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