A place to discuss the weekly Wall Street Journal Crossword Puzzle Contest, starting every Thursday around 4:00 p.m. Eastern time. Please do not post any answers or hints before the contest deadline which is midnight Sunday Eastern time.
Did anybody get sidetracked by tippable craft and tipping bills? Like a "tip" (hint) that led absolutely NOWHERE? I was in that rabbit hole for awhile trying to connect it to the four INTER clues and the four hidden words in the long answers. Then I saw the light and moved on...great puzzle.
Totally didn't see the "inter" clues. I never look for clues in the clues; too many little letters. But, I found the grid entries that were needed; that was too conincidental to not be part of the meta, being that there were 2 per line each with 2 letters *between* them and a 3-letter word in the grid with those 2 letters as the first and last with one extra in *between* them. Frankly, I missed Oman (I was thinking Roma but then I had an extra letter, so I thought maybe Roman but that is not contexually consistent), but by that time I had the LOC so I knew I needed the O & S to pick up the K from OKS and I really didn't feel like spending any more time with this meta.
I'm happy I got this one. First of all, I always feel good if I solve the meta but more so because this type of puzzle is really not the kind of meta I enjoy and if I hadn't solved it and only felt that way after reading the answer, I might have thought it was just sour grapes on my part.
Saw IOWA and SOL but stupidly ignored them and focused only on EARTH, UTAH, VEGA and OMAN because they were in the four longest across entries. Case of my train of thought being intercepted, interrupted and intervened by past experiences. Next time I will take an interlude and let that train continue to the station!
Similar to above, found pretty quickly the key words in the "longer" answers (EARTH, UTAH, VEGA -- though had "VEGAS" in mind for quite awhile -- and OMAN -- but thought it might be ROMA for awhile) and then on to seeing the "inter" in the clues to validate I was on the right path. But catching on to the MARS, IOWA, etc. took some time. I must have had in my mind that once I found the hidden words, I was done looking for hidden words. Great puzzle, and survived the "Gaffney Gulp" once again... (that strange nervous feeling in your throat when you first see Matt's name as the puzzle author)
Saw “inter” in the clues quickly but only saw three so put that aside. I saw the center clue and answer “confess guilt in” and “admit to” and went down the “confessional” rabbit hole of keeping it between us. Tried all of the sins and in Latin but to no avail. Then tried adding “us” to answers like “Vegas” became “Pegasus” still nothing. Finally saw there were for “inter” s in the clues then saw “Mars” and it all clicked. Really fun.
I've been eager to do a postmortem on this one since Thursday. I was getting a little worried from some of the comments that maybe I missed something even though I found INTERLOCK.
My experience was a lot like @Inca 's. I found MARS and EARTH right away and quickly noticed the pattern that long entries contained words before the last letter and after the first letter in four rows. I actually considered trying to fill in the middle blank but discarded that too quickly, because H_N, S_I, etc. dissuaded me when I didn't remember any common words like hen or ski in the grid. Then I noticed inter in the clues, and went to those grid answers but realized that they couldn't possibly contain the key or else the eight hidden words I found would have been meaningless. A more careful look at the grid gave me the answer.
I do think this was an elegant meta in theory. In the sense that INTER leads to looking at the clues, leads to finding the hidden words, leads to finding the middle letters. I just think that it's very easy to skip to the middle of that process, in which case noticing "inter" becomes more of a distraction (still a fun 'aha', but ultimately unnecessary). Still definitely an impressive construction, but I just don't think the experience happened to me the way it was intended to.
chriscross wrote: Mon Jan 30, 2023 9:02 am
I do think this was an elegant meta in theory. In the sense that INTER leads to looking at the clues, leads to finding the hidden words, leads to finding the middle letters. I just think that it's very easy to skip to the middle of that process, in which case noticing "inter" becomes more of a distraction (still a fun 'aha', but ultimately unnecessary). Still definitely an impressive construction, but I just don't think the experience happened to me the way it was intended to.
The prefix Inter is synonymous of between so in my case it was very helpful to find the mechanism and the letters b/n the 2 grid entries. Inter alia (to continue with latin) to me, this MG grid was very PBish aka clever.
Same here as with so many others - solved it without ever noticing the "INTER" clues! I just thought of the surrounding words as 'places' of some kind.
Having noticed the Inter___ clues I started looking for related words in the grid or other clues. 'ARIES' had my attention for 'stellar' for quite a while, but I couldn't make anything else work that way. The next time I picked it up, I read the comments on the WSJ for entertainment (people can be funny about Naticks and such there) and someone mentioned seeing EARTH and UTAH and not knowing what to do with them. Ugh - exactly what I'd been looking for.
Lesson learned - will try not to look through the comments until finishing the grid. Didn't submit, for the record. Still had my AHA moment, but it would have been more satisfying if I hadn't stumbled on a hint.
Shallow rabbit hole I explored was the four clues that start with a letter followed by US: 6A (AUSsie Leaper); 46A (CUStomers); 21D (BUSiness that gives people shots); and 58D (JUSt). First letters of those grid answers in that order are RUBO. Sat there wondering what other metanism might fit, then saw MARS and EARTH and gratefully moved along.
Never noticed the inter clues in 16a, 69a, 1d, and 9d.
Amazing work to construct this puzzle!!
I was showing the puzzle to my son in New Orleans who had never seen a meta puzzle and he too was amazed it was so well put together.
I don’t think I convinced him to take up doing crosswords in his “free” time though that would have been fun!!
Agree this puzzle is an excellent one to show others the joy of metas! I’m trying to recruit my younger son to the meta fold because my solving partner son is about to leave for college. My wife is a non starter unfortunately.
Ben B wrote: Mon Jan 30, 2023 10:55 am
Agree this puzzle is an excellent one to show others the joy of metas! I’m trying to recruit my younger son to the meta fold because my solving partner son is about to leave for college. My wife is a non starter unfortunately.
I did the grid for the (week 4/impossible-looking) MGW yesterday with my 13-year old son looking on and chiming in occasionally on the fill. When I finished it I said "now I have to stare at it for a couple hours and figure out the 2nd puzzle hidden inside of it". Him: "Huh? Where's the 2nd puzzle?" "I don't know yet. That's why I have to stare at it for a couple hours to try and figure it out." Him: *walks away*
Perhaps if I get to shore this Thursday or Friday I'll re-solve it with him on Sat/Sun when he crawls out of bed at noon and show him what I meant.
