Q: Think of a famous female singer (eight and four letters, respectively). The first syllable of her first name, the second syllable of her first name backward and the last name forward again are all verbs associated with human desire. Who is this singer?Rearrange all the letters in her name to get an instrument and a type of belt.
Edit: The instrument was a LUTE and the type of belt was a CONVEYOR
A: COURTNEY LOVE --> COURT, YEN, LOVE
The second syllable of the singer’s first name, pronounced in normal order, is a homophone of a word also associated with human desire.
ReplyDeleteAnd, for some reason, I’m thinking of another famous female singer, not 8,4 but 4,8.
Huh -- I'm thinking of a famous singer 4, 6.
DeleteClearly, Dr. K has the gift of wisdom.
DeleteI like to think that Wisdom might have been a gift of the Magi.
DeleteThis comment has been removed by a blog administrator.
ReplyDeleteThey are all nouns associated with human desire too.
ReplyDeleteChange a consonant sound within the name, and phonetically you get a literary theme.
ReplyDeleteI think we're on the same page!
DeleteOver 1000 correct entries last week.
ReplyDeleteAs you and I predicted. This could be another high-volume week.
DeleteI'd bet money on it.
DeleteGot this one before Ayesha finished talking. Musical hint: Cream
ReplyDeleteEw.
DeleteThe first time in years I got an answer before Will repeated it.
ReplyDeleteRearrange the singer’s name to get a shy, can-do, person.
ReplyDeleteWhen discussing this puzzle, please don’t be short with me.
ReplyDeleteThis singer has also acted.
ReplyDelete
Delete... and acted out.
There's a connection between the singer's (adopted) surname and her band's name.
ReplyDeleteThe first connection I thought of was NSFW.
DeletePrince Archie come to mind.
ReplyDeleteGot the puzzle quickly. Coming up with a non-TMI clue has taken me longer.
ReplyDeleteAll of the syllables in the singer's name have been spoken (phonetically) on ESPN, possibly within the same broadcast.
DeleteNice one, JAWS.
DeleteAs often is the case, I find myself going down a rabbit hole looking for possible answers
ReplyDeleteGot side tracked for a bit by assuming this was a phonetic puzzle…
ReplyDeleteAnother easy challenge which means more time today (and this week) to start watching the action at Roland Garros. Wishing all a happy Memorial Day weekend!
ReplyDeleteName another famous female singer (8,4)
ReplyDeletePatricia Page?
DeleteI was hinting at Jennifer Rush ("I needed more time…").
DeleteThat reminds me of another: Merrilee Rush ("Angel of the Morning").
Delete"all verbs" ... well, mostly verbs
ReplyDeleteI prefer chowder to chowdah--but not the cool, sticky kind.
ReplyDeleteNice clue, Blaine. The singer's name also anagrams to two nouns for what you might find occurring in a capitalist system, plus another word highlighting that one comes with the other.
ReplyDeleteOr perhaps, one begets the other (rather than "comes with…").
DeleteWhy didn’t the cannibal eat the Japanese businessman?
ReplyDeleteHmm…because he found him to be an icky guy?
DeleteHe may have thought him a bit overdone. ?
Delete生き甲斐?
DeleteIt's interesting that Enya and WeirdAl fan's "yen" comment didn't get Blaine-administered. 😏
DeleteWhoops! Missed it completely.
DeleteThe answer came quickly. If it's not right so sue me!
ReplyDeleteI like your clue.
DeleteEnya and WeirdAl, Thanks
DeleteWell never mind.
DeleteI took me forever going through that extensive list of popular female singers with 8 & 4 letter names in that order.
ReplyDeleteI like this puzzle.
ReplyDeleteLike is a synonym of love.
DeleteAh, Bobby, like is not a synonym of love, according to every teenage girl I have ever known. Now, the doubled like, like -- that's a synonym of love. ;-)
DeleteLike the NYT Sunday Xword - just too easy.
ReplyDeleteI’m thinking of a parody, not of one of the female singer’s songs, but of ___ ____ ________ (3, 4, & 8). Its up to you to fill in the blanks.
ReplyDeleteOne of the Beatles and one of their songs come to mind.
ReplyDeleteYes! I notied that and was trying to think how to clue it without TMI.
DeleteGreat minds…
DeleteJust ONE of their songs?
DeleteLancek, without giving too much away and with the connection Crito and I seem to have in mind, yes, just one song (although I see your point).
DeleteSeveral notes I'd like to add, but because Beatles songs are so well known it's really not possible without TMI.
DeleteBut I will give this super-standard Blainesville Clue: E.
(This is so obscure that even Lancek won't get why that's relevant here.)
