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LAST WEEK’S RESULTS:
Title: “Brains Over Brawn”
Instructions: Which two entries in this grid combine to make a good title for the puzzle?
Answer: TORN / MUSCLES
“Not a strong click,” my consigliere warned me on this puzzle. I brushed his concerns aside but as the entries rolled in the wisdom of the consigliere was confirmed; solvers were getting the right answer for the most part, but not 100% sure when they submitted. That’s not good.
Our five (not four; easy to miss the short central one) theme entries were:
17-A [Common item used in arts and crafts] = PIPE CLEANER
11-D [Trendy electrical engineer] = NIKOLA TESLA
55-A [Their tracks are small] = MODEL TRAINS
25-D [Tries from the 15-yard line] = EXTRA POINTS
37-A [Fish often served whole] = SEA BASS
Each of those conceals a shortened form of a muscle, spread out over two words: PEC, LAT, DELT, TRAP, and AB. You might say they are “torn” across those words, yielding contest answer injuries TORN MUSCLES (at 32-A and 27-A).
And then the I-guess-this-must-be-right…? answers started coming in:
Andy Kravis:
as in, they’re torn across two separate words?
AK37:
I’m not 100% sure but this has to be it. “Torn” across two words in all 5 cases.
Eckless:
I’m pretty sure this is right…muscles because they’re hidden in the theme answers, “torn” because they’re abbreviated versions of their full names?
Squonk:
Feel like I’m missing something again, but TORN seems like the best word here. The hidden muscles are split between the two words in the entry. Plus “torn muscles” is a thing.
So that’s not exactly the level of solver certainty a meta-writer wants to hear. Another issue that several solvers mentioned was that they rather expect the hidden words to be spread over two (or more) words in the entry, so that aspect of it didn’t stand out to them.
In a nod to the weakness of the click, the Panel voted 2-2 with one abstention to accept NERDY MUSCLES as a correct answer, submitted by 29 solvers. It’s certainly not a great answer (and most who submitted it weren’t too confident in it), but the title “Brains over Brawn” was unhelpful enough that two judges said it should be taken, and ties go to the solver. I meant the title as just “use your brains to conquer this brawny crossword” but a reasonable solver could’ve expected a “brainy” part of the mechanism, hence NERDY.
Not my best week, but a new week is upon us, so let’s move right along…
This week’s winner, whose name was chosen at random from the 418 correct entries received, is Pancho Harrison of Denver, Colo.. In addition to a MGWCC pen, pencil, and notepad set, Pancho will also receive a copy of Henry Hook‘s Munchkin Crosswords (written under the nom de grid Pete Naish). Next week’s winner will receive the same.
THIS WEEK’S INSTRUCTIONS:
This week’s contest answer is a six-letter word that has a homophone.
Solve well, and be not led astray by words intended to deceive.