" Make A Run For It " November 18, 2022

[MikeyG]

I am just going to write some sentences and see where they go.

I've been a part of a lot of message boards before in the past, and sometimes it was easy to just say, "Okay, this is the Internet." That wasn't bad; it was just that things seemed a bit more clinical, and you typed words on a screen, and that was that. Sometimes, you had to remind yourself to step away from the screen and experience the world.

The Internet is more seamless now, more integrated into what we do. So when I discovered a forum like this (and another one I frequent due to my love of literature), somehow, the connections were felt more acutely. You all are people to me, if that makes sense. I see you as humans, and I feel a connection almost as much as I would feel if you were in the same room with me. This has not always happened with me on the Internet, and sometimes the constant exchange of information on other platforms in the past, while not vitriolic, seemed vapid and devoid of meaning.

Not so here: we are united in a lot of ways and, while variegated, we have a common, unifying thread. We love puzzles and what they bring.

My dad was a late-night security guard decades ago (he said the most exciting thing that happened was he had to chase away a couple of mice). Due to the midnight shifts, he took a bunch of puzzle books with him. When I was about three or four, I discovered some; when I was eight, I was solving and making some of my own. There is an allure there that is impossible to explain to people that don't get it but, to all of you, that perhaps necessitates no explanation.

But, at the end of the day, the puzzle is secondary to those who make it. If I made the best puzzles in the world but acted boorishly to everyone I met, what would be the point? If I could solve a puzzle in a minute flat but taunted my accomplishments over those who I felt were beneath me, isn't it really a Pyrrhic victory? Yes, people are passionate, I get that - and I welcome any constructive criticism because that's how we improve. But there is a lot of rancor in the world, and I could only hope that empathy would get the final word.

Couple shout-outs:

@Joe Ross, you are a seamless, amazing moderator. You add an empathetic, caring voice to this forum, and I am better now for knowing you (and your skill in Excel is unparalleled).

And @MattGaffney, your creativity and attention to detail in your puzzles is unmatched. Solving your enigmatic creations and reading about your creative process is a delight, and I can attest that you've given so much joy to so many.

That is all for now. Choose kindness, my friends, if you can. And you always can.

Mikey G

[Joe Ross]

I never asked to be and requested more moderators when I was the only one active. The other current moderators do an excellent job, but this site won't be hurt by extra help & differing voices.

Anyone wishing to be a moderator or wanting to nominate others should PM @BrianMac.

[Plymouthrock]

Joe, you’re awesome. All the captains of this ship are. Any criticism here reminds me of the person who was deeply offended by the word “starve” in the grid (as there are people starving in the world) in a previous puzzle. Makes for highly entertaining reading when you can’t sleep because it’s so wacky. Keep on keeping on. We love you, man.

[boharr]

In his caring appeal for empathy yesterday, Joe mentioned that a muggle had reached out to Matt concerning the ambiguous 21st K in the grid. I was that muggle. Knowing how fastidious Matt is, I was puzzled when I counted 21 Ks (a half marathon). Matt was gracious enough to reply, and he conveyed to me basically the explanation he has posted above. I shared that with Joe (and only Joe), as I didn't think it was my place to post about it here.

Unfortunately, Joe was then subjected to wholly unwarranted abuse. Others, more eloquent than I, have attested to how valuable, essential even, this group is. And the debt we owe to @BrianMac, @Bob cruise director, and @Joe Ross for all they do for the rest of us. And to Mike and his team at the WSJ and @MattGaffney and all the muggles who create such terrific puzzles for us.

So perhaps this is an especially appropriate moment to once again send our gratitude as we are about to celebrate Thanksgiving.

Bob

[KayW]

@boharr I can’t say it any better than that so I won’t, but I agree wholeheartedly. Thank you to all.

[mattythewsjpuzzler]

What happens on Thanksgiving? Publish day before? After? Skip a week?

[MaineMarge]

@MattGaffney, thanks for taking the time to fill us in on the backstory here. And not to worry - either you or Mike - it has given us a lot more fun to play with than your intended “week 1“ meta would have.

As someone who long ago earned her “Love Letter” badge on your MGWCC website for “sending expressions of affection”, I’m doubling down on that here now for both you and Mike on behalf of all your fans in Muggledom. You two are in a dead heat for the GOAT trophy here.

[DrTom]

Am I glad that I never finished the puzzle Friday and forgot all about until today.
My only comment belongs to Calvin Coolidge when asked about his preference regarding 5K, 21K or half marathon.

[MikeMillerwsj]

A lot going on this week!

We had a big turnout, and lots of discussion about alternative answers. Most of you on this board know the whole story now, but here's the official solution we printed:

The contest answer is a FIVE-K. Each of the four long theme entries contains five K’s, suggesting the answer.

