Key phrase: подвод воздуха для охлаждения реактивного конуса Б = # of в (in the key phrase) Д = # of o Ж = # of ж И = # of д Л = # of я Ц = # of к Ъ = # of а Я = # of г, з, п, р, с, and т

Trey Jones
l’École de SpecGram, Tokyo

After having been AWOL for several months (we finally located them on a beach in Biarritz), the SpecGram Puzzle Elves™ are back with their noses shackled to the grindstone for another installment of HanjieLinguru.

HanjieLinguru is a simple extension of the traditional Hanjie form, but with just enough linguistics to keep the non-linguists at bay. The rules are simple: first, replace each Cyrillic letter with the number indicated by the clue provided. Then proceed with the standard Hanjie rules to determine for each cell of the grid whether it should be black or white; to whit, the cells in the grid are to be painted black according to the numbers given at the side of the grid, which indicate how many contiguous groups of painted squares there should be in each row or column, and how long each is. A clue of “5 1 2” would mean there are groups of five, one, and two black squares, in that order, with at least one white square between groups.

Try the HanjieLinguru III puzzle, at right. If you delude yourself into thinking you have solved it, email your solution to us. At least one random winner chosen from among those who send in correctly completed puzzles by December 15th, 2008 will get the usual prize, a SpecGram magnet. The one true solution to this puzzle, and the names of any prize winners, will appear in the upcoming February 2009 issue.

Some Overdue Solutions

HanjieLinguru II: We have a bit of a backlog of solutions. (Those pesky Elves will never get another vacation!) Most obviously relevant, the solution to the previous HanjieLinguru puzzle is below, a lo-res representation of ə. These fine PuzzleMeisters figured it out (but you, alas, did not—what does that say about you?), and they, too, will each receive a SpecGram magnet for their troubles.

Declan Whitford Jones of Germantown, Maryland Erik Gedeborg of Södertälje, Sweden Nils Schäffer of Pfosing, Austria Sara Kessler of Rechovot, Israel

Paula Arnas Antolín of Sant Feliu de Llobregat, Spain Siva Kalyan of Princeton, New Jersey Scott Horne of Montréal, Québec T.J. Heins of Pelham, NY

Solution to HanjieLinguru II Transform Puzzles III: “The Final Showdown” Hall of Fame Winners!! Scott Horne Montréal, Québec Richard Benham Geneva, Switzerland Martina Johnson Pisa, Italy Sara Kessler Rechovot, Israel Thomas Brasdefer Parts Unknown Trey Jones Washington, DC Honorable Mention James Crippen

Transform Puzzles III—The Final Showdown: A number of people submitted solutions to the final clutch of transform puzzles, presented back in in the mists of time (July this year). As you have no doubt forgotten, all of the puzzles featured clever word play, some with homonyms, some with antonyms, some with palindromes, and some with humorously related words.

Below are some examples of the better solutions, along with analysis by Jonathan van der Meer.

• Whorf → whore → whole → while → white → whits → waits → warts → wares → cares → carer → caper → taper → tapir → Sapir (by Trey Jones; all of the solutions submitted featured Whorf → whore; it is not clear what that means, but it must mean something.)
• night → nigh → sigh → sign → sin → sit → sat → say → day (by Thomas Brasdefer, longer, all common) or
  night → sight → sigh → sig → sag → say → day (by Sara Kessler, quite short, and quite common but for the archaic sig (not an abbreviation for signature, but meaning urine. Ugh.)
• right → bight → bigot → begot → besot → best → lest → left (by Trey Jones)
• honey → hone → hoe → hee → bee (by Scott Horne) and
  pollen → polled → poled → holed → honed → honey (by Sara Kessler and Scott Horne)
• hi → hit → sit → sin → sign → sigh → high (by Trey Jones)
• bare → bard → band → bend → bead → bear (by Sara Kessler; all very common words, but longer) or
  bare → barm → berm → beam → bear (by Scott Horne; short, but barmy)
• new → net → get → gat → gau → gnu (by Richard Benham. If you can’t stomach gat, then gel → gal is available. gau seems all but unavoidable.)
• repel → revel → level → lever → leper (entirely palindromic! by Richard Benham, Martina Johnson, and Trey Jones; clearly this one was too easy!)
• snoops → swoops → swoons → spoons (by Trey Jones) or
  snoops → sloops → sloots → stoots → stools → spools → spoons (Longer, dreadfully obscure, but entirely palindromic! by Sara Kessler)
• star → sear → seas → sets → rets → rats, (by Scott Horne and Sara Kessler; shorter, but more obscure) or
  star → sear → pear → peas → pets → pats → rats, (by Trey Jones; all common words, but longer) or
  star → stab → stob → stop → step → seep → sees → pees → pets → pots → bots → bats → rats (entirely palindromic! by Trey Jones; despite iffy stob and bots)
• deliver → deriver → derives → derides → decides → deciles → defiles → defiled → refiled → reviled (by Trey Jones; long, but all fairly common words) or
  deliver → reliver → reviver → reviler → reviled (entirely palindromic! by both Martina Johnson and Richard Benham; all the words seem derivationally sound, but they still leave an unfamiliar taste in one’s mouth, no?)

• star → tar → tat → rat → rats (A solution worthy of an honorable mention, by James Crippen. A short, palindromic solution that happens to violate the new requirement that not both additions and deletions can be used in the same solution.)
• repel → reper → leper (An overly obscure, archaic spelling of reaper, supplied by Sara Kessler, makes this one both trivial and palindromic in one go.)

	Cartoon Theories of Linguistics—Part 14—Gricean Implicature—Phineas Q. Phlogiston, Ph.D.
	SpecGram Vol CLV, No 2 Contents