MGWCC crossword 3:16
meta DNF 
[3.50 avg; 4 ratings] rate it
hello, and welcome to episode #898 of matt gaffney’s weekly crossword contest, a week 3 puzzle called “Two Out of Three Ain’t Bad”. i completely forgot to blog (or solve!) the meta this week, so let me throw this post up real quick. the instructions this week tell us that we are looking for a five-letter word somewhere on this page (the printed-out puzzle’s page). what are the theme answers? presumably the five longest answers, all acrosses:
- {“We’re in This Love Together” singer, 1981} AL JARREAU.
- {Approximately 90% of all primetime TV characters, it sometimes seems} ER DOCTORS.
- {Person you shouldn’t have trusted} SNAKE IN THE GRASS.
- {French savior} JOAN OF ARC.
- {Common website page} CONTACT US.
these all contain a two-letter word: AL, ER, IN, OF, and US. based on the title, that feels relevant; they also start with the five vowels in order, although i’m not sure if that part is relevant. i’m guessing we’re supposed to make a three-letter word out of each of them by adding a letter—that would be the most sensible way to interpret the title. however, the three-letter words in the grid don’t seem to have the right letter content to make this work.
perhaps we’re supposed to look for alternate answers to clues? yes, that’s probably it: {Abbr. commonly used in the America’s Navy} ENS could just as easily clue USS, which is US + S. (i’m not going to read too much into the extraneous “the” in the clue, but the fact that it says “america’s navy” instead of the more natural “US navy” suggests that we’re on the right track.) and {Historic period} AGE usually clues ERA, which is ER + A. yeah, there must be five of these:
- {Classic laundry detergent brand} TIDE, but could also be ALL = AL + L.
- {Historic period} AGE or ERA = ER + A.
- {Alarmingly not quite right} EERIE, or OFF = OF + F.
- {Abbr. commonly used in the America’s Navy} ENS or USS = US + S.
these all seem pretty good, but i can’t find one for IN_. presumably it would be INN, or INK, or INC. also somewhat troubling is that i can’t find a way to turn those five extra letters (LA_FS) into a word that’s on the puzzle page. since i have already missed the deadline and the post is late, i’m just going to put the post up even though i didn’t make it to the finish line. i feel like i was on the right track, though.
what’d i miss?
Puzzle: MGWCC; Rating: 4 stars
I came up with
AL + L => TIDE
ER + R => HIT
IN + N => RESORT
OF + F => EERIE
US + A => ENS
to get THREE, which is in both the title and one of the clues.
For a long time I had ERA as the detergent, and then ALT going with the “different spelling” clue, for VTREE. Combined with the ones Joon found, there were a lot of wrong turns one could make, but I got there in the end.
Adding a letter is the right idea, and you had three of them correct, but you need to repeat the second letter each time.
AL –> ALL –> TIDE
ER –> ERR –> [Effect baseball statistics, one way] = HIT
IN –> INN –> [Vacation destination, often] = RESORT
OF –> OFF –> EERIE
US –> USS –> ENS
The first letters of those entries spell THREE, right there in the title (and the LSD clue which I hadn’t noticed until now).
I also fell into the trap of thinking ERA could match the clue for TIDE, as well as the clue for AGE. The clue for SOLVERS [You and people like you (and me)] tripped me up, too, since it really seemed to be pointing to US.
I got this one but, wow, only now from your post am I realizing that the second letters were repeated each time — and that’s after writing them all down during my solve, to keep track of everything. Curious if you (and/or others — anyone chime in) caught onto this early on and used it as a guide. I feel like if I had, the answer would have come much quicker, especially with the ER(A)/TIDE and ER(A)/AGE misdirection.
Great meta, Matt!
I had ER as ERA, a sub for AGE. So the letters staring at me were TAREE. If it wasn’t so late i might have figured it out but i was panic searching with 5 minutes to go and i just tried to think of an anagram of a word actually in the clues with most of the letters i had and sent WATER. So close.
Nice meta! Wish I’d gotten it. Though the different possibilities for 3 letter words (like ERA) would have probably stopped me cold.
“Effect baseball statistics” should be “affect” right? I mean, I know “effect” can be a verb too, but it seems wrong in this context.
I think effect works, in the sense of “to cause to come into being”. Getting a hit or committing an error creates a new event rather than changing an existing one. Although it also changes BA or fielding percentage, so I guess either could be considered correct.