last letter from the last name, and it sounds like another bird. 

What are the two song titles? Who performed them? Who is the female vocalist? 

Bird Bug “Crawler” Canine Feline

2. 🐕🐈🐍🕷🐦 Name a six-letter animal in the canine family. ROT-13 the third letter and rearrange to get an animal in the feline family. Now change that letter to a different letter and rearrange to get a reptile. Change it again, and rearrange to get an insect. Remove the last two letters of the insect to get a bird.

What are the canine, feline, reptile. insect, and bird?

“ROT-10”(or-13?) Fish!

3. 🐟Think of a type of fish. ROT-13 each letter. You’ll have a type of insect. Now think of a famous fictional example of the fish. ROT-3
each letter to get a type of insect.

What are the fish, example of the fish, and two types of insects? 

Four synonyms, two rhyming pairs; 

4. 📖Think of two verbs that are synonymous. 

One word is six letters long and the other is five. 

They start with the same two letters. 

Now replace those two letters with two different
letters (same two new letters for both words). You’ll have two new synonyms that are synonymous with the first two words.

What are the words? 

ROT! For these five letters five is the limit! 

5. 📬Think of a common five-letter word. If you ROT-1, ROT-2, ROT-4, or ROT-5 the first letter,
you’ll have additional common words; however, no other changes to the first letter yield words.

What are these words?

MENU

Hard Copy & Soft Drinks Hors d’Oeuvre:

“The Pause (Button) that Refreshes?”

A word on the keyboard contains four consecutive letters of the alphabet – the last one twice, making it five. 

Remove three of the five, including one of the duplicate letters. Add an“app.” Rearrange the result to spell a soft drink brand.

What are this word on the keyboard and soft drink brand?

Clean-Up In Aisle-Nine Slice:

Takin’ a trip to the Piggly Wiggly

Name an “over-the-counter” item you might  purchase from your local supermarket, in two words.

Four consecutive letters spell what you might then purchase in the fruits section of the grocery.

The remaining letters, if your place the second letter at the end, spell a food you might purchase in either the produce section or baking aisle.

What are this “over-the-counter” item and two other possible purchases?

Riffing Off Shortz And Pickard Slices:

Splash Slash Lash Ashbackwards!

Will Shortz’s June 14th NPR Weekend Edition Sunday puzzle, created by listener Michael Pickard, reads:

Name something in 10 letters that's found in a kitchen. Drop its sixth letter to name something
on a keyboard. Then drop the new word's fifth letter to name something no one wants to get. What words are these?

Puzzleria!s Riffing Off Shortz And Pickard Slices read:

ENTREE #1

Name a three-word command a sleight-of-hand practitioner may give you or other member of his audience. 

Remove the two spaces, then remove two
adjacent letters that appear elsewhere in the command.

The result is the surname of a puzzle maker. 

Who is this puzzle-maker? What was the command?

(Note: Entrees #2 through #7 are the brainchildren of our friend and master riffmeister Nodd.

ENTREE #2

1. Name something in two words totaling 10 letters that’s found in a kitchen. Move the first letter of the second word to the fourth position of the first word. 

Then switch what are now the first and third letters of the second word. The result will name something no one wants to get. What are these two things?

ENTREE #3

Name something in six letters that’s found in a kitchen. Add a “C” and an “M” somewhere to
name things you put on breads. 

Remove four consecutive letters from the second word to name something no one 

ENTREE #4 

Name something in 10 letters that is found in a kitchen. 

Rearrange its letters to name a dish that might
be made using this item, and a word for what the cook might do if the dish turned out poorly. 

What words are these?

ENTREE #5

Name something in two words totaling 11 letters that is found in a kitchen. 

Replace its third letter with an “E” to describe something a person in Ireland might read. 

What words are these?

ENTREE #6 

Name something in nine letters that is found in a kitchen. 

Replace its middle letter with a space to name a part in the 1970 film “Pufnstuf.” 

What is found in a kitchen, and what is the part?

ENTREE #7

A 10-letter brand name often found in kitchens describes a character from the Disney movie “Peter Pan.” 

What is the brand name and who is the character? 

(Note: Entree #8 was created and contributed by our talented friend and riffmaster Plantsmith.

ENTREE #8

Take a nine letter item that could be found in the kitchen. 

Drop letter four to get someone
who might be found in a kitchen.

Then remove two letters that are found in a famous movie. 

They replace them with abbreviation used often  in texting, to get animal associated with the kitchen item.

Dessert Menu

Midnight Sweet Snack Dessert:

“Our cookie jar lid is ajar!” 

“Don’t get me wrong,” my next-door neighbor Gabe confided in me during one of our frequent over-the-fence conversations. 

“My wife Mabel and I love her nephew Timothy very much, and we enjoy having him as a guest at our home. But it would be difficult to estimate the number of her homemade cookies Tim ate during his midnight visits to the cookie jar in our kitchen!”

What is a tad repetitive in that narrative?

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.

6 comments:

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