"Alternate Version" - June 24, 2022

[aaugusti]

Ashore at the last minute!

[Joe Ross]

[Joe Ross]

[otlaolap]

Wow. Never saw the horizontal and vertical natures of KNOCK and OFF -- just unscrambled the letters -- but have waited most of the weekend for what it was -- just this -- that many of you did see and caused you to say it was a dead certain lock. Wow, again, Mr Berry.

[mikeB]

I have seen several comments about getting almost there, but not quite, before that last breakthrough. My snag along those lines had to do with TREAT and GLEE, recapped below. Those who did not tangle with that particular rabbit can skip the doggerel – it won’t make much sense.

Who’s that knokging on my door?
And more importantly, what for?
If this is a Knokg-Knokg joke, no thanks!
(It’s tough enough without such pranks.)

If you bring a little nudge for me,
May I request that it starts with C?
A C would appear as a most great delight,
And bring a quick end to my frustrating plight.

Trying to solve, by the pants of my seat,
I can’t seem to lose my fixation on TREAT.
Alternative answer for 12-Down, I think,
But the G from that GLEE only makes my heart sink.

It can’t be a rabbit hole, so well defined;
Matching the title, it boggles the mind.
But even if knockoff is true to the title,
What about knokgoff? That question is vital.

“Aha!” says my inner voice, filled with elation,
“Knokgoff’s a cheap, poorly made imitation!”
A knockoff of knockoff – now that would be brilliant.
For meta rules are, as we know, quite resilient.

The title says knockoff, but look at the grid.
To sneak in a knockoff is what Patrick did!
So knokgoff’s a knockoff of knockoff alright,
And I get to email the Journal tonight!

But back came the voice that had fooled me before:
“Don’t dare submit without looking once more.
Look at all grid entries starting with C.
You might find a treat that has no loathsome G.”

Who could have known what that last look would yield –
That wonderful Doctor whose cure was revealed.
The cure was a treat, and it filled me with glee.
I now had a path to that beautiful C!

Free of the rabbit I call Great Delight,
I knew that the answer at last was just right.
And the best part of all (although it’s tangential):
The eight letters now were correctly sequential.

Lesson learned:

In each of my efforts, successful or not,
I’ve learned a new lesson I’m glad I was taught.
This one I think I will never forget:
When seven-eighths there, you aren’t done yet.

[Colin]

Darn! Got the mechanism but had 52A for ARIES (thought it was the Dodge Ram ornament) and 12D for TREAT (thinking delight instead of cure). So we got KNOFKGFF which immediately was discounted as either gobbledygook or very rude! Never mind, we got to experience and appreciate this masterpiece of construction and gave ourselves 7.5/10 (2 out of the 8 in error). Nice one Patrick!

[steveb]

Here's one reason the construction was so impressive: the path to the solution involves 20 grid entries, comprising over half of the letters in the grid.

[woozy]

Wait... How is that clue order if 32-D comes *after* 59A and 62A?

[Conrad]

Wait... How is that clue order if 32-D comes *after* 59A and 62A?

Across, then down order. Classic meta mechanism.

[Cindy N]

Wait... How is that clue order if 32-D comes *after* 59A and 62A?

You do all of the across clues first, then all of the down clues. (Clues are listed ACROSS first, then DOWN, so same order.)

[MajordomoTom]

Here's one reason the construction was so impressive: the path to the solution involves 20 grid entries, comprising over half of the letters in the grid.

Yes, Patrick is a true master.

Thankfully, he seems to use his superpowers for good.

[DianeA]

Some enlightenment, please. I figured out the (only likely) mechanism and first found KEEP and KEEN, so i thought i was on the right track. Then i figured to be sure, to find the pair with ARIES... Crickets. So i assumed i was missing something. ARIES to ONSET? I don't get it.

