WoW: Brummagem
BRUMMAGEM [BRUM-uh-jum] - tawdry; trashy trinket, or counterfeit [Corruption of Birmingham, where phony coins were produced in the 1600s.] I can only imagine the brummagem brummagems infesting most post-Christmas households.
Summer Siesta
DA.com will be taking its customary Yule lull for a month, resuming in late January. Visitors will still find diversion through the weekly Birdbrain puzzles, as well as the WoW - or Word of the Week, which you're free to clue. Thirdly, to break up the week, I will be dropping down some vintage Brit clues - circa 1995 - with answers supplied in the follow-up post.
Before that blab, however, take a crack. See if you can keep a perfect score. And if you're feeling inspired, or adequately charged by Xmas pudding, have a go at composing your own clues for the same answers.
Good luck with both, and thanks for a tribal 2014 - or the Year of the Manuscript as I call it. With Riddling all but written, I have a junior title now to cover before March 10. Yes, a busy man for his sins. Enjoy your break - cheers.
1. Love in spring may result in ring (4)
2. Having defective hearing, one abandoned blower (7)
3. See you came with cooked rice (11)
4. Publication followed report (5)
5. Original mole-catcher arranged spy's end (3,4,5)
6. Bunch of keys found in trash (6)
7. One in movies! (5)
Share your answers, tips and/or DIY clues below.
WoW: Didapper
DIDAPPER - [DIE-dapp-uh] - someone who disappears for a time, then suddenly reappears; small grebe [Unknown origin, regarding the diving patterns of the dabchick] Teenage boys are classic didappers during the post-Christmas clean-up.
Yuletide Spooning [BB491]
Spoonerise your two answers to create opposites. Eager/brain, say, is KEEN/MIND (mean/kind). Keen minds will conquer all twelve, and still have time to bake the Christmas pudding.
DA1 - fib/garden tool
DA2 - sense/garden tool
DA3 - crib/grip
DA4 - spiel/callow
DA5 - glum/chief
DA6 - schooled/cloak
DA7 - altitude/tax
DA8 - louvre/bumper
DA9 - moonlike/sleaze
DA10 - plunge/ushered
DA11 - plague/thump
DA12 - core/staff
SOLUTION NEXT WEEK
BB490 SOLUTION: Ritz, Flag, Raffles, Peppers, Ibis, Sheraton, Holiday Inn, Clarion, Best Western, Four Seasons, Statler & Waldorf
Ad Breaks
For our final Storm of 2014, let's get commercial, dropping ads into words and phrases, names and titles. Or to be more precise: AD. Anywhere. Up front, down back, or in your target's midst, add AD and give new meaning to your choice.
Due to the range, this Storm will naturally take two forms. Either you present a pair of words - one intact, one with AD. Or you present a person or title, with AD added, and give us a comic summary. Here are both styles:
Esteem swamp = ADMIRE MIRE
President's pervs? = LEADER'S LEERS
Or
Lana Del Ready > improv actress
Miami Advice > Slip, slop, slap
Fun enuf? A breezy prelude to X-day. Here's my kick-off:
DA1 - Stick this spot!
DA2 - Confined quintet
DA3 - Access quest
DA4 - Cat field?
DA5 - Old agent
DA6 - Bright & happy
The Truman Shadow - the legacy of Harry S
Radio Grande - boombox
Sex, Ladies & Videotape - pornucopia
Have fun. And may peace and pleasure be yours this Xmas.
WoW: Lalochezia
LALOCHEZIA [LARL-o-KEZ-ee-uh] - Emotional relief gained by vulgar language, or an outburst of swearing [Greek, lalia - speech, chezo - to relive oneself] One means of mitigating one's curglaff [see last week] is via lalochezia.
Holiday Hotels [BB490]
Your TWELVE answers embody a dozen well-known hotel chains. (Care to set a new list involving another related set of brand names or businesses?)
DA1 - Salted cracker
DA2 - Tire
DA3 - Lotteries
DA4 - Bombards
DA5 - Wader
DA6 - Furniture designer
DA7 - Berlin musical
DA8 - Antique trumpet
DA9 - High Noon?
DA10 - Pizza variety
DA11 - Muppet Show grumps
SOLUTION NEXT WEEK
BB489 SOLUTION: Pro/contestant, pro/conduct, con/profession, pro/concession, con/progress, pro/contract, con/profusion, con/proscription, pro/constitution
Elk Cackle
For some Friday follying, how about we solve (and invent) mini-palindromes? Just two words only, with names legit, and lengths optional. A fish fanatic, say, would be a TUNA NUT, while a deer laugh is an ELK CACKLE.
