WANT TO SUBSCRIBE TO MY CROSSWORD CONTEST?: MGWCC is available only to subscribers at my Patreon page. A subscription costs $3/month.
LAST WEEK’S RESULTS:
Title: “Center Yourself” by by Yossi Fendel
Prompt: This week’s contest answer is the two-word phrase you seek.
Answer: INNER PIECE (or INNER PEACE)
Correct entries: 309 overall, of which 233 were solo solves
Elegant meta from Supertester a.k.a. Yossi Fendel last week. Four grid entries entries were asterisked:
MANTA
AMISH
STEED
HARDY
And four were double-asterisked:
ASCII
STEIN
TAPAS
ALIST
Then the central entry, NORTHEAST, was also meta-related: [The meta answer, taken literally, when applied to (*) then (**), gives an abbreviation for this].
So we’ve got two sets of four 5-letter words, and then apparently the two extra letters NE added into the mix. What’s going on here?
With a nudge from the word lengths (all five letters), successful meta-solvers arranged each set of entries to form a word square with its center missing:
AMISH
MANTA
IN?ER
STEED
HARDY
TAPAS
ALIST
PI?CE
ASCII
STEIN
INKER? INTER? INNER? INFER? PIECE? PINCE? What to fill in? The NE from NORTHEAST, of course, as instructed. Which leaves the solver with both a general feeling and a literal message of meta-answer INNER PIECE. We had already agreed to accepted INNER PEACE as well since it’s plausible for a solver to make that last final switch as well (as 21 solvers did).
Asdanf writes:
Pretty great debut
Jason T says:
The perfection of this elegant meta did, in fact, bring me inner peace!
Gwinns notes:
Nothing gives me inner peace quite like solving the meta on Friday
Mark Woychick writes:
Really enjoyed the clueing of this puzzle – great debut, Yossi!
CrimsonHoo says:
Great job, Supertester!
David Stein writes:
Nice to be part of the Meta
And finally, boharr writes:
Great debut. More please.
Agreed. We’ve got 262 metas to go, so maybe he’ll step back up to the plate again one day. But for now, let’s move our attention to today’s guest meta…
GUEST CONSTRUCTOR MONTH 2022, WEEK 4:
Our Week 4 puzzle is by Brooke Husic. She writes:
I would’ve never dreamed I had a meta puzzle in me but, alas, Matt gets to say “I told you so”! I’m extremely grateful to him for encouraging me to branch out of my comfort zone and I hope you enjoy the results. You can find my indie themelesses on my blog, mainstream themelesses at The New Yorker, and easy themed puzzles at USA Today. I edit for AVCX, Inkubator, and Lollapuzzoola — my 2021 Lolla puzzle is what led Matt to reach out to me about this guest spot, and 2022 Lolla is happening in NYC and online in a mere 5 weeks!
Thanks, Brooke! Now let’s see what she’s planned for our Week 4 meta. NOTE: Today’s puzzle is going up a few hours early since I’ll be on the road until early this afternoon and don’t fully trust autopost. You can enter before noon but entries might not be verified until I get back later today.
THIS WEEK’S INSTRUCTIONS:
This week’s contest answer is what I used for my road trip around the country.
Solve well, and be not led astray by words intended to deceive.