IMPORTANT NOTE: As of January 2015 MGWCC is a subscribers-only crossword. The cost is $26 per year, and you can subscribe (or get a free trial month first) here:
LAST WEEK’S RESULTS:
The great Henry Hook is gone, but he left us with one last puzzle…
Well, sort of. For his tribute crossword last week, I cribbed an old idea that amazed me early on. In one of his Hooked on Puzzles books, he wrote a meta whose instructions were to find the pair of entries whose clues could be switched and still make sense.
They were SPIKES and LACES in Henry’s puzzle, clued as [Shoe parts] and [Adulterates, as a drink].
I expanded that idea last week, where five pairs of grid entries could swap clues and still fit:
1-A [One of the “six main cocktail garnishes,” according to goodcocktails.com] and 49-A [Green shade] work for both OLIVE and LIME
6-A [Soap brand] and 32-A [Half an African nation] work for both IVORY and COAST
17-A [Mozart, Gandhi, and Muhammad Ali, e.g.] and 37-A [Some on-screen representations] work for both ICONS and DRAMATIC ROLES
50-A [Food in the teacher’s lounge] and 64-A [Cook’s concern] both work for LUNCH and APPLE (if you remember that Tim Cook is the CEO of Apple)
63-A [David Justice or Tim Hudson, once] and 8-D [Like a good soldier] both work for ATHLETIC and BRAVE
Take those 10 first letters (emboldened above) and randomgram them to meta answer DIABOLICAL, found by 159 solvers.
A few notes on the puzzle:
*** Several solvers wrote in to say that BEANED AT at 40-A, clued as [Tried to hit with, as a baseball], is not an in-the-language phrase. This surprised me, since I never questioned it, and even now it sounds completely right in my head (colloquial, but right). There’s some Google support for it, but not a lot. So let’s say that it’s not wrong but that I wouldn’t use it again!
*** I referred to the meta answer as being a random anagram above (i.e., the ten letters were in no particular placement in the grid, requiring the solver to anagram), but this isn’t exactly right. The five pairs of letters are together (D/I, A/B, O/L, I/C, A/L), but this was of essentially zero use to the solver until after the fact; each individual pair’s letters could be in either order, and the five pairs themselves are in no order in the grid. So, a de facto randomgram.
*** My original grid for this puzzle had AGGRAVATION and BALDERDASH as the A/B pair, clued as [Classic board game] and [Irritating nonsense]. But two of the three test-solvers used those two to crack the meta in under 15 minutes, so I re-did the grid on Friday night using the ATHLETIC/BRAVE pairing.
I had asked a well-known crossword editor to predict the number of right entries for the original grid, and he guessed 158. That did it — I told him that number was “unacceptable for a Week 5” and re-did the grid.
And how many right entries came in for the second grid? 159…which would have been 158 if this editor himself hadn’t entered! A spooky finish to the Halloween season.
This week’s winner, whose name was chosen at random from the 159 correct entries received, is Jeff Madsen of Mishawaka, Ind. In addition to a MGWCC pen, pencil and notepad set, Jeff will also receive a 1-year subscription to…well, it’s launching on Monday for sure, so I’ll tell you then! Via e-mail! And then next Friday on the site!
MONTHLY WINNERS:
Just 59 solvers submitted the correct contest answer to all five of October’s challenges (THE NEW YORK METS, CARSON CITY, PAUL MODRICH, STROM THURMOND, DIABOLICAL). The following ten skillful and lucky winners, chosen randomly from that group, will receive a MGWCC pen, pencil and notepad set:
Matthew Breen — Madison, Wisc.
Joe Fendel — Jerusalem, Israel
Dave Fergemann & Tilly Hatcher — Norwalk, Conn.
Jeffrey Harris — Nashville, Tenn.
Bob Kin — North Chesterfield, Va.
James Lynch & Carmen Kilpatrick — Providence, R.I.
Joon Pahk — Somerville, Mass.
Jill Palmer — Leverett, Mass.
Randy Rogers — Davenport, Ia.
Cynthia Wong — Mountain View, Calif.
Congratulations to our ten winners, and to everyone who went 5-for-5 in October. Wasn’t easy to do!
FEEL THE BIRN:
Congratulations to Evan Birnholz, who has just been named as The Washington Post‘s new Sunday crossword writer. He succeeds the late and great Merl Reagle in that position. Big shoes to fill, but Evan has some serious constructing chops.
THIS WEEK’S INSTRUCTIONS:
This week’s contest answer is a Best Picture-winning movie of the past 25 years.
IMPORTANT NOTE: As of January 2015 MGWCC is a subscribers-only crossword. The cost is $26 per year, and you can subscribe (or get a free trial month first) here:
Solve well, and be not led astray by words intended to deceive.