Corrigenda for the Enigma -- 1998

13–*PEARLS is actually not MW _usage_. Not a big deal, I know, but don't worry, there's at least one important error later.

29–Capitalize “Tao” and “Tao Te Ching” (which isn't hyphenated either, I just noticed. Whoops).

40–Enumeration for MORE should be 4 5. (That was the important one.)

42–Delete the period at the end of line 7.

12–NI3+ usage

19–Not MW.

27–There's a grammar problem in the solution. It was actually discovered during test-solving, and I made a note to myself about fixing it…but I forgot. Luckily Trazom was kind enough to rewrite the first two lines after the fact:

   The Catholic Church, as you may know, quite long ago THE SOL.
   (The priests, that is, were ordered to keep celibate).

55–It turns out the middle 4 is actually NI2 usage (though easily inferable from the 10C usage).

64–“But” instead of “help” in line 3. I didn't know the difference, but Merrian-Webster's Dictionary of English Usage showed me the error of my ways.

X-4–Drop the apostrophe in “friends” in line 2.

X-5–There are four capitalized words, not three, in case you were counting.

Sol report–Flat 15 had only 36 solvers.

The solution to Dec. 6 should begin with “bigamous”, not “bigamist”.

35–the missing comma in the byline is not rubrical.

44–A couple minor capitalization issues. Line 9 should of course start with a capital A, and the G in the last line's DeGeneres should be capped as well.

48–The 3 shouldn't be capitalized.

F-3, 13-Across–Add (OED; variant of NI2 form) to tag.

January solutions–An “and” is missing from #58's reading (”…and steal S”). Also, “now” should be “snow” in #57, and “whom” should be “who” in C-3.

February hints–Hint for #55 should refer to #69.

One of our corrigenda is missing – namely, that one March flat contains The Error That Cannot Be Named.

The Ralfs are fairly blatantly misnumbered owing to a last-minute change, inadvertently revealing the behind-the-scenes fact that I use X's as placeholders before numbering the flats. R-x should be 25, 25 should be 26, and 26 should be 27.

In the explanation for March 61 (in the March hints), the last sentence should end, ”…if they are both odd, then the middle letters in each must be the same.”

10 – Pollack should be Pollock.

24 – Change enumeration for BANK to *6, and drop the asterisk from the verse.

39 – THREE should be *THREE.

48 – “It s” in line 2 should be “Its”.

54 – Delete the superfluous bracket after the second 4 in the enumeration.

67 – Quotes, not italics.

69 – 10C-findable.

Solving frequency and kudos info for Feb. flats 38 and 50 may be hard to read; #38 is 41/5, #50 is 49/6.

The answer to March 18 should be “a-p/l/t-titude”.

3 – Enumeration should end in ^10, not ^9.

10 – Rather, NI3 Addenda word in reading.

32 – TWO is NI3.

51–“Perspire” should be “transpire”.

p. 16–The comma that slipped out of Xemu's 52 byline and into Ditto's 57 is not rubrical or anything.

F-2–“Chromosomes” should be “sex chromosomes”.

X-2–Look familiar? Apparently I just ran this one in May. Seems as though I put it in two different files on my computer and only marked one off as having been printed. Aaargh. Just skip this one on your solution list.

From the April answers:

Ralf 15 – “hornet eggs” should be “hornet egg”

42 – “art” should be “rat”

C4 – “zombilike” should be “zombielike”

2 – ARGLE = not MW usage, I suppose.

29 – Penultimate line should read “The earth is in its…”

64 – Whoops, there doesn't seem to be a flat 64.

11 – As often seems to be the case with this sort of flat, one phoneme might not quite seem to work for some people. Say it faster or something.

31 – “It's” should be “its”.

38, 44 – Flat 38 is missing some punctuation (end of line 1), and flat 44 is as well (end of line 9). Now's your chance to play “Editing the Enigma–the home game”! What punctuation would you put there? Dashes? Semicolons? I'd go with dashes, I guess, but you can do whatever you want–maybe seven ampersands in a row, why not? Go wild!–because it's “Editing the Enigma–the home game”!

29, 46 – Also in the nearly-subliminal-error category, line 3 of flat 46 and line 4 of flat 29 should start with capital letters.

In paragraph 5 of Storyteller's report, “himself” should be “myself”. In the solution to June 62, “on” should be “of”.

Well, first of all, the magazine shouldn't have been so tiny, of course. I forgot to change the date by which solutions need to be sent in from the previous issue – apologies. Solutions are due November 1 (October 30 by email). Page 2, paragraph 3–“How moved I was when . . .”

6 – Karakoram, not Karakorum. That's somewhere else.

10 – Bracket the enumeration.

26 – Add a period at the end of line 6.

27 – The SMOTHERING referred to in the verse is not the same as the one found in NI2, due to an editing error.

CF-15 – Bracket the enumeration.

34 – I ME MINE = not MW.

39 – Line overrun in line 2 should be indented (been a while since that classic errata, eh?).

79 – Bracket the 2-4.

X-5 – Combinom accidentally left unexplained – Harth is Arachne and Hot.

The solution to C-7 should read Zipangu, not Zipansu. Elsewhere on the solution pages: in the June solvers report, Wampahoofus cosolved with Jon Dark; also, add Rick–76! to June favorites (and change the kudos count for 76 to 32/13/5).

Finally, one flat contains The Error That Cannot Be Named (that is, one verse inadvertently repeats a word that appears in the solution).

The last clue of F-5 was cut off…blast it. Add

6. Ship

To the end of it. Sorry.

1 – Delete the second “just” in line 9.

14 – No apostrophe in “Finnegans”.

35 – Enumeration should be 16.

54 – It's TAKE, not TOOK, that is +.

60 – “Eblis”, not “Elbis” in #60. (Admit it, this is your reaction: “Oh, Eblis, of course, now I get it!”)

65 – Change RANT in the tag to TANTARA.

65–In the enumeration, 9 should be 8.

X-7–7-Down is (6), not (4).

19–HEARD is NI2 pronunciation.

36–Both parts are phonetic. Really it should be an extended word substitution, but let's not get into that right now. And one phoneme, as is so often the case, may require magnanimity from some people.

F-3–12-Down should be “Lemon relative”.

Well…the cryptic grid in December is all screwed up, I'm annoyed to report. The grid you see was from my earliest draft of the page, and of course I fixed the error, but then I apparently printed the original incorrect page…and why I had deleted that page in the first place, well that I could not tell you. Anyway, you see those four T-shapes in the middle of the grid? The one in the lower left should move up one square. Additionally: y'see the fourth row of the diagram, there's a five-letter word and a seven-letter word? Well, those seven squares should all be separated by dark lines; there's no word that goes there. Nor in the other three rotationally symmetrical spaces.