Crossword Help Forum
Forum Rules

The third one has nine letters if you're counting from the top.

Thanks Barretter. It’s definitely the fourth one I’m missing. How many letters is it?

The fourth, Polish one, has 8 letters and is mostly backwards in the grid.

Are you including the two words of the "contrivance" as part of the "string"? In which case the "fourth" one has six letters, and is backwards for its first four letters,

Sorry, backward for its first 5 letters.

Thanks Barretter, got it now. Sorry for the confusion.

That was a nice puzzle with a neat endgame, although a bit of a leap of faith was required (in my case, anyway) to get to the author. One loose end for me: please can someone help me with the parsing for 38a? I'm sure it's obvious, and the answer is certainly clear, but for some reason I have a mental block with this clue.

And thank you, Wan, for a diverting puzzle!

Abbrev of first word, then word for cape (promontory) minus batman's last

Kitsune, the first word in the clue loses a letter, thus giving the usual abbreviation. The 'cape' is geographical, remove the last letter in Batman (out of Batman's last).

Thank you, Malone. I feel astonishingly stupid. It was so obvious! I wonder what causes these mental blocks? And is there a cure?