Puzzle #48 Solution and Puzzle #49, “Head Count”

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After a week off – sorry about that – we’re back.

Two weeks ago I gave you a theme-packed puzzle called “Character Sequence.” There were four pairs of obvious theme entries, clued as “Roman character …” and “Greek character …” where in each case the Roman character came first.

But these were just to get you started. The actual puzzle, which asked for a company whose name was either six or two letters depending on how you looked at it, was elsewhere in the grid:

Those six doubly-highlighted entries share a feature in common: they consist of a single letter of our standard alphabet (the Roman alphabet), followed by a Greek letter, spelled out. So like the four pairs, you can think of it as a Roman “character” followed by a Greek one. The initial letters spell out IOMEGA, which similarly is a single Roman letter followed by a spelled-out Greek letter, and fits the meta prompt.

Up next is puzzle #49, “Head Count.” *** Note below that I have tweaked the meta prompt. *** Too many people are falling into a trap I thought would be too simplistic. Updated pdf and .puz file below:

049_headcount-2.puz

The answer to the metapuzzle is a large ten-digit number. Submit your answer using the contact form by Monday, February 24 at 11 p.m. Pacific Time. I’ll post the solution, and a new puzzle, next Tuesday.

To keep up with the puzzles: Twitter @pgwcc1; follow the blog for email reminders; rss feed if you’re set up for that.