"Go West" July 14, 2023

[Fogway]

Why is it CHATUP and not UTAH? UTAH is the hidden theme answer, in my opinion.

Agreed. And UTAH as a Western state is consistent with "Go West."

[Scott M]

I disagree with those claiming confusion between CHAT UP and UTAH. The clue is "The answer to this week’s contest crossword is the entry that’s a hidden sixth theme answer." An entry is an answer in the grid. And it's a hidden theme answer because it is not notated with an asterisk as the others are. I did reread the clue a couple times to make sure I didn't misread, and I agree it could possibly have been worded a bit better, but with a close look I found no ambiguity on what the prompt was. STEAK SALAD is an entry and a theme answer, ALASKA is not.

Now the West vs. North thing - I have a quibble with that.

[JRS51]

I spent way too much time in my rabbit hole. I was convinced it had to do with the states whose abbreviations were in the themers. At first I thought the states would read right to left, witness AL and AK in 17A, meaning east to west. 24A went from DE to MO to IA. But I hit a snag with 36A since it would have meant going west to east with OR to IA to AR. And then came 47A with OH to LA—I guess that’s east to west. Then I hit 57A and there was only OR. With that, I tried to focus on the western states in the themers but that didn’t get me anywhere. Then I fixated on Davenport IA. Was I looking for cities in those western states? None of this got me anywhere.

My thoughts, almost exactly, when I first tried to solve this one. Fortunately I set it aside for two days, enjoyed my weekend, and saw the actual mechanism quickly when I looked again yesterday.

[The XWord Rabbit]

Your faithful Rabbit is back in business! A severe storm last Friday afternoon knocked out all internet/cable/TV access in our area. It took three days, but everything is up and running again. Stay tuned for a Rabbit report tomorrow!

[Guffman]

Remember Steve Allen? He was a very funny man who created and hosted the first late night talk show.
One of his bits was "The Question Man", a segment in which he provided questions to answers already given.
(Sound familiar? Johnny Carson turned him into Carnac the Magnificent.)
This week's discussion called to mind one of his answer/questions in particular:
The answer is: UTAH.
The question? WHAT'S THE PAST TENSE OF UTEE.

[MikeMillerwsj]

The contest answer is CHAT UP at 44-Down. Each of the five theme answers conceals a U.S. state in reverse: STEAK SALAD, WHEN I AM OLDER, MARCIA DAVENPORT, WHO HAD IT LAST and OR SO I HOPED. 44-Down similarly conceals UTAH.

We had quite a big turnout this week--2,323 entries--and a lot of people asked the same question: Shouldn't UTAH be an acceptable solution? Our answer: yes, perfectly acceptable, sorry for the ambiguity! We asked for the "entry" that was a hidden theme answer, but we agree that it would be reasonable to consider UTAH an "entry" too. About 90% of solvers got one or the other (more votes for CHAT UP, but we can't give you a precise number without handcounting all 2,323 since many entries mentioned both words, either to explain how they got to CHAT UP or to hedge their bets).

Still waiting to confirm this week's winner (a UTAH), so stay tuned for that....

[ship4u]

We submitted CHAT UP straight away. To our understanding the term "theme answer" refers to the entire grid answer. In this case, the "themer" clues were marked with an asterisk. Identifying state names spelled backwards was the "mechanism."

However, I can see how some might be confused about what to submit and it's very nice for Mike Miller to accept both.

[LadyBird]

Still waiting to confirm this week's winner (a UTAH), so stay tuned for that....

Well, I submitted CHAT UP, so I guess that I can quit checking my junk mail folder!


I didn't see an immediate metanism, so I was checking my long answers to make sure that they were correct. I googled MARCIA DAVENPORT to make sure that I had her name right. Fun fact: she wrote another book called "East Side, WEST side". Then I looked at the answer just above and noticed that the first letters of the four words in that answer anagrammed to IOWA. Hmmm.......Davenport, Iowa. I knew that wasn't going to go anywhere, but it did put the idea of states in my head. Not long after, I saw ALASKA and that was that.

[EVJ]

I spent way too much time in my rabbit hole. I was convinced it had to do with the states whose abbreviations were in the themers. At first I thought the states would read right to left, witness AL and AK in 17A, meaning east to west. 24A went from DE to MO to IA. But I hit a snag with 36A since it would have meant going west to east with OR to IA to AR. And then came 47A with OH to LA—I guess that’s east to west. Then I hit 57A and there was only OR. With that, I tried to focus on the western states in the themers but that didn’t get me anywhere. Then I fixated on Davenport IA. Was I looking for cities in those western states? None of this got me anywhere. It was IDAHO that got me going in the right direction.

For the record--like DB Miller, I submitted CHATUP (UTAH).

Have a great week, Muggles.

Yay Idaho!
Sincerely,
An Idahoan

[JeanneC]

Re: post 349,
Thank you, WSJ!

[Zoozm]

I spent way too much time in my rabbit hole. I was convinced it had to do with the states whose abbreviations were in the themers. At first I thought the states would read right to left, witness AL and AK in 17A, meaning east to west. 24A went from DE to MO to IA. But I hit a snag with 36A since it would have meant going west to east with OR to IA to AR. And then came 47A with OH to LA—I guess that’s east to west. Then I hit 57A and there was only OR. With that, I tried to focus on the western states in the themers but that didn’t get me anywhere. Then I fixated on Davenport IA. Was I looking for cities in those western states? None of this got me anywhere. It was IDAHO that got me going in the right direction.

For the record--like DB Miller, I submitted CHATUP (UTAH).

