Visual Description: Like when Wilbur first heard Mr. Ed speak.
COUEN = OUNCE, FINKE = KNIFE, DDOCEE = DECODE, TZYLIG = GLITZY — Giving us: OUKNIODITY
Clue/Question: He couldn’t believe the young goat could talk. Then the young goat said – – –
Answer: I KID YOU NOT
(Wow. This one was a bit of a challenge for me, as I did not receive a newspaper this morning. A little snow, and sub-zero temps, and the delivery “man” disappears! When I was a twelve and thirteen year old boy NOTHING stopped me from delivering the paper! NOTHING!!! I found out recently that my newspaper no longer has regional managers and delivery people who work directly for them. They’ve sub-contracted that role to a delivery “service”. When you don’t receive a paper, or it comes damaged/drenched, they no longer offer to have someone – like a regional manager – come and bring you the missing/damaged paper. The automated phone program asks you if you’d like today’s paper delivered with tomorrow’s paper! Sure, I want day old news along with the current day’s news . . . like I want another hole in the head! Who do they think would opt for this choice??? Some crazy hoarder, or something? It’s ludicrous! When I’ve opted for “credit” to my bill, I’ve never seen a reduction to it. And, as you may recall from an earlier rant, they recently raised the subscription rate by 50%! Newspapers have been struggling to stay afloat for quite awhile now, but the way they running them now is just speeding up their path to extinction. Total BS.
And, some of you online solvers just found out that Arkansas Online totally reformatted their product. A few wrote to me this morning asking for my help. I’m no member of Mensa, but I was able to navigate their new format, and found both the Jumble and Cryptoquote for them. Whether, or not, they’ll be able to copy and print them depends on a few other factors that I don’t need to go into. Change is inevitable. Adapt, become irrelevant, or die, I guess!
Jumble? Oh, yeah! Still no new clue words for 2018, however there were three new jumbles today. The only one that I could verify as having been used before was “finke”. The answer letter layout was another doozy! It almost spells a strange word. An oukniodity, if you will. The cartoon was another fun barnyard scene! Hoyt must be getting some of his ideas from a country cousin, or something! Be well and do good, friends.) — YUR
Images courtesy of Google
Unclerave's Wordy Weblog 
Not baaaaaaad
-Smitty
Took me quite a while to get ounce & decide but the solution was quick & easy. And Unc I feel your pain! We will eventually be robbed of this form of communication and it will be a sad day indeed. But for now I have an excellent carrier and he usually has my paper here before 6am. But problems are generally taken care of by the next day so if a Jumble & Puzzle not included, or a repeat of day before, they come next day, which is irritating but can’t be changed apparently. When I call on such days the person who answers always agrees it is we Jumblers & puzzlers who make the most calls! Such creatures of habit we are. But never had anyone offer to bring a replacement to my home. We gotta just hang tough, eh? Take care Unc. 😏
Oh and that was DECODE, not decide. 😝
Unc, I’m no hoarder, but I do like my funnies, so I’d have the paper delivered the next day. Our paper person is great, and we have her number for any issues we might have. I think she’d rather have us call her than have us call the paper and complain about her. It works out very well!!
I had trouble with decode. I finished the Jumble during supper. Saw KID, was like WHAT? Then the answer came. Yea!
Hope you get our paper in the morning Unc!! LL
I use poststar.com/entertainment. You can download the Jumble as a PDF then resize to enlarge it.
I also have an online subscription to a paper on the west coast that I can print out the puzzle. It’s downloaded to a full sized page.
That paper, I have delivered when I’m out there. It’s also delivered by a service; I was told it was a new service this year. The previous delivery person was OK; she wrote letters to explain what was going on.
The new delivery person seems to be OK; a couple times I didn’t get the paper, but the paper said if we contacted them before 10am, they’ll redeliver. Which they do. The credit part is an extension to my subscription.
Sounds like your paper is better than The Journal News (Lohud.com), Damid! — YUR