Am really enjoying the challenge of the Acrostic puzzles. This one on 8/18/18 did present a couple of tough twists: ROULETTE instead of GAMBLING, REDWOOD instead of SEQUOIA (with a tip of the hat to paulg, below, for pointing out that there are no redwoods in the Mariposa Grove). But there is one word in particular that I thought sure others would mention here: DARLING for "precious, cute, adorable." The next to last letter in this word -- "N" -- is associated with the #3 square. But the way I read the quote, the word in the quote in spares #3/4/5/6 must be USED. Does anyone else see the problem here? Or have I made the mistake? Please help me understand -- this is driving me crazy! Thx.
You don’t get acorns off a maple. You don’t get redwood from a giant sequoia. The mariposa grove has no redwoods in it. Big time screw up. We need a mea culpa on that, it really screwed up my attempt.
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This week was more of a challenge than usual for me. (That's not a criticism; it's a plaudit.)
Very few gimmes: KHRUSHCHEV, except that I misspelled it; AGATHA, except I wasn't sure; RUBY DEE, except that I had the wrong decade; EBONY and THICKET, which I was pretty sure of.
Needed practically all of the letters to get KANYE WEST. Didn't remember the characteer names from "Tea for Two."
Spent a lot of time trying to shoehorn "Laugh-In" into Word J, thinking that thing where the cast opens those doors to say stuff could have been called a "Joke Fence"; never saw "HEE-HAW."
As always, such fun to work a HEX acrostic. Loved it. Thanks.
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I had far fewer gimmes this week than usual, and a couple of wrong guesses at first -- gambling instead of ROULETTE (like Caitlin), and sequoia instead of REDWOOD.
But Steve Martin, Weird Al, and Tricky Dick came through for me -- along with GLIMPSED, OLD HAND, BARHOP, AGATHA, and ELEVATED.
Once I realized the quotation was about comedy, I stopped trying to turn HACKETT into jackets or packets or rackets or..., and it was smooth sailing from there. ;)
Fun puzzle! Thanks, EC & HR
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@Cyn
I was with you on trying jackets and packets etc. (also lockets).
Other problems: I thought Dosteyevsky was addicted to opium, or maybe morphine ... ANYHOW I was on the wrong track. Was thinking of the more recent movie about Jackie Robinson, and wondering if RUBY DEE was part of some flashback or something. Then I remembered that the new one wasn't called "The Jackie Robinson Story" and thought about when Ms. Dee was younger.
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I had fewer gimmes this week than usual, but didn't find this one to be especially hard since I picked up on Roger Ebert pretty quickly and that helped me solve those clues. Started with
GLIMPSED
EXCUSE ME
BARHOP
REDWOOD
Not may words to start, GLIMPSED, EXCUSE ME, AGATHA and REDWOOD. Thought it would be funny if Nixon’s kitchen debate was with Julia Child, which fit, but two is words, but looked it up and vaguely remembered about Khrushchev. Was very young. Other research included wood densities, HEE HAW, and the Jackie Robinson Story. By then I had some good leads in the quote; audience, above, some smaller words, but got a breakthrough getting the author, Roger Elbert, who was one of my favorites. Another fun quote.
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@Beejay
Giving me a mental picture of Nixon debating Julia completely made my day.
Thank you for a wonderful laugh.
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I think this was one of the fastest acrostics I've ever done. My gimmes were OLD HAND, GLIMPSED, ENSEMBLE, BARHOP, EAT IT, [KRUSCHCHEV], [EBONY], THICKET, ANTHOLOGY, and SEQUOIA/REDWOOD. The brackets indicate that 1) I had no idea how to spell KRUSCHCHEV and didn't put enough H's into it at first, and 2) I thought it was EBONY but wasn't sure enough to put it down during the first pass. And I knew I knew the Steve Martin catchphrase, but my brain blanked on me and all I could think of was the wild and crazy guy. And I tried SEQUOIA first but the Q clearly didn't work in that location, so I switched to REDWOOD.
