Visual Description: Post supper suffering.
HCTTAH = THATCH, EYULSR = SURELY, FIRTAF = TARIFF, BRANER = BARREN, MITGAB = GAMBIT, BACLOT = COBALT — Giving us: THHSELTIBANGMICOL
Clue/Question: The meal at the fancy restaurant was delicious, but they were having problems – – –
Pre-Answer: Three Words (10-letters) (3-letters) (4-letters)
Answer: STOMACHING THE BILL
(Fantastic Sunday Jumble! A marvelous pun! No new clue words, but five of the jumbles came up as new. We’ve definitely seen “braner” some time before. The answer letter layout was an impressive 17-letter jumble! I knew it had to be *something* THE BILL. At first I toyed with MASTICATING, but knew the letters weren’t right for that – and too few. So, I wrote out HSTANGMICO. I knew the word had to end in ING, so that left me with HSTAMCO. Then, it hit me like a punch to the gut! Great cartoon, as usual. Jeff is a master of drawing chichi restaurants! Be well and do good, friends.) — YUR
Images courtesy of Google
Yes, agreed, outstanding puzzle. This is the first puzzle that’s given me trouble since Guest Jumbler week and the week before that, when I struggled with several puzzles. It also didn’t help that once again the Universal online version of this puzzle at the Seattle Times had a technical error, a new one in a sorry litany of Sunday puzzle carelessness. The fourth word, TARIFF, was missing the T in the list of available letters, although it’s deducible, because the six-letter word made from the five letters they did show would would be TARIFF or AFFIRM..
There was a false rabbit hole in today’s final answer that didn’t trick you, Unc, but messed me up. My first instinct was ——-ING THE BILL, which is correct, but I didn’t see STOMACH–not a word we are called on here to unscramble very often, and though I got the gist of it from the clue, I still missed it for a while. I also tried to shoehorn masticating in. Then I noticed we also had the letters for ——-ING THE COST, same theme, but a time-wasting rabbit hole to run down.
Ya got me! Great job guys.
Chew on, all!
Sorry… I just realized I wronged Universal… this time it was my mistake. Their online puzzle today is working fine. I now think what happened is that I made an error in the first word of the puzzle, typing ATTACH for THATCH, slightly different letter configuration, and in trying to correct it quickly before I was in the right position, the puzzle blanked the T on TARIFF. My apologies.
Or maybe the Russians, I mean, Chinese hacked the puzzle while I was playing… I’ll go with that!
Trade on, all!
I got part of it as well, like you Unc I figured it had to be ‘the bill’. That left me with HANGM as I didn’t get some of the clue words. As I said before, I don’t normally do the Sunday Jumble unless I can get most of the words or the answer quickly due to time constraints. 😀