Crypto Acrostic

By Tom Toce

This issue’s puzzle was created by Bob Fink and Jerry Miccolis, two of my regular test solvers. For this one, Eric Klis and I served as test solvers, and we made some editorial suggestions.

For the most part this is a standard double acrostic puzzle, with all the clues being cryptic clues. Once complete, the grid will spell out a Presidential quotation. The first letter of each clue answer, when read top to bottom, will spell out the name of the speaker and the source of the quotation. There are no proper nouns, uncommon words, or variant spellings, and all words are playable in Scrabble. As always, beware of punctuation in the clues, which may be misleading.

There is, however, a wrinkle. There is one extra letter space in the set of letter spaces following each clue. These extraneous spaces, each of which occurs immediately following the first vowel (a, e, i, o, u, or y if used as a vowel) in each clue answer, correspond to grid squares which should be blackened-in; doing so will reveal an image relevant to the quotation. Note that these blackened-in grid squares serve no other purpose and may interrupt words in the quotation.

Should you need them, you will find two hints following the clues. The first hint provides the length of each word in the quotation (which may be useful for double-acrostic solving), and the second provides the grid location of each of the extraneous, blackened-in grid squares.

Solutions may be emailed to cont.puzzles@gmail.com.

In order to make the solver list, your solutions must be received by Sept. 30, 2019.

Previous Issue’s Puzzle—Six and One

Across

First row:

EMBARKS—EM (“Between the third and the sixth of November”) + BARKS (“tree parts”)

SUCCEED—C (“average”) inside “deuces” scrambled

Second row:

RELIANT—Anagram of “in later”

HAL—HAL(L) (“Shorter corridor”)

Third row:

TEASERS—Anagram of “a steer’s”

RAILWAY—Homophonic pun on RAY’LL WEIGH (“Charles’ll consider”)

Fourth row:

RIG—Inside “trigonometry”

ASS—Three letters from ASSIGNATIONS (“Trysts”)

HCL—Inside “Meth clients”

Fifth row:

NUTLIKE—Double definition

LEANING—Anagram of “angle in”

Sixth row:

DOE—Homophone of DOUGH (“money”)

DREADER—Pun on D-READER rather than E-READER (“earlier version of Kindle, perhaps?”)

Seventh row:

DRESSES—DR (“Doctor”) + ESSES (“twists”)

SERVERS—SEVERS (“Cuts”) around R (“resistance”)

Down

First column

ERRANDS—ERR (“make mistakes”) + AND + S (“confess, at last”)

SETTLED—Outside “Seattle’s embattled”

Second column

MEASURE—Anagram of “A résumé”

Third column

BLISTER—Pun on B-LISTER (“Person overlooked”)

CHARADE—Outside “Charlotte’s promenade”

Fourth column

LAV—Reversal of “Val”

CASINOS—Anagram of “Caisson”

AIL—(M)AIL (“deliveries arriving late”)

Fifth column

ELEGIES—Homophonic pun of ELLA Gs (“Fitzgerald’s notes”)

RAWHIDE—RAW (“war turned ) + HIDE (“coverup”)

Sixth column

KNACKER—Last letters of “took in a classic mink one winter”)

Seventh column

DESIGNS—Pun on DE-SIGNS (“Removes billboards”)

STYLERS—STY (“Messy place”) + first letters of “look elegant, really” and “sumptuous”

Solvers

Very few solvers used the hints, so I’m not showing the breakdown.

Team AALO (Kristen Bischoff, Danny Clark, Kristen Detwiler, Alec Pirritano), Jina and Michael Accardo, Steve Alpert, Anthony Amodeo, Dean Apps, Jack Brauner, Bob Campbell, Lois Cappellano, Victoria Carter, Daniel Clark, Tim Connor, Todd Dashoff, Mick Diede, Michael Dolan, Deb Edwards, Bob Fink, Mendy Friedman, Bruce Fuller, Phil Gollance, Ruth Johnson, Jason Helbraun, Pete Hepokoski, J & J Holloman, Eric Klis, Paul Kolell, Mike Kosciuk, Ken Kudrak, Philip Lew, Ben Lynch, Michael Manos, Dave McGarry, Jerry Miccolis, Jon Michelson, Becky Moody, Jim Muza, David and Corinne Promislow, Daniel Rhodes, Jay Ripps, Dan Schwallie, Bill Scott, Andrew Shewan, Sally Smith, Zig Swistunowicz, Doug Szper, T. O. C. E. (Josh DenHartog and Sean Donohoe), Betsy and James Uzzell, Jim Wickwire, Michael Zurhellen

TOM TOCE is a senior manager for actuarial services with Ernst & Young in New York and is a member of the Jeopardy Hall of Fame. Solutions may be emailed to him at Thomas.Toce@ey.com. In order to make the solver list, your solutions must be received by Sept. 30, 2019.