crossword 6 hours to write
Matt here filling in for Joon, who’s at an axe-throwing competition in either northern South Dakota or southern North Dakota (I forget which).
Four phrases needed their ampersand translated to clue a different entry in the gird, yielding contest answer PAIR. Thanks to Gridmaster T for the visuals.
Thanks to everyone who solved MGWCC in 2022, and especially to joon for blogging them!
ack, sorry—i forgot what day it was because my kids have the day off from school.
i loved this meta! it was actually one of my favorite of the year, maybe of the entire series. quite straightforward but so brilliantly and elegantly executed, highly satisfying at every step, and with a perfect final answer as payoff. hats off to matt for this meta and for another terrific year of metas!
+1
I liked it a lot too and enjoyed the get, but because of the holiday and sports-filled weekend, i didn’t get it until about 20 minutes ago. Since we don’t get in the raffle for prizes anymore, i don’t worry about missing quite as much.
Also, i learned Breton is a Celtic language. Another great thing about MGWCC: All the things i’ve learned over the years.
DNF but very elegant.
Happy 2023 to all!
For other reasons, I had the Y/LYON/REIMS connection – I was trying to change each & into a letter to find a word which would then pair with another grid entry. However, that was the only “singleton” of those four. Which is why I failed – I didn’t go far enough, should have seen that “Y” and Garcia Y Vega was a correct path.