Devil in the Detail – Solutions, Annotations & Results

Stats – We had an excellent response to this grid which was the first of our 1ACGrids to include Printer’s Devilry (PD) clues in addition to the regular clues, making it a bit harder for those solvers who haven’t  encountered these before. In the end, we had  34 submissions, as against 57 for our last grid!.  Of those who submitted only  6 managed to complete the grid with zero errors, though all 6 also got the maximum possible score of 198.

Here’s the Puzzle

NOTE FROM THE AVTAAR  1. I decided to feature M in this offering. By and large M represents the theme (In stray cases M could be..well.. M). Of course you will find words related to the theme in the solutions as well as in many clues.

2. A second feature of this grid is that there are 4 (four) Printer’s Devilry or PD clues.

All PD clues are indicated by a (P) symbol at the end of the clue

Note on Printer’s Devilry clues: For those who are not familiar with Printer’s devilry clues, these are clues where the surface is a sentence from which the letters of the solution are consecutively removed by mistake in the manner that a typesetter might omit. If the letters representing the solution are added to the surface at a suitable point another valid and logical sentence will result.

PD clues have no definition.Every sentence with the letters in the solution consecutively added to the surface at an appropriate place must be a grammatically correct and valid sentence. Such a sentence is the “undevilled” version as opposed to the “devilled” version which is the surface of the clue. Liberties are allowed in punctuation and spacing as well as splitting of words differently in the undevilled version.

An example from Azed Clue (devilled) : His skill with the ball is put in motion (4) Undevilled version: His skill with the ball is pu(RE AR)t in motion giving REAR as the solution

Another example of mine Clue (devilled): Unusual pains for India’s badly off (4) Undevilled version: Unusual pai(R OPE)ns – for, India’s badly off (4) The answer, therefore, is ROPE

Further details can be obtained from this link

Here’s the link to the Interactive Version. If you need it, you can get a PDF, by opening the grid and then choosing File, Print and Print to PDF

Here are the solutions

The Grid was themed on “Money” (represented by M in the clues) and had several theme words both as solutions (highlighted above) as well as in clues. The solvers also had to answer 5 bonus questions, the answers for which are as follows: :

1. What is M?(5) – A: MONEY
2. What’s the undevilled version for 17D? – A: DRINKING B(Y A M)AN HAS AN EFFECT ON HEALTH, GENERALLY
3. What’s the undevilled version for 18D? Cast joins in paring metal on stage – A: CAST JOINS IN PAR(T I S)ING METAL ON STAGE
4. What’s the undevilled version for 24D? Section of room gets painted – A: SECTION OF RO(OF T)OM GETS PAINTED
5. What’s the undevilled version for 25D? Look! Soya, T-Bone in curry – A: LOOK SO(URL)Y AT BONE IN CURRY

You can access the Grid with solutions Here – Clicking Reveal ALL will show you the solutions, annotations and the answers to the bonus questions.

Here is the scorecard (sorted by total).

Congrats to  Anirudh Sahni (our last submission), Bhalchandra Pasupathy (our first one in), Ramki Krishnan, Venkatraghavan, Viresh Ratnakar and Williams K who maxed the score.

Grid Rating: The puzzle got a  good score of 8.4. It got 10 perfect 10s. The minimum score was 4.

Top 3 Clues:  The most favorite clues were “GDP” with 15 votes, “THE DIE IS CAST” with 12 votes and “OVERHEAD EXPENSE” with 9 votes each. Hope you all enjoyed this entertaining puzzle, brought to you by Avatar. Did you like the puzzle? Do you have any feedback for us or for the setter? Please leave your comments in the blog.