Mike Shenk’s Wall Street Journal contest crossword, “For Good Measure”—Laura’s review
This week, we’re looking for a unit of measurement.
WSJ Contest – 9.20.19 – Solution
Step One: Note that there are four longer acrosses that seem unrelated in regard to surface meaning:
- [16a: Grade aid]: EXTRA CREDIT
- [26a: Asset for investors and city drivers]: STEADY NERVES
- [43a: Gate crasher]: BATTERING RAM
- [58a: “No, thank you,” e.g.]: POLITE REPLY
Step Two: Consider that there might be something hidden in the entries, like so:
EXTRA CREDIT
STEADY NERVES
BATTERING RAM
POLITE REPLY
ACRE, DYNE, GRAM, and LITER are all units of measurement, like our meta answer should be. Just lining those up doesn’t get us anything, so how do we get from these to the answer?
Step Three: Notice that each unit corresponds to a very brief clue that denotes what each measures, like so:
- ACRE == [20a: Area]: PLACE
- DYNE == [48d: Force]: IMPEL
- GRAM == [7d: Mass]: NODE
- LITER == [39d: Volume]: TOME
Step Four: Solve the meta! Those entries line up to spell PINT, which is a unit of measurement.
EXTRA CREDIT:
[65a: Cary of “The Princess Bride”]: ELWES had this to say about a rumored remake:
There’s a shortage of perfect movies in this world. It would be a pity to damage this one. https://t.co/5N8Q3P2e5G
— Cary Elwes (@Cary_Elwes) September 18, 2019
EXTRA EXTRA CREDIT:
Would somebody check the men’s room for a Hugh Jass? Why can’t I find Amanda Huginkiss? Here’s a supercut of [19a: Victim of crank calls from Bart]: MOE.
I somehow derived a fifth unit hidden in the central GIGUE = GIG (as in gigabyte) which is a unit of information (per Wikipedia) Alas, this rabbit hole has no egress!
Also MOLE. From MOLES. But it didn’t go anywhere either.
I enjoyed finding the wordplay in this one but it seems like it might have been solvable without it – if you just anagram the starting letters of the four entries that are clued by a [thing that can be measured], you get the answer. Maybe it would have been good to sprinkle in a few others that weren’t involved in the meta – Velocity, Distance, Time, etc. But overall, I liked it.
My own rabbit hole also involved a fifth entry…one that I could not find. The first letters of the hidden words did not spell anything, nor did their measurements (Land, Force, Weight, Volume). However, their LAST letters were E-E-M-R…oh so close to METER. Now where is that hidden unit of measurement that ends in T?
With “For” Good Measure, I should have known better.
I always forget to look at the clues- I had written down area, force, mass and volume, but focused only on the grid and got nowhere.
I honestly don’t understand the low ratings on so many puzzles these days. I’m almost reflexively going to rate them all as 5 to counter that.
I briefly considered whether “cent” might be a fifth unit, but it wasn’t as “clean” as the others, not in a long across, and too obvious instead of hidden across two words. I think Mike gifted us this week by isolating the relevant units in the clues instead of including them within a longer clue.
I got the correct answer by using different reasoning, which much to my surprise worked. Three of the units of measure were four letter words–one, liter was five letter, and I was looking for a four letter answer. A liter is larger than a pint by a small amount so it seemed that “for good measure'”could be interpreted as a little extra than a pint–Who’d a thunk it!!
I’d call this serendipity, not a system. Just saying.
Even a blind squirrel finds an acorn once in a while.
? ?
I have no idea what that response means. I guess you didn’t get the meta correct. Maybe you should get a blind squirrel?
Sorry, just being friendly. I “got” the answer only because it was given to me. I’ve learned over the years that you can’t “think of” the answer; you have to find it.
Other than your rare squirrel serendipity.
Actually, a liter is larger than a *quart* by a small amount.