Mum’s the (Happy Talk) word; Meatloaf, Cake & Joy of Cooking; “Pray” is just a four-letter word; Stalking a shifty city critter; “Inauguration of a new ladder”

 PUZZLERIA! SLICES: OVER 3(7!) SERVED

Schpuzzle of the Week:

Mum’s the (Happy Talk) word

After airing a gardening segment about how to revive chrysanthe-mums, the Happy Talk TV-news-team anchor-persons chit-chat about how the segment ties in to “E.T. the Extra-Terrestrial,” who revived dead mums in the 1982 movie of the same name. 

The letters in the phrase “ANCHOR DESK CHIT-CHAT E.T. TIE-IN” relate to something that provervially happened more than a century ago at sea. 

What happened at sea?

How do the letters in “ANCHOR DESK CHIT-CHAT E.T. TIE-IN” relate to it?

Appetizer Menu

Borderline Befuddling Appetizer:

“Inauguration of a new ladder”

Word ladder transition

🎺1. Construct a word ladder (in each step changing a single letter) from TRUMP to BIDEN using the minimum number of steps.

Bonus: Construct another word ladder from TRUMP to BIDEN in which the word CHAOS appears. This will require more steps.

Hint: Getting from TRUMP to CHAOS uses all familiar words. Getting from BIDEN to CHAOS may be somewhat more difficult.

And now there are three!

🎬2. Three US states border eight other states. Two are Missouri and Tennessee. What is the third state? Name its eight bordering states.

Pest? Prost! 

[Plague? To your health!]

📦3. A small, fairly-well-known US city contains the name of a month. Remove the name of the month. The remaining letters, pronounced as a word, sound like an English name for a German container. What are the city, container, and month?

It’s all the same

𝓣𝓨𝓟𝓔 4. Think of a female name. Using appropriate typographical treatment, the first five letters of this name could be written identically. 

What is this name, and how is it written to achieve this result?

Fishing for men

🐟5. Think of a fish. Divide the name of this fish into two halves. The first half is a man’s name. Spelled backwards, the second half sounds like a second man’s name. 

What are the fish and the two men’s names?

MENU

Ceremonial Churchy Slice:

“Pray” is just a four-letter word

Name a five-word question preacher might ask during a church service, to which the flock may respond with a four-letter word. 

Rearrange the 13 letters in the question to spell three words:

1. A biblical town associated with a church ceremony,

2. The purpose of the ceremony, and

3. A word appearing in newspaper accounts of the ceremony.

What is the question?

What are the three words?

Hint: “The purpose of the ceremony” is a gerund.

Riffing Off Shortz And Flood Slices:

Meatloaf, Cake & Joy of Cooking

Will Shortz’s January 3rd NPR Weekend Edition Sunday puzzle, created by Robert Flood of Allen, Texas, reads:

Think of a seven-letter hyphenated word for a kind of cooking. Change the middle letter to get a new word describing a kind of music. What words are these?

Puzzleria!s Riffing Off Shortz And Flood Slices read:

ENTREE #1

Name a national chain of inns, in 2 alliterative words. 

Also name something “dead” the inn may provide, in one word, that may allow you to sleep securely in your room at night with peace of mind. 

Rearrange the combined letters in these three words to form the name of a puzzle-maker. 

Who is it?

What are the three words?

ENTREE #2

Think of a seven-letter term that is sometimes substituted for the word “junk” in the expression “junk food” (such as crackers, chips, chocolate covered raisins, candy bars, burgers and fries). 

Remove the middle letter to get a new word describing a genre of rock music.

What are this “junk” substitute and genre of rock?

ENTREE #3

Write in a sans-serif font (such as Ariel, the font you are now reading) a seven-letter word for a kind of cooking that might involve potatoes, shrimp or chicken. 

Capitalize the the first and third letters to spell what looks like the surname of a very recently deceased jazz composer.  

What is the kind of cooking?

Who is the jazz composer?

ENTREE #4

Name a dessert in two words. Rearrange its first eight letters to spell, in three words, something you notice that might prompt you to call a plumber. 

