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Marie C. French
Leaders and Battlegrounds
New York Times, Sunday, March 15, 1942
Author:
Marie C. French
Editor:
Margaret Farrar
Rows: 23, Columns: 23, Words: 176, Blocks: 89, Avg Word Len: 5.00, Missing: { J Q Z }, Scrabble score: 645 (avg 1.47)
Open Squares: 132, Cheaters: 10, FITB: 3, XRef: 0, Words that never appeared in a previous NYT crossword: 166, Grid flow: 17.4
David Steinberg notes:
"Marie C. French" may be a pseudonym for Mabel C. Daggett, who constructed the previous puzzle ... and taught French!
| 1 C | 2 R | 3 I | 4 P | 5 P | 6 S | | 7 C | 8 E | 9 L | 10 E | 11 B | 12 E | 13 S | | 14 M | 15 E | 16 D | 17 U | 18 S | 19 A | |
20 I | R | A | N | I | A | N | | 21 A | V | E | R | A | G | E | | 22 O | B | E | L | I | S | 23 K |
24 N | E | P | T | U | N | E | | 25 S | E | N | A | T | O | R | | 26 R | O | S | E | T | T | E |
27 S | A | T | | 28 S | E | A | | 29 A | R | O | S | E | | 30 P | 31 R | A | N | K | | 32 U | R | I |
33 E | M | U | 34 S | | 35 S | K | 36 Y | | 37 E | R | E | | 38 M | E | A | L | Y | | 39 B | A | I | T |
40 T | E | R | A | 41 S | | 42 S | A | 43 L | S | E | | 44 R | A | N | G | E | | 45 W | A | T | C | H |
| 46 R | E | C | U | 47 R | | 48 C | O | T | | 49 L | E | N | T | O | | 50 C | A | R | E | T | |
| | | | 51 N | I | 52 C | H | T | | 53 F | A | D | | 54 S | U | 55 P | I | N | E | | | |
56 S | 57 T | 58 A | 59 R | | 60 G | O | T | | 61 C | R | U | E | 62 T | | 63 T | E | L | E | S | 64 I | 65 S | |
66 P | A | R | A | 67 D | O | X | | 68 D | E | A | R | E | S | 69 T | | 70 R | I | D | | 71 M | I | 72 B |
73 A | B | A | T | O | R | | 74 O | R | D | | 75 A | M | E | R | 76 I | C | A | | 77 A | P | S | E |
78 H | I | M | E | R | | 79 G | R | A | I | 80 L | | 81 S | T | I | C | H | | 82 A | N | E | T | S |
83 I | T | E | R | | 84 K | R | E | M | L | I | 85 N | | 86 S | A | Y | | 87 S | P | I | R | I | T |
88 S | H | A | | 89 L | E | A | | 90 A | L | T | E | 91 R | E | D | | 92 A | N | I | L | I | N | E |
| 93 A | N | 94 T | E | N | N | 95 A | | 96 A | T | L | A | S | | 97 F | R | O | | 98 S | L | E | D |
| | | 99 H | A | N | D | L | 100 E | | 101 E | L | M | | 102 C | O | M | U | 103 S | | | | |
| 104 P | 105 L | I | N | Y | | 106 D | I | 107 A | R | Y | | 108 C | U | R | | 109 T | I | 110 M | 111 O | 112 R | |
113 T | A | I | N | T | | 114 R | I | D | E | S | | 115 S | L | E | E | 116 P | | 117 P | A | V | E | 118 D |
119 R | I | S | K | | 120 D | O | N | O | R | | 121 S | H | E | | 122 T | A | 123 B | | 124 D | E | M | I |
125 E | N | S | | 126 B | A | B | E | L | | 127 B | O | R | A | 128 H | | 129 T | O | 130 O | | 131 R | O | C |
132 S | T | O | 133 W | A | G | E | | 134 O | 135 P | A | L | I | N | E | | 136 E | N | G | 137 R | A | V | E |
138 S | E | M | I | L | O | R | | 139 N | A | T | I | V | E | S | | 140 R | E | L | A | T | E | S |
| 141 R | E | T | I | N | T | | 142 S | P | A | D | E | R | S | | 143 A | R | E | T | E | S | |
© 1942, The New York TimesNo. 5
Across
1
7
Strategic island east of Borneo. :
CELEBES14
Head on the Aegis of Athena. :
MEDUSA20
21
22
Monument in Central Park. :
OBELISK24
Islands off south coast of Australia. :
NEPTUNE25
26
27
28
29
30
32
33
35
37
38
39
40
42
44
Horizontal distance of the target. :
RANGE45
46
48
Former French Air Minister. :
COT49
Musical direction. :
LENTO50
Mark of omission. :
CARET51
53
54
56
Every movie needs one. :
STAR60
61
63
66
Contradictory phenomenon. :
PARADOX68
70
71
73
74
75
"Half-brother of the world."—Bailey. :
AMERICA77
78
