Stats The puzzle page was loaded over 440 times. 101 visitors had a go at it and 50 solvers managed to complete and submit. Of those who submitted, only 10 managed to get the full scores on both the grid and bonus questions.
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Cut Corners<<< Click Here for the Puzzle Post
Here is the solution grid:
BONUS QUESTIONS:
- Six examples of the title hidden within the grid ANS: – DIVIDE, CONDENSE, LESSEN, CURTAIL, LACERATE, CHISEL
Annotations
| ACROSS | Clue | Answer / Entry | Annotation |
| 1 | One bovine without kernel of intellect repelled people with low IQs (6) | IDIOTS | I+(STOLID–L)< |
|
5
|
Subordinate commanding officer occupying post (6) | SECOND | SE(CO)ND |
| 10 | Small piece of land I rented out on the radio (5) | ISLET | “I LET” |
|
11
|
When the swine flu ended superior vision (6, 3) | TWENTY TEN | DD |
|
12
|
Alkaloid drug he slipped into red pine concoction (9) | EPHEDRINE | HE in (RED PINE)* |
|
13
|
Ernie confused this woman (5) | IRENE | ERNIE* |
|
14
|
Men holding retrograde tin handcuffs (8) | MANACLES | MA(CAN<)LES |
|
15
|
“Angel” actress troubled at heart (6) | CHERUB | CHER+UB |
|
17
|
Former US Supreme court justice from South Carolina, Alabama, and Iowa (6) | SCALIA | SC+AL+IA |
|
19
|
Open the ground to accommodate Yankee beginner (8) | NEOPHYTE | Y in (OPEN THE)* |
|
22
|
Stares at Blue Hearts frequently (5) | LEERS | bLuE hEaRtS |
|
23
|
Rita in charge, beginning to invade a fictional city (9) | RURITANIA | RU(RITA)N+Invade+A |
|
25
|
Crabby group somehow cures a cat? (9) | CRUSTACEA | CD |
|
26
|
Return point prompted a tie at Wimbledon, say (5) | DEUCE | DD |
|
27
|
Measure large and small honey badgers (6) | RATELS | RATE+L+S |
|
28
|
Skim chicken contents for Korean dish (6) | KIMCHI | sKIM CHIcken |
| DOWN | Clue | Answer / Entry | Annotation |
|
2
|
Somehow find a house, plant eco-friendly food (7, 4, 4) | DOLPHIN SAFE TUNA | (FIND A HOUSE PLANT)* |
|
3
|
Heads of online communication televise a dated influential comedy like the Brady Bunch (7) | OCTADIC | Online Communication Televise A Dated Influential Comedy |
|
4
|
Essentially unseen settlers ruined impressive tools for catching 6 (8) | SETLINES | SET+LINES |
|
5
|
Centers of quiescence presenting majestic settings (6) | SCENES | quieSCence presENting majEStic |
|
6
|
Members of a school act foolishly – mostly suspicious (7) | CATFISH | ACT*+FISHY–Y |
|
7
|
Number 10 vacated ahead of time – no huge failing’s far from adequate (3, 6, 6) | NOT NEARLY ENOUGH | NO+(TEN–E)+EARLY+(NO HUGE)* |
|
8
|
Refer to unfinished recording (4) | VIDE | VIDEO–O |
|
9
|
Small group outfit (8) | ENSEMBLE | DD |
|
14
|
Lose sight of elevated mountains beset by pests (8) | MISPLACE | MI(ALPS<)CE |
|
16
|
Rush back quietly with vessel to get bottled water (4, 4) | DEER PARK | REED<+P+ARK |
|
18
|
Imitates poorly losing the beginning of match – nobody wins (3, 1, 3) | IT’S A TIE | (IMITATES–M)* |
|
20
|
Stay back and barricade German city (7) | POTSDAM | STOP<+DAM |
|
21
|
Vehicles emptied out their ultrasonic kits (6) | TRUCKS | TheiR+UltrasoniC+KitS |
|
24
|
Some Palestinian beers (4) | ALES | pALEStinian |
Scorecard (Top 25) (For the full list, please check the Leaderboard in the Hall of Fame)
| Name | Bonus | Grid Score | Total |
|---|---|---|---|
| Al Sanders | 6 | 160 | 166 |
| Anirudh Sahni | 6 | 160 | 166 |
| Lakshmi Prakash | 6 | 160 | 166 |
| Madhup Tewari | 6 | 160 | 166 |
| Mona Sogal | 6 | 160 | 166 |
| N. Rengaswamy | 6 | 160 | 166 |
| Venkatraghavan S | 6 | 160 | 166 |
| Samit Kallianpur | 6 | 160 | 166 |
| Sreelakshmi | 6 | 160 | 166 |
| Venkatesan P. | 6 | 160 | 166 |
| Max Jackson | 5 | 160 | 165 |
| Sairindhri | 5 | 160 | 165 |
| Arvind Ramaswamy | 4 | 160 | 164 |
| Col Deepak Gopinath | 4 | 160 | 164 |
| N Anantakrishnan | 4 | 160 | 164 |
| Madhusudan H | 4 | 160 | 164 |
| Melissa McSeismal | 4 | 160 | 164 |
| Supriya Mithal | 4 | 160 | 164 |
| Nick Loader | 5 | 159 | 164 |
| Prakash Arumugam | 4 | 160 | 164 |
| Ratna Rao | 4 | 160 | 164 |
| Narayanan R | 4 | 160 | 164 |
| R Nagendra Prasad | 4 | 160 | 164 |
| Ganesh Nayak | 4 | 160 | 164 |
| Ratnakumar V | 4 | 160 | 164 |
Congrats to the 10 solvers who scored full and to all the solvers who participated.
