Ahoy, Fellow Cruciverbalists! Welcome to the second edition of my weekly crossword contest. If you’re new to the contest and would like to enter, please read the Site FAQ on the left sidebar for instructions.
LAST WEEK’S RESULTS: 34 solvers correctly unraveled the whodunit of MGWCC #001, “It Was 40 Years Ago Today.” The contest answer word was CIA, which, as the clue for 71-across hinted at, appeared hidden in ten different entries throughout the grid. The most prominent of these were OFFICIAL STORY, SPECIAL AGENT, DISSOCIATION, MAGICIAN, and CIAO, BABY. Solution grid is at left and also at the MGWCC Google Group homepage:
http://groups.google.com/group/mgwcc
Reminder: join the Google Group to have the puzzle e-mailed directly to you right when it’s posted each Friday afternoon, or to solve the Across Lite version.
Our lucky winner, whose name was randomly chosen from the 34 correct entries, is Jeremy Horwitz of San Francisco, Calif. Jeremy has wisely chosen to receive an autographed copy of Gridlock: Crossword Puzzles and the Mad Geniuses Who Create Them as his prize.
Great e-mail from last week’s puzzle. Garrett Hildebrand wrote:
55A–confidently wrote in ISSO…Only much
pain later realized it could not be ISSO and now like the
clue even better because it can be [the incorrect] ISSO and [the correct] ISNT!
This e-mail warmed my cold, dark, unbeating heart, because the trap was set very much on purpose. You were supposed to put ISSO in there and suffer! The original clue was [“That ___ cool!”].
This is what I call an “answer-specific trap” — there’s a specific incorrect answer with the same number of letters in it as the correct answer, and I’m praying to mighty Athena that solvers write it in. That may sound mean…but hey, I was heavily influenced by the Henry Hook School.
THIS WEEK’S CONTEST INSTRUCTIONS:
Judging by the number of letters in each entry, you’d think this week’s crossword had only three theme entries: 17-across, 37-across, and 61-across. But lurking somewhere in the grid lies a fourth theme entry. Which one is it? This week’s contest answer word is the missing fourth theme entry. Send this entry (not the clue number, the entry in the grid) to me at crosswordcontest@gmail.com by Tuesday at noon to enter this week’s contest. Please put the contest answer word in your e-mail’s subject line.
To print the puzzle out, click on the puzzle image at left and hit “print” on your browser.
Solve well, and be not led astray by words intended to deceive.