Matt Gaffney’s Wall Street Journal contest crossword, “Trending Ending” — Conrad’s writeup.
This week we’re told, The answer to this week’s contest crossword is how contest crosswords are created. There were five symmetric* theme entries that ended with two repeated letters:
- [Major fuss]: BROUHAHA
- [Sun-worshiping queen]: NEFERTITI
- [Lake on which Tenochtitlan was built]: TEXCOCO
- [“Distracted boyfriend,” e.g.]: SUPERMEME
- [Birth city of Barack Obama]: HONOLULU
*There was also a non-symmetric grid entry that ended with two repeated letters: REESES. I initially thought it was thematic, especially because it followed HONOLULU, forming the tantalizing potential partial contest answer …LUES. I searched for a repeated .C.C pattern before HONOLULU and found nothing.
WSJ Contest – 11.04.22 – solution
I solved the meta quickly once I abandoned that rabbit hole. Two of the symmetric repeated letters matched another 3-letter grid entry:
- BROU(HAHA): HA[S]
- NEFER(TITI): TI[L]
- TEX(COCO): CO[Y]
- SUPER(MEME): ME[L]
- HONO(LULU): LU[Y]
The final letter of each mapped grid entry spells SLYLY, our contest answer. Solvers: let me know how you made out. Did you spend any time in the …LUES rabbit hole?
I thought I was probably missing something.
I just saw all the vowels save Y and assumed we were looking for ?Y?Y which must be LYLY which must be SLYLY.
My thought process exactly
Me too.
Note that 63 across and 57 down taken together tell us to FORGET ESES!
Interesting!
Wow do you think he did that on purpose? Very clever.
I’m so intrigued by this! Matt, can you chime in to let us know if it was on purpose?
umm . . . 57D is ESTES
Also of note is that SLYLY fits the mechanism of the themers with the double repeaters. Nice job Matt!
Tough but fair, not for the uninitiated. I didn’t fall into any rabbit holes; I immediately saw the theme clues then looked for three letter words which is a mechanism used in the past.
And that was my solving experience as well.
I got the meta immediately (as JC said, very well known mechanism), but what does “trending” in the title have to do with anything?
Tr(ending Ending)
Dammit! I HAD this one but I let it get away.
I thought “why go with LUY/UVA instead of LAY/AVA or LOY/OVA or LEY/EVA” but I just couldn’t land the plane…
I think it’s interesting that HAHA, TITI, COCO, and LULU are all meaningful unrelatedly to the longer words, and I wanted that to be a thing. But a SUPERMEME is just a MEME.