Another Charade Crossword

In the August 1970 issue of Word Ways, I introduced the reader to the charade crossword puzzle. (Actually, Word Ways readers were introduced to the charade crossword concept even earlier -- see Walter G. Leight\u27s The Cryptic Crossword in the May 1968 issue.

A Charade Crossword

Of all crossword puzzles, I find the charade crossword the most enjoyable. In this type of crossword, the clues do not directly define the word to be found. The word is buried as a charade in a sentence; for example, the word outing is contained in the seventh, eighth and ninth words of the sentence It costs money to keep a runabout in gas, every young man soon learns. If this sentence were presented as the clue, the solution would be relatively simple. Instead, the word is removed from the sentence, and a new clue sentence (or set of sentences) is formed using the remaining letters in the same order; for example, It costs money to keep a run, a base very young man soon learns (6)

Able, Baker, Charlie ...

Much time has been spent on devising lists of the best words for transmitting initial letters unambiguously (A as in Able, B as n Baker, C as in Charlie ...). Even so, mistakes occur all too frequently. What then would be the confusion if one used instead the worst possible words from Webster\u27s Second Unabridged Dictionary? This masochistic exercise, suggested by Henry Pollak of Bell Laboratories at Murray Hill, N. J., resulted in the compilation given below