"Eton Must Change" January 10, 2025

[Abide]

I felt pretty sure it was ELON MUSK, because I solved the way the answer lays out:

Step 1: Find the 8 names after changing letters.
Step 2: Find the small words that spell SPACE X.
Step 3: Find another (4,4) name associated with SpaceX.

The title was just a cute confirmation for me. ( Maybe too cute.) If you read the title before solving and immediately thought "I bet the answer is Elon Musk" , then extra speed points for you. I don't see how you could grok that without working through most of the grid, though.

No doubt the prompt could have cleared up the confusion. But then we would not have this excellent debate!

[steveb]

I got step 3 first, noticing right away that ETON MUST was one letter from ELON MUSK in each word. Then I got step 1, seeing the famous names slightly altered in the grid. I never saw step 2, but I submitted ELON MUSK thinking that his almost-name in the title was what the themers were pointing to. That left me wondering "is that it?" for a while, and now I see why.

[JRS51]

Agree 100% with @BarbaraK

[Abide]

My answer was Elon Musk, but I had a moment of doubt when I realized if you change one letter of spacex, you could make spacek, as in Sissy Spacek.

That was the third theoretical answer, and Kevin Spacey was the fourth.

[jschneider]

Agreed . Elon Musk isn't elegant and is way too easy. That's a beginner meta. If it can be solved without putting ink to paper...

It's been a long time since I've stayed up to midnight to post about a meta. But, this one...

My solving process went thus.

• Notice the weird title; it must be important

• Based on that, play with anagrams, that didn't work

• Notice that Eton Must is a one letter "change" to Elon Musk

• Try that in the grid and see that it works for all the theme entries (with varying degrees of difficulty in recognizing them)

• Look at the changed letters, both the ones in the grid and the ones in the names, to see if any combination spells anything, nope

• Look at the other grid entries to try to find some consistent set of those letters plus an extra

• Find the 3 letter entries that lead to SpaceX

• Aha, that's the answer

• And look at that call back to the title, that's an elegant touch

• And now I understand why the prompt said a "famous name" instead of a "famous person"

• Submit SpaceX with 100% confidence

When I started to realize that some people thought the answer was Elon Musk, I first assumed that they missed the whole spell out the answer part and, getting stuck after the other six names, could only think of going back to the title. And I'm sure there are some like that.

But then I learned there were people, lots of people, smart people, long time solvers, who'd seen the entire mechanism and still thought the answer was the person's name instead of the company name; I was stunned.

I never for a moment considered Elon Musk as an answer. On a very few occasions, there have been puzzles where the entire meta was in the clues. You could solve it without even bothering to fill the grid. These get complaints that it defeats the purpose of a crossword contest if the crossword itself is not part of it, which is no doubt why this approach is so rare. But a meta that you don't need the clues or the grid for? That the whole thing is in the title? That's nuts!

And yet, as I'm typing us this draft, there's a poll on Discord about which is the intended answer, and the replies are split exactly 50-50.

This is fascinating! Usually when there are two possibilities, once people see both of them there's a consensus as to which is right. The only time I remember people being unsure about which of two options was right was the map one, and in that case there were two totally different possible metanisms, not as in this case, a single metanism with confusion about the correct end point.

I wonder if the discussion has changed or will change anyone's mind. I'm still firmly in camp SpaceX. I just can't see finding an answer spelled out that fits the prompt and instead of using it, going back to the title. (And it would have been easy enough to change to prompt to require a person or an 8 letter name if that's what they were going for.) But it's been fun hearing why people think that Elon Musk is right, and I look forward to any more explanations - from WSJ and muggles.

[scrabbler]

I second everything Barbara said at #274 above. You shouldn't be able to guess the answer from looking at the title and literally nothing else (it was the first thing I thought when looking at the title; I didn't try anagramming). And if the answer was a person's name, they should have said they wanted a person's name. And if the answer were going to be ELON MUSK, then there shouldn't have been such a clear path to SPACEX; it should have been other names that all had the exact same letters replaced, or something else where it didn't lead anywhere further. And it wouldn't have been nearly as good a puzzle.

I predict there will be an overwhelming number of entries for SPACEX, and that they will accept it.

Also I will be bummed if my first time solving on page 1 was a "wrong" answer, as I am also 100% on SPACEX as the right answer.

[ELSavage]

I came down firmly in the SpaceX camp in the end, but am not completely surprised by the 50-50 split; it was very ambiguous.
I think it's bad form to have the answer come directly from the title and have the confirming hint be hidden in the grid rather than the other way around, but what do we always say about the "rules"?
I think they will have to accept either answer, but lucky for them if the randomly picked submission went for their expected one.

I wonder if this might be the first puzzle to generate as many posts in the hour after reveal as the hour after release?

[olev]

I totally agree with @BarbaraK as well! That said, I submitted Elon Musk before I figured out it MUSK, errr, MUST be SpaceX that if I win this mug it will be not unlike the Commanders doinking into the next round of the playoffs, and that's FINE BY ME!!! (Old school Washington football team fan, can ya tell?!?!)