The universal clue is always relevant, Crito -- but I usually have to find out why on Thursday! Meanwhile, I can connect this week's answer to more than one Beatle song and, in different ways, to more than one Beatle.
DeleteWhen looking for relevance in lyrics, I often discover it a line at a time.
DeleteI think I found another connection that would, as Dr. K noted, lead to a unique song and a unique Beatle. I also thought of a third connection to yet another Beatle song.
DeleteCourtney Love
Delete"..discove[r it a lin]e at a time" ...Ritalin can stop your mind from wandering, I believe.
DeleteSince this is an easy week, enjoy catching up on some running commentary on the development of cursive handwriting. So many methods, so little time.
ReplyDeletehttps://wordsmarts.com/cursive-handwriting-evolved/?lctg=2492cced-3509-4f6e-a1d8-82689bb3576f
Where does my dad's chicken scratch fit in there?! ;-)
Btw, Blaine, your lapel pins came back for a second time because I used too many stamps (!) and the USPS was worried it was something nefarious. All sorts of warning labels on it. Because I used a lot of different old stamps? Weird.
ReplyDeleteWill try a small white box and see if mailing time #3 is the charm. And see if labeling it "Innocent lapel pins" helps. Maybe that will get their stamp of approval.
That is one of the criteria that the USPS uses to identify possible mail bombs: others include no return address (or a false one), a misspelled address, a bad job of wrapping, and odd smells. We don't hear as much about mail bombs since the days of the Unabomber, since psychos with a grudge seem to favor shooting the victim instead, but back in the day a federal judge died when opening a package mailed to him.
DeleteAnd labeling the package "Innocent lapel pins" will almost certainly trigger closer scrutiny, since restrictive markings are another red flag.
DeleteThat was my first thought as I read that. If you want to attract attention to your subterfuge simply state you have nothing to hide. And please do not confuse this with the fact that leather craftsmen to have something to hide. In the meantime all that can be done is to pin your hopes on your lapel. It is a sticky situation, I agree.
DeleteGaah. Back to the drawing board. Maybe i'll try fed ex or ups.
DeleteThey just want you to help balance their budget. The USPS is the only outfit I know that thinks charging more, reducing service, and making things complicated for customers is a good business model. Actually, that's not true. The City and County do that too. No hint here. Just a commentary on this brave new world. And they wonder why people develop grudges.
DeleteThe USPS offers cheaper rates than the postal services of comparable nations, while operating under restraints those services don't have to cope with. https://www.motherjones.com/kevin-drum/2020/08/us-postal-rates-versus-other-countries/ Likewise no hint here.
DeleteI just this moment finished watching the first segment of 60 Minutes, my only TV program. I wish they had had this segment last week, because it would have been appropriate to post the cliche that was mentioned: "The shoe fits all." I say this because I instantly spoonerised it and I will now let you discover for yourselves the outcome that would have worked well last weed.
ReplyDeleteThat should read: one shoe fits all.
DeleteAfter reading Killers of the Flower Moon last year I was pleased to finally obtain a copy of this 3 and a half hour movie by Martin Scorsese yesterday from my library. I cannot recommend this BOOK enough. I watched close to an hour of the MOVIE last evening, but had to stop as it is awful. Nothing at all close to the wonderful book. Just more Hollywood crap for them to make money. However I began watching tonight where I left off yesterday due to boredom from a lousy puzzle this morning, and after a few minutes just suffered through a scene where an indian chief gives a speech where he calls what is happening to his people a genocide. This scene takes place in the 1920's. The word genocide was coined in 1942. Those Osage Indians were so prescient.
ReplyDeleteI can't speak to Killers of the Flower Moon, not having read the book or seen the movie. What I can say is that most movies based on "real" events distort events and change timelines. In Ray!, Ray Charles is portrayed as having one main extramarital affair resulting in one child. In reality, he had a total of 12 kids with nine women. Only three of those kids were with his wife. Showing that level of infidelity would have made him a much less sympathetic person in the eyes of the audience.
DeleteIn Apollo 13, Jack Swigert is portrayed as a less competent astronaut than he really was.
Bohemian Rhapsody and The Blind Side are works of almost complete fiction.
Elvis and Rocketman were just weird.
My point is that the movie industry has a poor record of portraying historical subjects with any semblance of respect for reality
The producers of "Yankee Doodle Dandy," the film biography of George M. Cohan, arranged a private showing for Cohan, who was dying of cancer, before the film was released. When the lights came up Cohan said "Nice movie. Who's it about?"
DeleteI feel compelled, given my name, to add that while Gone With The Wind is fiction, Scarlett gave birth to 3 children in the book (one from each of her 3 husbands), but only one in the movie.
