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LAST WEEK’S RESULTS:
Title: “Examples Abound”
Prompt: This week’s contest answer is a 19-letter phrase that could be MGWCC’s motto.
Answer: BETTER LATE THAN NEVER
Correct entries: 568, of which 541 were solo solves
Publishing late a lot in the past year, unfortunately, but at least something good has come of it (this meta).
The central grid-spanner’s clue at 32-Across read:
[When MGWCC #774 was released — sadly and typically over the past year, 24 hours behind schedule; it appears nineteen times on this page] = APRIL FOOL’S DAY. That’s odd — how would April Fool’s Day appear 19 times on the page? Well, that would be 4/1 in calendar shorthand; say it aloud and you’ve got “for one,” a phrase that ends many a crossword clue. There are 19 instances of it herein:
1-A: [Home plate, for one] = BASE
15-A: [The Kansas City Chiefs, for one] = TEAM
17-A: [LSAT, for one] = EXAM
24-A: [Oliver Twist, for one] = LAD
27-A: [Ada Louise Gaffney, for one] = TOT. That’s my 2-year-old if you didn’t know.
37-A: [Shari Lewis’s puppet Lamb Chop, for one] = EWE
38-A: [Conventiongoer, for one] = TOURIST. Not always, as joon pointed out.
48-A: [Dunn, for one] = NORA
51-A: [Kudzu, for one] = VINE
53-A: [December 24, for one] = EVE
57-A: [Siesta, for one] = NAP
7-D: [Ralph Waldo Emerson’s “Circles,” for one] = ESSAY
9-D: [The Bhagavad Gita, for one] = TEXT
21-D: [Howard Hughes, for one] = RECLUSE
25-D: [King Kong, for one] = APE
42-D: [Leon Ray Livingston, for one] = HOBO. I feel like Hughes, Emerson, and Livingston would’ve gotten along well together.
43-D: [51 in Nevada, for one] = AREA
47-D: [Aerie, for one] = NEST
50-D: [Longoria, for one] = EVA
Highlight the first letter of those 19 entries and, in the usual grid order, they spell our contest answer.
THIS WEEK’S INSTRUCTIONS:
This week’s contest answer is a book once selected for Oprah’s Book Club.
Solve well, and be not led astray by words intended to deceive.