By The Rackenfracker in Word▶️ — Oct 25, 2022

Word▶️ #2: Look Over the Manuscript

Your foolproof proofreading is requested.

We hope at least some of you consider a new Rackenfracker to be a red-letter day, but this time we need you to summon your inner proofreader and at least make it a red-ink day.

If you're into cryptics but a little gunshy about variety cryptics, this one's for you. It looks and plays like a standard block cryptic except for ooone little thing that can
be puzzled out, bit-by-bit, in a way that we trust will bring a satisfying aha.

Those that have been around The Rackenfracker awhile know that we're big fans of Twitch solving, and we know some Twitch solvers are reticent to solve paywalled works on stream. So for future reference: We welcome Word▶️ subscribers streaming these puzzles. (And if you hit us up @rackenfracker on Twitter, we might even stop by and say hello.)

Thanks to Andy Stilp, John Sams, Bob Stigger and joeadultman for test solves and consultation, and to Bill MacDonald for his edits. The puzzle can be solved in-browser, via the Puzzazz app, and, as always, on paper.

[Update Feb. 25: We have put Look Over the Manuscript into the vault, to be released again this autumn in the Word▶️ collection. Subscribers can find a link to the puzzle in the emails we sent on Dec. 25, Jan. 18, and Jan. 25.]

✒️

A proofreader is needed — some members of this puzzle must be corrected. An excerpt from an autobiographical manuscript is hidden in the double definition clues, in which two different words are being defined: a longer word, and the shorter word (to be entered in the grid) that remains when a third word is deleted from the longer word. (For example, if a clue defined the words PATIENTS and PANTS, TIE would be deleted and PANTS would go into the grid.)

Each deleted word has also been wrongly inserted into a double definition clue, but not the same one from whose answer it was deleted. Such a clue will function properly only once it has been corrected. (For example, TIE might be inserted into the clue “Plaid brown tie (3).” Ignore TIE to see that TARTAN and TAN are defined; therefore, ART would be deleted and inserted into a different clue.)

In clue number order, the deleted words compose the manuscript excerpt. All other clues are standard, except for one rogue clue that is independent of its enumerated entry. Solvers must determine how to apply the rogue clue to the puzzle, thereby illuminating its provenance. As for the unclued entry: Our moonlighting author is a charlatan, uncovered after a single proofreading mark.

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