"Eton Must Change" January 10, 2025

[Joe Ross]

$4.72 says Matt made this for MGWCC to see how many submissions he could get within the 1st 14 seconds, then thought better of it and talked Mike Shenk into publishing it

[Aragorn]

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.

Cosign!

[clonefitz]

In my effort to make this way more complicated than it needed to be, I listed out all of the four letter entries thinking I might spot a word ladder or some other twist to that could apply to the theme entries. Out of these, five were noteworthy - each with one letter that stood out from the other three: XMAS, ONEL, CANI, DCON, VDAY. The five letters that stand out: X L I D V. Roman numerals! If only there was a similar entry with a C. Then I saw AVEC and realized if this had anything to do with the meta, AVEC would have been clued differently. Maybe food for thought on a future meta?

[Ben B]

I’m personally very happy with my submission of Kevin Space-y. I saw ELON MUSK immediately on looking at the title and so thought there is no way that could be the answer. Once I had Space-x I applied the mechanism one last time to get Space-y. (I stopped there and did not think of Space-k)!

Anyway, my answer makes me happy so I’ll take that into next week.

[Streroto]

I was in camp Elon Musk. I do agree with Barbara's elegant analysis. I was one who skipped right to it and when I saw the discord among our little group I was enlightened about that part. Taking all that in stride it seems they should accept either answer-would making the prompt "a proper name" have made a difference? I guess technically SpaceX is also a proper name. But in defense of those who saw the whole thing and went with EM it can be argued that was just another step on the path to the meta solution.

Hoping they allow both!!

Stay well

[Miki]

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.

That's exactly what happened, I read the title, and since Eton must are not two words that appear together typically, I immediately noticed that it looked like Elon Musk.

I would have submitted Elon Musk at 4:01 if it wasn't for two things.
1. I was on a cruise ship and did not splurge for the Wi-Fi package.
2. My husband said: "hold on, there's an extra step" ( what he calls the 3 - letter Mike Shenk method).

[Mister Squawk]

Didn't have much time to work on this puzzle, so I submitted ELON MUSK with only a moment's hesitation.

I looked briefly for a 3-letter mechanism but I missed it -- luckily for me! I think I would have been in camp SpaceX for the reasons mentioned (famous name rather than famous person).

Can we say that "pageanting" has been dethroned? What should this type of mishegas be called?

[regfish7]

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.

This was exactly me. Since I missed step 2, I feel like I don’t deserve the win, even though I got it right. And that feels wrong to me. I agree it is more fun when you actually need to do the puzzle to get the answer.

[cheekumbaldy]

Yeah, I guess I’ll jump in as well. I’ve never been sorry to have submitted the RIGHT answer. I got the Elon Musk joke right when I read the title, but I couldn’t get any further on it. I didn’t have much time this weekend to think through the meta, so I just submitted Elon Musk to put something in. I didn’t even bother to post to the forum though, knowing I was wrong. Huh!

[chatger]

Hmmm. I was sure it was SPACEX. From the title, you certainly get ELON MUSK, but change a letter in the third word and the SPACEX confirmation is right there... ELON MUSK CHANCE (risky business) or even ELON MUSK CHARGE (he is CEO).
Oh well

[Plymouthrock]

DOGE
Debate over Gaffney’s Excogitation

[Plymouthrock]

You can’t make a legitimate argument against SPACEX even if making a sound one for Elon Musk. I’m for SPACEX for all of BarbarK’s reasonable excogitations.

[BethA]

Adding my support to the SpaceX camp (and confessing that I did not send in the intended answer).

I sent SpaceX in the subject line, and the following in the body —

Neat that the title serves as confirmation of the answer as SpaceX, and also the meta mechanism used! ETON MUST -> ELON MUSK

Thanks for the puzzle!
Beth

[Zobo3737]

After debating for hours (with myself) which answer to submit, I chose SPACEX because ELON MUSK was too easy. I am still surprised that 67A (ENTO) was irrelevant. I wasted a lot of time playing with that before finding the metanism.

[ship4u]

I felt quite certain that the answer was ELON MUSK. It seemed to fit the mechanism perfectly and I saw SPACE X as the confirmation. I submitted ELON MUSK as my answer.

Then, my Friday Zoomer friends began to sew the seeds of doubt. Did SPACE X confirm ELON MUSK, or did ELON MUSK confirm SPACE X? The prompt did ask for "a famous name" and not "a person". And, I did see ELON MUSK straight away in the title and that helped me to see the mechanism.

Finally, another dear muggle friend reminded me that the meta answer has never before been in the title! By Saturday, I was feeling pageanted. Cynthia submitted SPACE X as an "insurance policy".

[rjy]

I was in camp Elon Musk. I do agree with Barbara's elegant analysis. I was one who skipped right to it and when I saw the discord among our little group I was enlightened about that part. Taking all that in stride it seems they should accept either answer-would making the prompt "a proper name" have made a difference? I guess technically SpaceX is also a proper name. But in defense of those who saw the whole thing and went with EM it can be argued that was just another step on the path to the meta solution.

Hoping they allow both!!

Stay well

Agreed - they both are legitimate answers, the “correct” one turns out to be from the (and we need a better term for this) “what color was I thinking of?” school of construction. Matt’s choice was his own logical thought but landed as completely arbitrary to the solver.

As someone who submitted SPACEX, I’m with you except for one teeny tiny point: I would have changed “I guess technically SpaceX is also a proper name” to “SpaceX is a proper name”.

I thought THAT was where Matt might have been clever, leading us to think it was a person when the prompt was fiendishly posed to be more inclusive than that.

Anyhoo - for me, the fun of the solve and - more so - the banter with muggles is the what I enjoy most, not whether I got the accepted answer. On to next week - or in my case, back to making womb!

[schmidzy]

I LOVED this mechanism, and I'm loving reading everyone's debate about the answer.

[Deb F]

Well, despite some great input from the ZooMuggles, I never landed this one. During the call, I actually even wrote Elon Musk? on my scribbles. I even wound up with ENE, NEA, AGE, POX but had WET and INN (where I erased NAP and went INN!). Couldn't make a darn thing out of that mess. This was not my week!

Have a great week, Muggles.

[Ergcat]

After reading all the comments, I am persuaded that SPACEX is a legit answer and perhaps, dare I say, the better answer. However, I will accept the mug if chosen! (Disclosure: I submitted ELON MUSK taking SPACEX as the confirmation).
Great discussion, everyone!

[ship4u]

In addition to feeling pageanted by Saturday after hearing all of the chatter supporting SPACE X, I was convinced that Mike Miller and Matt would have a riot on their hands on Monday. Judging by the previous comments, the riot has commenced!