XWord Muggles Forum

Some you expect to be easy and they are not, others you expect to be difficult and they are not. Good bunch of solvers:

1 benchen71 
2 Berto 
3 Mike D 
4 Cindy Heisler 
5 I K Snamhcok 
6 InAJelly 
7 boharr 
8 Pair O Ducks 
9 LarsCaine 
10 Hector 
11 Meg 
12 Mg305 
13 MatthewL 
14 rjy 
15 Serafin 
16 hoover 
17 DCBilly 
18 Mwoychick 
19 markhr 
20 JHSeeman 
21 Bird Lives 
22 Darth 
23 DIS 
24 CPJohnson 
25 Jaclyn 
26 ELSavage 
27 andeux 
28 KayW 
29 Kristi 
30 woozy 

and a lot of nice comments so I am declaring this a success!

That is more than I can say about my luck with the MOAT which I apparently have a mental block about, even though I knew all the nudges before they were given...just goes that way sometimes.

T

I have this bag. It does not have a cat in it.

Downright nifty -- Thanks, Tom!

whimsy wrote: Wed Feb 26, 2025 11:38 pm zzbb.png

I have this bag. It does not have a cat in it.

Downright nifty -- Thanks, Tom!

Good information, happy you found it fun!

Cat out of sack!

Cat is out! With hint from DrTom

Got it with a hint. Impressive construction.

I either have a foothold or the most incredible coincidences of red herrings ever… nudge help anyone?

Update: got help. Way out in the field on that red herring or rabbit hole or whatever you want ot call this very fruitful but ultimately dead end trail. Great puzzle… this type often bites me.

Six more people answered the question and are missing nothing:

31 whimsy 
32 lbray53 
33 Mr Tex 
34 Ergcat 
35 ajk 
36 HoldThatThought 

OK, lets see if we can jumpstart this, might as well because I'm stumbling on the WSJ.

NUDGES:

One tester said it should have been named "Vowel Movement".

Whether people like it or not, they certainly will not be able to utter the hated phrase - "That was Z"

Something very common is not present in the grid

Something very common is also not present in the clues

If you evaluate the puz file using the Mechapuzzle utility the answer should be immediate.

Nine more, and some who are not Muggles. I am glad that others are finding our little (well not so little anymore) group.

37 HeadinHome 
38 Lance 
39 lbray53 
40 Carolyn
41 JM
42 FedexPope 
43 LB800 
44 Dave C 
45 Winterflame 

I was actually hoping to get into the 70's with this one, doesn't look like that is in the cards. But, hey, I'm delighted there are almost 50 of you.

Ok, probably the last solver:

46 Tom WIlson

Really no more nudges to give out so It's the reveal tomorrow (no use prolonging the agony, very few solvers after Saturday.)

Well, that was interesting…

I had a lot of fun making this puzzle which really did come about as a result of a discussion I had with Al Sisti. I had seen a reference to this “lipogram” (what a piece written to purposefully exclude a letter or letters is called) but thought it would be impossible. Initially I thought, “I’ll just do the grid”, but that seemed kind of wimpy so I went for all of it. It is why there are so many words in the grid (90, with a usual number being 72-28) since many longer words end up past tense and I could not risk any “ed” endings

The grid fill was not NEARLY as difficult as the clues. I’d have the perfect clue and then see that it of course contained an E. For example the MIAOW was going to be “Nice sound from a cat” but of course could not be.


I got many other 1939 books. One in particular, “And Then There Were None”, was popular and I tried to contact the people who submitted that if I had an address because with that title they might have been on the right track. But, I did not accept it as an answer because I did not spend all that time ridding the puzzle of E’s to have it NOT be GADSBY.

Interestingly there IS another book written without E’s, “ A Void”, translated from the original French La Disparition (lit. "The Disappearance"), is a 300-page French lipogrammatic novel, written in 1969 by Georges Perec, entirely without using the letter e. It obviously had to be renamed or the project failed immediately. However, as noted, it was published in 1969, not 1939.

I want to thank the 46 solvers and say:

GRAT FFORT!