Suggested objective of he. :
HIMER79
81
Line of the Bible. :
STICH82
83
84
86
87
88
89
90
92
93
96
97
98
Carrier in Russia. :
SLED99
101
102
104
He wrote "Natural History." :
PLINY106
Shirer's journal. :
DIARY108
109
Strategic island east of Java. :
TIMOR113
114
"For evil news ___ post."—Milton. :
RIDES115
"The universal vanquisher."—Sophocles. :
SLEEP117
119
Applicant for insurance. :
RISK120
121
122
124
125
126
Structure built to reach heaven. :
BABEL127
129
131
132
Capacity for holding goods. :
STOWAGE134
136
138
139
140
141
142
143
Down
1
2
"The first fine careless ___!"—Browning. :
RAPTURE3
Fruit of investment: abbr. :
INT4
Name meaning dutiful. :
PIUS5
6
7
8
9
10
11
12
13
14
15
16
Something to pound on. :
DESK17
18
19
Limited the use of: Scot. :
ASTRICT20
Small map in a larger one. :
INSET23
The K in R. K. O. :
KEITH31
34
36
38
"Is ___ an ape or an angel?"—Disraeli. :
MAN39
41
Motif of Japan's flag. :
SUN43
His wife is famous. :
LOT44
45
47
49
Poet's inspiration. :
LAURA50
52
He ran for President. :
COX53
55
56
57
She was "full of good works." :
TABITHA58
59
61
62
64
65
67
68
69
72
74
76
Describing Winter roads. :
ICY77
West Indian shrubs. :
ANILS79
80
Scatters straw for bedding. :
LITTERS82
84
He sings on the radio. :
KENNY85
Helen's nickname. :
NELLY87
89
91
92
Branch of military service. :
ARM94
95
97
100
102
103
104
105
107
108
110
111
112
113
114
He wrote "Rules of Order." :
ROBERT115
116
Libation-vessel of Romans. :
PATERA118
120
Fish god worshiped at Gaza. :
DAGON121
123
Humorous blunder. :
BONER126
Beautiful isle ravaged by war. :
BALI127
128
"Guest" of Winston Churchill. :
HESS130
133
135
137
Answer summary:
4 unique to this puzzle, 162 debuted here and reused later.
Analyzing...
Analysis
There are 0 circles, 0 rebus squares and 10 cheater squares.
The grid
Grid has normal rotational symmetry It has 4 words unique to this puzzle:
It has 162 additional words that debuted in this puzzle and were later reused (total number of puzzles in brackets):
These 32 answer words are not legal Scrabble™ entries, which sometimes means they are interesting:
Grid has an unusual size: 23 rows x 23 columns.
Note: average values here are based on Modern Era stats. Pre-Shortz puzzles didn't vary consistently by day of week.
Distribution of answer words by length
Letter distribution
| Scrabble Score: 1 |
2 |
3 |
4 |
5 |
8 |
10 |
Thumbnails
Various thumbnail views are shown:
- Standard view shows the grid pattern most clearly
- Open Squares (those which don't touch any block, even diagonally) are blue
- Vowel distribution
- Scrabble score uses the same color key as above
- Freshness view shows unique answers in red (see colorized grid below)
With answers
Modern Era puzzles that may be similar to this one
Crosswords that share the most words with this one:
Unusual or long words that appear elsewhere:
Identical grids
Other puzzles with the same block pattern as this one:
Topologically similar grids
Other crosswords with exactly 89 blocks, 176 words, 132 open squares, and an average word length of 5.00:
Colorized grid (based on pre-Shortz, Modern Era and Variety word frequencies)
In this view, unusual answers are colored depending on how often they have appeared in other puzzles.
Unique answers are in red, red overwrites orange which overwrites yellow, etc.
Cheater squares are indicated with a + sign.
| Unique |
1 other |
2 others |
3 others |
4 others |
Freshness
How common is each answer word?
This chart shows the number of puzzles each word has appeared in across all NYT puzzles, old and modern.