meta 0:10
hello and welcome to episode #636 of matt gaffney’s weekly crossword contest, “Team Meta”. i solved this week 1 puzzle without the instructions, and it wasn’t terribly tough. what are the theme answers?
- {Went all-out} SPARED NO EXPENSE.
- {Bookie’s number} POINT SPREAD.
- {With 41-Across, unceremoniously preparing to take a rival’s job} MEASURING / THE DRAPES.
- {He played Robert California on “The Office”} JAMES SPADER.
- {Did some grammatical work} PARSED A SENTENCE.
all of these contain a word that is an anagram of the letters ADEPRS. based on the title, i figured we were looking for anagrams of a sports team, and the obvious one is the san diego PADRES, which would’ve been a legitimate theme answer. (the only other anagram of those letters is RASPED, and although it’s a perfectly common word, there really isn’t a familiar expression that it’s a part of.)
nice clean, easy week 1 meta. i also enjoyed the grid’s big corners, with stacked 7s in all four corners. the clue right off the bat for 1a {Merv Griffin’s reads: “I Will Not Be Right Back After This Message”} EPITAPH made me laugh, and that’s a good start to any puzzle.
that’s all i’ve got this week. how’d you enjoy this one? tell me about it in the comments, or perhaps on saturday when i hope to “see” many of you at lollapuzzoola 13!
Thanks, Joon — 662 right answers this week.
I assume by the leaderboard, the committee didn’t like INSIGHT for last week.
Au contraire, I gave credit to all INSIGHT people. Assuaged my guilt a little.
What about “sleight”?
Hmm… l swore that’s what I entered but I only have a streak of 1 (I know I got PADRES).
I had Padres, but I think Reds should also be counted as it was in every theme entry.
eh, I rashly submitted REDS and while it is in every theme entry, PADRES is the clearly better answer – the letters of REDS are only found consecutively in PARSEDASENTENCE, and RED isn’t even consecutive in all themers.
Well, so was A’s…
Lol. You’re not the best of jokesters, but I have to admit that was a good one.
I got a chuckle out of that one Matt.
Thanks, Matt! I was so proud of getting insight ?
I’m in the same boat as Jared—Insight + Padres, but only a streak of 1
I put INSIGHT and don’t think it should be accepted. I was only 2/3 of the way to grokking the meta and came up short. It was a brilliant construction and the pieces were all there.