ARIKA OKRENT, HIGHLY IRREGULAR — There are... maybe... twenty vowels in English... . There's a as in cat or father, e as in be or bed, i as in sir or big, o as in soap or look, and u as in sum or true. ... [I]f you come from New York or... Texas, these... will work differently... .
There are twelve or sixteen or maybe even twenty vowels in English, depending on your dialect. There's a as in cat or father, e as in be or bed, i as in sir or big, o as in soap or look, and u as in sum or true. We haven't even gotten to the vowel sounds in house or time or say. And if you come from New York or Scotland or Texas, these descriptions will work differently for you.
| A. | Long-fingered lemur native to Madagascar; "Yes!" (hyph.) | AYEAYE |
| B. | Transport to Disneyland's Tom Sawyer Island | RAFT |
| C. | Having the greatest possible resistance | IMMUNE |
| D. | Poet who wrote "Touch has a memory" | KEATS |
| E. | Exercise some self-denial | ABSTAIN |
| F. | Fish-eating raptor | OSPREY |
| G. | Club with the motto "Serving the Children of the World" | KIWANIS |
| H. | Walter Mosley sleuth Ezekiel Porterhouse ____ | RAWLINS |
| I. | Near-Earth asteroid visited in 2000 | EROS |
| J. | Extraneous and distracting data | NOISE |
| K. | Butterfly-shaped gland | THYROID |
| L. | School whose N.C.A.A. teams are the Pride | HOFSTRA |
| M. | Opposite of an exodus | INFLUX |
| N. | Attic residents | GREEKS |
| O. | Walk or run quickly | HOTFOOT |
| P. | Licentious, ungoverned | LAWLESS |
| Q. | Start of an era (2 wds.) | YEARONE |
| R. | Bonfire greatly upsized | INFERNO |
| S. | Amphibian comment | RIBBIT |
| T. | Second or third draft of a manuscript | REWRITE |
| U. | Parrots | ECHOES |
| V. | Modern map subject | GENOME |
| W. | Inner ear chamber with otoliths | UTRICLE |
| X. | Bad course of moral conduct (2 wds.) | LOWROAD |
| Y. | Bay State locale of Phillips Academy | ANDOVER |
| Z. | Equilateral quadrilateral | RHOMBUS |