[Brian K]

You don't need SPACEX to find ELON MUSK. Similarly, you don't need ELON MUSK to find SPACEX. Either one gives a satisfying click of confirmation to the other. So a muggle might probably go with whichever they found first. I found ELON MUSK, and never thought to look for anything further. I wish we were maybe told "The answer is the name of a company." Then I would have sojourned on and had the pleasure of finding SPACEX.


.

[J14038]

Prediction: In upcoming years the reference to "the great SPACEX fraud of 2025" will have to be explained to newbies.

[Amanda Hugginkiss]

It’s wild to me that the answer isn’t SpaceX. Why have SpaceX in the puzzle at all if you could find the answer just from the title? It’s not very Gaffneyesque. And I’m surprised neither Mike nor Matt made the prompt clear enough for us to choose. They could easily have said it was a noted person, as they often do.

[Amanda Hugginkiss]

Prediction: In upcoming years the reference to "the great SPACEX fraud of 2025" will have to be explained to newbies.

It’s the new PAGEANT, for sure!

[benchen71]

When I posted that I was on shore but unsure of my answer, Matt himself reached out to me via email (how's that for a name drop! ) to ask if I had noticed the extra click in the title. I replied that I had, but that there was still a lot of chatter on discord re which of the two answers was the intended one. He confirmed that ELON MUSK was the answer (after first swearing me to secrecy... until after the deadline had passed!) He also explained why he had chosen "name" and not "person":

I changed it to "name" instead of "person" because I worried that ELON MUSK would be guessable from just the ETON MUST in the title and knowing you're looking for a person. I figured that ELON MUSK is the logical step *after* SPACEX, so it makes sense that his name is the final stop.

However, I personally think that the WSJ will accept either answer because the prompt is on the vague side. You could take SPACEX as confirmation that the answer is ELON MUSK; you can just as easily take ELON MUSK hidden in the title as confirmation that the answer is SPACEX.

[DrTom]

It has been a long time since i was so disappointed by the answer to a meta; plus I warned two or three people off ELON MUSK because of the drop dead facility of that answer. I assumed, as did Barbara K, that ETON MUST was the last bit of confirmation to the SPACEX famous NAME (not PERSON, which should have been the prompt if it was a person, but NAME). To be able to solve the meta without doing the puzzle, heck without doing anything more than reading the Title? How unsatisfying....

It matters not, I am not really ever expecting a mug, and I am counting this as a solve no matter what the "right" answer turns out to be.

[MDM]

He also explained why he had chosen "name" and not "person":

I changed it to "name" instead of "person" because I worried that ELON MUSK would be guessable from just the ETON MUST in the title and knowing you're looking for a person. I figured that ELON MUSK is the logical step *after* SPACEX, so it makes sense that his name is the final stop.

However, I personally think that the WSJ will accept either answer because the prompt is on the vague side. You could take SPACEX as confirmation that the answer is ELON MUSK; you can just as easily take ELON MUSK hidden in the title as confirmation that the answer is SPACEX.

Agreed. There is no unambiguous reason to proceed beyond the multi-step process of finding the famous name SpaceX.

[woozy]

Hmm. To my mind ELON MUSK is simply more elegant and consistent and brings the solving full circle.

To my spacex feels like riding a bicycle while leaning against a tall unicycle under your armpit.

But that's just my aesthetics.

[oldjudge]

I’m in the SpaceX camp. I saw in the beginning that ETON MUST was one letter in each word off of ELON MUSK. I then used this methodology to alter the names in the 8 letter across fills which gave me SPACEX. The title changing to Elon Musk was confirmation of this answer. This is what happens when you get inexperienced constructors doing these puzzles. Who is this Gaffney guy anyway?

[Cindy N]

Yeah...no...sorry. When I'm solving a puzzle before I even start the grid - and decide that's not very gaffneyesque. But Matt thought he was being clever by "hiding" it there? As noted by @benchen71, with his reply from Mark himself:

I changed it to "name" instead of "person" because I worried that ELON MUSK would be guessable from just the ETON MUST in the title and knowing you're looking for a person. I figured that ELON MUSK is the logical step *after* SPACEX, so it makes sense that his name is the final stop.

Making that change because you know people could guess might not have been as clever as he thought.

If you'd like to enjoy more discussion on this - be sure and check out the one that's starting on The Crossword Fiend.

WSJ Contest — Friday, January 10, 2025

[HeyMikey]

This reminds me of a serious problem with writing application code (I'm aging myself!). The programmers would write application software assuming the users would enter commands in a specific order. Because, ya know, the correct way to solve a problem is "intuitive". If one used that specific order of commands, one would get the correct output. But users don't think the same way programmers do, and the average user would not get the correct output because there were variations to the order in which the commands were entered. That software flunked alpha or beta tests. I believe a 50% error rate among competent solvers means this puzzle likewise flunks the "intuitive" test.

[MatthewB]

We'll, I had no shot at this one. Ironically, noticing the title was nearly Elon Musk could have obviated the need to do the grid at all. Congratulations to all who got it.