meta 3 days
hello, and welcome to episode #874 of matt gaffney’s weekly crossword contest, a week 2 guest puzzle from peter abide called “High Marks”. this week’s instructions ask for a six-letter word. what are the theme answers? although this 17×17 grid has a handful of 8-9 letter answers and a whole lot of 6-7 letter answers, the ones we’re supposed to look at aren’t all long, but have starred clues:
- {*Ted, in baseball} WILLIAMS. slightly odd wording in this clue.
- {*Let’s hope} IF ONLY. this one is definitely odd, too—there should be quotes around the whole clue to indicate the spoken phrase equivalence of clue and answer.
- {*Buck’s mate} DOE.
- {*Z competitor} BMW. i don’t know what Z is in this context. if it’s another auto maker, i am not familiar with it. BMW Z is itself a line of sporty BMWs, but that doesn’t really satisfy the “competitor” in the clue.
- {*Chamber feature} ALCOVE.
- {*Fish} CASTANET. nope, it’s actually CAST A NET, even though CASTANET is a word in its own right (admittedly, a word rarely used in the singular).
so what’s going on here? it’s very clever—those clues also work if you replace the * with the word “star”, and can then satisfy a different word in the grid:
- {Started, in baseball} is essentially equivalent to {Was the opener, in the Major Leagues} PITCHED. “opener” is a fairly recent term in this context, referring to a pitcher who is normally a relief pitcher starting a game but only pitching an inning or two. this clue was what tipped me off first to the meta mechanism—i thought, “why not just say ‘started’ instead of using this much less famous term ‘opener'”?
- {Starlet’s hope} = {Award for Best Actress} OSCAR. this explains why there weren’t quotes in the original clue. i was originally unsure whether this might also refer to TONY, which is in the grid as well, but peter was quite careful to clue the six extra theme answers in the same context that they satisfy the modified */star clue. so this one clues specifically the best actress oscar, whereas TONY was {Tiger found in the cereal aisle}.
- {Starbuck’s mate} = {“Moby-Dick” narrator} ISHMAEL. “mate” in the general sense of crewmate, not the technical sense. starbuck himself was a mate (in fact, chief mate) of the pequod, with stubb and flask the second and third mate. ishmael was merely a harpooner, and not even starbuck’s harpooner (that was queequeg).
- {Starz competitor} = {Big name in video streaming} NETFLIX. i suppose they are competitors, although i don’t think of them as occupying quite the same sector of the market—starz is a premium cable channel, not a streaming service. however, starz does have its own streaming service, also called starz, so the clue works.
- {Star chamber feature} = {Great injustice} TRAVESTY. in my opinion, this was definitely the weakest link in the meta, as the connection between clue and answer is fairly tenuous, and indeed i’m not 100% sure this is the answer peter intended here (although i’m upwards of 90% sure). the star chamber is definitely a thing historically, but there isn’t really a crossworthy entry that could satisfy the clue {Star chamber feature}. maybe something like ARBITRARY JUSTICE. as for TRAVESTY itself, although it’s very frequently used in the locution “a travesty of justice”, there is nothing inherently justice-related about it. nevertheless, i think peter has done well to put injustice into the clue to make the meta click stronger.
- {Starfish} = {They’re found on beaches} SHELLS. they’re not fish, of course, and they are more properly referred to as sea stars, but “starfish” is definitely how some people refer to these echinoderms.
the meta answer comes from the first letters of those six alternate entries, taken in this order: POINTS. this is a nice click as far as the puzzle title goes—although an asterisk is a mark and stars are “high” (in the sky), you could not really describe stars in either sense as high marks. but POINTS ties it all together nicely.
playing on the familiar convention of asterisked clues and turning that into a meta mechanism involving stars was quite ingenious, and i really enjoyed this meta. some elements of the execution could have been smoother, though. i’m still not entirely satisfied about the star chamber clue, and in addition, that’s the only clue where there’s a space added between “star” and the beginning of the clue, whereas the others squish the word star onto the front of the first word. some of the fill was also a little creaky, but overall, this meta was really enjoyable. thanks to peter for the fun puzzle!
your thoughts?
This is a nice meta and I wish I had given myself more time to work on it …
I eventually got this, but for a while I was stuck on an apparent boat theme in the puzzle: The across entries start with CRAFTS and end with SHELLS, PITCHED in the middle, ISHMAEL, and the two entries with SEA. Plus the title could refer to High Water Marks.
Then, when I figured an alternate entry for DOE could be HIND, learned that Sir Francis Drake famously sailed on the Golden Hind, and saw DOE crossed OLDEN, I thought I was on the right path. But no!
What a fantastic meta! Definitely was musing over why “Let’s hope!” didn’t have quotes around it – I love conversational clues and that felt unusual. I had STARTED before PITCHED in the original fill, though what tipped me off was staring at Buck’s mate and realizing Starbuck was in “Moby Dick,” and I remember the Ishmael clue. For a bit, I thought the starred entries might themselves have alternates, but “Ted, in baseball” would’ve been tough other than WILLIAMS.
Well done, Peter! You get a gold star/sticker/POINTS for this one!
This was a cute meta, though I was definitely puzzled by the fact that “Starfish” doesn’t really clue “SHELLS”. I suppose you can say that the *clue* “Starfish” (not the answer) is clued by “They’re found on beaches”, but that’s a bit clunkier for some of the other ones that are more like definitions than names…
This inconsistency had my searching for alternate answers for quite some time, especially since POINTY could have been a valid alternate answer if there was a reasonable “Y” entry related to starfish in the grid. I ultimately decided this was the best fit, but glad to see I wasn’t alone on thinking this one didn’t quite match up
In my next life I would change SHELLS to SNAILS (clued as “Beach invertebrates”) 😃
Same, this gave me pause for a while.
My meta spidey sense was shouting “alternate entries to weird clues!” but I never saw the mechanism. Nice meta, wish I’d gotten it!
Starting this puzzle at 10:25 today was a mistake in retrospect, but I managed to figure it out in time. I thought the clue [Ted, in baseball] was really weirdly worded, so I thought we had to add something to the beginning for it to make sense. I flirted with musical notes (Doted, in baseball? Fated, in baseball?), when to letter grades (Aceted? Ated? Plusted?) and then finally noticed PITCHED in the middle of the grid, how weirdly that entry was also clued and everything fell into its place.
Well, sorta. I agree with Joon that [Starchamber feature] is the weakest link and I had to backsolve it (I settled on either TRIO or TRAVESTY, although TNTS would be an interesting feature for sure)
Thanks, Peter and joon! 263 correct answers this week.
Agree that this is a fun & outstanding meta!
I was entirely hung out to dry by the six entries that had isolated letters (excluding letters that are words, such as A in CAST A NET):
31a LA-Z
88a O CLOCK
5d T SHIRTS
8d SUSAN B
42d L IS
60d Q SCORES
75d U TILE
Needless to say, I was unsuccessful in linking them to either the starred clues or other entries in the grid.
So…I was a teacher for 35 years. The theme answers started with W, I, A, B, C, and D. The title was “High Marks.” Anybody wanna guess where my brain went?
Including “Withdraw” and “Incomplete,” these are all the marks I’ve ever given except F, the one that certainly isn’t high.
The title “High Marks” was particularly helpful for me, since asterisks are raised in typography and in handwriting. That’s what gave me the click to treat the asterisks literally.
I don’t think I’ve ever seen that trick before. Very subtle.