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.
The contest answer is STEREO. The first and last letters of the six longest Across answers when spoken sound like words that begin six clues: KG/cagey/SLY (13-D), DK/decay/TOOTH (18-D), MT/empty/ECHO (15-A), CD/seedy/ RYE (39-A), ME/Emmy/EDIE (65-A), SA/ essay/OP-ED (35-D). The first letters of those answers, in order, spell the contest answer.
This was quite an ingenious but tough one, we thought! It stumped us here at puzzle HQ. We had 655 entries, with just 60% correct (75% is our more typical rate). A big turnout for ECHO (36), plu SPEAKER (6), ACOUSTICS (5), VOLUME (4), SHUSH (4), MACH (4) and many others.
Congrats to this week's winner: Les Yonce of Richmond, VA!
I promised the Xword rabbit I'd post my trip down the bunny trail, so here tis:
My initial assumption was that the sound was contained in the word (was SURROUNDED)
So – KIBITZING = BITZ = BYTES = PIXEL (Display dot)
DOORLOCK = ORLO = ARLO = AARON (First name in many first name lists I mean how many times have we seen ALRO s the answer)
MATCHPOINT = CHPO = CHEAPO = MARK (Con artist’s target, scammers LOVE to soak the chintzy in all the movies and shows)
CENTERFOLD = TERF = TURF = DECK (Knock to the ground)
MAKESURE = KE = KEY = RYE (Seedy bread) There is a Rye Key in the Florida Keys
SUPERNOVA = RN = Nurse = EDIE (Emmy winner Falco) She got 6 Emmys for Nurse Jackie
PAMDER or DAMPER, definitely a sound related word.
Obviously the real mechanism is better and clearer but when you only see the hole and not the rabbit….
NUDGES!I am always willing to give nudges where needed; metas should be about fun, not frustration. Send me what you have done so far because often you are closer than you think!
Enough with the playing with the rabbit holes made from words. After I tried a bunch of those things, I seized on CENTERFOLD and remembered we had a meta some time ago where we had to fold the physical paper to see something. So clearly if I folded it right, I would see a treble or base clef or note of some kind. And it was sort of there so obviously I had to keep folding and folding and folding.
Or a meta word spanning from one side of the fold to the other.
One for the Xword rabbit. This was my last-ditch effort to find something (anything!) to explain why the constructor chose to include KIBITZING in this grid...
The themers contain letters that sound like a cookie. Change one letter to form the cookie name with the new letters spelling the answer:
KIBITZING -> RITZ -> R
DOORLOCK -> OREO -> E
Unfortunately, after this very promising beginning, the rabbit hole ended abruptly leaving me stranded deep underground.
Check out "The MOAT MEOW Mashup Pack" here. US$10 for 14 metas that don't always abide by the "rules" of the game: asymmetry, 2-letter words, uncrossed letters, who knows. And this time there's a mega-meta!
I was convinced that 15A: ECHO had to be important since it was the only clue with the word sound. So I looked for ECHOs of the second word (or last part of one word) of the long answers in the grid:
ZING >> STYLE (in retrospect, I guess that is more with BLING)
LOCK (of hair) >> MOP
POINT >> RUNS (another way to score)
FOLD (as in sheep fold) >> GATE
SURE (said sarcastically) >> UHNO
OVA (they are round) >> ORB
The first letters can anagram to SORGUM. I know, I know, it is spelled with an H. And it has nothing to do with sound. But who said rabbit holes had to be rational.
I was in the ECHO rabbit hole, the first-two-and-last-two-letters of the themers rabbit hole, and the CENTERFOLD rabbit hole. @The XWord Rabbit, you should have lots of submissions by now.
The largest rabbit hole (at least in terms of time spent) for me was looking for boxes of eight letters that spelled something sound-related, and that the boxes would surround another letter needed for the answer. After that, tried the onomatopoeia route and looked for sound-sounding words. Found 'zing' in kibitzing and 'toot' in tooth, but nothing else. And then the rest of the weekend got in my way, leaving me with Isaac, which isn't necessarily a bad thing...
It sounds like Mr. Shenk’s puzzle was a bear for many (pun intended).
