Sea Change

by Michael Hanko and George Barany

One of the idiosyncrasies of a puzzle constructor is the penchant for discovering crossword themes in the most seemingly mundane minutiae of daily life. The idea for this "mid-week level" puzzle came from a misprint in a business-related email received by one of the constructors (saying more would potentially spoil the solving experience). We hope that you share in our delight over the analogous word relationships we discovered in filling our grid, and the playful ways we found to clue the theme entries. Note added 10/27/2014: After completing the puzzle (spoiler), you may enjoy this commissioned comic inspired by the puzzle. Update: This puzzle was used (click here) in the May 2014 issue of Natural Selections.

Click here to view or download the puzzle in PDF format; here to download it as a puz file; here to download it as an ipuz file [requires the free Puzzazz app to solve]; here to solve the puzzle interactively (thanks to Jim Horne); here for the solution. We thank Noam Elkies, Brent Hartzell, Martin Herbach, Amelia Rosner, Arthur Rothstein, and Michael Shteyman for astute beta testing.

If you want to tell others about this particular page, refer them to
http://tinyurl.com/seachangepuz

More puzzles here (all).

E-mail barany@umn.edu to be added to a bcc distribution list.