"Shamrocks" March 17, 2023

[mikeB]

I didn’t see a cue to identify theme entries, but I noticed the five long across entries. First things first: each of those entries is two words. This reinforces that these are theme entries and suggests that the letters we need for the solution somehow involve the dual words of these entries. I wasted some time looking at the letters involved in the joining of each pair of words – ER, NS, and so on. After enjoying as much of that as I could stand, I switched focus to the five pairs of words themselves. First words? Nope. Second words? Hmm, MICE to MICA, SLATS to SLATE? Rocks, right? Then whoosh! One thing I stumbled over was Sham, but I concluded that was just an artifact of the holiday connection, realizing it’s the rocks that matter.

[femullen]

I can't have been the only person to have seen SP ICE RUBS and LAB M ICE and thought Aha, ICE, as in on the ROCKS! Then this rabbit dug plenty of rocks getting to the bottom of that hole.

Blamp! Wrong again. Like others, it was SCHISM/SCHIST that finally got me on the right path.

[BarbaraK]

Submitted WILLIAM BUTLER YEATS and am curious if this would count. Does anyone have a rule of thumb on when to use a full name vs initials (i.e. W.B. Yeats) vs just the last name?

My rule of thumb is that if something that matches the prompt is actually spelled out by the meta-nism, I submit just that. If it's inferred, I'm more likely to go with a full name - especially if there's any ambiguity.

But I don't think it matters for mug purposes. Since the randomly selected winner is reviewed by an actual human being, anything that's clearly correct should be acceptable.

And sometimes it's not even possible to enter the proper answer on the WSJ submission form because of the punctuation issue, like last week's apostrophe.

[Magistra]

I've forgotten to post that I had solved the last couple of weeks. My husband received an exciting email this morning, and a new mug will be added to our kitchen soon!

[Merry Potter]

Submitted WILLIAM BUTLER YEATS and am curious if this would count. Does anyone have a rule of thumb on when to use a full name vs initials (i.e. W.B. Yeats) vs just the last name?

It would be accepted.

My distant solving partner and I made no headway on this puzzle. Neither of us had ever heard of “schist.”

I was stuck on “lab mice” being lab *rats* and looking for comparable switcheroos in the other long answers to be matched, a la Mr Shenk’s common MO, with other grid entries. Such — along with the solve— were not to be found.

LABMICE also contains the Irish Export LA...CE but I couldnt think of what BMI (= Body Mass Index) had to do with SHAMROCKS

[MikeM000]

One thing I stumbled over was Sham, but I concluded that was just an artifact of the holiday connection, realizing it’s the rocks that matter.

They are "sham rocks" because one letter has been changed in each. That was my thinking anyway.

[Dplass]

My short-lived rabbit hole was considering the Irish-related Down clues. I finally said to myself: "Oh, wait - what was the title of this puzzle again?" And that immediately led me to RUBS -> RUBY. And the next two quickly fell - so the answer HAD to be YEATS. I had to back-solve the last two letters (with a short "what the heck is a WHALS?" detour).

Streak is now at 9 - a personal best!

Yeah those Irish-related down clues really distracted me.

[ky-mike]

Lots of diversions this week -

Rubs=pats
slats=?
mice=rats
schism=spat
whale=bat

"green" colors = oSAGE; BLUEwhale;

"irish" clues already mentioned

[DBMiller]

Minor distraction: SPICE -> SALT. There is rock salt as well. Quickly led nowhere.

But I was looking down at SALT when I noticed WHALE->SHALE so that one being the first letter didn't bother me when all the rest were changing the last letter. The only stone I could find that ended is S and could be changed to another word was BALLAS -> BALLAD. ROCKBALLAD would have been an interesting theme answer, but who the hell has ever heard of BALLAS? (It's a round diamond, BTW)

[David R]

One of the new developments that meta constructors have started doing to make things more difficult is to stop identifying the themed fill making you second guess whether that is where to focus or not. That was what made this relatively straight forward meta much more difficult.

[Penny_Keatley]

Was I the only one looking for four-leaf clover patterns in the puzzle? Hours of entertainment, but not very productive.

[Cruciverbalisticexpi]

Ha! Immediately what I started looking for as well.

Was I the only one looking for four-leaf clover patterns in the puzzle? Hours of entertainment, but not very productive.

[Bird Lives]

As soon as I saw the title I had an Idea what to look for Based on a St Patrick’s joke I used last year… “ what do they call fake gems in Ireland ??” . I looked at the long themers, saw RUBS and thought RUBY! It was a quick swim from there !

There's another meta puzzle based on precisely this idea.
https://crosshare.org/crosswords/oKRZzA ... -shamrocks

[Flying_Burrito]

Was I the only one looking for four-leaf clover patterns in the puzzle? Hours of entertainment, but not very productive.

Wait, isn't the shamrock typically 3-leaf?

[The XWord Rabbit]

The XWord Rabbit got extraordinarily lucky this week. After all, not only was it St. Patrick’s Day, but he also has four rabbit’s feet.

Mr. Shenk’s “Shamrocks” puzzle was better interpreted as “Sham Rocks”, since the last word of the five anchor entries required a single-letter change to turn them into the names of rocks: RUBS became RUBY, SLATS became SLATE and so on. The five replacement letters yielded the meta: YEATS, the famous Irish playwright and poet (among other things).

There was a bit of thrashing around in the early going, but most Muggles saw their way through. Your Rabbit soon started to worry and got out his can of paint.

But then, almost immediately, from out of the Irish mist, was an exceptional stream-of-consciousness report from Darth (#242). It covered so much ground in so much detail -- a virtual tribute to the way Muggles think – a roadmap of a mind lost in the woods and bumping into trees at every turn. Thank you, Darth, your essay was a pleasure to read and has renewed Your Rabbit’s faith in this community to offer up a big juicy carrot of a rabbit hole story now and then.

Until next week, may the farce be with you …

[woozy]

As some as I saw the title I thought "I bet it's going to be misspelled rocks". Then when I entered Great Schism I thought "Isn't there an author with initials G.S? I bet this is initials of authors" I wrote down the initials of all the two word themers and stared at it for 10 minutes. Got nothing. Thought "Schism is one letter off of Schist" Saw Rubs and thought "Dammit! Why'd you give up an that for utterly no reason". Get the Y, E and that "It's YEATS". Got the A and looked at Blue Whale and thought "That's weird it's the first letter that is changed there; I really don't like that. Is WHALS a word? Nope. Okay. Don't like it but there's nothing that says it has to be the last letter... but I don't like it. But then it's not as bad as using CRASH twice or anagramming the initials of New Mexico but none of the other states. (Still calling Shenanigans on that one.)"

[MikeMillerwsj]

The contest answer is YEATS. The last word of each of the five longest Across answers can become the name of a rock if you change one letter (RUBS/RUBY, SLATS/SLATE, MICE/ MICA, SCHISM/SCHIST, WHALE/SHALE). The replacement letters, in order, spell the contest answer.

Starting with the very clever title and the perfect timing, this was an elegant one. We had 1,264 entries with about 80% correct, a somewhat higher rate than usual. Other guesses included ST. PATRICK (62), BONO (40), OSCAR WILDE (20), ENYA (12), ARTHUR GUINNESS (6) and a handful of other Irish luminaries.

Congrats to this week's winner: Chris Cinacola of Millbury, Mass.!