from the 2011 Page-A-Day puzzle calendar:
Remove one letter from each of the six words below, then rearrange the remaining letters to form a word that can precede SCHOOL in a common phrase. The six letters you remove, taken in order, will spell another word that can precede SCHOOL.
1. dimpled ______
2. upper ____
3. bawl ___
4. livetrap _______
5. immures ______
6. clod ___
Bonus word: ______
Welcome to
Sunday Puzzle, a weekly series for people who enjoy light mental exercise spiced with politics, humor, and odd bits of trivia.
The theme for the past month over in Sunday Puzzle Warm-Up has been Books Worth Supporting -- books worth reading, worth buying as gifts, and worth recommending to your local library. And for a month or so before that, the theme was Candidates Worth Supporting. Tonight's puzzle continues the worth supporting theme -- but you'll need to solve the puzzle to see what category the answer falls into.
Tonight's puzzle is a 51-clue JulieCrostic suitable for team solving. If you're in the mood for a puzzle party, come on down!
JulieCrostics are a special kind of acrostic puzzle, named in honor of Julie Waters who started the Sunday Puzzle series here 7 years ago. If you're not familiar with how JulieCrostics work you can find a detailed explanation in last night's Sunday Puzzle Warm-Up.
If you're new you should be warned that we have some mischievous gremlins who like to tamper with the Sunday night puzzle clues. In particular you should keep in mind:
* you can't trust the clue capitalization;
* you can't trust the clue punctuation;
* sometimes you can't even trust the word spacing.
The gremlins also like bundling the clues into tidy little groups of 3, regardless of how many answers there actually are per row. If the number of clues doesn't divide evenly by 3, they add a space-filler clue or two at the end to fill out the final bundle -- clues like cancelled or this goes nowhere or this has nothing...
Oh! I see those actually are some the clues tonight. Hmmm! Probably best if you forget I gave those as examples and just work the puzzle on your own.
A small request: please don't put any any spoilers in the comment subject lines. Use the subject line of comments to identify what your comment will be about but keep any guesses as to clue answers or the verticals confined to the comment itself. That way folks who are still trying to crack a clue for themselves won't inadvertently see the answer before they're ready to see it. Thanks!
Okay, I think that covers the basics. Here are the clues for tonight's puzzle:
1. give in
2. Casey
3. mid-20th century blacklist
4. conked on the head
[alternative clue/answer: prepare for Tea Party membership]
5. guide to destination
6. sounds like "five"
7.
8. little boy's dangerous part
9. of thieves, lions, and bears
10. funny; leary
11. alternative labels
12. circle member
13. stitchless
14. hungry
15. online investment pools
16. catastrophically bungled
17. Black railroad
18. flea sound
19. LA song designed to discourage immigration
[the clue could also be "Los Angeles restaurant", but I wasn't sure if the restaurant is well-known enough]
20. cats
21. fix
22. dubbed
23. like my bed
24. pointed any which way
25. cheese
26. blushing, perhaps
27. east, west, north or south
28. interwoven
29. this has nothing
30. Alabama, Alaska, Arizona, Arkansas, California, Colorado, Connecticut, Delaware, Florida, Georgia, Hawaii, Idaho, Illinois, Indiana, Iowa, Kansas, Kentucky, Louisiana, Maine, Maryland, Massachusetts, Michigan, Minnesota, Mississippi, Missouri, Montana, Nevada, New Hampshire, New Jersey, New Mexico, New York, North Carolina, North Dakota, Ohio, Oklahoma, Oregon, Pennsylvania, Rhode Island, South Carolina, South Dakota, Tennessee, Texas, Utah, Vermont, Virginia, Washington, West Virginia, Wisconsin, and Wyoming