Pun of a Kind

PDF  /  PUZ Typing this up while trying to shake off my bracket getting completely destroyed the last two days. March Madness indeed! --- 1.  Puzzle #49 recap Puzzle #49 answer: PERFECT SQUARES Correct entries:  57 (not a perfect square but 11^2 - 8^2) So, if I make a grid where over 23% of the squares are black and there are 27 3-letter words, there is probably a good reason for that! This grid was a bear to make, but it was also a lot of fun. The clue for the spanner MATHEMATICIAN implies we might need to be doing some substitutions of our own! And that's exactly what happens. A lot of clues in this puzzle may have seemed cumbersome or vague, to the tune that you might even have to have hit reveal before finishing the grid. Here are 14 of them, 7 in each direction. 1-A: Black, for one: P EA --> S EA 1-D: Character in a long-running NBC sitcom: P AM --> S AM 4-A: They may fill a very large saucer, briefly: E TS --> Q TS (this was such a stretch, but I think it was Will