MGWCC crossword 2:32
meta DNF 3 days 
[3.38 avg; 8 ratings] rate it
hello, and welcome to episode #892 of matt gaffney’s weekly crossword contest, a week 1 puzzle called “When Seconds Count”. i’m back in the saddle after a two-week vacation in korea with my family. major thanks to evad for capably filling in for me during my absence! anyway, what have we got here as far as this week 1 meta? four silly made-up theme answers, all of which both begin and end with a double letter:
- {People who shear wool all day?} LLAMA STAFF.
- {Gamete formation need?} OOGENESIS EGG. this is a bit of a redundant one, since oogenesis just means egg production.
- {Economic protest at a haunted house?} EERIE BOYCOTT.
- {Piece of WNBA star Ogwumike’s hair?} NNEKA TRESS.
well, the double letter part stands out, but what next? taking those letters gives LFOGETNS, which spells nothing. the title isn’t helping much—i don’t know if “seconds” is referring to the double letters or just the second letters (LTOGEONR, which also doesn’t spell anything). in a week 1 puzzle, i’m not expecting to have to do something more leap-of-faithy like counting the letter frequencies in the grid (even though counting is suggested by the title). i haven’t looked at the instructions yet, but i think it’s time, because i’m getting nowhere.
This puzzle’s contest answer is one of the fifty people who have served as U.S. vice president. oh. well, i certainly wasn’t expecting that. uh, i guess that probably makes the answer AARON BURR, who would fit this theme.
it’s a bit of a weird one, since none of the letters in the theme answers are used at all, just their general pattern. in such cases i’d always prefer it if the instructions included some phrasing such as “… that would have made a good theme answer in this puzzle”, because otherwise i’m generally left feeling unsatisfied by the fact that i haven’t used the specific theme answers at all. in this case, we’re not supposed to use the LFOGETNS letters. that’s okay, if we’re told not to use them, but if we’re not told that, i think it’s reasonable to expect that the meta would make use of them.
that’s all i’ve got this week—how’d you like this one?
Huh. I got this one wrong as I thought his name was Aihhnn Buhhh.
Signed,
That guy in the “Got Milk?” commercial
Oh wait…I just remembered details of that commercial…
I guess I should have said:
Signed,
A guy who learned everything he knows about Aihnn Buhhh from that “Got Milk?” commercial.
Completely agree with Joon, don’t expect this kind of misdirection in the title and themers in a Week 1 challenge. Also agree that the alternate title (‘would have made a good theme answer’) would have helped considerably — this is, after all a WEEK 1 meta, Matt!
Puzzle: MGWCC; Rating: 2 stars
Count me as another one who WAY overthought this puzzle because of the title. I took the second letters starting with the doubles, excluding the doubles, etc., trying to figure out what I was missing. The alternate meta clue would have been much easier.
Puzzle: MGWCC; Rating: 2 stars
Also, the doubled letters on the downs didn’t help. The title points to those as well as the accrosses. As Joon suggested, changing the instructions would have fixed this otherwise clever puzzle.
Wow, surprised by all this. Thought it was straightforward but novel. 440 right answers received, 99% correct. I aim to make these non-formulaic…
Puzzle: MGWCC; Rating: 5 stars
We also chased various over complex possibilities but think this was fair. We looked at the list but of vps but needed more flexibility!
After initial paths like those stated above, I realized Matt only wanted the pattern of two double letters. Aaron Burr came to mind, but then I checked the list of VPs. There may be something I’m not seeing that make it exclusively Aaron Burr, but there are other VPs who satisfy the pattern of a double letter in both words. Millard Fillmore was Zachary Taylor’s V.P. before succeeding him. Granted, it’s the same letter, unlike the theme answers. There’s also William Wheeler, who was V.P. under Rutherford Hayes.
I think the distinguishing factor is that Aaron Burr’s double letters are at the beginning and end of his name
The salient feature of the theme entries is that they start and end with a double letter
I’ve missed enough Week 1’s now that I’m starting to enjoy the “D’oh!” moments almost as much as the “Aha!” moments.
