"Consider the Alternative" October 6, 2022

[pipster]

I submitted OTHERS on Thursday and never gave it a second thought. The additional play of the proper length didn’t sit right, but the fact that the first letters anagrammed to such a fitting word was evidence enough for me.

I’ve been stumped by a few metas recently, but this is the first time in a long time where I was just flat wrong.

[Bird Lives]

Almost always the letters composing the answer will be found in grid order.

And when they're not in grid order, they're in clue order.

[Bird Lives]

Note: In the Shakespeare category, there are actually 3 possible alternate answers: TEMPEST, OTHELLO, and HENRY IV. Of course one is a comedy, one a history, and one a tragedy, but all are considered plays. And it could be said that TEMPEST is actually THE TEMPEST.

Yes, THE Tempest -- sort of like Ohio State. But the title HENRY IV never ends there, not in staged productions, not in printed editions. There's always a "Part I" or "Part II" appended.

[boharr]

Almost always the letters composing the answer will be found in grid order.

And when they're not in grid order, they're in clue order.

Lesson: Beware anagramming unless clued or directed to do so.

[chart]

The "real" titles of especially Macbeth and Othello are iffy, but there is no doubt that the titles standard today are as needed for the meta to work.

Yes, I tend to follow the pattern set forth in the puzzle. ABELINCOLN or GERALDFORD or GEORGEBUSH are other US presidents, but the puzzle used just the last name WASHINGTON. The Tragedy of Macbeth used the common name MACBETH in the puzzle, so it made sense that the Tragedy of Othello would just be OTHELLO.

No one has pointed out that the official name of Rhode Island is "The State of Rhode Island."

[chart]

Great meta! Being an engineer got me stuck on the sandbar again I went straight to the numbers: Eisenhower 34th president, Saturday 6th (or 7th) day of week, October 10th month, Othello 20-somethingth play, Connecticut 2nd NE state and Harvard 1st Ivy League school. The letters in those numbered squares spelt gobbledygook, but that didn’t stop me trying to make it work all weekend! If at first you don’t succeed; try, try, try, try, try, the same thing again! Right?

I had CT as the first NE state, which gave me a lot of "ones" (Washington, Connecticut, Harvard, January, and almost Henry VI).

The only states in the union before CT were DE PA NJ GA.

[Dplass]

My first thought was to find alternates in the grid with one letter switched:
TRIAL - APRIL
ABLY - YALE
ASYET - HAYES
THURSDAY - SATURDAY

...

Me too!. But I had LAYSTO = TAYLOR.
And, of course, I so wanted to fudge ERODE ISLAM for Rhode Island!

Me three!

[Dplass]

Almost always the letters composing the answer will be found in grid order.

And when they're not in grid order, they're in clue order.

Lesson: Beware anagramming unless clued or directed to do so.

Except when you're required to anagram because the only rule of Club Team is that there are no rules of Meta Club.

[Tom Wilson]

My initial rabbit hole was to abbreviate the theme words as an "alternative," then matching them to grid entries. THUD would substitute for THUR and JON for JAN ... and then my grand scheme devolved into a big ol' pile of nada. Thankfully, I got my bearings after a long walk in fall's grandeur. Nothing like fresh air to prompt a fresh look!

[Hidden in 3D]

Well, at least I was on the right path on Thursday night before we left to visit daughter, SIL and granddaughter. I even wanted to bring some of those three-letter words into the metanism, but I was using only the alternative words (RI + O = 64D RIO). It never occurred to me to use the first letter of the answer and its alternate. This photo shows my notes on the back of the completed puzzle that I printed out that evening. I'd like to believe that I would have figured it out eventually if I'd stuck with it, but it was may more fun to play with the birthday girl and her American Girl dolls!!

[clonefitz]

I ultimately made the correct submission, but an alternate answer that I came up with involved reviewing all of the six-letter grid answers and seeing if an alternative answer could be applied to one of those. The one that seemed obvious was 35D "Get Out" genre. The grid answer SATIRE was not my first instinct, I wanted to submit as HORROR, so this seemed like it could have worked as a puzzle answer.

[Flying_Burrito]

The high number of 3 letter answers was the first think that looked peculiar. The possibility of changing Thursday to Saturday was the first alternative i considered which led me to TSO. The first two meta answers i had considered at the onset were EITHER or OPTION, so the O from TSO looked wortwhile. When I switched January to October things looked good with the letter N. Mr Google helped with the rest. Finally a fully logical MS (at least to me) in a while

[whimsy]

...

No one has pointed out that the official name of Rhode Island is "The State of Rhode Island."

...Rhode Island and Providence Plantations, prior to November 2020.

https://www.cbsnews.com/news/rhode-isla ... -election/

The joke was always such a huge name for a tiny state --

[DavyGravy]

I was able to get it with Muggle Zoom call Nudges. Thank you friends! Now onto today's Monday puzzle...

[Bonnibel]

While we're speaking of the various rabbit holes, many of which I spent time in over the weekend, I also gave thought to the other long grid answers that were not used and thought somehow those were in play as alternatives, since crosswords are always symmetrical. I even thought about turning the grid upside down!

I knew instinctively that a simple anagram was not going to cut it, but it was the only thing I could come up with without asking for help. Again, congrats to those who found the path to OPTION.

[mheberlingx100]

Egad! Not even close. I gave the other items of the same length that fit a try but all I could see was nonsense.

My very deep rabbit hole:

I tried to find logical next items in a series.
Washington—> Adams
Thursday—> Friday
January—> February
Macbeth—> Othello (next most recent tragedy)
Connecticut—> Rhode Island (next smallest state)
Cornell—> Dartmouth (next youngest Ivy)

Result was *afford* Admittedly, no relationship to the title, but at least it was a real word. And ESOORH wasn’t.

[kawaja]

I'm with the OTHERS.

[Prozach]

i had "others" initially. It was 95% for me. I didn't like (the) TEMPEST and i didn't like the anagrams. I felt i needed to go back to the grid. I was nudged out of the OTHERS hole, was easily persuaded that it was wrong, and that Tempest wasn't it. I consistently skipped OTHELLO as i counted 8 letters for some weird reason.

Once at OTHELLO, i should have quickly gotten it, but a Vertical nudge brought me home.

I see the controversy. I was there. But i am with MG and the OPTION traders on this one.

[KayW]

I had a meandering path to the shore this week. I first stopped at OTHER atoll, but the anagramming required really put me off that as a valid solution. Not to mention "(the)" TEMPEST. My second stop was CHOOSE sandbar, but that also seemed unlikely. I finally saw the beacon from the OPTION lighthouse and made my way to the beach.

[DrTom]

Nowhere even close. I'm going to blame smallscreenitis and French food as the culprits. I had considered for a moment the length of the word but there seemed to be nothing that pushed me to that. I spent a LOT of time trying to make the one clue that offered an "Alternative" work (1 or 11 in 21). I was soooo sure that, given WASHINGTON and JANUARY were both #1s, there was some way to finagle the others.

So this was definitely a KAS 5 for me - my admiration for, and congratulations to, those who cracked this. If I was rating it I think I'd say at lest 3.5 or higher, but that is just me and we know I cannot rate difficulty (try this week's MEOW and see what I mean!)