The remaining letters of the dessert spell,
without rearrangement, a genre of music. 

What are this dessert and the reason for calling a plumber?

What is the genre of music?

ENTREE #5

The first two letters a “jazzy” cartoon character’s first name and all but one of the letters of the character’s last name, in order, spell a genre of jazz.

The unused letters can be used to spell a kind of pom or poodle and a letter connected by a hyphen to “bar” or “bone.”

What is this jazz genre?

Who is the cartoon character?

ENTREE #6

Name a trademarked eight-letter hyphenated word for a kind of cooker. 

Remove the hyphen and first letter to get a new word describing a genre of music and the proverbial drug of choice of fans, and perhaps purveyors, of such music. 

What is this kind of cooker?

What is the genre of music, and its fans’ drug of choice?

ENTREE #7

Think of a seven-letter more-modern-day version of “Sing Along With Mitch” that takes place not in a TV studio but in a drinking establishment. 

Rearrange its letters to form a type of tree and type of implement you likely own if you own such a tree. 

What is this more-modern-day version of “Mitch’s sing-along shtick”?

What type of a tree and an implement do you own? 

ENTREE #8

Name an eleven-letter genre of rock music associated with independent lablels. 

Rearrange the letters to name a two-word term that describes calf-roping at a rodeo.

What is this rock music genre?

What is the two-word category for calf-roping?

ENTREE #9

Think of a six-letter word for a genre of rock music that fuses elements of punk rock and heavy metal. 

Rearrange the six letters to form two words: a breakfast food and a containter for a hot breakfast beverage.

What rock music genre is this?

What are the breakfast food and hot beverage container?

Hint: A two-word synonym of the  rock music genre is a possible alternative name for "Puget Sound." 

Dessert Menu

Gophers Badgers Wolverines Dessert:

Stalking a shifty city critter

Name a critter associated with a particular state. 

Move its second letter so that it replaces its fifth letter, forming a city in that state. 

What critter and city are this?

Every Friday 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.

HappyCrypticNewCrosswordYear! Minding one’s peas and cues; Caption, capital and capitalization; Dropping the ball as multitudes fall; An uncommon Common Era occurrence

PUZZLERIA! SLICES: OVER 3(7!) SERVED

Schpuzzle of the Week:

An uncommon Common Era occurrence

1. What numerical property does the year 2021 share with only 27 of the other 2,020 years, beginning with the year 1?

(According to the math, only about 1.4 percent of the Common Era years, to date, share this
uncommon property.)

Can you name the other 27 years that share this property?

What will be the next year that shares this property?

Appetizer Menu

Auld Lang Syne Language Appetizer:

HappyCrypticNewCrosswordYear!

It’s 2021! Let’s ring in the New Year with another excellent humdinger of a cryptic crossword puzzle created by our friend Patrick J, Berry (screen name, cranberry). 

It is his eighteenth crypticcrossword puzzle to appear on Puzzleria!

Here are the links to Patrick’s seventeen previous cryptic crosswords on Puzzleria! Each is a cryptic masterpiece!

ONE TWO THREE FOUR FIVE SIX SEVEN 

EIGHT NINE TEN ELEVEN TWELVE THIRTEEN 

FOURTEEN FIFTEEN SIXTEEN SEVENTEEN

For those of you who may be new to cryptic crossword puzzles, Patrick has compiled a few basic cryptic crossword puzzle instructions regarding the Across and Down clues and their format:

The number in parentheses at the end of each clue tells how many letters are in the answer.

Multiple numbers in parentheses indicate how letters are distributed in multiple-word answers.

For example, (6) simply indicates a six-letter answer like “jalopy,” (5,3) indicates a five-and-three-letter answer like “cargo van,” and (5-5) indicates a five-and-five-letter hyphenated answer like “Rolls-Royce.”

For further insight about how to decipher these numbered cryptic clues, see Patrick’s “Cryptic Crossword Tutorial” in this link to his November 17, 2017 cryptic crossword. 

The Tutorial appears below the grid that contains the answers in that edition of Puzzleria!

