Mike Shenk’s Wall Street Journal contest crossword, “Opposite Day” — Conrad’s writeup.
This week we’re looking for a five-letter word appearing in the clues. There were four starred theme entries:
- [18A: *Bearer of a signet impression]: SEALINGWAX
- [34A: *Cross the line]: GOTOOFAR
- [43A: *Become tiresome over time]: WEARTHIN
- [59A: *Rock-climbing feat without assisting equipment]: FREEASCENT
WSJ Contest – 09.15.24
I spun my wheels for a while, looking around the grid while trying to find a signal. I kept looking at the center entry TENABLE, thinking it might be thematic. The “TEN” in TENABLE prompted me me to look at the X in the SEALINGWAX/MIX crossing, exploring a (doomed) Roman numeral theory. I realized WAX became its opposite WANE by changing the X to NE. The down crossing also worked, becoming MINE. A failed rabbit hole finally helped me find step one: swap a letter in each themer with two others to create an antonym. Step two: MINE mapped to the clue for LODE. I worked out the rest, here they are in mapped grid order:
- WA(X)/MI(X): WA(NE)/MI(NE) -> LODE: [Source of ore]
- (F)AR/(F)ED: (NE)AR/(NE)ED -> ACHE: [Be wanting for]
- THI(N)/WRE(N): THI(CK)/WRE(CK) -> TOTAL: [Demolish]
- (A)SCENT/(A)ER: (DE)SCENT/(DE)ER -> ELK: [Animal with antlers]
The first letters of the mapped entries spell LATE. I scanned the clues and found IOWA, clued as Early caucus site, leading to our contest solution EARLY. Tricky meta, but quite fair. Mike created antonyms by swapping one letter for two: WAX/WANE, THIN/THICK, FAR/NEAR, and ASCENT/DESCENT. Impressive construction, especially considering the 15×15 grid. Solvers: please share your thoughts.
oh jeez. I wrote down WANE, NEAR, THICK as preliminary thoughts, but didn’t make the connection to 1->2 letter changes (or see the ASCENT -> DESCENT pair). Simple in retrospect!
Same here, thought the opposites hint in the title was a no-brainer but never snapped to the letter substitutions. Yet another “D’oh!” rather than an “Aha!” moment.
I didn’t get it, but very impressive. But isn’t the clue for ACHE wrong? If you’re wanting for something, you ache FOR that thing. The clue should be “Be wanting (for)” right? But that wouldn’t work with NEED, for which the original clue works. Or is there another way to parse a sentence with ACHE that makes the clue work?
The clue could have been simply “Want,” as a noun. That could have worked with ACHE or NEED, both as nouns.
Way too tricky for me, so I just looked for someone who starred opposite Doris Day. I found Lewis and Clark, but Jerry Lewis never made a movie with her and Clark was Gable’s first name. I went with Clark anyway. Saved me hours of torture and, with any luck, this will make my jet-lagged cousin, who deserves a mug, laugh.
Way too tricky for me, too. I got as far as realizing that the second half of each answer to a starred clue had an opposite (though I thought the opposite of “thin” was “fat”). Never managed to make any sense of it, though.
I almost made it: I got as far as finding “LATE”, but then I searched for a five- letter word that could be made with three of the letters in “LATE” plus two others. 55-Down was “Huffy state”, so STATE was my submission. I completely overlooked EARLY. D’oh.
STATE was my submission as well. I was 100% confident too! I was figuring the rebus in reverse was the trick.
Focused too much on ‘day’ instead of ‘opposite’. Also thought that ‘uno’ and ‘tre’ were hints.
Too tricky for me as well. I got hung up on the ‘opposite’ idea, quickly saw that ‘sealing wax’ had a familiar opposite in ‘floor wax’, and ‘free ascent’ had ‘free fall’. That obviously went nowhere.
I chose EARLY because of a different rabbit hole. I started by looking for days of the week in the starred themers. But kept seeing state abbreviations instead. That led me to seeking out the word state in the clues, the one for Iowa, and then early. Can’t say I would ever have found it via the actual meta.
Huh? I don’t understand this writeup…
Glad I didn’t spend much time on it.
That’s too big a reach.
Got hung up on FAT and LEAN being one entry apart (and their connection to WEAR THIN) and I never made it out of the rabbit hole.
Need more road markers or clues or hints on the first and last steps. Too great of leaps for me.