"Inner Turmoil" - April 8, 2022

[ZooAnimalsOnWheels]

@Ergcat @Ann @zach @LadyBird
I also spent time trying to parse the 70A clue and thinking maybe the "pairs of letter" meant two pairs of letters. What grabbed my attention in the grid was the fact that none of the six longest diagonals had a black square, so I thought that maybe the two pairs of letters could have been bracketing four letters stretched diagonally rather than down or across. Of course, I couldn't find anything that made sense, but it was a nice thought!

[yodarkrutch]

Funny--I thought pairs of letters would actually match. Can't wait for the Cyrillic alphabet puzzle.

[Colin]

My email sent to WSJ:

TORN - As suggested by the clue for 70A, there are four different letters contained in the total of six letters between the adjacent starting and ending pairs of letters in 5A O(NT)O, 15A P(OO)P and 18A E(TR)E. These four letters N, T, O and R anagram to TORN, which is one example of mental state resulting from the title, Inner Turmoil. Unfortunately, I cannot see a relationship between TORN and the puzzle’s wordplay, as suggested in the meta clue. Except, perhaps, that my hair has been TORN out trying to find a better answer!

I knew my submission was a Hail Mary, but now seeing the answer, I think that Inner Turmoil is an unCUTE title. Nonetheless, my hat is off to the solvers who got this with no nudges… well done!

I agree that the title is uncute. I was also baffled by the clue at 70A; it was both unparseable and parseable in multiple ways. It might have been better omitted, and with some other kind of clue/hint as to the sequential nature of the metanism. E.g., with a quippy title (of which I cannot provide a suggestion.)

Perhaps we should look at this particular meta as an art form, where beauty is in the eye of the beholder! Always a problem for an engineer, like what I are. I think it was the host of some old radio quiz a few decades ago in the UK who used to say: “Think literally and laterally” … I clearly did not do enough of the latter this week.

[Limerick Savant]

So here is my perfectly plausible, albeit wrong, solution to this week’s meta:

Working from the title I took “turmoil” to be a sign that I should be hunting for anagrams and “inner” to suggest that I would likely find them within puzzle answers, probably the long across answers. 70A seemed to confirm that I would be looking for a four-letter word apparent in four four-letter words that were anagrams of four sequential letters spanning the two words in each of the four answers to 20A, 37A, 43A, and 54A.

The first letter of each of the letter sequences yielded the the word “edit” which is a natural solution for ending the turmoil of poor spelling but also suggested one more rearrangement of its letters to become “diet,” a word for which “inner turmoil” might be considered a metaphor.

Oh yes I understand that this is one massive rabbit hole into which I have plunged but I was following such a CUTE bunny!

[BarbaraK]

I like having a variety of difficulties with the WSJ meta. Sure, it could have been made easier, but why? We’ve had easier ones; time for a harder one. And I like puzzles that require finding unexpected ways to interpret titles, hints, etc.

I do wish WSJ would include a difficulty rating so people have an idea what to expect. (Though I’m sure they’d get constant complaints that it was wrong.)

And happy birthday to @Joe Ross !
Clearly not your third, unless that’s on some other planet, but even if the date is fake too, it’s a good excuse to eat cake

[whimsy]

^^^
I get it! It's his "Muggles" birthday!
(Because, of course, life did not exist until then.)

[whimsy]

OK, I'm still not getting the mechanism on KNOCKOUTPUNCH. The clue says 4 letters between the letter pairs. All other theme words follow this mechanism to a T. but there are 6 letters between the K and P so it seems to fail (in my clearly misunderstood brain).

Agree that there might be a slightly more elegant grid answer than KNOCKOUTPUNCH... One that preserves the distance between the starting K and then gets to P in the sixth letter similar to QUEENVICTORIA. I would nominate "Backup catcher for the Boston Red Sox"...KEVINPLAWECKI. But kind of hard to create that clue. I'm sure there might be other good KEVINPLAWECKI substitutes?

"Brownish-yellow horse enclosures"... KHAKI PADDOCKS
"Keeping felines calm"... KITTY PACIFISM

How about --
"Rap ala Miss America" --- KNOCK PRETTILY

[OGuyDave]

Well, in order to preserve the symmetry of the XWD, the "P" word has to be eight letters, which most of the previous examples adhere to.

So how about --
"How I got to where I ended up on this meta" --- KAYAK PADDLING

My brother, paddling in a mangrove tunnel off of the Cocohatchee River, SW FL.
And yes, his paddles are upside-down. I pointed this out to him, but he seems to think they work better that way.

TFTXWD anyway

[Joe Ross]

And happy birthday to @Joe Ross !
Clearly not your third, unless that’s on some other planet, but even if the date is fake too, it’s a good excuse to eat cake

Thank you, Barbara! I'll take that cake.

