By Tom Toce
Most Americans are dealing with their taxes about now, so I thought we should have a tax-themed puzzle. There are no complicated instructions for solving this one. You need to spend your time on your filing.
All the clues lead to common words playable in Scrabble, except for five proper nouns, a few two-word answers, a common acronym, and a common foreign word. Ignore punctuation, which is designed to confuse.
Thanks to Eric Klis, Bob Fink, and Jerry Miccolis for test-solving and editorial suggestions.
Across
1. On the borders of alarming perturbations
5. Privileged expect contempt from both sides
8. Dude, maybe Connecticut’s giving rebates
9. Call, raise, or book
11. One hundred and fifty plan lawsuit
12. Revere’s shot—arrest Sue
15. Objectively, we dropped out of pondering Dynasty
17. Avidly goad disturbed, long-haired protester
18. Climate-control worker goes after Earl’s bookkeeper
19. Arid ruminations from Sally
23. Experiments with rerecording cassettes
25. The president recently deposed, “Western Ohio’s at two degrees”
26. Hurry up and show some life
29. It’s taking a couple of emphatically declared yes votes to get down to brass tacks
30. Arrange pieces of Elgar and Nielsen?—certainly
31. Jack and some others are beginning to wonder what he uses to open the cabinet?
Down
1. Spot new-fangled trauma center near Mass.
2. Cardinal uncovered nothing at first like rigged voting districts
3. Return and enter the other way
4. It’s a gift to be comparatively well off
5. It’s often said to be near-term
6. Louis’s state is one after Missouri
7. Unit is a hit in African nation
10. Rip apart themes of Bellow?
13. Art peed all over the bureaucracy
14. Nothing needs to be mentioned
16. Aware of creative costing
17. Stella’s mother is bonita
18. In Barcelona, what comes after a vote—ruin?
20. Frank’s second wife has Eric intoxicated with greed
21. Iron, swallowed by school administrators, causes hearing loss
22. Wags around Josephine’s knickers
24. Nothing but net seen around Arizona and New Mexico?
27. Somewhat bloodthirsty tax collectors
28. First Lady is on the brink
Previous Issue’s Puzzle—Some Assembly Required
There was an error in one of the hints—or depending upon your perspective, the colors in the diagram. Somehow, red/white/blue/yellow in the first diagram I reviewed became red/white/yellow/blue in a later draft, and I didn’t catch it. If you didn’t use the hints, you wouldn’t have caught the error. Several solvers who did, did. It’s possible there were more potential solvers who got thrown by the error, which I regret.
Sixteen-Letter Word
Dephlogisticated, which refers to air that’s been purified to oxygen. I thought whatever got trapped in the box might need some oxygen. I found it in a list of sixteen-letter words. I didn’t consider looking it up or searching on the internet for it as using any hints.
Six-Letter Words
SORDID—Anagram of “Droids”
SINGLE—SING (“Carol”) + LE (“after seven Annabelle”)
PATTON—PAT (“Perfectly understood”) + TON (“a great deal”)
CHORES—Hidden inside “macho researchers”
Seven-Letter Words
TANK TOP—TANK (“holding cell”) + TOP (“Excellent”)
ROACHES—Wrapped outside of “roadhouse wenches”
DISCORD—DISCO (“Bee Gees’ music”) + RD (“recorded with the midrange removed”)
JINGLES—Double definition
Four-Letter Words
Top of the box:
SCAG—S (“second”) + C (“cup for second place”) + AG (“silver”)
Bottom of the box:
DOPE—DOE (“Peter’s mother”) around P (“softly”)
Around the box:
HILT—HI (“high”) + L(“low”) + T (“Tic-Tac-Toe’s lead”)
TIDE—Homophone of TIED (“all even”)
FINAL ANSWER
JACK
Solvers
I omitted a few names last time. Mendy Friedman, Jim Muza, and David and Corinne Promislow should have been among the solvers. My apologies.
Solvers using no hints:
Steve Alpert, Dean Apps, Christy Brink/Priscilla Cho/Preet Dhillon/Jing Feng/Michael Manos/Jose Roca-Leon, Mick Diede, Dave Dougherty, Bob Fink, Phil Gollance, Ruth Johnson, Eric Klis, Paul Kolell, Mike Kosciuk, David Lovit and Christine O’Keefe, Tim Luker, Dave McGarry and John Murray, Jerry Miccolis, Jim Muza, David and Corinne Promislow, Bob Schriver, Bill Scott, T. O. C. E. (Sean Donohoe and Josh DenHartog), Jon Turnes, Zig Swistunowicz
Solvers using some hints (or not saying)
Lois and Paul Cappellano, Ken Kudrak, Ben Lynch, Doug Szper
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 April 1, 2018, leaving two weeks to finish your taxes.
