LAST WEEK’S RESULTS:
Title: “With This Ring, I Thee Solve”
Prompt: This week’s contest answer is a noted American institution.
Answer: THE NEW YORK TIMES, found by 211 solvers; an additional 52 were given credit for some version of “1-800 Number” or “Toll-Free Number,” which was a close call that not everyone agreed with
First of all: we’re 4/5ths of the way through this series now, and I’d like to thank each of you for showing up for these over the past 15 years. Whether you’ve solved 1 or (after today) 801: I’m glad you’ve been along for the ride, and hope you’ll stick around for the final lap.
Now, on to last week’s meta, #800:
First insight: it’s puzzle #800, and some of the clues have a curious thing in common. [Don Cheadle’s “Colors” character] for ROCKET was smooth enough to not raise too many eyebrows, and [Day care center concern] for LICE was pretty inconspicuous as well. And I hope folks enjoyed the shoutout at 60-A, where [Dell Champion Crosswords contributor] was ERIC ALBERT; these puzzles, published six times a year from around 1991 to around 1998, were where I first saw what we now call “meta-crosswords.”
But maybe then you got suspicious with [Double Chocolate Cake’s cover] for FROSTING or [Dutch cheese cruciverbalists crave] for EDAM and said, hmm, that’s a lot of DCCC cluing action. And wait — DCCC is the Roman numeral for 800, and this is puzzle #800! Gotta be on the right trail here.
Next step: circle the first letter of each of those eight DCCC clues in the grid and they spell out, in the usual grid order, TOLL-FREE (see Gridmaster T‘s graphic above). Well that’s not an “institution” (or is it? hold that thought) so we must be looking for something further. But what?
Eagle-eyed solvers noticed that seven entries contained a single-digit number in them, written out (see other graphic above). Those seven numbers, taken in clue order (I figured clue order was better than grid order here since most solvers would be circling them on the page) they are SIX-NINE-EIGHT-FOUR-SIX-THREE-SEVEN. Call that toll-free number of 1-800-698-4637 (or just Google it, but those who actually called it got a more fun a-ha) and you’ve reached contest answer THE NEW YORK TIMES, found by 211 solvers.
Now, what about the alt-answer? 38 solvers submitted “Toll-free numbers” or “1-800 Numbers” or similar. This included a number of solvers, both highly experienced and not-as-highly-experienced, who reached this and thought that “1-800 numbers” in general could be thought of as an “institution.”
It’s not great, but many were mystified when their answer was counted as incorrect. It’s hard to remember 30 years into the Internet Era, but pre-Web, 1-800 numbers were *everywhere*; seemingly every TV ad and print ad had one (instead of the URLs they have now). So based on the number of entries that came in like this I decided, with reluctance, to accept it as an alt-answer.
I think I should have just asked for a “major American publication” but I hate to use a prompt where the most-likely-to-be-guessed answer turns out to right, so I went with a vaguer one, which somewhat marred an otherwise nice puzzle. Alas, this is the life we have chosen and I hope those who got “NYTIMES” will forgive the wide net I felt obliged to cast this week.
OK, back to Week 1. 200 more to go…who’s with me??
THIS WEEK’S INSTRUCTIONS:
This week’s contest answer is a famous athlete.
Solve well, and be not led astray by words intended to deceive.