^^^
I get it! It's his "Muggles" birthday!
(Because, of course, life did not exist until then.)

[whimsy]

^^^
As @DrTom learned me recently -- I'll take that as a "Winner, Winner, Chicken Dinner!"

[Barney]

And happy birthday to @Joe Ross !
Clearly not your third, unless that’s on some other planet, but even if the date is fake too, it’s a good excuse to eat cake

Thank you, Barbara! I'll take that cake.

^^^
I get it! It's his "Muggles" birthday!
(Because, of course, life did not exist until then.)

Thanks for everything you do here.

[MikeM000]

I was initially very focused on the words “(I hope)” in the meta instructions and “OUR contest answer” in 70A because I don’t remember references to the puzzle creators usually being included. That led me to focus on 49D, which was “the reader of these words: YOU.” I never got anywhere with it and ended up finding the correct path, but I felt that the wording was strange.

My first big rabbit hole was related to this - I noticed the strange wording for the YOU clue, and the top 2 long answers both had U and I with exactly 4 letters between them....

[HunterX]

OK, I'm still not getting the mechanism on KNOCKOUTPUNCH. The clue says 4 letters between the letter pairs. All other theme words follow this mechanism to a T. but there are 6 letters between the K and P so it seems to fail (in my clearly misunderstood brain).

Agree that there might be a slightly more elegant grid answer than KNOCKOUTPUNCH... One that preserves the distance between the starting K and then gets to P in the sixth letter similar to QUEENVICTORIA. I would nominate "Backup catcher for the Boston Red Sox"...KEVINPLAWECKI. But kind of hard to create that clue. I'm sure there might be other good KEVINPLAWECKI substitutes?

"Brownish-yellow horse enclosures"... KHAKI PADDOCKS
"Keeping felines calm"... KITTY PACIFISM

Oh, respectfully disagreeing here. It was the fact that the K and the P were NOT 4 letters apart that kept me from trying to make something out of those 4 sets of 4 letters, and choosing instead to look for something else that could fit the 70A hint. Had they been 4 apart, I never would have climbed out of that rabbit hole. It's always the seemingly wonderful mechanism that doesn't hold true for all the themed answers that you need to abandon immediately.

[MikeMillerwsj]

The contest answer is CUTE. Four letters alphabetically separate the initials of the four theme answers: Q-RSTU-V, A-BCDE-F, E-FGHI-J, K-LMNO-P. For each of these sets’ four internal letters, one answer in the grid uses the four letters plus one other: CRUST, CUBED, FIGHT, MELON. Those added letters spell the contest answer.

Clearly this was a tough (but cute) one: We had 827 entrants, dipping from recent levels in the low four figures. About 70% correct. A long, long list of incorrect 4-letter words including a few that don't quite fit the instructions for a word that "I hope" describes this puzzle's wordplay: COOL (15), CALM (6), DEFT (6), TORN (6), RIOT (5), OUCH (5) and many others.

Congrats to this week's winner: John Lombardo of Cranston, R.I.!

[Kas]

I believe this might be an appropriate occasion to introduce...Kas 6.
Which should be that most rare of ratings, yes, and can only be legally uttered together with one or both of maniacal laughter and/or whiplash-level head-shaking.

[MajordomoTom]

This was very "cute" and came together after brainstorming with my spouse and while she was chasing rabbits, I had a "hmmm, Q>>V, A>>F, and it fell out from there.

[escapeartist]

I believe this might be an appropriate occasion to introduce...Kas 6.
Which should be that most rare of ratings, yes, and can only be legally uttered together with one or both of maniacal laughter and/or whiplash-level head-shaking.

or fist shaking

I concur 100% !

[Al Sisti]

Congrats to this week's winner: John Lombardo of Cranston, R.I.!

Awww, so close! I only missed by every single letter.

[ship4u]

I would not in any way call this puzzle "CUTE." The problem that I found is that the meta clues were too obscure to suggest the proper direction to go. However, I learned last evening from @Bird Lives , one of our resident puzzle masters, that Mr. Gaffney's use of the word "turmoil" should suggest that the solution would be cryptic. Thanks! Each week I learn something new from this great group of muggles who take the time to teach us novices.

[CPJohnson]

I'll post a small rant from the "no cryptics please" crowd. I don't do cryptics. I don't want to learn how to do cryptics. I don't want to learn cryptic-ese. I want to do metas. It seems lately that we have had a lot of Cryptic Creep into metas, both WSJ metas and others that are available. If the meta creators want lavish praise from other meta creators and cryptic-lovers for their clever use of cryptic language, they will probably succeed. But they will not be attracting new meta solvers to their realms, and they will not find me spending time to solve their cryptic-containing metas.