Jim Quinlan author page
2 puzzles by Jim Quinlan
with Editor comments
| S | N | A | P | O | P | S | B | O | C | C | E | |||
| T | O | T | E | E | P | I | C | U | V | U | L | A | ||
| A | T | T | N | P | E | T | R | C | A | P | E | R | ||
| L | Y | I | N | D | A | N | C | E | R | S | C | A | L | |
| K | O | R | E | A | T | H | E | O | F | A | N | G | ||
| S | U | E | M | O | O | I | N | W | A | L | K | E | R | |
| L | E | N | S | G | E | E | S | E | ||||||
| A | L | P | A | C | A | T | O | A | S | T | Y | |||
| P | A | I | N | S | A | C | E | S | ||||||
| P | L | A | Y | I | N | F | O | L | K | S | E | S | C | |
| L | A | N | A | E | R | I | E | V | I | S | T | A | ||
| E | L | I | B | E | I | N | C | O | U | N | T | E | R | |
| P | A | S | T | A | C | A | T | E | D | E | L | E | ||
| I | N | T | E | L | A | G | E | D | E | E | L | S | ||
| E | D | S | E | L | N | E | D | X | M | A | S |
| O | B | A | M | A | T | R | A | D | E | T | V | A | ||
| V | I | D | A | L | W | A | K | E | D | O | A | R | ||
| A | G | O | R | A | A | N | I | M | U | S | T | N | T | |
| E | P | I | M | I | A | M | I | P | E | G | ||||
| C | A | T | S | C | A | N | T | S | K | I | B | O | B | |
| D | R | E | A | R | Y | P | E | E | R | A | G | E | ||
| L | S | D | O | A | S | E | S | N | I | G | H | T | ||
| B | U | S | H | W | A | S | N | T | ||||||
| O | C | T | E | T | O | E | S | T | E | S | T | A | ||
| L | O | W | N | O | T | E | A | T | R | A | I | N | ||
| A | L | I | G | N | S | M | A | T | H | I | S | N | T | |
| G | S | A | H | O | O | F | S | T | H | Y | ||||
| K | A | T | Y | D | I | D | N | T | Q | U | I | T | S | |
| I | T | E | T | R | I | T | E | T | A | M | I | L | ||
| X | E | D | S | T | E | E | R | S | L | I | M | Y |
Is today's theme consistent? It depends on how you interpret it. By spelling, no ... but phonetically, yes, it works.
KATYDIDN'T, MATHISN'T and BUSHWASN'T are pretty tight. These all add -N'T to familiar words/names to turn a verb at the end into a negative contraction. So far so good.
CATSCAN'T is slightly different, but not in a bad way. Because CAN already ends in an N, you only need to add -'T to complete the contraction. Probably not many solvers will be bothered by that.
The sticky example is ANIMUSTN'T, which adds -TN'T. That would be a deal-breaker — reason for instant rejection — if the theme's consistency were judged solely by spelling. But since the first T of ANIMUSTN'T is silent, this theme example works likes the others when said out loud. So the whole theme is consistent in that way.
Some solvers may object to the puzzle's loose phonetics. Technically, MATHIS ends in an "s" sound, which turns into a "z" sound in ISN'T. Also, the "a" sounds in BUSHWAS ("ah") and WASN'T ("uh") aren't quite the same. You have to say these two examples quickly for them to work.
I'm willing to do that for such a fresh, amusing, and otherwise super-specific theme.