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Rather cryptic preamble.

Puzzle:

http://www.wsj.com/public/resources/documents/165puzzle20160423.pdf

Solution for previous - 20160326:

http://blogs.wsj.com/puzzle/2016/03/25/shooting-hoops-saturday-puzzle/tab/puzzle_solution/


As always, for best results download, then open & print.

Previous puzzles & threads can be found here:
http://tinyurl.com/pyvfuwg

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9 dn says it has 7 letters, and the answer does. Only 6 spaces.??

Having read the comments I now see that's part of it
o me miserum!

Thanks again syzygy, nice without the clues being very taxing (@ ros: the preamble makes it sound more difficult than it is). 25d raised a smile.

PS, starred 40a.

Thanks, ginge. I have done quite a few now and though the preamble still foxes me, I trust it will make sense eventually

cheers syzzie, didn't get the 'well-known correspondence' until right at the end, which helped me get 21a to complete the grid.

Well I have given up. The preamble makes no sense to me whatsoever and I have solved more than half of the clues, some of which I don't know how to enter.

Hi Ros, don't give up. It's probably because you don't regularly do "thematic" puzzles this concept seems strange. If you consider all the clues where the letter count is different from the allocated grid space and highlight these clues it should help. Each will have a square that has 1 standard letter in 1 direction and the thematic symbol in the crossing direction. If you split these squares diagonally with 1 of each in each half this should hopefully help.

Rosalind - the ones which you don't know how to enter should all contain two consecutive letters - the same two letters in all of them. these two letters can represent something else.
the preamble is (deliberately?) more confusing than it need be.
best of luck.