[Ergcat]

I had “Hungarian” first when filling in the grid but later saw that “Bulgarian” was the answer. But when trying to find the meta, I forgot all about that and focused on the middle row as a “hint”… the middle row says “tier-one-odds” so I looked at the first row odd numbered clues to see if I could find “alternative” answers. It didn’t work.

By then, the little niggling in my brain went back to “Hungarian” and I got on the right path. I was hung up on wanting “Aries” to be “Ariel” so the “Disney Princess” clue would work! Took me a while to find “first sign”/“onset” and get the much needed “O”!!

[OGuyDave]

Done Friday, and done, Saturday. Three in a row? Not sure what my highest streak is, but just talking about it will probably jinx my attempt to break it. You've heard of the unspeakable law, yes? "If you say something, if it's good, it'll go away; and if it's bad, it'll happen."

One misspelling ("STALAGTITE?") hampered my progress. Fairly sure I wasn't the only victim here. After correcting, I had to back-solve one clue (the same as @ALS , @Colin and/or @JRS51?), as I was using "12D Great Delight" for "TREAT".

TFTXWD. Truly an exquisite construction.

[Ergcat]

Some enlightenment, please. I figured out the (only likely) mechanism and first found KEEP and KEEN, so i thought i was on the right track. Then i figured to be sure, to find the pair with ARIES... Crickets. So i assumed i was missing something. ARIES to ONSET? I don't get it.

Aries is considered the FIRST SIGN of the Zodiac. ARIES the Ram. The clue for “onset” was “first sign” and that clue fits “Aries” as well.

[RDaleHall]

A great puzzle and might jump into my all-time favorites. I really wanted RANDO to transform into WALDO somehow (person somewhere in the back of the picture…) but maybe we can save that for a future meta.

[pjc]

I got this one pretty quickly because I had initially incorrectly entered the alternate answers for not one, but TWO, of the answers (ASTRONOMER and STALACTITE) - so, it was pretty obvious to me that I needed to do something similar for the other two long answers (got slightly stuck on trying to figure out HEADSTAND).

Then I noticed that we got other words on the Downs with the letter replacements and from that point it became mechanics to find the appropriate clues for those.

Fun solve! And more or less up my alley.

(I spent MUCH more time this weekend banging my head over the AVXC Pride Cryptic - whoa!)

[Joe Ross]

Some enlightenment, please. I figured out the (only likely) mechanism and first found KEEP and KEEN, so i thought i was on the right track. Then i figured to be sure, to find the pair with ARIES... Crickets. So i assumed i was missing something. ARIES to ONSET? I don't get it.

Aries is considered the FIRST SIGN of the Zodiac. ARIES the Ram. The clue for “onset” was “first sign” and that clue fits “Aries” as well.

I'm an Aries child, my parents' sixth child and first son. My elder, wicked (& wickedly clever) sisters told me that I was born under the first sign of the "scatological" calendar. Being 5 or 6, I took that as fact and repeated it to whomever would listen, until I told Mom. Dinner that night was a little frosty, but with shared grins and giggles amongst the Toil and Trouble Troupe.

[Mister Squawk]

Wait... How is that clue order if 32-D comes *after* 59A and 62A?

You do all of the across clues first, then all of the down clues. (Clues are listed ACROSS first, then DOWN, so same order.)

Not always. Sometimes the meta depends on strict grid order (row-major order of the first letter in the answer). At least I think so ..

[mheberlingx100]

Wait... How is that clue order if 32-D comes *after* 59A and 62A?

You do all of the across clues first, then all of the down clues. (Clues are listed ACROSS first, then DOWN, so same order.)

Not always. Sometimes the meta depends on strict grid order (row-major order of the first letter in the answer). At least I think so ..

It took me a while to get the letter order, because more often order is determined by grid (left to right, or top to bottom) and not by order of clues. I always struggle a bit on puzzles that refer back to the clues as opposed to having entire focus on the grid. It’s only after striking out on grid only that I start looking at the clues.