Meta-thesis

[Bird Lives]

Since the first tally, a few more solvers have turned up

46. CPJohnson
47. lbray53
48. Johnny Luau
49. michaelm
50. rjy


For those still in need of help, a few nudges.

The seven theme entries are symmetrically placed and are longer than the other entries. Some of them are awkward, not exactly phrases you might hear in the ordinary course of events.

It might help to say them out loud, especially while remembering that . . . ..

. . . Metathesis is “the transposition of sounds or syllables in a word or of words in a sentence.”

The entry at 88A is not the match-up for either 31A or 78A, though the puzzle would have been better if it had been.

An alternative title for the puzzle was “Eponym”

Spoiler I believe spoiler 4 should be ...either 31A or 78A...no?

Right. Fixed.

[BethA]

Off the couch! Confirmed on crosshare.

Just started this and solved it with my after-lunch tea today. I promise that I didn’t read any previous comments or hints. Great puzzle! And I learned a few things!

Now to get to my backlog of wsj variety puzzles, counting today’s will be 3!

[littlepigeon]

Off the couch and confirmed on Crosshare. Definitely among my favorite metas.

[ReB]

Off the couch and confirmed - without nudges. Lot better going this weekend than last weekend.

[Joe]

Love this. No hints needed!

[MikeyG]

That was a lot of fun! In under the wire. I don't know how a meta creator does it, but it's always great when the lightbulb goes on. At first, I was like, "What the heck? None of this makes any sense." And then it was, "Oh, okay!" Not sure which one did it for me first - curious how you all got an in once the official answer is revealed!

[Bird Lives]

The final tally of solvers (I was waiting for MikeyG) stands at 67. Or possibly 66 if someone has a nom de Crosshare that is different from their Muggles handle and has thus been double counted.

51. Bob cruise director
52. Snood
53. minimuggle
54. Snood
55. MaineMarge
56. LadyBird
57. LesY
58. bhamren
59. ReB
60. BethA
61. Amy Nelson
62. littlepigeon
63. Caroline
64. Joe
65. Naptown Kid
66. Mikey G
67. bergie

The answer is SPOONER – the Rev. Archibald Spooner, eponym of the Spoonerism, defined as a metathesis (or place-switching) of sounds in a phrase. The seven theme entries are Spoonerisms. UnSpoonered they become clues for other entries in the grid. So LACK OF RAM unspoons to RACK OF LAMB, which serves as a clue for RIBS. The initial letters of those entries taken in their order in the grid spell out the answer.
.

Yes, I know that Dame EDNA is a much more satisfying complement for TRUSTY CART / CRUSTY TART compared to the literal and pedestrian “correct” entry PIE. But as I said at the outset, I had a hard time coming up with phrases that could lead to usable entries., i.e., words that began with the necessary letters and that would not be too hard to work into the grid — i.e., without difficult letters and not long.

A couple of people tried their hand at original Spoonerisms that might have been used.

madhatter5 offered:
“Speaker who consistenty confuses phonemes” [my clue, not Josh’s]
WORD BOTCHER [this fits perfectly with the overall theme of the puzzle]
BIRD WATCHER [could be a clue for OGLER, for the O]

Snood came up with:
“What rabbits use to text”
BUNNY PHONE
FUNNY BONE [matches up with the e-word ELBOW]
.

Thanks to all for solving and for the kind comments.