Once I had those letters in, words became apparent very quickly. Whole phrases appeared out of the ether. I basically did the rest of the puzzle just going through the quote and filling in letters. And I remember Buddy Hackett, so he wasn't a problem. It was great fun watching the quote appear so quickly. I know that won't happen again for a very long time!
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By the way, the usual transliteration of this Russian name is KRUSHCHEV.
I am old enough to remember him. Thinking about him would scare the hell out of us kids back then, with the
“take-cover” drills we would go through in school and all that.
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I’ve seen Khrushchev’s grave in Moscow and his name is spelled with the Cyrillic X, which is almost always transliterated as Kh.
2
The spelling of Nikita K.'s name (I'm still not sure), was a stumbling block, but definitely one of my faster acrostics, as well.
funny, funny! didn't start with many gimmes: just AGATHA OLD HAND ELEVATED ANYHOW and KHRUSHCHEV. hard to get started. kept plugging away until I got AUDIENCE and play and ROGER EBERT. then it all came together quickly.
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Computer problems made it impossible for me to do the Acrostic, but I might as well post my comment about Switchbacks.
[MAJOR SPOILER ALERT]
It was a bit more difficult than it typically is.
I searched in vain for the antipasto meat, and in the end got SALAMI only from the crossings.
My only gimme was the other culinary question.
I had to search to get PEUGEOT, and to find out if the soda with that slogan was PEPSI-COLA or COCA-COLA. I had to do likewise to find out if it was GALLUP POLLS or HARRIS POLLS.
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@Jerrold
Try switching your browser. Edge gave me problems (an unusable grid) but Chrome worked fine.
@Jerrold
I saw there was a different look to the acrostic today, so I guess they’ve made some changes, but my entries don’t seem to be disappearing anymore.
Also had to do a lot of searching for the Switchbacks; Peugeot (could only think of Citroen), Pepsi or Coca, and took me a while to get REALM. Got there in the end.
I really want to learn this. So much harder than the crossword for me.
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Acrostics, Puns and Anagrams, and Cryptic puzzles are all enjoyable. One approach could be to review the answers in a number of previous puzzles just to get the flavor of them. An Acrostic lacks the "down" answers of a regular crossword, but there are other cues discernible from the word lengths, for instance. Today's Acrostic includes answers that are somewhat related to the quote with references to comedians, jokes, and height. That is typical of an EC & HR puzzle. Of course, there's also the frequency distribution of letters in the English language to aid in making educated guesses.
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@Crystal,
Acrostics have a very different rhythm. You start with the clues -- jotting down the answers you feel sure of (your "gimmes"), and your likely answers. Fill those in and don't despair that they are scattered at random through the quote. Any single letter words in the quote are (probably) A or I. Any two letter words in the quote? Well, the fills will have limited possibilities once you get one of the two letters. The "M" at 40 can (usually) only be followed by an E or Y. Similarly, if you have any letters for a 3-letter word in the quote, you can start tentatively filling in the "THE"s and the "YOU"s. Check the endings of the longer words -- --ING is common.
When you have hazarded some of those possibilities and placed their letters into the clues, see if you can pick up more full lettered clue words.
Look at the quote again, and try to pick up the rhythm of phrases.
Don't forget the author's name and book title. I draw dashes below and fill in initial letters of the clue words as I get them. They can be very helpful at back-tracking blanks in the quote.
I think it's legit to look up spellings, like Khrushchev in this puzzle.
Beware: Word endings are always signaled by a black square. Some words of the quote "wrap" onto the next line to make the whole quote a solid block in print.
And needless to say -- use a pencil with a good eraser! I had "teetery" or "toddery" for clue J for a long time.
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@Madeline Gunther
As a long-time acrostic fan/solver, I applaud your very clear and well-articulated tutorial for newbies.
Crystal: Both Madeline's and Etaoin's suggestions should help you get a first leg up on acrostics. I predict that once you get the first few back-and-forth Aha! moments, you'll be hooked on acrostics for life.