Anyone out there get it with no instructions? The email with instructions came while I was struggling with the meta, and I read it before the idea that it contained the instructions had a chance to sink in. I don’t think I would have gotten it anyway, but on reflection it’s maybe not impossible that someone could. Fourth of July and “Seconds” could prime “veeps”, …
I don’t get the complaint that with instructions it’s not a week 1. You might have had to google, but you don’t get far down the list of veeps before it hits you.
Puzzle: MGWCC; Rating: 4.5 stars
I’ve spoken about this before, and I don’t want to become one of those commenters who just makes the same observation every week, so I’ll just make one more attempt to articulate myself on the matter and then leave it be.
I don’t really see the point of a self-handicap unless the exercise has become so absurdly easy for you that you *need* a self-handicap or else you won’t enjoy it. So when Joon writes about puzzling over the answer to the meta for three days before finally caving and reading the instructions, it just reads like “Casey at the Bat” to me, a weird sort of self-sabotaging pride that results in unnecessary waste and loss. Except that we sort of laugh at Casey and want to see him fail, whereas I identify with Joon and want to see him succeed.
“It’s your puzzle, solve it how you want,” as Will Weng said, and he’s not wrong. But it seems like if you’re going to blog the puzzle for others to read about, you should be solving it the way it seems designed to be solved, no? Isn’t that more relatable for the likely reader? (And yes, I have a similar opinion about downs-only or acrosses-only solving. You need the challenge, go right ahead, but if you’re stuck, don’t act like it’s CHEATING to do it the way the rest of us rubes do it.)
Admittedly, for all my interest in crosswords and their solutions, I’m no expert solver. I’m never gonna place top ten in a major tournament, and I’m real, real lucky to figure out a Week 3-level meta. (4? 5? Forget it.) Heck, that’s why I read these writeups: to appreciate the beauty of puzzles I just don’t have the time and (often) the skill to crack. So maybe I underestimate what Joon has to do to keep himself engaged. Still, while I love the writeups in general, this one little aspect keeps driving me up the wall. Take that for what it’s worth!
my perspective on this is that there can be (at least) two reasons to self-handicap. no-instructions and downs-only fall into very different bins for me.
the no-instructions week 1 solve is something i started doing because i thought it would be more enjoyable than reading the instructions. and sometimes it is! on the other hand, sometimes it’s not. i may stop doing it. i’ve continued to have some successes and some failures with no-instructions week 1s, but it feels like it’s been a while since the last one that was really satisfying specifically as a no-instructions solve.
downs-only solving is something i started doing as resistance training for speed-solving crosswords in general, for tournament purposes. it’s a way of forcing yourself to exercise the muscle of “can i solve this clue with no crossings” as often as possible without having to track down lots of puzzles that are so hard that you need to solve a lot of those to even break in. this is a very useful skill for something like ACPT puzzle 5… but i’ve never been even a little tempted to try MGWCC downs-only because it’s not really the point of MGWCC. (i used to do many themelesses and easy themed puzzles downs-only; now that i’m retired from speed-solving, i don’t do it any more at all.)
to your point about whether i have a responsibility as a blogger to solve the puzzle the way it’s designed to be solved… i think i am doing that. matt explicitly offers the week 1 puzzle with the no-instructions option, so there is clearly intent for at least some solvers to take him up on that option. conversely, back before he started doing so, the week 1 blog posts regularly got almost zero reader engagement in the comments—when the puzzle is very easy, sometimes there isn’t much to say. so i am pretty comfortable with the way i have generally fulfilled my responsibilities in blogging the puzzle. i don’t think i’ve ever implied that it’s cheating to look at the instructions, but if i have conveyed that inadvertently, then i apologize. it’s obviously not cheating.
Fair enough!
I think I’ve said this before, but I give usually give Joon’s judgment of a meta of mine a higher value than my own. Like if we disagree I’m 49% “I’m right” and 51% “Joon’s right”