Grid Rating: The puzzle got a good score of 8.11. It got 7 perfect 10s (14% of those who rated). The lowest score was 5.
Favorite Clues: The Top clues were
- Open the ground to accommodate Yankee beginner (8) – 18 votes
- Number 10 vacated ahead of time – no huge failing’s far from adequate (3, 6, 6) – 11 votes
- Somehow find a house, plant eco-friendly food (7, 4, 4) – 10 votes
- When the swine flu ended superior vision (6, 3) – 10 votes
Thanks Mathrix for a nice and smooth start to this year. The grid was simple enough but the end game was cleverly disguised and quite a few people were stumped by it. Hope all of you enhjoyed it.
Here is what our solvers said…
| Comments / Feedback on the puzzle | Name |
|---|---|
| Great start for the year. Good concept. Enjoyed the fun. | VENKATESAN P. |
| Great start to 2023, nice interesting grid. | RATNAKUMAR V |
| Beautifully designed. | Jyothish Balakrishnan |
| Good one! | sandhya paruchuri |
| No specific comments. Enjoyed solving. Bonus questions were interesting. | N. Rengaswamy |
| Novel cluing added to the fun. Enjoyable fare. | R NAGENDRA PRASAD |
| A good brain teaser | Veena Venkataraman |
| Lovely grid and interesting theme | Nilesh Parmar |
| Enjoyed the theme, fun puzzle! | Al Sanders |
| Nice and relaxed solve. Not much by way of feedback, but as always surfaces can improve | Venkatraghavan S |
| Nice and entertaining grid! | Samit Kallianpur |
| I’m still only getting the hang of solving, so I am not sure how much I can see things in perspective – but the clues were a mixed bag for me. As a novice, there were enough easy ones acting as a springboard to just a few clues I found a bit too difficult. A few surfaces seemed odd to me but I could see the efforts! I loved the way you hid the theme words, it felt like such a satisfying click when I discovered them! Thank you – it’s not often I solve an entire crossword puzzle (atleast I think I have come close) | Sreelakshmi |
| Enjoyed the grid. Nice start to the new year! Not sure if I got all the theme words right though. | ARVIND RAMASWAMY |
| NICE PUZZLE | N Anantakrishnan |
| Enjoyable clues and concept ,not sure about the 6th bonus ans though.The clue with a brand name ( DEER PARK) did take me time but the clue was simple enough to get. Great beginning to a new year of grids . | Supriya Mithal |
| Enjoyable puzzle | Prakash Arumugam |
| Good start to New year 👍 | Ratna Rao |
| Enjoyable meta but didn’t get all of them! | Ganesh Nayak |
| Nice. Bonus tough. Letter selection specialist! | Ramesh Swaminathan |
| ‘Cutting corner(s)?’ Would be a fairer theme imo, if my bonus form entries are correct. Nice puzzle otherwise. | Tejas Siddharth |
| FUN PUZZLE | MONA SOGAL |
| Nil | Col Deepak Gopinath |
| Nice clues | D NARAYANA SWAMY |
| A few obscure words, many surfaces need improvement, not sure whether I’ve got the bonus right | Ashit Hegde |
| Fairly straightforward grid. Didn’t quite follow the intent behind the title and related questions. Ruritania a city or country? | Bhalchandra Pasupathy |
| Quite an exciting grid to solve. | BINAY KUMAR PATRA |
| Still not sure about one answer and the theme! Liked many of the clues – well constructed | Ramki Krishnan |
| A bit easy. Almost all good surfaces though. Occasionally some quite nice wordplays and definitions too. Bonus, especially ‘curtail’, was brilliantly constructed. | Nick Loader |
| Comments / Feedback on the puzzle (Names withheld on request) |
|---|
| Great grid |
| Smooth flowing grid |
| Nice, easy and well clued puzzle |
| I really enjoyed this puzzle, thanks! 25, 26, 19, 5, 8 & 14 particularly appealed. 9 was not as good as most of the other clues, since the two meanings of ensemble which it relies on are not at all independent, and I prefer it when different senses or meanings of a word are much more independent, not closely derived from the same root. But lovely puzzle, thanks.Oh, looking back to get the numbers of clues for feedback I realised that I messed up typing in neophyte… oops! Other puzzles I often do have overtyping of crossing letters, and whilst I noticed several others and fixed them I missed that one. |
| Nice grid |
| Most clues quite easy (though there were some new words for me), but enjoyable. Would have liked a little less reliance on anagrams and letter selection (middles, initials). A nice novel challenge to find the theme words. |
| WELL DONE |
| fun puzzle thanks |
| The crossword got done quickly enough, but I got stuck on the theme words. Took me 4 tries over 2 days to find the words, and then also somehow I’m only getting 5. As for the puzzle, it was good fun. Wasn’t able to fully parse 1A and 11A (did Swine Flu end in 2010?) |
| Some really good clues |
| Fairly gentle puzzle; generally good clues. Ruritania isn’t a city. I had to look up Deer Park water. It took me longer than it should to find the corners. |
| I thought the theme was very clever (though I don’t think I managed to identify all six examples). A few clues didn’t work so well for me: I thought Ruritania was a fictional country (rather than city); the two meanings of ensemble seem too similar for a really satisfying DD; and I’d never heard of Deer Park water before (seems to be an American brand). |
| Nice grid. Bonus questions were tough. Wishing you a happy birthday. |