WoW: Costean
COSTEAN [koz-TEEN] - to search for the mother lode [From Cornish - cothas, dropped + tean, tin] Musicians often jam in a freestyle costean of an appealing melody.
Diacritical [BB502]
We supply the unusual chunks from nine well-known brands, complete with their own quirky marks, plus a hint at the product itself. For example, é (sweet giant) would be Nestlé. Only Smarties will bag the lot.
1. O’ (glass)
2. “R” (playtime)
3. 7- (convenience)
4. o! (engine?)
5. ’n (zzz)
6. ā (un-blocker)
7. ä (sweet treat)
8. ó (porcelain)
9. ë (wheels)
SOLUTION NEXT WEEK
BB501 SOLUTION: Krall, Koori, responsibility, Worcestershire, assume, iceberg, ninepins, familiar, company man, steel wool, rhododendron, dinnerware
Losing It Big-Time
Losing it. Kicking it. Forget about it....
Seems a lot of idiom that wants IT out of the picture. Or the word in our case. That's the game today - one we've played before in fact, many moons ago - where we skip IT in one word to create another.
Chomping on Cosby, say, would be BITING BING. While a Brown giant would lead to TAN TITAN. (Notice how IT can be flicked from the first or second word.)
No need for word lengths if you wish to make your own. But please remember to add your byline and clue number so we can keep track of things. Here we go:
DA1 - Feels for Collingwood
DA2 - Urbane European
DA3 - Sauce to keep you grounded?
DA4 - Cyclist's castle
DA5 - Suitably soar
DA6 - "Adjective - clear-cut, certain."
You have my permission to lose it!
Haiku Clue
Fresh from our Arabic verse in GHAZAL, let's consider the delicate art of composing a haiku clue.
If you don't know the discipline, the Japanese verse entails 5 syllables in the first line, then 7 in the second, and five in the last. Your typical haiku reads:
Bamboo clattering.
Blossoms shudder free. Winter
Arrives with fanfare.
Or something like that. No call for rhyme - just a faithful syllable tally, and a central theme. Or cryptic clue in our case. That's the challenge - to pick a word or name from Japan or nearby Asia, and render both defintion and wordplay as a haiku.
Here's my flimsy dabble:
TAMAGOTCHI
Feral cat might grab
Duck 'egg' with faddish whiz-bang
Animal inside.
Chinese and other Asian allusions are fine, just to give our poetry some licence. Please provide your answer as the haiku's title - selecting words, names, cities, movies or anything Asiatic in flavour. And let's see who can deliver the haiku de grace.
WoW: Ghazal
GHAZAL [YAH-zarl] - Arabic love poem with a recurring rhyme and a limited number of stanzas [From Arabic] The classic ghazal includes the poet's takhallus - pen name - in the closing stanza.
Flipping The Bird [BB501]
Sorry to be rude, but GNAWS and GENRE both ‘flip the bird’. That’s to say, the two possess a backward bird nesting in their letters, with SWAN and ERN/E sleeping inside the pair. All twelve answers can claim the same.
1. Jazz singer Diane (5)
2. Southern Aboriginal (5)
3. Duty of care (14)
4. Sauce type (14)
5. Believe (6)
6. Polar hazard (7)
7. Skittles (8)
8. Intimate (8)
9. He’s a loyal worker (7,3)
10. Scrubber (5,4)
11. Azalea cousin (12)
12. Plates, platters etc (10)
SOLUTION NEXT WEEK
BB500 SOLUTION: Delighted, disinterested, deported, devoted, departed, depressed, degraded, distorted. (Other devious dismissals are possible.)
Demonym Derby
A word challenge before we begin a placename game. This comes from Kerry via email: What do you call a tweeter (or blog poster) who gatecrashes the chat, gets all sweary & upset because you don't share their views, then humphs off in a state of hurt or outrage?
Phew. Plenty to fit into one word. So far the shortlist - beyond troll - is Trollum (after Gollum) and the adjective of pestulant. Any other nominees?
++
Now for the name game - two in fact:
1. Can you create a comical Oz demonym? To whet the wits, consider Lismoron, Yassman, Thredbogan, Bondiver, Cobarman (and Cobarmaid) & Perthling.