Get a titter from these, and see if you can make your own, using your byline and numbering so we can track solutions. To lift the level of difficulty, there's no need for word lengths, with the only proviso that all answers own two words.
DA1 - Dense filth
DA2 - CEOs cry
DA3 - Brazil underbelly?
DA4 - Regal lubricant?
DA5 - Note umps
DA6 - Big jewel
DA7 - Small barbarian?
DA8 - NASA merch
Raey - Year in Review
2014 is three weeks from its finale - the ideal time to parade a few headliners and events from the last 12 months. Below you will find space probes and deadly microbes, plus a lot of names and events in between.
Who can clue'm best? (Definitions are optional.) Feel free to add your own nominations too - from heroes to villains, grand occasions or turning points. And thanks for a vibrant year at DA.com too, especially considering my MS truancy over recent months! Here's to a bigger, bolder, more inspiring 2015.
SOCHI GAMES
EBOLA VIRUS
CYCLONE ITA
BARRY O'FARRELL
BOKO HARAM
DANIEL RICCIARDO
NICK KYRGIOS
ROSETTA PHILAE
PHILIP SEYMOUR HOFFMAN
LAUREN BACALL
ROBIN WILLIAMS
AGE OF ENTITLEMENT
GP CO-PAYMENTS
PAID PARENTAL LEAVE
Let's make merry in the nearing silly season.
WoW: Curglaff
CURGLAFF - the shock you feel when entering cold water [Scottish dialect, of obscure origin] Bondi Icebergs know all about the curglaff factor in June.
Pros and Cons [BB489]
Juggle a PRO with a CON – or vice versa – to make today’s nine answers. Persuades states, say, is convinces provinces. Each answer is a two-word phrase with no prescribed order for the PRO- or CON-versions. (And can you add any more to the list?)
DA1 - Christian quiz player
DA2 - Good behaviour?
DA3 - RC career
DA4 - Parade privilege
DA5 - Summit headway
DA6 - Extend agreement
DA7 - Pandemonium
DA8 - Whitlam Act of 72
DA9 - Moll make-up?
SOLUTION NEXT WEEK
BB488 SOLUTION: Peckuliar, gestickulate, matrickulate, deckadent, rackonteur, spectackular, specktacular forensick, deducktion
Huh 46
Sifting through some old UK puzzles last night and came across a few clues that still leave me grasping, even with the answers timidly entered. Maybe you can help shed some light and/or devise some alternative clues for the same answers. By all means!
1. Look to step on garden tool always wanting revenge at last its best served cold = GAZPACHO [Times 9784 - there's GAZE & HOE & cold soup...]
2. Topping one found after look round double edge of pizza? = PEPPERONI [Same puzzle, similar anguish]
3. Redecorated skips one time in New York, say, most colourful = REDDEST [Times 9808 - is 'time in New York' = Eastern Standard Time. Meh, and huh, all in one.]
4. Response from Brussels? = ECHO [Magwitch in the Tele - EC home perhaps? Pretty flimsy. When does HO = Home?]
5. Spring without the first sign of any precipitation? An unwelcome twist = SPRAIN [Almost there with 9836 - but can't quite see the water for the rain.]
6. Dangerous driver squashes fox over area = TOAD [Mr Toad was a highway terror. And area = A, but then 9841 has me flailing.]
7. Soldier on exercise shot reserve = NONPAREIL [Same puzzle, but here the migraine's more acute. Got an Aspro?]
8. School without publicity pressing to change corpulence = PUDGINESS [Origins unknown, and ditto for the wordplay's workings.]
Ambidextrously
Love that word: AMBIDEXTROUSLY. Can you see why? Keep looking, and I'll tell you later in this post.
Meanwhile, another Enigmatist clue, another challenge, this time involving both hands. The clue wnet this way: Reverse sides of glass cart = TUMBREL, where the L and R of TUMBLER are switched to make the vehicle. Tough but classy clue. Enigmatist is always an innovative challenge.
So what say we swap hands in other words, where LURE can be RULE, or even just BLAND turns to BRAND? Rather than concoct cryptic clues, let's clue our various doubles, entailing a single (or double) swap, or an internal switch. RUNG can become LUNG; BERRY can turn in BELLY; or LEVER into REVEL.
So then, here's my batch, as soon as I tell you AMBIDEXTROUSLY holds 14 unique letters:
DA1 - Delay total (5,5)
DA2 - ABC DJ sycophancy (6,6)
DA3 - Film comic heckler (7,7)
DA4 - OK weapon (5,5)
DA5 - Phonebooth? (6,6)
I'm handing it to you now... Any others?
