WSJ (Contest) Grid: untimed; Meta: half an hour 
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Mike Shenk’s Wall Street Journal contest crossword, “Removal” — Conrad’s writeup
This week we’re looking for a four-letter verb. There were four long theme entries, each opposite a word beginning with NO:
- HORSERACE/NORSE
- INSOLENCE/NONCE
- BLEACHING/NOBLE
- LABRADORS/NORAD
The grid was a bit of a slog for me: ATEMOYAS, DATIVE, APERCU, etc. Not a criticism, just an observation: Mike doesn’t do that unless the meta is grid-bound. And it was.
WSJ Contest – 08.24.2025
I briefly got stuck in a HIS/HER (first and last horizontal entries) dead rabbit hole, but managed to get myself unstuck. I noticed the NO words adjacent to each themer. Mike Shenk is famously literal, so I parsed NORSE as NO RSE: remove RSE from HORSERACE, forming HORACE (which matched OVID’s clue). I had the rabbit:
- OVID (Roman poet): HO(
RSE)RACE - UPPER (Shoe part): INSOL(
ENC)E - SORE (In pain): (
BLE)ACHING - TOILS (Works hard): LAB(
RAD)ORS
In theme entry order the mapped entries spell our contest solution OUST. Another gem from Mike, once again demonstrating his amazing meta construction skills. Solvers: please share your thoughts. I just got back to Peaks Island after a two-week work trip and don’t have time to come up with a thematic song, so please enjoy this song by a band that I enjoy.
I got OUST from His Her & removal. I am always amazed at how a real solver does it.
Ha, I didn’t even notice the NO- words. I saw if you deleted the middle three from HORSERACE and LABRADORS you got HORACE and LABORS, then backsolved SOLE (missed the IN-) and ACHING from O__T -> OUST.
I didn’t see the NO words either. Figured out OU_T, knew it was OUST, but never figured out the S because I didn’t think to remove letters at the beginning.
Drop one letter from erace to get erase.
Do the same to solence and get silence.
Leaching becomes leeching.
Abradors becomes abrades with two letters removed.
Take the removed letter COAOR, remove one and get COAR, which means remove by straining.
I am willing to settle for half a mug, as coar may be Portuguese.
Finally got out of my slump with this one, but probably because it was easy. Love OUST as a solution. If only…
*smiles*
As a meta-solver, I am also appreciative of Wet Leg’s song “mangetout”, which they parse as “man get out” as well as “mange tout”, or “eat all” in French. (NSFW lyrics)
Puzzle: WSJ (Contest); Rating: 5 stars
Love the meta-relevant Wet Leg tie-in! I hope someone makes a NSFW meta tied to that theme.
I laughed when I saw they had a song with that name on their new album. To goofballs of a certain age, that word comes with “Monsieur” on the front of it… the name of a guy who in the 1970s and 80s essentially got banned from the Guinness Book of Records after he was in it multiple times for eating things that should not be eaten. I believe his piece de resistance was eating a bicycle in 17 days….
Puzzle: WSJ (Contest); Rating: 4.5 stars
I thoroughly enjoyed Mike’s unique spin of the alternative answer META. He had me stumped early on. When I read that the answer is a 4-letter verb, I assumed there would be 4 theme answers. However it was not immediately clear to me, which 4 would be the themers, as there were a couple of 8- letter fills present, plus all the clues/answers seemed standard xword fare. I decided to go with the four 9-letter answers and quickly noted insole and aching as potential alt answers to upper and sore, but saw nothing like this with horse race and labradors, plus on what basis could I ignore the NCE and BLE? I then noticed that the NCE of insolence was also the last 3 letters of NONCE. Then, forehead slap! I had missed the NO words. Mike did an excellent job disguising the path. This was indeed a well-conceived, well-executed meta. Lots of fun and bragging rights for solving!
Puzzle: WSJ (Contest); Rating: 5 stars
I solved it without seeing that the NO words were a directive.
I seldom get the meta answers and just usually enjoy the puzzle. In this case, I managed to get the first step with the NOs, but couldn’t progress further. Given my record, I considered gettting the first step a triumph.