But... lots of solvers pointed out that the Ks in the four theme entries add up to 20K, which is a kind of race too. Others pointed out that there was a 21st K in the grid, and that 21K races are commonly known as half marathons. We agree those are both legitimate and acceptable answers. You can read a nice post from Matt about all this on this discussion board here viewtopic.php?p=112562#p112562.

For the record, we had 3,125 entries this week, a huge number for us. 1,645 for 5K, 346 for HALF MARATHON, and 269 for 20K. (Those are big numbers for alternative answers.)

Thanks to everyone here for riding out our technical problems and thanks to Matt and Mike for generously seeing alternative answers. Great artists are always open to interpretations they never had in mind when they wrote their novel or painted their picture. And congrats to this week's randomly selected winner (who submitted 20K): Bruce Cranna of Needham, MA!

[BarbaraK]

Seeing some comments from folks who absolutely never figure out metas who did find the 5K this week has me almost hoping that WSJ does decide to accept only that answer and give one of them a chance to win. I'd be ruled out as a half-marathoner, but that's OK, I've had other chances.

As much as I love metas, I love the community here even more. And it's funny how things turn out - the flaw in this week's puzzle turned a quick, over-and-done solve into a very enjoyable, weekend-long discussion about the merits of the possible answers. And of course it was a polite and friendly discussion, because that's how we do things here. My thanks to our moderators for making sure it stays that way. I saw the post last night with the personal attack, but because it was so late, I just made myself a note to come back and reply in the morning if necessary. I was not at all surprised to see that it's gone. Because We Don't Do That Here!!

Happy Thanksgiving to all!

[boharr]

"But... lots of solvers pointed out that the Ks in the four theme entries add up to 20K, which is a kind of race too. Others pointed out that there was a 21st K in the grid, and that 21K races are commonly known as half marathons. We agree those are both legitimate and acceptable answers."

Most generous don't you think?

[MMe]

All of the other answers absurdly turn the fact that there are exactly 5 Ks in each themer into an irrelevant, indeed blatantly misleading, coincidence. So compare: is it more likely that a reasonable constructor expects us to ignore THAT glaring fact (5 Ks in each themer), or to ignore the fact that there are, in addition to the by far most common road running race of length 5K, far, far less common races of length 20K and 21K? (Even half marathons are not really 21K, and being *approximately* 21km is neither common knowledge nor particularly interesting, so that in itself would make 21K an odd answer to expect, as others have pointed out.) You have to have a far-fetchedness detector for these things. What would you have expected Matt to explain in defense of an answer of 21K? "Sorry, but the only way I could find of getting 21 Ks in the grid was to have exactly 5 in each themer and a final stray K elsewhere?"

[The XWord Rabbit]

“Make a Run for It” by Mr. Gaffney asked for “a type of footrace”. Each of the four 15-letter horizontal entries contained 5 K’s. And that was the meta: “5K” … or was it?

The X-Word Rabbit has no intention of getting into the firestorm of debate that began with last Friday’s Zoom call and has escalated ever since. Was 20K also an answer? There were 20 K’s in the four themers (even 21 K’s, if you count the entry at 21A.)

In the end the discussion became much less about rabbit holes than interpreting Mr. Gaffney’s intent. What’s was a poor rabbit to do?

Fortunately, DBMiller came to his rescue for the second time since we began our journey, recognizing tales of Muggles tiptoeing through the minefield of solving gone horribly wrong.

Here is his nominated post:

“After the second long answer came up I figured the answer had to do with foot races and measurements in kilometers, but I wasn't sure what the answer would be. We've now had two entries with 5Ks, and there appears to be two more long entries that will be the same but I'm staring at an extra K in 21A.

So I decide to finish the puzzle to be sure there aren't any other extra K's lying around. Sure enough, there's only the four theme answers each with 5Ks and that one straggler.

It's not like Matt to leave that K in NECK at 21A. Why not change 6A to NAPE and 21A to NEAT. you get valid downs (NONE, APIA, PACT and ELK) and get rid of that extra K?

So I look up 20K and there is such a race. I've never done the MGWCC's, so I don't distinguish between a week one or a week whatever on the WSJ puzzles. But I did think about 5k as a possible answer, and wondered, was there any clue in the puzzle to say yay or nay on a 5K? Well, five down certainly says I should not even consider 5K.

We are coming up on Thanksgiving, and many towns do a Turkey trot. But some of those are 5k, some are 10k, some are half marathons. So that's no help.

So I think the extra K is relevant, and the answer is either 21K, or more likely HALF MARATHON.

