CISRA Puzzle Competition 2011 - Solutions
5D. Four-Letter Words
The first step is to solve the clues. From the grid and the puzzle title, the answers are expected to be (or consist of) four-letter words. After finding some of the obvious answers, it becomes apparent that the clues have been arranged so that the answers are in alphabetical order. This helps resolve several clues that might otherwise be ambiguous.
An additional hint is given by the instruction below the grid:
Words in multi-word answers appear consecutively in the grid.
This implies that some of the answers contain more than one word (presumably all four letters). Likely candidates include Charlotte Brontë's heroine "Jane Eyre", Caesar's statement "Veni vidi vici", Utah's capital "Salt Lake City", the House episode "Epic Fail", Treehouse of Horror VI guest star "Paul Anka", and the Madonna lyric "gave good face" from Vogue.
The list of the intended answers is:
AERO, AFER, AHAB, AINU, ALAN, ALPO, AMOR, AQUA, ARAN, AROD, ASAP, ASEA, ASIO, ASTI, ATOL, AUXO, AVIS, AWOL, AZOV, BATS, BIEL, CATS, COOS, DUMA, EAST, ECHO, ECRU, EDGE, EFLY, EINS, ENZO, EPIC FAIL, ESME, FIEF, GAOL, GAVE GOOD FACE, GORT, GRAE, HELM, HIVE, HOLA, IAGO, IANA, ICHI, IGAR, IGOR, IJEN, IKEA, IKIM, IRAQ, IRMA, IRON, JANE EYRE, JAWA, KEIM, KIBO, KNOT, KNUR, LADA, MGMT, MYST, NASH, NEON, NINA, OATH, OBOE, OBOL, OCHE, OKRA, OLOS, ORCA, OSLO, OSTI, OUZO, OXEN, PAUL ANKA, PEER, PELE, PLEA, QUIZ, RASC, RIAL, ROTI, SALT LAKE CITY, SASH, SHAD, SIAM, SPQR, STYX, SULU, TABU, TAYE, TEAK, THEO, TOFU, TOJO, UMOA, UTAH, VENI VIDI VICI, WEST, WOAD, XENA, XXXX, YDOC, YODA, ZONE, ZWEI.
At this point a count and check against the grid would reveal that there are four words missing. When placing the words in the grid, this has to be kept in mind, so that promising sections are not discarded simply because a word is needed that is not part of the solution space. On the other hand, there are only four words missing, so most of the time an inability to complete a word will indicate an incorrect placement. Placing the words requires finding a good balance between the two competing factors.
One method of placing the words starts with the infrequent letters; 'V', 'J', 'X', 'Z' are all of fairly limited occurrence. (As are others, of course.) Note that every square in the grid appears in two words, except around the edges. So even taking the missing words into account we expect to be able to match up most letters in pairs.
The 'X's give a small section immediately – they all cross "XXXX", so they are easy to place. It's possible to make some small progress around the 'J's also, but the major advance comes from "VENI VIDI VICI". At least two of those 'V's must be crossed, no matter where it is placed. Unless we are unfortunate with the missing words, this determines its orientation within the grid. Further experimentation shows a promising fill with "GAVE GOOD FACE" crossing it.
Continuing in this way, it's possible to do most of the left and top sections, absorbing some of the other islands in the meantime. When this peters out, the few remaining places for "SALT LAKE CITY" serve to start a new section that enables the rest to be filled in. The final grid looks like the following:
Reading clockwise around the edge from the topmost letter spells out the message "APPEAL FROM U.S. HEAD TO SOVIET". The unclued words, helpfully marked by EAST and WEST, serve to identify the appropriate heads of state. For the U.S. president the two words are STAR WARS – the informal name given to the Strategic Defense Initiative, proposed by President Ronald Reagan. For the Soviet head the words are OPEN NESS, or OPENNESS, a reference to glasnost, the reform policies introduced by General Secretary Mikhail Gorbachev.
Reagan aimed several speeches at Gorbachev, but perhaps most famous of all was his 1987 speech at the Brandenburg Gate, and four words in particular which are the answer to this puzzle (and appropriately, each four letters long): TEAR DOWN THIS WALL.