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LAST WEEK’S RESULTS:

Title: “Plural Transferral”
Prompt: This week’s contest answer are the two grid entries that, when combined, would make a valid fifth theme entry. Hint: one of them is six letters long.
Answer: CARPET SPECTRUM (or SPECTRUM CARPET)
Correct entries: 462, of which 408 were solo solves

Sometimes I themestorm for an hour and nothing happens; other times I randomly notice that VOWELS and WOLVES are anagrams of each other and that that is moderately interesting since it’s non-obvious upon comparing their singular forms that this will be the case. WOLF and VOWEL don’t look that close.

We had four examples of this in the grid, where different words’ plurals are anagrams of one another:

17-A: [Piece of paper you write your dissertation on?] = THESIS SHEET. THESES and SHEETS are anagrams.
30-A: [The “o,” “i,” or “e” in newsman Blitzer’s name?] = WOLF VOWEL. WOLVES and VOWELS are anagrams.
45-A: [Pig who enjoys a good Malbec?] = WINE SWINE. This was my backup if I couldn’t find a better entry, which I couldn’t, but I’m starting to view it as feature not bug. The similarity of that one pair is tantalizing. WINES and SWINE are anagrams. “Swine” is used in the singular in the clue (made sure to phrase it that what with the “who enjoys…” line so there was no ambiguity).
60-A: [Boat bash with parrots and eyepatches?] = PIRATE PARTY. PIRATES and PARTIES are anagrams.

What’s the similar pair in the grid? SPECTRUM at 3-D and CARPET at 38-A, since the Latinate plural SPECTRA is an anagram of CARPETS.

DIS notes:

20A takes on a new meaning after solving the meta.

Small Wave Dave says:

Like mine after spilling Froot Loops on it.

And Mike Lewis writes:

The first house we bought after we got married had four rooms that had four different colors of green on the carpet spectrum.

ATTENTION ACROSTICS FANS:

The New York Times isn’t supplying acrostics online anymore, but crossword guy (and MGWCC Webmaster) Alex Boisvert is. Try his acrostics Patreon here:

https://www.patreon.com/crosswordnexus/posts

THIS WEEK’S INSTRUCTIONS:

This week’s contest answer is a famous Irish person.

Solve well, and be not led astray by words intended to deceive.