Clearance Sale—Xerus & Ratufa SpecGram Vol CLXXII, No 4 Contents

Συυιτχεροο—Βῆτα

by Ἔλλειψις Ἀστερίσκος and Ἔλλειψις Ἀπόστροφος

In this second puzzle of letter switcheroos, your task is—for each pair of words below—to form two new words by swapping one letter from each word, which will generally result in new words that are more appropriate for a SpecGram audience.

For example, starting with fictive / faction, you can swap the first i and the a to get factive / fiction. Similarly, you can swap the first u and the o in cupula / ovular to get copula / uvular.

Below are the word pairs to be transformed:

deal / true
moor / dead
clone / frost
bland / model
inmate / nodule
burn / cart
inset / trope
bracken / totemic
frosting / postpone
dismal / tedium
elide / thing

If you think you’ve figured out the answers, submit your solution to the editors of SpecGram by April 15, 2015, and you could win a prize.* Solutions and winners will be announced in the May issue.


The solution to last month’s Sliding Vowels Puzzle is provided in visual form below. Eric Chen and Vince Wilson found plausible solutions and will receive prizes for their efforts.‡

Initial State
Final State
Solution


* Note that SpecGram Anti-Hoarding Guidelines stipulate that puzzle-related prizes cannot be won by anyone who has won a puzzle-related prize in the last three months—though honor, fame, and glory may still be seized† on the metaphorical field of puzzle-related battle.

† Except where taxed, prohibited by law, or otherwise restricted, constrained, limited, regulated, controlled, hindered, impeded, hampered, obstructed, checked, curbed, shackled, confined, or otherwise subject to thesaural interference.

‡ The SpecGram Überlinguistaffen found an even more optimal solution, which is the one presented here.

Clearance Sale—Xerus & Ratufa
SpecGram Vol CLXXII, No 4 Contents