"Perfect Content" by Cap'n Rick and Wendy

[Wendy Walker]

A couple more nudges on this Thanksgiving Eve:

The clue to 39A is relevant.

Have you ever heard of something called a heteronym? It's a word that's spelled the same but has two different meanings based on how it's pronounced. For instance, intimate (with a short a) means "close" but intimate (with a long a) means suggest or, uh, hint at. Moped with two syllables and moped with one syllable mean completely different things. Now see if you can find some heteronyms in the grid!

Another title we considered was "How Should I Take That?"

[rjy]

Off the couch, right when the tryptophans wanted to put me back down. Fun one to wrap my brain around this week, I had one piece missing that made the finish line elusive, but clever concept w a delightfully apt answer. Thanks!

[Wendy Walker]

A few more additions to the solver list for "Perfect Content." Great job!

63. JHSeeman
64. minimuggle
65. Adam Simon Levine
66. RJY
67. DavyGravy
68. Naptown Kid

[Cap'n Rick]

Final Leaderboard

Two more solvers bring our final total to 70:

69. Jeremy Smith
70. Johnny Luau

And now it's time for the reveal...

[Cap'n Rick]

Ahoy Muggles!

The meta answer is "Object" - "something you won't mind seeing". (Hmm, isn't that the case with all meta answers? ). So, what's so special about "object"? Well, depending on one's pronunciation and usage, "object" can either be a noun ("a material thing that can be seen and touched") or verb ("say something to express one's disapproval"). Words such as this are called "heteronyms", and this puzzle had 6 of them symmetrically distributed throughout the grid (1A MINUTE, 10A WIND, 38A BOW, 41A ROW, 67A BASS, and 69A REFUSE). Hopefully our central entry at 39A "Words can often have more than one" (MEANING) helped solvers get started on the right track.





But now what? Well, it turns out that each heteronym, when pronounced and used differently, matches up with an alternate (Hmm, another heteronym.) clue elsewhere in the grid. For example, 1A "Part of an hour" (MINUTE) also matches 32D "Really small" (EENSY). The first letters of the 6 entries with matching clues, in grid order, spell the answer to "Perfect Content" - another pair of heteronyms.





Like Wendy mentioned in her intro, she and I independently and simultaneously came up with this meta idea. When Wendy reached out to a few of us about co-constructing, I immediately sent her a photo of my notes. That sealed the deal for us and hopefully resulted in an enjoyable puzzle for all of you.

Thanks for solving, everyone!

And now I will close (/klōz/ verb: bring to an end).
Cap'n Rick

[JeanneC]

Heteronyms, mondegreens, palindromes, semordnilaps…wow! The fun I’ve had with language and grammar from this and other Monday puzzles.
Thanks to Wendy and Capk’n Rick for an excellent challenge this past week.