Thanks to Professor Solomon Golomb for a quintessentially Trojan puzzle. It prompted an effusion of entries, generally flawless and rich in wit and erudition. “I humbly submit my manuscript,” wrote Randall Kam DDS ’83. “I did not write in majuscule, nor am I an ambuscader. The day wears on, it grows crepuscular.” Many readers volunteered extra words in the spirit of our puzzle: how about tusche? (don’t worry, it’s just engraving ink used in lithography); or cuscus? (a species of small marsupials). Wine-savvy readers spilled forth their knowledge: Alan Sarkisian JD ‘80 noted a slight inaccuracy in clue 15: muscatel, he informed us, properly refers to the wine, not the grape (called muscat – which also happens to be the capital of Oman, volunteered John S. Jensen ’75). Keck School student Kimberley Foster supplied yet another wine, lambrusco. Some puzzlers chided us for overlooking an obvious USC-word in our very midst: the late great Leo Buscaglia. As a footnote, we learned that far fewer words can be mined from our cross-town rival’s acronym: the Oxford English Dictionary lists only two – euclase (a brittle mineral) and genuclast (a surgical instrument) – compared to 865 words containing the Trojan kernel.
Of the 325 readers who provided each mot juste, the following five winners were chosen by lot: Robert S. Durham MSSM ’75, Dale G. Nowicki MPA ’91, Wilfred G. Parker ’56, Regina Reece ’99 and Louis J. Zivot MFA ’91. We’re confident you’ll spend your Borders gift certificates on crosswords and reference books.
The correct answers to “Word Sleuths” are listed below. If you’re disastrous at solving word puzzles, maybe you’ll have better luck with actual disasters. To try fooling with “Nasty Mother Nature” click here.
1 obfuscate
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9 susceptibility
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2 uscita
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10 coruscate
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3 luscious
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11 auscultation
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4 resuscitate
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12 mollusca
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5 Muscovite
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13 Tuscany
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6 couscous
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14 minuscule
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7 muscular
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15 muscadet/muscatel
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8 Etruscan
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16 corpuscle
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