Patrick Berry’s Wall Street Journal contest crossword, “Back and Forth” — Conrad’s review.
This week we’re looking for a ten-letter word. There were five long theme entries:
- [16a: Badges worn by reporters]: PRESSPASSES
- [21a: In a slipshod way]: NEGLIGENTLY
- [34a: Plan pushed by Dr. Atkins]: HIGHPROTEINDIET
- [45a: Likeness that reverses right and left]: MIRRORIMAGE
- [56a: “Believe what I’m sayin’ here”]: LETMETELLYA
I spotted step one (aided by MIRRORIMAGE): each theme entry contained two three-letter strings that were mirror images of each other (ESS and SSE in PRESSPASSES, NEG and GEN in NEGLIGENTLY, etc.). Then I overcomplicated a fairly simple meta by trying to map those three letters strings back to the grid, finding lots of three-letter entries with one changed letter:
- ESS/SSE -> ESC/USE
- NEG/GEN -> BEG/YEN
- TEI/IET -> LEI/???
- MIR/RIM -> ???/ROM
- LET/TEL -> LEI (again?)/???
WSJ Contest – 2.20.22 – Solution
That doomed theory worked surprisingly well, all things considered. I explored that dead rabbit hole a bit longer, abandoned it, and studied the grid. I noticed that each mirrored three-letter string was separated by two letters:
- PR(ESS)(PA)(SSE)S
- (NEG)(LI)(GEN)TLY
- HIGHPRO(TEI)(ND)(IET)
- (MIR)(RO)(RIM)AGE
- (LET)(ME)(TEL)LYA
Those five pairs of letters spell PALINDROME, our contest solution. Patrick Berry is known for creating metas with surgical precision, and this one is no exception. Let’s end with I Palindrome I by They Might Be Giants.
I found all the dead rabbit holes (an idiom I quite like, thank you) on this one. Even guessed the answer and was trying to work backwards to it and just couldn’t. Then tried the age old trick of setting it down and picking it up later… and solved it almost instantly.
No idea how any one could come up with such a theme and then create the theme answers to make it all work. Voodoo! Sorcery! Genius!
Big fan of this one.
The meta clue says we are looking for a ten-letter word. so I reasoned that each of the five Across themers had to yield two letters. I had the title in mind, so when I got MIRRORIMAGE I knew that was a hint. As this was one of the five, I started right there, and the RO fell out. I finished the grid and took it from the top, and got Palindrome — a perfect answer for this meta.
I meant to give this a 5 rating, but somehow fat-fingered on my iPhone and submitted a default 3. Why a 5?
— Meaningful title reenforced by a subtle hint
— Length of the answer given
— An answer that is in grid order, and a lock
+ And, that aptly matches the mechanism
— Despite four rows of 11-letter fill, plus one of 15, plus two 10-letter down fills, nothing in the grid was forced, archaic, (Abbr.), required math with Roman numerals, irregular, obscure, or required foreign language skills. Just a pure, clean, perfect grid.
“— Despite four rows of 11-letter fill, plus one of 15, plus two 10-letter down fills, nothing in the grid was forced, archaic, (Abbr.), required math with Roman numerals, irregular, obscure, or required foreign language skills. Just a pure, clean, perfect grid.”
In other words, a canonically perfect Patrick Berry puzzle! I totally agree on all counts.
Perfect puzzle.