Have a great week, Muggles.

Month old muggles here...we went even deeper down this same rabbit hole. Found KS in 17A, MO in 24A, NE (backwards) in 36A, ID (backwards, but somehow missed the full state name) in 47A, and OR in 57A. Realized that these are 5 of the 6 states that the Oregon Trail went through (that had to be the meta...especially with the title of the puzzle)! Searched over and over for an entry that contained the abbreviation for the 6th state, WYoming, to no avail. Got a nudge from @LadyBird and found the full state names spelled backwards which quickly led to the right answer.

[gdog13cavs]

I got stuck in a rabbit hole. If you take the first letters of the five states and rearrange, you get amino, which goes great with the first half of ACIDSOIL, which also has as its first two letters CA (for California) backwards.

[woozy]

I wondered if the alternate answer was madEMORe. Perhaps people saw the backward locations and hit on ROME first.

I submitted "CHATUP (UTAH)", and felt the whole grid entry was correct but covered myself just in case.

But Rome isn't a US state...

And Maine isn't a Western state.... and Utah is spelled going North not West.

I know that "there are no rules" and anything not explicitly stated can't be be an assumed requirement, but that is a two edged sword. If it's never stated that the hidden answers had to go vertically (even though all the given five were) we could just as easily argue its never stated that hidden had to be states but could be anything. Why not sLOOPs/POOL? Seems to me that is just asstated. Okay POOL is stretching it but... ROME? It's a place. If we had to restrict it to states why not restrict it to states whose with initials in the first 15 letters of the alphabet?

I think had they all been western states (which could have easily been done) the the title could have been enough of a trigger that all the hidden answers were (western) states. But by including Maine, there is no indication or reason or requirement that what we are looking for are states.

[The XWord Rabbit]

Much debate regarding a couple of things about this week’s “Go West” puzzle from Mr. Gaffney, but ultimately, the XWord Rabbit has chosen to rise above the fray.

The meta involved reversing the order of five across entries: Starred clues highlighted the way, as each multi-word answer contained the name of one of the 50 states when read backwards, e.g. ALASKA in the reverse of 17A. STEAK SALAD, and so on. Solvers were asked to find an appropriate hidden sixth theme entry. That was 44D. CHATUP.

A few of you took issue that CHATUP was a south/north answer, not west/east. And then there was the debate over whether UTAH or CHATUP was the meta. Since Mr. Miller has already made it clear that either would be acceptable, your Rabbit doesn’t intend to enter that fracas. Besides, he only deals in rabbit holes, thank you very much.

As it was, your Rabbit was delighted Mr. Gaffney served up the juiciest of plums in naming his creation what he did. Time to go, so here they are, ladies and gentlemen, from 1979 – The Village People!

[Joe Ross]

On no matter which side a poster falls or if the poster rides the fence, in every post in which CHAT UP is written, one can "Go West" to find UTAH.

"The answer to this week’s contest crossword is the entry that’s a hidden sixth theme answer." Can "theme answer" be parsed differently than "theme entry?" @MikeMillerwsj, Mike Shenk, and - presumably - @MattGaffney think so, whose opinions matter.

Speaking of Mikes, if @MikeyG finds a meta brilliant, I ain't gonna argue.

[MikeyG]

Speaking of Mikes, if @MikeyG finds a meta brilliant, I ain't gonna argue.

I might be in the minority on that one, but we'll see after the deadline!

I was part of the CHAT UP crowd. Probably got it so quickly because I "back talk" all the time. (All in good fun, of course!)

[Nlobb]

I will volunteer for the mug if needed. My last name is in the grid and I lived in Utah many years…

[DBMiller]

About 90% of solvers got one or the other (more votes for CHAT UP, but we can't give you a precise number without handcounting all 2,323 since many entries mentioned both words, either to explain how they got to CHAT UP or to hedge their bets).

Are these mail messages? Does your mail client allow you to search for mails that contain a specific subject?

If you can search for UTAH, then search for both UTAH and CHAT, just subtract the count of the latter from the former. (CHAT catches both "CHATUP" and "CHAT UP")

Doesn't help if one is in the subject and the other in the body. But there might be other searches that would work.

[CromsFury]

About 90% of solvers got one or the other (more votes for CHAT UP, but we can't give you a precise number without handcounting all 2,323 since many entries mentioned both words, either to explain how they got to CHAT UP or to hedge their bets).

Are these mail messages? Does your mail client allow you to search for mails that contain a specific subject?

If you can search for UTAH, then search for both UTAH and CHAT, just subtract the count of the latter from the former. (CHAT catches both "CHATUP" and "CHAT UP")

Doesn't help if one is in the subject and the other in the body. But there might be other searches that would work.

But since we are directed to e-mail our answer "in the subject line," is should not matter what is in the body. Right?

[Yoda66]

About 90% of solvers got one or the other (more votes for CHAT UP, but we can't give you a precise number without handcounting all 2,323 since many entries mentioned both words, either to explain how they got to CHAT UP or to hedge their bets).

Are these mail messages? Does your mail client allow you to search for mails that contain a specific subject?

If you can search for UTAH, then search for both UTAH and CHAT, just subtract the count of the latter from the former. (CHAT catches both "CHATUP" and "CHAT UP")

Doesn't help if one is in the subject and the other in the body. But there might be other searches that would work.

But since we are directed to e-mail our answer "in the subject line," is should not matter what is in the body. Right?

DB - scratching my head as well since a simple database import (even using MSFT Access) should allow them to do so and then filter out accordingly