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:
Title: “A Tale of Ten Cities”
Instructions: This week’s contest answer is an ancient city.
Answer: BABEL
Where are our ten cities, and what tale have they to tell? The first five are obvious, since they’re theme entries in the grid:
18-A: [Russian city where Yuri Gagarin went to flight school] = ORENBURG
23-A: [Japanese city where Mazda has its headquarters] = HIROSHIMA
37-A: [Italian city on the Adriatic] = TRIESTE
52-A: [English city known for its seaside roller coasters] = BLACKPOOL
58-A: [Hawaiian city whose team won the 2005 Little League World Series] = EWA BEACH. Here’s the finish:
Note the subtle hint in that last clue: why is EWA BEACH referred to as a Hawaiian city, instead of as an American one? Stay tuned…
The other five cities were only slightly tougher to spot, hidden in clues using that old foreign-word clue standard of “X, in Y”:
11-D: [Grandmother, in Granada] = ABUELA. Granada being the city in Spain, not to be confused with Caribbean island of Grenada (which is English-speaking).
21-D: [Thanks, in Beijing (use the first one, not the second)] = XIE XIE. Odd parenthetical — what can it mean? Stay tuned…
30-D: [Good, in Berlin] = GUT
40-D: [8, in Athens] = OKTO. Another odd little phrasing — why use the numeral instead of “eight” here? Stay tuned…
54-D: [Party, in Paris] = FETE
Next insight: notice that each of these is a down, while each of the theme entries is an across, and that each of the downs crosses an across. Or, in the case of XIE XIE, two acrosses. Perhaps this explains the mysterious parenthetical in its clue?
Final insight: to get the meta, you must translate the down clue as if the location mentioned had changed to the city it crosses. So we have:
Grandmother/Abuela in Orenburg, Russia, would be the fun-to-say BABUSHKA
Thanks/Xie Xie in Hiroshima, Japan, would be ARIGATO
Good/Gut in Trieste, Italy, would be BUON
8/Okto in Blackpool, England, would be EIGHT. This is why the numeral 8 was used in the clue; you need the English “eight” for the meta
Party/Fete in Ewa Beach, Hawaii, would be LUAU. But isn’t Hawaii both English and Hawaiian-speaking? Yes, but if you see the first words of the five clues not as political nationalities but as the languages to be used in the meta, you’ll see why it had to be Hawaiian.
The first five letters of those translations fittingly spell BABEL, as in “The Tower of Babel”. I also accepted Babylon as a correct answer, since it’s the same city (Babel is the Hebrew name for Babylon).
Golem writes:
“That is why it was called Babel, because it was there that God confounded the speech of the whole earth” – Genesis 11:9
thanman2 says:
Molto bene! Domo arigato.
And finally, re the helpful parenthetical in 21-Down’s clue, Meta-World Peace writes:
XIE XIE for that nudge!
This week’s winner, whose name was chosen at random from the 248 correct entries received, is Will Nediger of London, Ont. In addition to a MGWCC pen, pencil, and notepad set, Will will also receive a copy of Nate Cardin et al.’s new puzzle pack, Queer Qrosswords 2.
THIS WEEK’S INSTRUCTIONS:
This week’s contest answer is one way to solve metas.
Solve well, and be not led astray by words intended to deceive.