DeleteI mentioned this singer by mistake while teaching medieval poetry.
ReplyDeleteHer father told her about a strange fetish.
ReplyDeletePrepare to celebrate,
ReplyDeleteBe careful not to confuse Vincente and Gian Carlo.
DeleteSaturday is celebrated for a couple other reasons which seem related.
Delete"The time has come ...":
DeleteHappy Water A Flower Day
Happy Hole In My Bucket Day
See you in December?
COURTNEY LOVE (—> COURT, YEN, LOVE)
ReplyDelete“The second syllable of the singer’s first name, pronounced in normal order, is a homophone of a word also associated with human desire.”
ney —> knee (as in proposing marriage on one knee)
"And, for some reason, I’m thinking of another famous female singer, not 8,4 but 4,8.”
—> Joni Mitchell, Court [—> Court-ney] and Spark, her 1974 album
“One of the Beatles and one of their songs come to mind.”
“One of the Beatles” —> George Harrison. “Harrison” was Love’s surname at birth.
“one of their songs” —> “Michelle.” “Michelle” is Love’s middle name.
I think my favorite clues this week were Rob’s and Dr. Awkward’s about courtly love. Andreas Capellanus, anyone?
I was thinking of Liza Minnelli.
DeleteI thought you might enjoy that! I'm teaching "Guigemar" this term...
DeleteNot one I know - must look it up!
DeleteI wrote, “Change a consonant sound within the name and phonetically you get a literary theme." That’s COURTLY LOVE, as in the works of the Gawain Poet, Geoffrey Chaucer, and Thomas Malory. (Hi, Dr. Awkward!)
ReplyDeleteprecisely so!
DeleteMy hint was: “Prince Archie comes to mind.” Archie is Harry’s son. Harrison is Courtney Love’s birth name.
ReplyDeleteCOURTNEY LOVE
ReplyDelete> There's a connection between the singer's (adopted) surname and her band's name.
Her band was Hole. A hole is a space filled with nothing. Never marry a tennis player; love means nothing to them.
My super-obscure-so-as-not-to-be-TMI add-on to Lancek's clue was: E.
ReplyDeleteGeorge Harrison wrote "Love you to", which is quite a strange title, but some people think it's the first part of "Love you to the end of time", and of course "e" is the end of "time". (But other people have other theories.)
E for excellent, Crito! I was, of course, thinking of the many Beatle songs with "love" in the title, especially "All You Need is Love," which is probably a pretty good description of how people will have solved it. LOVE is an easy guess for the 4 part of (8, 4), after which it's down to Darlene and Courtney. Darlene's a letter short. Later I thought of another song, "Fixing a Hole."
DeleteCourtney Love
ReplyDeleteI am camping down in eastern Oregon and I pushed this publish button right at noon but it didn't work so we'll try again
Courtney Love>>>Court, Yen, Love
ReplyDeleteCourtney Love rearranges to coy volunteer, i.e., someone who might also be referred to as a “Shy, can-do, person.”
COURTNEY LOVE; COURT, YEN. LOVE
ReplyDeleteHer father told her about a strange fetish. >>>
That is, PaTella mentioned the odd practice where one would COURT KNEE LOVE.
COURTNEY LOVE; COURT, YEN. LOVE
ReplyDeleteI didn't leave a clue this week.
This week's edition of Puzzleria! has a kind of "Double-D-Ranch" feel to it.
ReplyDeleteWe are featuring a whole Brobdingnagian Depository Crammed with Down-'n'-Dirty, Dumbfoundingly-Devious, puzzles... the majority of them composed by our friend NoDD (whose handkerchiefs, socks or pillowcases, if they were monogrammed, would all be emblazoned with DoubleD's!)
The Double-Duty" that Nodd is Doing on this week's eDition, includes both his "Nodd ready for prime time" puzzle-package, as well as his customary half-dozen riffs of the NPR Puzzle.
His "Nodd ready..." puzzles are titled:
~ Digital Desperation;
~ The Breakfast Club;
~ Don’t Badger Me With Phonetic Puzzles!;
~ Put Letter In Its Place;
~ Ars Gratia Artis(ts); and Nodd's recurrent; and
~ Poetry Corner, With Anna Graham (always a fan favorite!).
We will upload Puzzleria! very soon-as-we-can, this very afternoon.
Also on this week's menu:
* Our Schpuzzle of the Week, titled "Loading Letters Onto a 22-Car Quatrain,"
* A Heavenly Hors d’Oeuvre titled "Constellatory Obscurity,"
* A Hudson Shores Realty Slice titled "Bargain-basement real estate,"
* A "Pain" is a French Comfort FooDessert titled "Nutritious Nostrum?... Yum!" and
* Eight-or-so Riffing Off Shortz And Francis Slices titled "Justice site, goose egg, grue!"... including, as we noted earlier, 6 by Nodd.
