LAST WEEK’S RESULTS:
Fifth Friday it was, and the instructions were unusual: To solve this week’s meta, write a clue for 1-Across that completes this puzzle’s theme.
There were three 15-letter entries, but only one was asterisked, and it turned out to be the only theme entry: At 40-A, [Vulgar things which the majority of crossword puzzles do not contain*] was FOUR-LETTER WORDS. So curiously that it had to be intentional, the grid contained no four-letter words (entries) at all. Hmmm.
How about the clues? Also curiously enough that it had to be intentional, the clues contained but nine four-letter words in them, especially suggestive since the puzzle’s title was “I Beg Your Part Ten!” and you’d been asked to complete a pattern by the meta instructions.
Those nine four-letter words are:
18-A CLIP
66-A TOTE
5-D HEAR
11-D EYRE
13-D CRIB
24-D SHIP
37-D WARM
48-D GUAM
63-D LEGO
So what’s “Part Ten”? We’re talking the human body here: you’ve perhaps heard the old puzzle to name ten three-letter body parts. Remove those vulgar four-letter words from the clues by dropping a letter from each and you get:
CLIP –> LIP
TOTE –> TOE
HEAR –> EAR
EYRE –> EYE
CRIB –> RIB
SHIP –> HIP
WARM –> ARM
GUAM –> GUM
LEGO –> LEG
The tenth canonical answer is JAW, so we need a clue with a four-letter word containing JAW in it for MOVIE at 1-A. Obviously anything with the classic shark movie JAWS was my intended answer, such as [“Jaws is a famous one”]. Most solvers sent this in, but a few cleverly used the creepy Jawa creatures as their reference, which was also naturally accepted.
A rather startling coincidence, unintended and unnoticed by me until solvers pointed it out, inhabited this meta. I’m just that good…(kidding):
At 3-D, [Sundial number] was VII as I intended it, but could also have been XII, creating MOXIE at the unclued 1-A. But that’s a dead end, right? Because what are the odds that a three-letter body part could gain a letter to logically clue it? Except that GUT exists, which, when pluralized to “guts,” is a reasonable synonym for “moxie.”
14 solvers thus submitted a GUTS clue, and it was certainly accepted as correct. Amazing. A handful of other solvers used less formal terms for body parts, such as referring to a MOVIE pass in their clue (lose the first letter from “pass” to get the body part!) which I also took as correct.
This week’s winner, whose name was chosen randomly from the 144 correct entries received, is John Garvey of New York City, N.Y. In addition to a MGWCC pen, pencil and notepad set, John will also receive a signed copy of my new book Munchkin Crosswords #2.
MONTHLY WINNERS:
103 solvers submitted the correct contest answer to all five of August’s challenges (WEST VIRGINIA, CELLO, CAR AND DRIVER, DIG IT, JAWS). The following ten lucky and skillful winners, chosen randomly from that group, will receive a MGWCC pen, pencil and notepad set:
Peter Abide — Biloxi, Miss.
Michael Cassidy — Staten Island, N.Y.
R. Dobkin — Chatsworth, Calif.
Norm Hurlbut — Mamaroneck, N.Y.
Bob Klahn — Wilmington, Del.
John Lenning — Irvine, Calif.
Jeff Louie — Cambridge, Mass.
K.U.
Peter Washington — Chico, Calif.
Justin Weinbaum — Two hours east of Cleveland, O.
Congrats to our ten winners, and to everyone who went 5-for-5 in August.
GUEST CONSTRUCTOR MONTH, PUZZLE #1:
You may have seen my recent interview with meta-solver extraordinaire Jeffrey Harris, where he revealed some of his contest puzzle-unraveling secrets. Now we put Jeffrey on the other side of the equation! Let’s see if you can untangle this clever Week 1 from the meta maestro.
For this week’s instructions, Jeffrey writes:
The answer to this meta is my favorite Robin Williams movie, which (with an extra space and a hyphen) could serve as an alternate title for this puzzle.
So go to it! 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 (2,302 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.