Jumble Solved – 01/27/23

Visual Description:  Pre-Google Googling.

VNYEO  =  ENVOY,  PLESL  =  SPELL,  GAUTEO  =  OUTAGE,  KUANSM  =  UNMASK   —   Giving us:  EVOSPLOUEMSK

Clue/Question:  They were selling lots of encyclopedias and expanding their business, which – – –

Answer:  SPOKE VOLUMES

(A satisfyingly stinky pun!  So . . . look THAT up in your Funk & Wagnalls!  A VERY dated, silly tagline that Dan Rowan used to use on the late ’60s to early ’70s hit comedy TV show, “Rowan & Martin’s Laugh-In”.  Usually followed up with Dick Martin saying:  You bet your sweet bippy!  That showed spawned a number of popular one liners that entered the American vernacular.  Most of them now long forgotten, unfortunately.  If you remember any of them then you’re old . . . like me.  But the show also spawned a lot of pretty successful careers!  Many/most of them have passed on, but Pamela Austin, Barbara Feldon, Ruth Buzzi, Jo Anne Worley, Lily Tomlin and Goldie Hawn are still with us.  Hmm.  All women!

STOP THE PRESSES!  Unless it has appeared in a much earlier Sunday Jumble, it looks like we have a new addition to the world famous ralis95 clue word database, in “UNMASK”!  I do not remember seeing it before, and coincidentally the jumble “kuansm” was the only one to give me pause.  The only jumble I can verify we have seen before is “gauteo”.  The answer letter layout was a twisty twelve letter jumble.  Absolutely nothing obvious about it.  Being old enough to remember using encyclopedias was a big help in getting the final answer.

Fine cartoon of some period encyclopedia publishers.  Can’t tell if this is American encyclopedias, or British encyclopedias.  I remember World Book, Britannica, Collier’s and Funk & Wagnall’s encyclopedias.  I grew up with a set of Collier’s.  I always enjoyed looking things up in them.  Nowadays we Google everything.  My only problem with most internet info is that you rarely know if, or when, something may have been changed.  They don’t usually reference earlier iterations.  We still need actual hardcover books.  Harrumph!  Be well and do good, friends.)   —   YUR

Images courtesy of Google