Welcome to Sunday Puzzle, a regular weekly feature. On tap today: a crossword, an acrostic, and some one-offs.
Usually when I post crosswords I like to do cryptics. They're harder to clue but I find them more fun. But today, as a warm-up puzzle, here's just a plain, simple, straightforward, no-cryptic crossword. Enjoy!
CLUES DOWN:
- Best policy for conducting a war
- Traditional dance
- Approve
- River in California, river in Indiana, river in Massachusetts, and O'Brien
CLUES ACROSS:
- Shoemaker, in the comics
- Puff
- Kind of arguments
- Atones
More puzzles, right below the fold. Come join the party!
Acrostic for January 16, 2011
If you don't know how to work this kind of acrostic, don't panic -- a full explanation, complete with diagram for a sample acrostic, can be found immediately below the clues for today's puzzle. Just hop down the page a bit, read how these things work, then come on back up here.
And if you do know how to work this kind of acrostic, jump right in!
- Kind of underwear
- Silver coins, in the past
- Ridicule
- The Constitution
- Repeated
- Where to find KE
- Where to find RAL
- Not taken back
- Felix whose most famous work is animated cartoon
- Snarls
- Lamb, in comparison
- What Dibny does
- What cloth is stretched on
- Importune
- What this is (Yes! A genuine pucklady-style hyperlink clue!)
- Take turns
- Treated with malice
- Like a skunk
- Communist comic
- Incited
- This clue might go nowhere
- Downsize
- Where to find Tweety
- Where to find many squares
- Clothing
- More spruce
- Rabbit dye?
- King's recently deceased wife
- Gathers what's left
- Hangs loosely
- Gesticulated
- The hypotenuse is!
- Whole
- Doorways
- Put to use again
- Whitney Newton
- First out, some say
- Lamentations
- Most apparent
- Attempting to define causes many disputes
- Not apparent at all
- 21
+ * + * + * + * + * + * + * + * + * + * + * + * + * + * + * + * + * + * + * + * + * + * + * + * + * +
+ * + * + * + * + * + * + * + * + * + * + * + * + * + * + * + * + * + * + * + * + * + * + * + * + * +
The rules for this type of acrostic are simple: for each row, the answer is of increasing length, such as a five-letter word, a six-letter word and a seven-letter word. Each next size word is formed by adding a letter to the previous answer and scrambling.
In the box in-between each answer, put the extra letter. For example, if your answers were HEARD, ARCHED, and CRASHED you'd place a "C" in the box between HEARD and ARCHED and an "S" between ARCHED and CRASHED.
When you've filled in the grid with all the answers and all the added letter, the columns made up of the added letters should spell out a set of related words.
I'm not going to tell you the dimensions of the grid for today's puzzle. But I have considerately bunched the clues together for you in tidy little bundles of 3. This does not mean there are 3 answers to a row. It just means I like the way the clues look bunched together like that.
There are 42 clues, so it could be 14 rows of 3 answers, 10 rows of 4 answers (with two blanks), 8 rows of 5 (with 2 blanks)... Well, I'm sure you'll figure it out.
+ * + * + * + * + * + * + * + * + * + * + * + * + * + * + * + * + * + * + * + * + * + * + * + * + * +
+ * + * + * + * + * + * + * + * + * + * + * + * + * + * + * + * + * + * + * + * + * + * + * + * + * +
One-Offs for January 16, 2011:
Here's a special set of One-Offs. (If you don't know what One-Offs are or how to work them, you can find an explanation here.)
1-a:
In the future the woman needs to speak the way Limbaugh does
1-b:
Hypothetically, that place provides giant book to contain that kind of speech unit
1-c:
The future, the future -- which one doesn't matter, they'll all do
1-d:
Bruce, Beck, Coulter, Hannity and Limbaugh inhabit on a regular basis a particular structure of stones projecting out into the water
1-e:
Reaching final letters from final word in paraphrased weekly news magazine
1-f:
In the past there are always illuminated meals for us
1-g, first half:
Here are directions for reaching sooty wasteland covered with shrubs
1-g, second half:
Make the truth known about the short nickname -- make the truth known!
1-h:
Existence is simply Mr. Allard out strolling -- an impoverished Ms. Summers
1-i:
Riding atop Wells Fargo wagon provides an opportune time during which he plucks at guitar strings, plus places metal bar across fingerboard
1-j, first half:
After that, eternal softness ensues
1-j, second part, with beginning of 1-k:
Sarah Palin makes money peddling this story
1-k, concluded:
It's very noisy -- also soft, fluffy --
1-l:
Making a non-entity honorable and glorious!
+ * + * + * + * + * + * + * + * + * + * + * + * + * + * + * + * + * + * + * + * + * + * + * + * + * +
+ * + * + * + * + * + * + * + * + * + * + * + * + * + * + * + * + * + * + * + * + * + * + * + * + * +
Bonus Puzzle!
There's another sub-title I considered using for today's diary, but I decided it would be too much of a hint at the solution of one or two of the puzzles. This is a well-known phrase (except that one of the words in it which is singular in the original would have been plural in the phrase as I would have used it in the sub-title).
I shouldn't tell you what the sub-title would have been, since the puzzles haven't been solved yet -- but perhaps it wouldn't hurt to present the a One-Off based on the sub-title I would have used.
Most respected conservatives can't keep their mouths shut -- in the past, present and future, they've always blabbed! (5 words)