2. And keeping geographic, what might be an Oz town's funny offshore twin? If the Shire of Bland is hoping to connect with Dull, Ohio (seriously), then what other alliances may be on the agenda? What about:
Orange & Valencia
Mascot & Manchester (think beds...)
Dandenong & Antwerp
Hay & Grasmere
You get the geo-gist. Have fun with all three brain-ticklers.
A Huh or Two [48]
Over coffee I struggled to crack a puzzle by a devious rogue called Radler, downloaded from Big Dave's [excellent] Crossword Blog. Managed to solve all but one, though I'm still head-scratching over a few subterfuges. Namely:
1. Rhetoric with nothing much put out by Spain after article there = ELOQUENCE [I get the EL, and the nothing, but the remainder...?]
2. Under pressure to remove drug for pain relief = _E_S?? [Dunno. Do you? That's the one I missed.]
And from recent Times:
3. A couple of Scotsmen: pygmies = TWA [Ha?]
4. On both sides of line, squad's not yet fired = UNLIT [Both sides of line?]
5. Recurring problems with eye reported by hospital - this problem? = STRABISMUS [I'm trying to wangle Barts - a London hospital - into this answer, and missing the procedure...]
6. Unemployed South African chap has to integrate = OUT OF USE [Tell me TOFU has no nori roll here...]
7. Pompous golfer’s second round = OROTUND [O + ROUND but how's the T implicated?
Any insights or other eurekas eagerly awaited. And if the Muse moves, then try to compose an alternative clue for any answer here. Thanks.
Lemony Snippets
I'm a huge fan of the Baudelaire series created by Lemony Snicket. As unfortunate events go, they are inspired stories of grim tangents and playful language. Even the titles are worthy of toasting, which you're welcome to do this week.
Pick a book, any book, and see if you can render the title into a clever shred of wordplay. No need to define anything - just enjoy the manipulation of Snicket's alliteration. In order, the wondrous 13 read like so:
Bad Beginning
Reptile Room
Wide Window
Miserable Mill
Austere Academy
Ersatz Elevator
Vile Village
Hostile Hospital
Carnivorous Carnival
Slippery Slope
Grim Grotto
Penultimate Peril
The End
To make a better than bad beginning:
REPTILE ROOM - More 'politer'? Wrong
GRIM GROTTO - Cosgrove gains edge over leading rowing eight in Rome?
WoW: Malthusian
MALTHUSIAN - Of the view that swelling populations outstrip the means of survival [From economist and priest Thomas Robert Malthus (1766-1834) who first proposed the concern.] One-child policies in China and elsewhere underpin the Malthusian mindset.
Turning Tail
For some Friday follies, let's devise some clues for words where a tail-switch comes into play. Floor cat, for one may be LINO LION, while Timbuktu post could be MALI MAIL.
No need to supply word lengths. (I'm guessing many will be fours - or maybe even threes.) Though the EAGER may find EAGRE, or carpenter Sound quality of wood = TIMBER TIMBRE.
Turn only tails, and please number your clues with byline attached. Like so:
DA1 - Punter's mag
DA2 - Raise trunks
DA3 - Jerk jerks
DA4 - Pet POV?
DA5 - More bashful borough
DA6 - It's sadly beyond Andrew & Myuran
Boot Trunk
A dual clue challenge, where we ransack a list of US/UK words, dreaming up clues for both members of each transatlantic pair. Use this list as a kickstart. Or feel free to meander outher sources as well, including the vast Wiki entry.
Please identify each pair you're tackling, the better for browsers to appreciate your skulduggery. And make a point of defining each word - the same way or afresh. To get your cogs cranking:
DIAPER - Bum wrap compensated in hindsight
NAPPY - Article covers insurance premium in cool base cover
++
VACATION - Break Spanish cow into droving
HOLIDAY - One setter disrupts divine respite
Have a lark/scream.
WoW: Filk
FILK - popular song converted into parody [Likely derived from a typo of folk song, an error committed to the Spectator Amateur Press Society in the 1950s.] Originally the filk was a piece of sci-fi slang, as the bungled title was The Influence of Science Fiction on Modern American Filk Music.
