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Stats – The puzzle was accessed 460 times. We had 59 solvers completing and submitting the grid, ignoring multiple submissions. Of those who submitted 48 managed to complete the grid with zero errors and also went on to get the maximum possible score of 140. We had two first time solvers viz., Ashish Pachory, Dharmarajan. Welcome to 1ACross.

Here’s the Puzzle

Special Instructions: The wordplay component of each clue has exactly one letter missing in it. Please enter the missing letters of all the across clues and then the down clues sequentially to complete this well known phrase – – E /- – – – – /- – – – -/- O -/- U – – -/O – – R/-/-A–/-O-


Here are the Annotations:

Across:
5 T (Not clued) – SH(U)F(T)I*, 7 H (Not clued) S(C)(H)OONER, 9 Q (Not clued) (Q)U I +ETUDE, 10 U (Not clued) Acrostic, 11 I (Not Clued) GEODES(I)(C)DOME*, 13 C (Not clued) (C) OARS E, 15 K (Not Clued) – T, 18 B (Not clued) ORDEAL (B)Y FIRE*, 21 R (Not Clued) CA E(E)N, 22 O (Not Clued) ABS (O) LUTE, 23 W (Not Clued0 E LL RE AD, 24 N (Not clued) D(E)(N) UDE.

Down: 1 F (Not Clued) Hidden, 2 X Not clued MI UPS, 3 J (Not Clued)IHAULTO*, 4 M (Not Clued) (-N)ODULE, 6 P (Not Clued) HO(USE)T , 7 S (Not Clued) Ten + Ch, 8 V (Not Clued) EN (V)Y< Cycling, 12 E (Not Clued) S (E) R(RAT)ED, 14 A (Not Clued) END (A)N G ER, 16 L Not clued CUFF IN K, 17 Z – Not Clued HA(Z)(A)RD, 18 Y(Not clued) (L)OVER L< (Y), 19 D (Not clued) BE (IS<) E, 20 G (Not Clued ) – PA E.


Bonus Question What is this phrase? – – E /- – – – – /- – – – -/- O -/- U – – -/O – – R/-/-A–/-O-

A: THE QUICK BROWN FOX JUMPS OVER A LAZY DOG. It is a very familiar phrase which was used for testing out typewriters since it is a PANGRAM with the least number of letters. The grid is obviously a pangram too and the letters omitted from each clue were the letters from A to Z chosen in such a way that there were no letters repeated.

Here’s the Score card (sorted by total and then alphabetically) MIHOF

Congrats to  the 48 solvers who maxed the score and to every one who participated. Very well tried.

Grid Rating: The puzzle got an excellent score of 9.2. It got 30 perfect 10s – i.e 51% of  those who submitted thought it was perfect. The minimum score was 7.

Top 3 Clues:  The most favorite clues were for “OVERLY” with 17 votes, “ORDEAL BY FIRE” with 15 votes and “WELL READ” with 14 votes. All 26 clues garnered votes.

Hope you all enjoyed this fun puzzle. Thanks to all our solvers for  your support and wonderful comments.

Comments on the Puzzle
Some of the longer comments seem to have been cut since they exceeded the maximum length of text allowed in the text box.. Sorry for that

  1. Excellent
  2. Mind-blowing puzzle!
  3. Fantastic! Hard to choose top 3 clues
  4. Lovely surfaces. Loved the theme and the added difficulty
  5. pangram too, necessarily 🙂 nice one!
  6. This was lovely! First time I solved a puzzle with such complex theme. Feels like I am getting better 🙂
  7. Very enjoyable , Creative concept .
  8. Amazing puzzle and great clues, all of them. SO hard to pick top 3. Finally just listed them at random.
  9. Damn good
  10. fun little twist
  11. VERY CLEVER AND FUN TO SOLVE
  12. Nice idea – very well executed
  13. Very interesting concept and lovely grid
  14. I got the secret phrase before I solved any clues, which made the process a little easier.
  15. 6d was a bit of a weird answer; otherwise a fun puzzle 🙂
  16. Brilliant puzzle. Easy, yes, but brilliant.
  17. Needs undivided attention and lots of patience
  18. Excellent!
  19. Superb
  20. Very enjoyable. Easy once I got the theme clause. ALLclues are excellent. cannot pick one
  21. Excellent puzzle, many tough but fair clues
  22. GREAT JOB. THE SEQUENCED MISSING LETTERS MADE SOLVERS’ JOB EASY.
  23. Excellent puzzle, lovely clues – top marks!
  24. Wonderful grid, stimulating the brain
  25. EXCELLENT
  26. It became easier because I got the well known phrase first
  27. Thoroughly enjoyable.panagram
  28. Intricately designed
  29. Interesting and got progressively easier as crossings got filled. Initially thought that missing letter meant that one letter w
  30. CHALLENGING AND ENGROSSING
  31. Amazing work of labour..challenging and fulfilling
  32. Lovely challenging puzzle. Had a blast doing it
    #REF!
  33. Was quite innovative puzzle. I could guess the Title even before I started the puzzle.
  34. I know it as “the lazy dog”.
  35. This was a very nicely constructed puzzle with lots of interesting clues, but I’ve marked it down because I solved the phrase im
  36. One hell of a puzzle. Must have been quite something to construct!
  37. loved it
  38. A nice puzzle with reasonable difficulty, with the missing letters in the right order!
  39. Excellent!
  40. cluing was excellent. guessed the missing link phrase early on so became a tad easy
  41. Superb clueing; was stuck in the beginning but once i got the phrase, it got easier.
  42. Brilliant idea
  43. Good one
  44. Nice puzzle with right level of challenge!
  45. HATS OFF SOWMYA
  46. Nice clues. Especially the part about the missing letter in the annotations. That was a new one for me!
  47. SUPER
  48. good grid..had fun solving it!
  49. Really nice concept and fun puzzle! Loads of aha moments. The clues have clean surfaces and were a joy to solve. Hard to choose
  50. Enjoyed solving it, thanks! Could guess the phrase after a few solves, which made the solving a bit easier
  51. Great concept!
  52. Very interesting, probably much more difficult to set than to solve
  53. Superb Grid! Innovative and Challenging!
  54. What can I say – lovely puzzle 🙂 I enjoyed solving!
  55. CREATIVE AND CHALLENGING
  56. Excellent puzzle! Loved solving it!
  57. Nicely constructed to satisfy the constraints of the missing letters! Concise clues, most of them not difficult, some clever and unusual indicators.
  58. Interesting idea.
  59. Challenging but fair. Didn’t get enough time to complete . Great skill in weaving the pangram in

By Sowmya

Sowmya is a Chartered Financial Analyst (CFA) and independent financial consultant based in the Middle East (Bahrain). She is a puzzle editor at Amuselabs. She has set over 1,300 crosswords for various publications including over 1000 mini crosswords, cryptic crosswords (under the pseudonym Hypatia for The Hindu) and themed crosswords for Cat.a.lyst (part of The Hindu Businessline). Sowmya runs the Facebook group 1Across where seasoned cruciverbalists interact while setting and solving clues. She has published three compilations of crosswords viz Cryptic Crossroads Volumes 1, 2 and 3. She Tweets cryptic clues daily @somsram

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