LAST WEEK’S RESULTS:
Title: “You’ve Got to Stand for Something”
Prompt: This week’s contest answer is something I hope you’ll be doing after getting the meta.
Answer: ROTFLMAO, found by 316 solvers, of which 235 were solo solves
Week 1? Hardly. More like a Week 2.5. We had four long theme entries in our 15×17 grid:
17-A: [Computerized image of Jill Biden?] = FLOTUS JPEG
30-A: [Really not wanting to skip the office’s happy hour?] = TGIF FOMO.
48-A: [Ambitious goal for an up-and-coming entertainer?] = EGOT ASAP
70-A: [Rachel Maddow saying “Carpe diem!” to her viewers, for instance?] = MSNBC YOLO
So we’ve got eight acronyms/initialisms in there, but now what? Answer: notice that each of these eight crosses a word that’s one letter off from what its crossing letter stands for. Like so:
17-Across:
FLOTUS, where the S stands for STATES, but crosses STARES, yielding the R
JPEG, where the E stands for EXPERTS, but crosses EXPORTS, yielding the O. Party foul! This should cross the E, not the P. Big blot, but I can only say that this puzzle went through many iterations and I had it right on the first few grids (that didn’t work) but then absentmindedly used the strong P in JPEG (which is also present in EXPERTS) instead of the correct E. One full star off for that ratings-wise. In my defense, this meta was far more confusing to write than it looks!
30-Across:
ITT, where the I stands for ITS but crosses ITT, yielding the T
FOMO, where the second O stands for OUT but crosses OFT, yielding the F
48-Across:
EGOT, where the E stands for EMMY but crosses ELMY, yielding the L
ASAP, where the S stands for SOON but crosses SOMN, yielding the M
70-Across:
MSNBC, where the S stands for SOFT but crosses SOFA, yielding the A
YOLO, where the L stands for LIVE but crosses LOVE, yielding the O
Those spell contest answer ROTFLMAO, which stands for “Rolling On the Floor Laughing My A$$ Off.” Apologies for the slight vulgarity there but familiar eight-letter initialisms are hard to come by so my choice was limited.
THIS WEEK’S INSTRUCTIONS:
This week’s contest answer is a famous band with four letters in its name.
Solve well, and be not led astray by words intended to deceive.