And now, here are Patrick’s New Year’s clues:

ACROSS

4. Turned down fan in rush(8)

8. Married woman’s bitterness(6)

9. Philosophical sort needs help carrying box(8)

10. Football players with name in underwear?(8)

11. Not against dull arrangement?(6)

12. Carmen, for example—having lost love, dead inside, looking for shelter(8)

13. It’s a part of France, guys(8)

16. Clark Kent, for example, has to change costume, ultimately, then leave(5,3)

19. Rocky runs right off before meal(8)

21. Eager to put paintings around room?(6)

23. Informed journalists getting close to you, Tom?(8)

24. None left? Good!(3,5)

25. “Tapestry” band felt naked?(6)

26. Fighting broadcast live once?(8)

DOWN

1. S-spooky nature walk?(7)

2. Talk, dance music, and rock? Sure!(9)

3. Effect always used in R and B?(6)

4. Aristotle unsure about the whole shooting match?(7,8)

5. Fail to let go, hanging onto past(8)

6. Just bringing in large gift(5)

7. Mere lad, awfully green(7)

14. Mother in control, hard to leave school(4,5)

15. Writer shot inside brown government building(8)

17. Rock singer(7)

18. One in bed getting a little shuteye has to go to the bathroom regularly(7)

20. One captivated by clues going with flow?(6)

22. Join troubled loner(5)

MENU

Pandemocrazy Slice:

Dropping the ball as multitudes fall

The letters AOC stand for Age Of Consent or for New York politician Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez. 

What phrase heard lately in the news does AOC also stand for?

Hint: The phrase is usually preceded by the article “an.” 

Riffing Off Shortz And Curren Slices:

Minding one’s peas and cues

Will Shortz’s December 27th NPR Weekend Edition Sunday puzzle, created by David Curren of Arlington, Massachusetts, reads:

Think of a familiar two-word phrase in 5 and 2 letters. Replace the last letter with the next letter of the alphabet. The result will be a palindrome (the seven letters will read
backward and forward the same). What phrase is it?

Puzzleria!s Riffing Off Shortz And Curren Slices read:

ENTREE #1

Take a five-letter word for an ancient Celtic priest or sayer of sooth, and a six-letter word for where he may hang out (see accompanying image). 

Rearrange these eleven letters to name a puzzle-maker, first and last names.

Who is this puzzle-maker?

What is the priest and his hangout?

ENTREE #2

Think of a  two-word phrase, in three and six letters, that one might use to describe “The Pleasure Bond” by Masters & Johnson, “Sexual Behavior in the Human Male” by Alfred Kinsey and “Dr. Ruth’s Guide for Married Lovers” by Dr. Ruth Westheimer. 

Replace the antepenultimate (third-last) letter in the phrase with the a letter you might see next to it on clothing labels. 

The resulting nine letters will read backward and forward the same. What phrase is it?

ENTREE #3

Think of a two-word response, in two and five letters, that Pete Dionisopoulos, proprietor of the Saturday Night Live Olympia Restaurant, might blurt out to a customer who orders hot chocolate. 

Replace the last letter of the response with the letter thirteen places ahead in the alphabet (Rot13). 

The result will read the same backward and forward. 

What phrase is it?

ENTREE #4

Think of a compound word that is a familiar household fixture, in seven letters. 

Replace the second letter with a letter that is a homophone of a pronoun. 

The result will read the same backward and forward. What word is it?

ENTREE #5

Take the third-most-common of sixteen different ways to spell a particular holiday, in seven letters. 

Replace the third letter with the letter three places earlier in the alphabet. 

The result will read the same backward and forward. What holiday is it?

ENTREE #6

Think of a familiar proper place name, in seven letters. 

Replace the second letter with the next letter of the alphabet. 

The result will read the same backward and forward. 

What place name is it?

Hint: The name contains four letters that are the same. Remove two of them and replace them with just a single “d” and rearrange to result to spell a Greek letter.

ENTREE #7

Think of an non-hyphenated compound adjective, in nine letters, that means “unfailing or reliable, as a method or plan, for example.” 

