LAST WEEK’S RESULTS:

Last week’s instructions asked for an appropriate four-letter piece of crosswordese. The theme-length entries were MYSTIC PIZZA, QUACK QUACK, JUSTIFIABLY and CHIP AWAY AT — but in the end, these four turned out to just be long fill! Tricky.

What was going on? Successful solvers noticed that the grid featured some odd letter distributions: Scrabbly fill, but where were the E’s? And the N’s? Turns out that every letter of the alphabet appears at least twice in the grid, except the super-common letters O, N, E and R, which appear exactly once each. These letters form crosswordese staple (and meta answer) ONER, appropriate here since that word is defined as “a unique thing,” and each of those letters is a unique thing in this grid. In other words, ONER formed by four oners. So meta.

147 solvers submitted ONER, while a further 46 sent in a different arrangement of those letters: NERO, ERNO, ORNE or RENO. Some of these boast defensible appropriateness: the letters in the grid appear as NERO north-to-south, for example, while ERNO Rubik’s cube might be said to resemble a crossword grid (OK, that one’s a stretch).

And while I wouldn’t consider RENO or NERO to be crosswordese, ORNE and ERNO certainly are, so I can see some solvers finding those and stopping there. Hmmm.

Typical solution to a MGWCC problem: throw prizes at it. So that’s what we’ll do here: the 147 solvers who got ONER have the correct answer and accrue all the many benefits normally attached thereto. The 46 solvers who sent in RENO, ORNE, ERNO or NERO have a correct but alternate answer; they are eligible for monthly prizes and their streaks remain intact, but they are not eligible for weekly prizes.

In addition, I am awarding two weekly prizes this week to ONER entrants, both to reward their answers and because it’s amusing to award two prizes instead of the normal one the week that ONER is the meta-answer.

rogerwolff writes:

My first week four solve? Please don’t respond “er….no”

donlloyd says:

This may be the one and only time I actually enjoyed finding this word in a puzzle.

And finally, Golem goes faux-naif:

‘Cause there’s only ONE R. (Wait, are there any other singleton letters?)

This week’s winners, whose names were chosen randomly from the 147 ONER entries received, are Adam Thompson of Westville, Nova Scotia and Matt Gardner Spencer of Woodstock Valley, Conn. In addition to a MGWCC pen, pencil and notepad set, both Adam and Matt will also receive a one-year subscription to Peter Gordon’s Fireball Newsflash Crosswords. Next week, for the first time in a long time, we switch to a new prize.

MONTHLY WINNERS:

Oops again. We’ll do them next week, with a dozen winners instead of the usual 10.

STAND, PAT(RICK):

Today’s his birthday, so what better time to tell you about the great Patrick Blindauer‘s free monthly crosswords? He’s among the most creative — some weeks, the most creative — crossword constructors out there. Try July’s puzzle here (click “Play” and then “free monthly puzzle”), then read my review of it at Crossword Fiend tomorrow.

THIS WEEK’S INSTRUCTIONS:

This week’s contest answer is a musical duo. Submit your answer in the form on the left sidebar by Tuesday at noon ET. Note: the submissions form disappears from the site promptly at noon on Tuesday.

To print the puzzle out, click on the image below and hit “print” on your browser. To solve using Across Lite either solve on the applet below or download the free software here, then join the Google Group (2,272 members now!) here. Or you can download the .puz file (you may have to right-click the link and save to your
Downloads folder).

Solve well, and be not led astray by words intended to deceive.