OUTSHINE Dvorak
Humans seems rusted onto the QWERTY keyboard, despite the Dvorak alternative. If you don't know the story, August Dvorak was an American psychologist who wangled his own typewriter keys in the the 1940s. Only to strike the brickwall of old habits.
Still, there's life in his rejigged alphabet yet. Well, its middle row at least, which assemble the very handy ten of AOEUIDHTNS, the building blocks of our Brainstorm words this week.
No repeats, but feel free to manipulate AOEUIDHTNS any which way - then clue the result. TEDIOUS? DUTIES? HESTON? THE US? Here's an opener or two:
HIDE - Leather veil
EDISON - He made light about team being wired?
HIDEOUTS - Shirt worn by vile lairs
Marching Orders [BB500]
A little late, this 500th Birdbrain. (They should sack the puzzler in charge of this website.) And let's keep with that dismissive mindset to reveal the varied sackings that take place below.
If a sacked model is de-posed, or a dismissed cashier dis-tilled, can you deduce what other de- and dis-puns apply to these ousted professionals? (Alternative oustings are possible. Can you create more doomed careerists?)
1. Electrician
2. Banker
3. Vintner
4. Politician
5. Barber
6. Journo
7. Teacher
8. Lawyer
SOLUTION NEXT WEEK
BB499 SOLUTION: Cantaloupe, sarcophagi, garlic clove, soundtrack, misbegotten, smokestack, submit, combat, martini, body lice
WoW: Piblokto
PIBLOKTO - severe disassociative episode caused by isolation or depression [From Inuktun language, literally 'has hysteria'] Extended darkness and bitter cold are common piblokto triggers among the Inuit people
Shifty Maids of May
For a change of pace, let's rewire the titles of books and films into rhyme. Die Hard, for example, could evolve into My Card: How I Came To Lose a MYKI and Wear a $85 Fine. Or being more ambitious, we also have:
The Infernal Pun-Line of a Plotless Kind - fatal Dad jokes from an improv comedian
Dig Zero Tricks - how kids savaged the hired magician at a bar mitzvah
The Younger Flames - adolescent lovers jailed for too much tonsil hockey
Creepy Follow - an unwanted admirer on Twitter
Don't worry about ID-ing your film. (That's part of the fun, as a reader-cum-solver.) Feel free to rhyme the shorter stuff (turning Red Dog into Dead Frog) or dare to dream on the extended titles, where all key words are converted.
Onomatopoetics
After so many elongated words - like satyagraha and pangram clues - let's downsize to ding and dong and other onomatopoeia. We have open slather, from bang to zap, from clip-clop to hiphop, from boom to vroom.
Here's a list that may warm your engines, but feel free to snaffle your sizzle. So long as the word is a sound effect, it's sound. (And if you want to be extra-creative, you can also grab extended words or phrases that include a sound-word: SWAT team, crackpot and Bo Peep, say.)
Both wordplay and definition are required, making the challenge a little stiffer, since grrr, meow and ribbit can be ticklish to define, let alone camouflage. The best of the week's cacophony will warrant the roar of the crowd. To kick off:
MURMUR - Rumour redoubled spirit in return
BLAST - Carpeting becomes second-grade, expose to weather
SIR TOBY BELCH - Bard's boozer dissolved into hysteric blob
Have a hoot with this.
WoW: Satyagraha
SATYAGRAHA [SORT-yor-GRAR-ha] - passive resistance, especially as a protest action [Hindi via Sanskrit, literally: insistence on truth, from satya truth + agraha fervour] Mahatma Gandhi made an art form of satyagraha
Playing Dress-Ups [BB499]
Clothe the clusters below, and you’ll make nine common words or phrases. Of course, by clothe, I mean clad each cluster in the right garment to render a familiar verbal ensemble.
For example, (AGU) can squeeze inside VEST to make V(AGU)EST, while (RE/OF) needs a SCARF to make SCARE OFF.
1. (NATALOU)
2. (COPHAG)
3. (ARLIC/C)
4. (UNDTRA)
5. (SBEGO)
6. (KESTA)
7. (BM)
8. (MB)
9. (ART)
10. (Y/L)
SOLUTION NEXT WEEK
BB498 SOLUTION: Battery, bedroom, blister, channel, comfort, diamond, fortune, forward, whistle. (Other words could suit.)
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