MGWCC #843

 

hi again, and welcome to episode #843 of matt gaffney’s weekly crossword contest, a guest puzzle by ben chenoweth called “Up in the Air”. for this week 4 puzzle, the instructions tell us that we’re looking for a 7-letter word. what are the theme answers? i don’t know. nothing is marked as thematic, and there are no long answers. i’ve struggled before with ben’s metas, so i was a little less taken aback than i was last time this happened to me. but there are once again many non-standard aspects of this crossword:

• a very high word count (84 in a 15×15 grid)
• a mutual cross-reference where IT’S ME is maybe a valid clue for BEN but not the other way around, despite the clues for both just being the symmetrically constructed {See 44-Down} and {See 39-Down}
• {Tide (biweekly displacement)} is a very odd clue construction for NEAP. i think it would be fine as {___ tide (biweekly displacement)}. but while NEAP itself can be a noun referring to a neap tide, a straight definitional clue does not generally include a parenthetical like that.
• {Title: Brit. detective} INSP. this is another clue phrasing that just feels a little bit off. what is the colon doing? why not {Title for a Brit. detective}? in other clues, tags are rendered in parentheses rather than after a colon, such as {Paramedic (abbr.)} EMT and {Titanic banquet (dialect)} NOSHUP.
• i’m similarly confuddled by the word order in {Tableware breakfast dish} EGGCUP. i would not bat an eye at {Breakfast tableware dish} or {Piece of breakfast tableware} or various other formations, but this order doesn’t make sense to me for reasons i can’t clearly articulate.
• {Basin under 69-Across} ARTESIAN is also just not how crossword clues typically work. 69-across is AUSTRALIA, where ben lives, so i believe this clue refers to the great artesian basin. however, the clue is a noun and ARTESIAN is an adjective, so it doesn’t really follow the agreement rules of crossword cluing. i don’t know whether the rule-breaking is meta-related or just the result of a constructor who is maybe less familiar with american crossword conventions. (i had the same difficulties with ben’s last guest meta.)
• {Ant-man Scott} LANG. this one is probably nothing, but the character’s name is Ant-Man with a capital M, and in a meta, any irregularity could be a hint.
• {“Quiet!”} SSH. i don’t think this is one of the ways you can spell this word in standard american english—i think it has to be only one S followed by one or more H’s. but i don’t know about australian english.

meanwhile, i have no idea what the first step is at all. none of the irregularities i noticed rang any sort of bell related to the puzzle title. the three longest answers (NIELS BOHR, DATE STAMP, AUSTRALIA) were likewise not exactly signal beacons to start the meta here. so i’m totally at sea.

there are the usual grasping-at-straws things: entries that sound like letters (SEE, TEE, maybe AXE depending on your axent) or other short words (OAR, ASHE, SEL, ATE, TAUT). clues with alternate answers ({A “D” of DVD} DISC could be DIGITAL, NEAP could be SPRING, EXALTS could be EXTOLS, {Name on “Star Wars” posters} ALEC could be a lot of other things). i don’t know.

well, this concludes a spectacularly unsuccessful month for me here, but at least i got week 1… mostly.