We guarantee that this edition of P! will deserve, earn, merit and get your even-more-than Nodding Approval!
Lego(PrettyMuchTakingTheWeekOff!)
Courtney Love — court, yen, love
ReplyDeleteMy clue was that the singer's name also anagrams to two nouns for what you might find occurring in a capitalist system, plus another word highlighting that one begets the other.
What I meant was: "Lucre. Envy, too."
Courtney Love. My hint (removed) was that the puzzle was easy but had some currency, referring to the "yen" part of the answer.
ReplyDeleteWhen I wrote that I prefer chowder to chowdah, I was referring to the Manhattan, rather than the New England version. Not Manhattan clam ("the cool, sticky kind," i.e., "clammy") chowder, but Manhattan Oyster Chowder, which is made with tomatoes, potatoes and oysters--the three food items that Fred and Ginger pronounced differently in "Shall We Dance," giving us the Gershwin tune "Let's Call The Whole Thing Off." That's a reference to Courtney Love's band Hole.
ReplyDeleteThis is a slightly less complicated chain of connections than the one Black Dynamite used to explain the threat that Anaconda Malt Liquor poses to men who drink it. See for yourself at https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2PSueHOY-Jk.
My post - “Another easy challenge which means more time today (and this week) to start watching the action at Roland Garros”…..where the words “court” and “love” are used quite frequently! (And unfortunately for Hailey Baptiste, so was “knee”.). I’ll be taking in some of the action in Paris next week!
ReplyDeleteCourtney Love->court, yen, love
ReplyDeleteMe: Name another famous female singer (8,4)
ReplyDeleteA: My computer came up with: Roseanne Park ... known mononymously as Rosé, a New Zealand and South Korean singer and songwriter. But I'll take Mitchell, Joni for sure.
My suggestion of "Patricia Page" was facetious, but "Roseanne Cash" is legit.
DeletePointless Anagrams of Courtney Love:
ReplyDeleteCloture Envoy
Clove Tourney
Conveyer Lout
Conveyor Lute
Cony Truelove
Coy Volunteer
Ounce Overtly
My hint was Cream. This was referring to their song “Anyone for Tennis” (COURTney LOVE).
ReplyDeleteI had commented that all of the syllables of the singer's name have been spoken phonetically on ESPN, possibly in the same broadcast. Courtney Love gives us court, knee, love. Obviously, when covering a tennis match, the term love is spoken many times, since the term is used for zero in scoring tennis. Tennis is played on a court, so that term will also be spoken.
ReplyDeleteI have seen ESPN broadcasts that have mentioned someone's knee multiple times. There is a good chance that while covering a tennis match, someone mentioned the word knee (he's coming back from a knee injury, she hurt her knee, etc.), in the same broadcast as court and love.
Courtney Love
ReplyDeleteLast Sunday I said, “When discussing this puzzle, please don’t be short with me.” She was married to Kurt (get it – short) Cobain.
COURTNEY LOVE, COURT, YEN, LOVE
ReplyDeletepjbStillRemembersSeeingMollyShannonImitateCourtneyLoveOn[SNL],WhichMadeMs.LoveLookMuchMoreAttractiveThanSheIs(Ms.ShannonIsQuiteAttractiveHerself,Actually)
What do you call a whisper that comes from a pair of pants?
ReplyDeleteRustle?
DeleteCapri shush.
Delete(Best read aloud, capriciously or not ;-))
This week's online challenge comes from Mike Reiss, a longtime writer and showrunner for The Simpsons. Name a classic song with a two-word title. Drop the first letter. Add an “R” after the new first letter. The result will be the names of two countries one after the other. What song is this?
ReplyDeleteNot many countries with R as the second letter.
ReplyDeleteI am apparently making this much more difficult than it needs to be.
DeleteThe artist anagrams to a recipe step.
ReplyDeleteI like to make my food from scratch
DeleteThis comment has been removed by a blog administrator.
DeleteI get this clue, but I've never followed a recipe that includes that step!
DeleteI'll try to think of a clue -- I keep wanting to use or allude to lyrics, but I don't think that will be safe.
Oh, come on, Jim.
ReplyDeleteJust out of curiosity- how do you delete a comment that you make?
ReplyDeleteThere's a "delete" option under anything one posts, next to "reply."
DeleteThanks Splainit, but I still don’t see the “delete” option using the safari browser.
Delete