LAST WEEK’S RESULTS:

Week 3, but it played like a Week 4: just 117 solvers found THREES as the Yahtzee category that served as our meta answer.

“That’s Not a Word” read the puzzle’s title, and each of the six theme entries contained a three-letter word…that wasn’t just a word, but also an initialism:

17-a = SAT WELL WITH (SAT, Scholastic Aptitude Test)
26-a = WHO CARES (WHO, World Health Organization)
33-a = GIVE A RIP (R.I.P., Rest in Peace)
43-a = TUDOR ERA (ERA, Earned Run Average)
49-a = DOE, A DEER (DOE, Department of Energy)
60-a = UPS AND DOWNS (UPS, United Parcel Service)

One word from each of those initialisms lurked somewhere in the grid: TEST from SAT, HEALTH from WHO, REST from R.I.P., EARNED from ERA, ENERGY from DOE, and SERVICE from UPS. Those spell out, appropriately, the Yahtzee category THREES.

Peter Gordon writes:

SAT no longer stands for anything. Fictitious is misspelled in 21D. Fix for the book. –Peter (author of “Yahtzee Scratch & Play” and “Yahtzee Scratch & Play to Go!”)

Apologies for “ficticious” — I had “fictitious” and it looked ridiculous so I changed it.

This week’s winner, whose name was chosen randomly from the 117 correct entries received, is R.C. In addition to a MGWCC pen, pencil and notepad set, R.C. will also receive a copy of my new book Bite-Size Crosswords.

THIS WEEK’S INSTRUCTIONS:

This week’s contest answer is a bygone, ten-letter place name. Submit your answer in the form on the left sidebar by WEDNESDAY at noon ET (Note extra day). Note: the submissions form disappears from the site promptly at noon on Wednesday.

To print the puzzle out, click on the image below and hit “print” on your browser. To solve using Across Lite either solve on the applet below or download the free software here, then join the Google Group (2,086 members now!) here.

Solve well, and be not led astray by words intended to deceive.