MGWCC #916

MGWCC crossword 2:53
meta DNF 3 days [4.33 avg; 3 ratings] rate it

hello, and welcome to episode #916 of matt gaffney’s weekly crossword contest, a week 3 puzzle called “Just Add Water”. this week’s instructions ask for a 5-letter proper name. okay. what are the theme answers? probably the five long acrosses:

• {It lets you type notes} GOOGLE CHAT.
• {Very British greeting} HELLO OLD CHAP.
• {Herb named for a U.S. state} COLORADO BUR. never actually heard of this.
• {They may play “Stars and Stripes Forever”} MILITARY BAND.
• {Fierce flyer} VAMPIRE BAT.

i have two thoughts about these, neither of which has yet led me to the meta answer. the first thought is that none of these five clues is uniquely identifying—it’s possible that all of them could clue something other than the answer in the grid, e.g. PICCOLOS for the MILITARY BAND clue (which looks suspiciously like it was deliberately worded in the plural specifically so as to fit an alternative answer) or HAWK for the VAMPIRE BAT one or any number of other herbs i’ve never heard of for the herb one. so that might come into play later, but it’s not really the first step in the mechanism.

the second is several of them end with a word that looks like it could be followed by -TER: CHATTER, CHAPTER, BATTER. this might tie into the title, if you pronounce it as “just add what? -TER.” i like that YAMMER is in the puzzle, clued as {Talk nonstop} which could also be a valid clue for CHATTER. but i haven’t found a clue for CHAPTER or BATTER, and there’s the further problem that BURTER and BANDTER aren’t words at all. the latter does sound like BANTER, which is a word, and maybe the first one sounds like BIRDER, but that hasn’t gone anywhere yet either.

what else is there to try? well, we could be adding water in some other more literal way, either semantic (this would be more compelling if there were anything in these themers that would become something else if it were wetter) or orthographic (maybe adding two H’s and an O). there aren’t really any words that become other valid answers if you insert HHO (or HOH or OHH), but there are a decent number of valid answers that do contain HHO. like FRENCH HORNS, which might play “stars and stripes forever”. this would be a pretty massive leap of faith, though, if there is no base phrase to anchor (or indeed, anything we are adding water to); it’s not that easy to just come up with *HHO* words out of whole cloth.

so i am coming back to the idea of thinking we are adding something to these theme answers, specifically to the last word of each: CHAT, CHAP, BUR, BAND, BAT. oh. oh! EAU! it’s CHATEAU, CHAPEAU, BUREAU, BANDEAU, and BATEAU, all of which are french-derived words—we are adding EAU, the french word for water. okay, this must be it.

where to now, though? the normal next step would be to find clues in the puzzle that could fit each of those new -EAU words. i don’t see anything like that, though.

oh, okay, here’s something: {Riverboat rowers might attend it} ETON. there’s no reason for riverboat to be in this clue, other than the fact that it’s a synonym for BATEAU. this must be it. yeah, here we are:

• {House member’s superior (abbr.)} SEN. a CHATEAU is a kind of house, grandly speaking.
• {Hat size, sometimes} EIGHT. yeah, this clue did look suspicious—why hats? because a CHAPEAU is a hat.
• {Office memo clarification} ID EST. a BUREAU can mean an office.
• {Top of the seasoning chain, chemically} NACL. this clue was also totally sus from the start. a BANDEAU is a kind of strapless top.
• {Riverboat rowers might attend it} ETON. BATEAU = riverboat, as discussed.

taking the first letters of those in order gives SEINE, the meta answer. that’s a very apt answer, as it’s a french body of water (the river that flows through paris).

i’m shaking my head in admiration at this meta. what a terrific idea and an absolutely perfect title—now i’m actually wondering if the title came first or the idea for the mechanism. i appreciated the little twist at the end—instead of the usual “look for a clue that could also satisfy the word”, we got “look for a clue that starts with a synonym of this word”. still logical and findable, but just different enough to be novel and fresh.

i’m honestly still surprised that the vagueness of the wording of the theme clues did not play into the meta at all. it really seemed like it must be relevant, but no, just matt being evasive.

overall, i found this one magnifique. et vous?