Its fourth and sixth letters are abbreviations for two very common opposite words. 

Replace the sixth letter with a duplicate of the fourth letter. 

The result will read the same backward and forward. 

What adjective is this? 

ENTREE #8

Think of the first name of a U.S. president that was also the first name on the birth certificates of a “Dustbowl singer/songwriter,” a big band clarinetist and a country singer nicknamed “Red.”

Replace the third letter with the letter three places later in the alphabet. 

The result will read the same backward and forward. 

What first name is it?

ENTREE #9

Think of a geometrical shape in seven letters. Replace the third letter with the letter seven places earler in the alphabet. 

The result will read the same backward and forward. 

What shape is this?

ENTREE #10

Think of a word you might see while perusing your spice rack, in eight letters. 

Replace the fourth letter with the letter five places later in the alphabet. 

The result will read the same backward and forward. 

What word is it?

ENTREE #11

Think of something for which rodents are infamous, in 7 letters. Replace the fifth letter (a vowel) with a different vowel. 

The result will read the same backward and forward.

For what are pesky rodents famous?

Hint: Etymologists have an advantage in solving this puzzle.

Dessert Menu

Amen Corner Dessert:

Caption, capital and capitalization

Name a world capital and its country.

Rearrange the combined letters of the capital and country to spell a three-word caption for the vintage image pictured here.

The three words are:

1. an adjective describing something associated with a bygone era,

2. a capitalized proper noun, and

3. a noun that is more commonly used as an adjective.

What are the capital and country?

What is the caption?

Every Friday 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.

“A Holiday Rebus Repast Rune” “O come let us outdoor him...” America’s National Playtime; Christmas Crèche Character-Building; “I’m wishing for a green Christmas...”

PUZZLERIA! SLICES: OVER 3(7!) SERVED

Schpuzzle of the Week:

America’s National Playtime

Name a famous baseball player. 

The first two/thirds of his name spells a toy brand from the past that was popular with boys, especially at Christmastime.
 

The last one-third spells part of the name of a “coming-of-age Christmas gift” that dads buy for boys. 

Who is this ballplayer?

What are these “two gifts of the magical Christmas-morning reveal?”

Appetizer Menu

Campaigns Have Passed, Pass The Champagne Appetizer:

“A Holiday Rebus Repast Rune”

Last November 13, in the wake of the presidental election, Ecoarchitect presented us with an unprecedented ballot-boxful of rebuses about presidents.

Today he drops an even more tasty present down our chimney – a Santa’s-bagful of holiday dinner menu rebuses. (They appear in the large image immediately below this introductory text.) 

And so, we wish you a Merry “Chrebus,” a “Chag Urim Sameach!” (our menorah was delighted last Friday), a “Solving Solstice” and a “Happytizing” New Year!  Take a seat and be our guests of Christmas Repast and Christmas Presents, compliments of Ecoarchitect.

MENU

Managing Your Manger Slice:

Christmas Crèche Character-Building

Christmas crèches are usually set within and around a shelter populated by a cast of characters human, animal and divine. In some crèches the shelter is a grotto but it is more often a common wooden structure like a modest stable or barn.

Combine the four letters of a synonym of “modest stable or barn” with the letters of a group of divine crèche characters you might see at the scene. 

Add a “thousand bucks” to the mix and rearrange the result to spell two groups of human crèche scene characters.

What is the synonym of “modest stable or barn?”

What is the group of  divine crèche scene characters?

What are the two human groups of crèche scene characters

Riffing Off Shortz And Pitt Slices:

“I’m wishing for a green Christmas...”

Will Shortz’s December 20th NPR Weekend Edition Sunday puzzle, created by Dan Pitt of Palo Alto, California, reads:

Take the name BUENOS AIRES. Remove one letter. The remaining letters can be rearranged to name two things that many people wish for around this time of year. What are they?

Puzzleria!s Riffing Off Shortz And Pitt Slices read:

ENTREE #1

Take the name of an ancient Greek philosopher and the surnames of a surrealist artist and a surly World War II U. S. general. 