Later in the weekend, I think about how if you counted both directions across and down that you would end up with 42k which is about the length of a regular Marathon. So now after I submitted half marathon I'm wondering if the answer is full Marathon. Wait a minute it's actually a little more than 42k but not quite 43k. Yet 43 down says yay? So now I'm really wondering if it is Marathon.

Oh, by the way, I did count the K's in all the clues as well. I think there were six in the across clues and nine in the downs, so that obviously didn't help. Could you imagine what would have happened if there were 21 K's in the clues? Half in each the clues and the grid? That would have been quite the conundrum. Now if there had been five k's in each of the across and down clues, what would I have done?”

Thank you, DBMiller. In a week where the XWord Rabbit was crawling through the desert, your response was both a mirage and an oasis. With wishes for a happy Thanksgiving – and a bountiful harvest of metas in the future, he will leave you with this “special” tribute to the letter “K.

[flyingMoose]

All of the other answers ...

I'm with you, but it is not my show, and I don't get to make the rules. As @boharr pointed out, Generous ... very, very generous.

[vandono]

Going back to the old Usenet days on the Internet (back before the Internet was almost entirely WWW), I've always been fascinated by the way different forums develop a character and culture, how occasionally some will arrive and want to be in the group but also want to change the culture or aspects about it, and how the culture evolves over time. It's the same as real life, but it's easier to observe. And it is entertaining to watch how people react to written words - missing, as they are, much of the contextual clues of spoken conversation. Often we see people interpret meaning and intent much differently than we do for the same written words - framing it from our own experience I suppose.

I came to this forum because some people on the WSJ comments threads for the metas spoke of how smug people are here with their bragging about having found the solution and being 'ashore' and what-not. I like being around smug people - it makes me feel a little better about myself. Unfortunately I haven't found much of that here. For the most part you're all welcoming and helpful - often even downright friendly. Don't get me wrong: it hasn't been intolerable - just different than what commenters at WSJ had led me to believe. It's possible they're just whiny.

[Shirley]

I haven’t posted anything in a long time as I’ve been busy with school, but I must now post and say I appreciate ALL of you so much for your posts in response to someone who was of a different mind. I too appreciate Mr. Shenk and Mr. Gaffney. They are geniuses and I’m so humbled to think they spend their time making puzzles for me to do. I’ve recently subscribed to Mr. Gaffney’s weekly puzzle, and have grown even more in appreciation of his creativity and genius. And I found out he helps take care of his kids! Thank you, All.

[AmyEdwards]

I’ve followed along on this forum for quite awhile now without joining to engage in the conversation, but this week’s brouhaha compels me to submit a comment. It’s so amazing each week to see the way people encourage one another here and also celebrate together the fun of the meta. It’s a generous “place.”

But one thing in particular always stands out to me about these puzzles we love: How often the meta leads us all to marvel at the creativity and brilliance of the constructor—the person who created it. And this 5K puzzle is no exception. It was an easier meta, for which I am thankful, since many re beyond my ability to solve. But even those “easy” ones leave me marveling at the construction. And this grid was a lot of fun, @MattGaffney, and as always, incredible.

It’s always an amazing thing to see how a work of art (or a work of any kind, maybe engineering design, or excellent leadership, or even forum moderation) reveals the talent and personality of the one doing the creating. And so, even though I obviously don’t know @MattGaffney or Mike, when I do their puzzles part of the fun is just enjoying the human creativity and skill behind the construction and getting to know them through their work. So for me, the puzzles aren’t just a little diversion for the weekend—they are a celebration of human ingenuity. The ingenuity of the constructors and the solvers—especially those solvers who are “page one” people! (Not gonna be me ever.) Haha.

I want to chime in with thanks to @Joe Ross and @Bob cruise director and others who keep things fun and human here. Thanks for being generous with your time!

[Limerick Savant]

What a generous and respectful forum this has been as long as I have been a member.

All I can say is:

THERE’S NO CROSS WORDS IN CROSSWORDS!

[hoover]

As a life-long fan of the Cleveland Browns, this thread reminds me of a time when Bill Belichick as the Browns head coach was asked about the upcoming game with arch rival, Pittsburgh Steelers. "Well, this game is not about life or death. It's much more serious than that."

Thank you Matt, and Mike for all that you do. Wishing all a very happy Thanksgiving.

Was that back when the teams could put together more than a .300 season?

[jrdad]

Well said, vandono. Communicating meaning can be difficult under the best of circumstances, even with the help of conversational nuances. Speech is a blunt instrument. In Flaubert's words, "Language is a cracked kettle on which we beat out tunes for bears to dance to, while all the time we long to move the stars to pity."