WSJ (Contest) Grid: 15 minutes; Meta: 20 more 
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Mike Shenk’s Wall Street Journal contest crossword, “Time Think” — Conrad’s writeup
This week we’re look for an eight-letter word. There were four long theme entries:
- BURST FORTH: Explode out
- SORE THUMB: It noticeably sticks out
- THEME SONG: “Woke Up This Morning,” for “The Sopranos”
- TRUTH SERUM: Confession inducer
TIME THINK was clearly a play on TIME SINK. The clue for LISPS stood out: Thpeakth like thith. All of the themers contained TH. I found (part of) the rabbit: substitute S for TH in the themers. SONG -> THONG (matching the last word in STRAP’s clue). SONG/THONG threw me off, because many of the other mapped entries sounded like each other, but didn’t match exactly.
I worked that out, leading to the letters ILSB, or SIBL in mapped grid order. I knew the answer would be SIBILANT, so I backsolved the rest. Swap S for TH, and also swap TH for S. That formed eight new words/sounds that mapped to the final word of eight clues:
WSJ Contest – 10.05.2025
- STRAP: Leather thong -> THONG (SONG)
- IRAN: Partner of Saudi Arabia in a 2023 truce -> TRUS (TRUTH)
- BAYES: Statistician Thomas with a namesake theorem -> THERUM (SERUM)
- ISRAEL: Where Judaism was birthed -> BURTHT (BURST)
- LOKI: Adopted brother of Thor -> THORE (SORE)
- ALTER: Take in a seam -> SEME (THEME)
- NAVY: Military force -> FORS (FORTH)
- TOTAL: Sum -> SUMB (THUMB)
The mapped entries spell our contest solution SIBILANT. Solvers: please share your thoughts. I’ll end with a non-thematic song from a Maine native.
Pretty remarkable. Mike found 4 two-word phrases, where one word had the S sound and one the TH, where changing those sounds also produced words. That couldn’t have been easy to figure out. I wonder how he did it.
Puzzle: WSJ (Contest); Rating: 5 stars
Yeah really amazing that he was able to find four “normal” phrases like that (i.e. phrases that didn’t require the clues to end in question marks). Really cool puzzle.
Well beyond my pay grade. I guessed Thursday due to an inordinate number of THs and TUs. I was not expecting a mug. Not this week.
I believe 35A is AVA, and 30D is OVULE.
+1
Fixed, thanks!
Another crafty challenge from puzzle master Mike Thenk.
Puzzle: WSJ (Contest); Rating: 2 stars
Eww.