Rearrange the 15 total letters to spell the name of a puzzle-maker and his hometown. 

Who is this puzzle-maker?

Who are the philosopher, artist and general?

ENTREE #2

Take the name BUENOS AIRES. Rearrange its combined letters to form the the first pair of missing words in the second sentence below. Rearrange them again to form the second pair of missing words in that sentence.

The  “Graying of America” means that the U.S. population is steadily becoming more dominated by people more elderly. 

Along with that demographic, alas, comes an increase in reports of ______ _____, even in nursing homes, which is a _______ ____ for American society.

What are these four words?

ENTREE #3

Take the name BUENOS AIRES. Remove one letter. The remaining letters can be rearranged to form two words:

1) a war fought in Africa during the turn of a century, and

2) the informal name (like “Yank” for an American) for one of 16,000 combatants in that war (from a nation that was a part of an empire upon which “the sun never set”), six combatants of which were decorated with a Victoria Cross.

What is the war, and what is the informal name for one of 16,000 combatants who participated in it?

ENTREE #4

Take the name of the city of  SASKATOON (in Canada, home of the “world’s largest snowball fight” and the “coldest bicycle ride on the planet”). 

Rearrange its letters to form a hyphenated adjective and a noun that are synonymous with a mediocre five-line poem form. 

What is this description?

ENTREE #5

Take the name of the city of  THUNDER BAY in Canada (which is responsible for inventing insect repellant). 

Its letters can be rearranged to name, in two words, what you might hear that might make your heart skip a beat while you are sitting alone in a dusky dark mansion reading Poe.

What might make your heart skip a beat?

ENTREE #6

You are familiar with Melchior, Gaspar and Balthazar. But there was an unsung fourth member of the Magi – Shlomo. 

The gift Shlomo brought to the Bethlehem manger was not gold, frankincense or myrrh. 

The gift instead was a synonym of a three-word phrase that describes Ella Mae Bailey,
Caroline Sydenstricker and Hester Prynne.

Take the combined letters of 1) Shlomo’s gift, 2) a common Christmas tree genus and 3) the sticky stuff that gets on your hands when you lug such a tree into your home. 

Rearrange these letters to spell a European country and its capital.

What are this country and capital?

What are the synonym, the tree genus, and the sticky stuff ? 

ENTREE #7

North Carolina farmboy turned Hall of Fame major league baseball player Enos Slaughter of the St. Louis Cardinals played in the 1946 World Series against the Boston Red Sox. Near the end of the decisive Game 7 of the Series, Slaughter, after hitting a single, scored the eventual winning run on a line drive hit to the center fielder by teammate Harry Walker. 

Slaughter, who had been trying to steal second on the pitch and therefore had a head-start, proceeded to make an amazingly improbable “mad dash” of 90 yards all the way around the horn, sliding in to home plate safe!

Thus Slaughter, known primarily as a good
contact hitter, apparently could also ___ _____ pretty well. And, because he grew up on a farm, he was also likely able to ____ cows pretty well.   

Rearrange the combined letters of the three words in the blanks to spell a capital city and its country.

What are the city and country?

What could Enos do pretty well? 

What could he do to cows?

ENTREE #8

Stanford University in 1973 hosted a colloquium consisting of  lectures, debates, and discussions designed to raise awareness about the feasibility of advancing renewable energy usage in the face of an unfolding energy crisis.

The colloquium was billed as a hyphenated word that had been coined just eight years earlier. Among the topics discussed was how to reduce dependence on various non-renewable energy sources, including two that contain three letters each.

Rearrange the combined letters of the hyphenated word and the three-letter non-renewable energy sources to spell a capital city and its country.

What are this capital and country?

What are the hyphenated word and the two non-renewable sources of energy? 

No Room In The Inn Dessert:

“O come let us outdoor him...”

Name an author and outdoorsman who was associated with two particular kinds of Christmas trees.
 

His first name sounds like a synonym of Christmas and his last name, if you change the first letter, spells things you see under Christmas trees. 

Name this person.

Every Friday 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.