Strangely, the methodology is easier to describe than to execute.
The word “surround” was important, as the first and last letters of the six anchor across entries, when pronounced, sounded like two letters: KG = CAGEY, DK = DECAY etc. Step 2: Find the six clues that begin with those words, making note of the first letters of the answers to them, and “Voila!” you have the meta: STEREO. (Actually, your Rabbit noticed the sound-alike words in the clues first, so these steps can be reversed, but he’s sure that’s of little comfort to non-solvers.)
Time to get down to business. This week ties the record for most nominees with three.
(Last time was the “Long Road Ahead” puzzle in May).
First, we have dk letter – who made this amazing discovery:
“Mr. Shenk gave us a pretty remarkable red herring this week. The grid has a rather unusual structure with its nine 3-letter across answers all clustered in the center of the grid. The first letters of eight of those nine spell MALAPROP, a sound related word: "the mistaken use of a word in place of a similar-sounding one.”
Technically, this may well be a “red herring” (in which it is the creator’s deliberate intent to mislead the solver) and not a “rabbit hole” (in which the solver is solely responsible for going astray). But that’s only a matter of semantics and leaves it to scholars of this website to debate. As far as your Rabbit is concerned, it’s worthy of nomination.
Then there’s HunterX who danced around the puzzle, looking for rhyming segments (#224). Your Rabbit was particularly taken by his remark: “ALOE and ECHO sound nice next to each other…” If that isn’t a good reason to fall into a rabbit hole, what is?
Finally, we have Dr. Tom, who went from A to B to H to W, as it were.
My initial assumption was that the sound was contained in the word (was SURROUNDED)
So – KIBITZING = BITZ = BYTES = PIXEL (Display dot)
DOORLOCK = ORLO = ARLO = AARON (First name in many first name lists I mean how many times have we seen ALRO s the answer)
MATCHPOINT = CHPO = CHEAPO = MARK (Con artist’s target, scammers LOVE to soak the chintzy in all the movies and shows)
CENTERFOLD = TERF = TURF = DECK (Knock to the ground)
MAKESURE = KE = KEY = RYE (Seedy bread) There is a Rye Key in the Florida Keys
SUPERNOVA = RN = Nurse = EDIE (Emmy winner Falco) She got 6 Emmys for Nurse Jackie
PAMDER or DAMPER, definitely a sound related word.
The XWord Rabbit thought long and hard about finding something applicable to end this week’s report. He investigated a great number of stereo demonstration records, popular in late 50’s, 60’s and even 70’s to test and show off your expensive sound system. But you know what? They were boring then and they are boring now.
He doesn’t expect you to listen to much of this, if at all, but he couldn’t resist posting an album that includes tracks like “Times Square Subway System” and “Ping Pong Game at the YWCA.” Enjoy!
LesY wrote: ↑Mon Jul 24, 2023 4:54 pm
Speaking of mugs…. Holy cow I won the WSJ mug!!! Very excited. And it only took about 8 years!
Thankful for all Mike S, Matt G, Mike M and the WSJ team do to make and support such great puzzles. And for this outstanding community, which is of course the true treasure.
He doesn’t expect you to listen to much of this, if at all, but he couldn’t resist posting an album that includes tracks like “Times Square Subway System” and “Ping Pong Game at the YWCA.” Enjoy! [/b]
I wanted so much for the recording to start:
Solver there’s no need to feel down
Even if you missed the surround
Solver you can still enjoy song
Like this one concerning ping pong
“It’s fun to play at the YMCA, it’s fun to play at the YMCA. You can hit the white ball with no trouble at all and watch it go off down the hall….
NUDGES!I am always willing to give nudges where needed; metas should be about fun, not frustration. Send me what you have done so far because often you are closer than you think!
ZooAnimalsOnWheels wrote: ↑Mon Jul 24, 2023 3:38 pm
... I was just writing @Wendy Walker for a nudge, when in the process of writing everything down, it popped out at me.
A great rule for everyone to remember: When stuck, "request" a nudge being as detailed as possible with everything you've seen, tried, & rejected. You'll be amazed how often that process solves for you before sending the request.
