meta DNF
hello, and welcome to episode #882 of matt gaffney’s weekly crossword contest, a week 4 (maybe?) guest puzzle from Ben Chenoweth called “Crunch the Numbers”. this week’s puzzle challenges us to find a collection of numbers. what are the theme answers? five of the across entries are, in fact, just numbers, with weird clues:
- {Number of years Israel spent eating manna that was easy to heat in a pan? (2)} FORTY. so, what’s happening here? FORTY is the answer to the first half of the clue. the second half suggests FRY, with the parenthetical (2) corresponding to the two extra letters O and T.
- {Number of days of Christmas that’s oh so very quaint? (2)} TWELVE. quaint is TWEE, with (2) extra letters L and V.
- {Number of men on the dead man’s chest playing a small flute? (3)} FIFTEEN. a small flue is a FIFE, with (3) extra letters T, E, and N.
- {Number in a band name with a matchbox that contains a circus? (2)} TWENTY. “contains a circus” suggests a TENT, plus (2) extra letters W and Y.
- {Number of deadly sins for a movie sidekick? (1)} SEVEN. i don’t know which letter comes out for the movie sidekick. SEVE and SVEN are names; EVEN and SEEN are words; SEVN is about the only one i can confidently rule out. the only movie character named SVEN i can think of is the reindeer from frozen. i would not call him a sidekick, but maybe that’s what the clue refers to; if so, the (first) E is the extra letter.
so where does that leave us? the letters we’ve been instructed to look at are OT, LV, TEN, WY, and (perhaps) E. i hope it’s not another random anagram, but who knows—i do see TWENTY LOVE there, and i guess TWELVE TONY. neither of those is a thing, though both are close to being things (THIRTY LOVE and FIFTEEN LOVE are both tennis scores; TWELVE-TONE is a music theory term).
there are other ways we could order these letters if it’s not actually random—grid order is OTLVTENWYE, but we could sort them by numerical order (increasing ELVTENWYOT, decreasing OTWYTENLVE). i don’t think this is it.
there is, of course, an entire grid’s worth of stuff that is just sitting there. five short answers is very little theme material for a 15×15 grid. perhaps we are meant to look at the squares indicated by the theme numbers themselves: squares 40, 12, 15, 20, and 7 are I, F, P, T, and P. this would be a reason to have a large(ish) grid, as you’d want there to be at least a square numbered 40. that said, i don’t see what to do with these letters.
the four long answers in the grid are all 11s: STEREOTYPES, RITUALISTIC, APOLLO CREED, and OUT OF BREATH. could these have anything to do with the meta? it certainly seems possible, but i don’t see any semantic connection between them and the numbers. we could index into them, but if we do, there’s nothing to suggest which of the myriad possible ways we could apply the numbers to the answers is the right one.
i have to admit, i’m not feeling especially motivated to sink my teeth into this meta. my previous history with this constructor has left me with very little ability to distinguish intentional clues from constructing quirks. so i think i’m going to leave this be.
there was, of course, a whole additional meta, from matt himself, that came with all sorts of scary caveats. i didn’t actually attempt it, so i’m not blogging that one either, but feel free to pipe in about that one in the comments section here, too.
that’s all from me. perhaps next week will be something of a return to normalcy.
It took me a while to get out of the OT / LV / TEN / WY / E trap myself, but the key words formed by removing those letters correspond with clues to other entries in the grid:
FRY –> [Cook with oil] –> SAUTE
TWEE –> [Overly adorable] –> CUTESY
FIFE –> [Wind instrument] –> OBOE
TENT –> [Overhead protection from the elements] –> ROOF
SVEN –> [“Frozen” character] –> ELSA
First letters of those entries in thematic order spell SCORE.
I like your explanation better. This is why I should never attempt to postsolve metas :P
I’m curious if Ben intended SCORE to be a numerical reference (scores meaning lots and/or score = 20) or if he was thinking of score in the music sense, in that a show or movie’s score is a set of musical numbers/songs. I’m good with it either way, though I prefer the latter
I thought of it in the sports sense, like a scoreboard showing the number of points in a game, but I suppose there are a few ways to interpret it.
Re J’s latter suggestion, I took it to mean a musical score. An opera score, for instance, is a collection of “numbers” or songs.
That was indeed what I was intending.
Thanks! Nice to have the confirmation
Apologies if the numbers in brackets proved to be overly distracting (but all’s fair in love and metas! 😁) As for SCORE being “a collection of numbers”, I had in mind the score for a musical, with all its numbers (as in songs). I think I was inspired by Danny K. Bernstein’s fun Playbill series (https://www.xword-muggles.com/viewforum.php?f=56) which has had us first identify a musical in a meta puzzle, and then identify a song from that musical in the companion cryptic puzzle.
Crap, forgot to attempt this one…
Looking at the grid joon posted, I can tie 4 out of 5 of the sets of circled letters to numbers, I think:
OT=Unsure on this one…OLD TESTAMENT, OVERTIME?
LV=55 in Roman numerals, so square 55 is T.
TEN= the number 10, so S from SLAVS.
WY=44th state Wyoming, A from ASEAN.
E=5th letter of the alphabet, so…A? not 100% on this one either.
Based on three of the letters, my gut tells me the answer will be STATS.
Ah well, I’ll get back into it. Thanks for the puzzle Matt and Ben.
Ack!
I’ve missed so many week twos and threes (and fours, needless to say) in the past few months that I was shocked how easy I found this one. Drop out letters as indicated to make the other word referenced in the clue, find an alternate clue for that word, look at the first letters of the alternate answers. Done. We’ve had so many metas that include finding an alternate clue it’s a go-to for me now. I almost didn’t submit thinking there must be an extra step after finding SCORE.
Same.
As a meta constructor I am definitely on the look out for more complicated mechanisms that *don’t* involve “alternate answers to other clues”!
Delighted to get a Week 4. But it seems to me that Elsa is the main character, not a sidekick like Sven.
I don’t think the idea is that second half of each theme clue has to correspond with another entry in the grid; a ROOF isn’t something I’d say contains a circus, for instance. It’s that the word formed by removing certain letters in each number corresponds with the clue for another entry, e.g. a TENT is a form of overhead protection from the elements like a ROOF, SVEN is a “Frozen” character like ELSA, etc.
… “Be sure to drink your OTLVTENWYE” …
I didn’t submit my answer. I got to SCORE but I thought I was missing a part. The anagram of TWENTY LOVE sounds like a tennis score but it’s not.