MGWCC #859

 

hello, and welcome to episode #859 of matt gaffney’s weekly crossword contest, a week 3 puzzle from guest constructor Peter Gwinn called “Shifty Behavior”. this week’s instructions tell us that The solution to this puzzle is something you can use to solve it. what were the theme answers? well, there are no long answers in this slightly smaller (13×13) grid, but five clues start with a special character:

• 1a {†Home for a bear} LAIR.
• 16a {†Hunk of something} WAD.
• 25a {†Online annoyance} LAG.
• 2d {†Grp. that’s active in DC} ACLU.
• 9d {†Nondairy milk option} OATLY.

that † character is an obelus, or dagger, and although it’s a standard typographical character often used like an asterisk (to indicate a footnote, especially on the same page after an asterisk has already been used to indicate an earlier footnote), it’s not normally seen in crossword clues the way asterisk is. also noteworthy in this context is the last across clue: 54a {Words right after Caesar felt a dagger} ET TU. so we’re certainly supposed to be doing something with these dagger clues. but what, exactly?

my first thought is that they are probably worded vaguely enough that they allow for alternate answers. like a bear’s home could be a DEN, a hunk of something could be a SLAB, online annoyance could be a TROLL, there are (so, so) many groups active in DC, and a nondairy milk option could be SOY or or ALMOND or any of various brand names. so that’s something to think about.

the other noteworthy thing is that all five of those † clues are for answers in the top half of the grid. so i suspect that if we’re looking through the grid for five more hidden theme answers, they’re in the bottom half, which is otherwise wholly unconstrained except for ET TU itself.

let’s have another think about the ET TU clue. i’m not sure how to interpret “right after”. i don’t think it’s a matter of looking at the clues or answers following the dagger clues, but maybe it is. it’s also possible we’re meant to append ET TU or perhaps just TU to things. or, since ET TU means “and you” in latin, we’re supposed to think about “and you” (or maybe just “you” or maybe just “U”).

one more thing i don’t know what to make of is the title, which seems to be totally unrelated to the dagger stuff and the ET TU clue. i assume “shifty” rather than “behavior” is the relevant part. we might be meant to parse it as “shift + y”, or maybe just “shift” is the clue. broadly speaking, since the dagger is a special typographical character, that could suggest shift on a keyboard, but of course, the dagger isn’t found on standard keyboard layouts at all. maybe ET TU homophonically suggests “2” and then shifting it would give us the @ symbol. but that all feels like a leap.

the last (maybe?) unusual feature this week is the existence of two PDFs, about which we were told “use whichever one you prefer (or both even!)”. the second one looks like a normal PDF (grid in upper right, three columns of clues, sans serif font—maybe arial?), but the first one is unusual. it’s two pages (seemingly quite unnecessarily for an undersized puzzle), has the grid on top and then one column each of across clues and down clues, and appears to be in times new roman. there also appears to be a space between the dagger and the “Grp.” in the clue for 2-down on this PDF, but not the other one; i doubt we’re supposed to read into that, though.

oh hey, remember when i said that DEN could be a {Home for a bear}? DEN is in the grid at 47a, clued as {Code for the largest (by area) airport in the Western Hemisphere} DEN. oh, and it’s right after {Alter ego of Cindy Moon, who was bitten by the same spider as Peter Parker} SILK—and SILK is another nondairy milk brand. yeah, this definitely feels relevant although i can’t yet connect it to daggers or the ET TU clue. okay, yeah, i can definitely find alternate answers for all five dagger clues:

• 1a {†Home for a bear} LAIR, or 47a {Code for the largest (by area) airport in the Western Hemisphere} DEN.
• 16a {†Hunk of something} WAD, or 44a {Eldest brother on “Arrested Development”} GOB.
• 25a {†Online annoyance} LAG, or 33a {Suffix after nano or Auto} BOT.
• 2d {†Grp. that’s active in DC} ACLU, or 53a {Mrs. ___ Man} PAC.
• 9d {†Nondairy milk option} OATLY, or 45a {Alter ego of Cindy Moon, who was bitten by the same spider as Peter Parker} SILK.

as i suspected, they’re all in the bottom half of the grid. but now what? i still haven’t had any kind of aha moment about either the title or the daggers, and it doesn’t appear that the meta answer is derived directly from these five alternate answers. there’s definitely still something we need to do with the daggers.

one idea i had is to look for words formed by dagger shapes in the grid. for example, 33a BOT is crossed by 27d CODEINE at the O, and you could highlight a dagger shape where BOT and CODE cross. that’s mildly interesting (especially given that “code” is the first word of the DEN clue). GOB crosses the POIN(T) of ON POINT, which is also interesting. but the others don’t play as nicely. PAC, in particular, being located in the bottom row of the grid does not lend itself to being part of a dagger shape. and SILK is four letters, which means for it to be part of a dagger it’d have to be sideways, unlike the typographical daggers in the puzzle.

what about ET TU? combining that with PAC does suggest TUPAC, which … is a thing, but it doesn’t seem to be related to anything else in the puzzle.

the dagger also resembles a lowercase t (in some fonts—though not the font used in either PDF version). i’m not sure this is what we’re going for, though. i don’t see anything interesting happening when i try to stick a t into BOT, GOB, SILK, DEN, or PAC.

back to the title. what could this be a reference to? if it is indeed “shift + y” and we’re supposed to be thinking about the Y in addition to the shift, what could that be about? “y” is the spanish word for “and”, cognate to the latin ET of ET TU. i’m not sure that’s anything though. i guess shift + 7 gives us “&” which is also “and”. again, this all feels like a stretch.

okay, time to put myself in the constructor’s shoes. how did this meta get made? i think it must have been peter’s intent to build it around the five answers BOT, GOB, SILK, DEN, PAC, and then draw attention to those using alternate answers to the clues marked with daggers. so there should be something these five answers have in common—perhaps a manipulation you could make to each of them, relating somehow to daggers and/or ET TU, because otherwise why not just use asterisks like any other puzzle? i don’t think it can be some semantic commonality, or even homophones since GOB bluth of arrested development is pronounced differently from GOB meaning a hunk of something.

how about the ET TU clue? ET TU was spoken by caesar (in shakespeare’s version, anyway) to brutus, who made “the most unkindest cut of all” and delivered the last of the 23 stab wounds. according to wikipedia, there were in fact five conspirators who delivered these stabs—that’s potentially promising. in order, they were publius casca, cassius, servilius casca, deci(m)us brutus, and marcus brutus. well, i was hoping those would correspond to our five answers, but they do not seem to.

i’m afraid i’m going to have to admit defeat here—i feel like i got close on this, but there’s definitely a big aha that i’m missing. my hail mary guess is LATIN, which is a five letter answer that might be relevant. but mostly i’m interested in knowing what i missed.

edit: matt asked me to post these explanatory images from gridmaster t.