WoW: Griffonage
GRIFFONAGE - illegible handwriting [From French griffoner, to scrawl] GPs are notorious for griffonage which only qualified pharmacists can decipher.
Enigmatick [BB488]
Different sort of puzzle this week, more pun-fest than the rest. If a punchy thinker is Sockrates, and a giant jail is a titanick, can you insert a new K behind a C to make nine more ‘partickular’ puns? You have each neo-word’s length.
DA1 - Odd kiss (9)
DA2 - Point with a rod (12)
DA3 - Graduate from Hogwarts (12)
DA4 - Indulgent cards (9)
DA5 - Snooker story-teller (10)
DA6 -Extravagant pin (12)
DA7 - Extravagant grain (12)
DA8 - Bored of CSI (9)
DA9 - Bird loss (10)
SOLUTION NEXT WEEK
BB487 SOLUTION: Out of: condition, circulation, practice, control, kilter, reach, pocket, wedlock, court, fashion, money, character. (Other outs could be in.)
Ice Cube Clues
It's a rare clue that deserves its own post, and brainstorm. But that honour falls to The Guardian's Enigmatist from a few weeks back (26043) when he presented this novelty:
Mass of cold meat from skinned ribs succeed fantastically (3,4)
Only thanks to a few cross-letters did I suspect ICE CUBE, but how. Then I spotted the devilry, with 'ribs succeed' successively losing their 'skins'. The fantastic upshot of IBUCCEE, of course, is ICE CUBE.
Wow. That's one rare reductive anagram technique, in a stylish seamless clue. In tribute, can we duplicate a similar feet, even using a single fodder-word to strip. Like this:
Cat suffered vertigo endlessly = TIGER
Trying a weaker two-word version:
Cat stirs legs, bare and free
Jeez it's a tricky recipe. No wonder it's rare. Kudos to John Henderson (aka Enigmatist) for daring to dream such mischief. See if we can add to the marvel.
Salon 52 - Rustling Crows
Radio puzzles bring enigmas to life. Closer to Christmas I'll be doing a regular spot on Summer Breakfast with Radio National, as I'd hinted in an earlier post. Right now, aside from writing on riddles, I'm trying to devise smart sonic recipes for the wireless.
One idea is converting notable names to noises. Russell Crowe, say, could be rustling paper + cawing. Maggie Beer? A warble + an ale being poured. While Chopper Read can pair a helicopter with a flute (reed/read - homophones are fine).
For a prize, who can you add? Bonus points if the celeb is Australian, but that's not vital. Surnames are fine too, like Turn-Bull, or Springs-teen. And share any variations you fancy. (I'm still musing H/Amish B/lake as something worth wangling - or toying with titles: Cat on a Hot Tin Roof.) Anything that has a comic/sonic potential is welcome.
The prize is perfect for silly season too - The Biggest Riddle Book in the World, with over 2000 thigh-slappers for that cute-annoying child in your life.
Speaking of riddles, I'm heading back to the manuscript: 75 chapters down and 25 to go. Mini-chapters, I should add, with Santa my deadline. Ho-ho-ho, gotta go. Have a wordy week.
WoW: Dehisce
DEHISCE [de-HISS] - to burst open, such as seed capsules; to gape [From Latin, hiscere, to gape or yawn] Many Australian plants depend on fire for their pods to dehisce.
Extractions [BB487]
If RIN is ‘out of print’, and VOU is shorthand for ‘out of favour’, how many more common ‘out of’ phrases can you elicit out of this dozen? In some case, an alternative solution is not of the question.
1. DIT
2. CUL
3. TIC
4. NTR
5. LTE
6. ACH
7. CKE
8. DLO
9. URT
10. HIO
11. ONE
12. HAR
SOLUTION NEXT WEEK
BB486 SOLUTION: Over & out, up & about, up & under, in & away, up & down, off & on, through & through, out & out (and perhaps inside & out).
Alcoholica
Liquored. Tipsy. Lubricated. Legless. We've all been there, some of us [hic] a little more often than others. Which is why a linguist like James Harbeck on his Sesquiotic blog has supplied a drunken synonym for each day of the year.
Check out the full list here. There are some gems, like Moulin Rouged, trashato, nicely irrigated and cabbaged. Or my favourite: jober as a sudge. Plus this sozzled slew below. With definitions optional, can you craft a deliriously good clue for any of the hammered horde?
BANJAXED
BOOGLAOO
EUPHORIC
LIQUIDLY EXUBERANT
MERLE HAGGARD
MOIST AND GARRULOUS
OBLITERATED
PIXILATED
POT-VALIANT
SPANGLED
UNSOBER
WINEHOUSED
And if you drink and clue - you're an damn eejit. Cheers!
Recent Comments