MGWCC #86

crossword 8:27
puzzle 4:55
hello there and welcome to the 86th episode of matt gaffney’s weekly crossword contest, “My Metapsychology,” in which we are asked to identify a familiar game show host. the starred answers (seven of them!) don’t appear to have anything to do with game show hosts, so there must be some metapsychology at work. let’s have a look:

• {“Have no fear!”*} is “BE BRAVE!”
• {G.A. Henry’s classic history of the Hundred Years War*} is AT AGINCOURT. i don’t know the historian, but i’m familiar with the battle so this wasn’t that tough to piece together, especially when i had NCOUR in the middle.
• {How people traveled before cars*} is BY BUGGY. true enough, but this seems like the least “in the language” of the theme phrases.
• {Considered separately*} is IN ISOLATION. good answer.
• to {Intentionally shed one’s journalist objectivity*} is to GO GONZO. great answer.
• {Royal palace outside Madrid*} is EL ESCORIAL.
• and {Now and then*} is ON OCCASION.

what do these phrases have in common? well, the first thing that jumped out at me was they all start with two-letter words (or names). the next thing i noticed was that the second word started with the same letter as the first word. the third thing i noticed was that it ended with the same letter, too! so they’re all of the form XY X___Y: BE BRAVE, AT AGINCOURT, BY BUGGY, IN ISOLATION, GO GONZO, EL ESCORIAL, and ON OCCASION. as usual, the title also fits the pattern: MY METAPSYCHOLOGY.

so who’s the mystery game show host? i would have had this very quickly, but on my first pass, i somehow failed to notice the two vertical theme answers and i thought i was dealing with only five. so i started by trying to anagram the ten letters: BE/AT/BY/IN/GO. my first guess was BOB YEATING, which turns out to be just as made-up a name as it sounds. i scoured the list of 200+ game show hosts on wikipedia (particularly on the lookout for the letter Y), and finally kicked myself when i came across TY TreadwaY, the erstwhile host of merv griffin’s crosswords. yes, he’s got a Y; no, he doesn’t have two Bs; but more importantly, his name also fits the theme. even better, i actually know who he is, although that’s only because i’ve seen the youtube clip of our hostess on said game show. wait, no, i would know him anyway because KMT put him in a NYS ThTh some time after that.

this crossword was tougher than last week’s, and about the same as the week before. i was definitely guessing in some places:

• {Big root vegetable (one letter off from a game-show host’s surname)} is MANGEL, one letter off from howie mandel of deal or no deal. never heard of it, and the clue actually helped me.
• that was a knotty area because the clue for MY MAN, {Address to a close friend}, isn’t exactly the most specific, and {Down with} for the french expression À BAS wasn’t screaming “french” to me. {Core issue} for NUB is straightforward, but i was expecting it to be unstraightforward (as in, material issued from a nuclear reactor core or something). and the across clue {1966 hit by The Who}, I’M A BOY? never heard of it. my who knowledge is fairly scant, though i like tommy and the handful of other songs that i actually know (“my generation,” “baba o’reilly,” … and a friend of mine from grad school adopted “won’t get fooled again” as his personal grad school anthem. i thought it was an apt choice.).
• do you agree with the clue for ESC, {Key hit with the left pinky}? that’s not how i roll. i put TAB in first, because when i hit ESC, i move my entire hand and get it with my middle finger.
• what’s your GAO clue preference, the government accounting office, as this puzzle’s {Fed. number crunchers}, or 2000 literature nobelist GAO xingjian? i’ll take the author, although it’d be way cooler to work his given name (or full name) into a grid.
• speaking of obscure nobelists, GAO crossed the {1993 Economics Nobelist Robert} FOGEL at the G. who is this guy? he didn’t formulate the theory of DERIVED DEMAND, did he?
• more game show content: {White in a dress} is VANNA of the price is right wheel of fortune. this clue did not fool me. (edited to add: it apparently confused me enough to write the wrong game show, though. thanks to evad for the correction.)
• math content! ADA lovelace is the {Mathematician called the “first programmer”}. a NONAGON (figure with 9 sides) is a {Hot tub shape, sometimes}. really? octagon or dodecagon, sure, but 9? BINOMIAL is the {Word before coefficient or theorem}. pascal would be proud! if only he were still alive, spoke english, and did crossword contests.
• i’m in a gracious mood today, so i’ll give matt a pass on ELI crossing YALE in the NE corner. next time i want to see CRIMSON crossing HARVARD.
• obligatory geography: {England’s second-largest city, in shorthand} is B’HAM, for birmingham. did you know that? i tried MANC first. birmingham city is not the footballing powerhouse that man united (or even man city) is, but they’ve been on a roll and recently dumped everton out of the FA cup. they are now unbeaten in their last 15 matches. not bad for a mid-table team, eh?
• more geography: the {Lofty capital} is LHASA, tibet, at an altitude of 11,000 feet. HALIFAX is the {Maritimes metropolis}. and more generically, -BURGH is a {City, in combinations}.
• mystery spanish: SUS is {Juan’s your}. wait, is it juan’s, or mine?
• favorite clue: {He’s not guarded like he used to be} for an EX-CON. runners up are the intersecting trying-to-hide-the-proper-name clues {Rove around the various TV channels} for KARL and {Shaggy voice} for noted voice actor casey KASEM.
• clue i don’t understand: {Nudge} = SIGN. why?

that’s all for me. see you in the comment box.