SOLUTION:
Each definition matches a winning word in the
National Spelling Bee.
The flavortext indicates the encoding used in the puzzle:
StudentOne: WONderful! Just what we needed! Another riot in New Ginza.
Geez.
StudentTwo: Shock guards. Plasma fields. This is asiNINE. How's a
person supposed to get to school?
StudentOne: It's SICK...Simply sick. The agitators never learn.
StudentTwo: IF I'VE got to hire a hovercab because of these
idiots...ack! Blasted bolshevik bastards. Guess I'll just do a little
studying while I'm waiting.
WON NINE SICKS FIVE = 1965.
Each of the definitions below has a
number embedded in the definition:
- 10 - CompeTENt, but inexplicable, dextrous method
- 4 - Adjective expressing sorrow, lament, or comFORt
- 4 - After being cropped, FORcing up new shoots
- 8 - Act of anticipATing
- 8 - TrAIT of heroic self-denial or -discipline
- 4 - Sleep disorder FORmally characterized by recurring somnolence
- 10 - InTENding blasphemy; profane
- 10 - With little care; lacking atTENtion; indifferent
- 8 - Supplies or equipment of an operATing army
- 8 - Abundant, vigorous, accelerATEd growth
- 8 - A racing sled capable of greAT speed
- 10 - Compose or perfect conTENt, especially literary works, by laborious endeavor
- 4 - Maneuver in FOReign or political affairs
- 8 - A medical treatment of demonstrATEd utility
- 2 - Plant atTUned to life in an aquatic environment
- 8 - Comprehensible; capable of being understood; illustrATive
- 8 - A grammar construction incorporATing a single word used in both
literal and non-literal senses
Taking the nth letter of each definition spells "BEE THE BEST
SPELLER". "Spelling bee" is also clued by the three B's in "Blasted
bolshevik bastards".
The winning words defined are:
- Knack
- Elegiacal
- Ratoon
- Prospicience
- Asceticism
- Narcolepsy
- Sacrilegious
- Pococurante
- Equipage
- Luxuriance
- Luge
- Elucubrate
- Demarche
- Therapy
- Hydrophyte
- Intelligible
- Syllepsis
Reading down the first letters of the defined words results in "Kerpan
spelled this"; Michael Kerpan Jr. from Tulsa, Oklahoma won the Bee in
1965 with the word ECZEMA, the answer to the puzzle.