WSJ (Contest) Grid: 25 minutes; Meta: an hour or so 
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Matt Gaffney’s Wall Street Journal contest crossword, “Take a Number” — Conrad’s writeup.
This week we’re prompted, The answer to this week’s contest crossword is something you have to be to solve it. There were no obvious theme entries beyond 59D: FIVE, clued as Number of clues you need to use for the first step in finding the contest answer.
I focused on numbers, looking for five connected grid entries. I wasted a lot of time, getting nowhere. A few entries had really odd clues, such as SOUND: Noteworthy din. I checked other clues and noted a few odd ones. The clue for 3d (UREAL) jumped out: “The wonder!” -> three down. The clue anagrammed to its spelled-out grid entry number. It helped that I’ve been solving a lot of cryptic crosswords lately, and my anagram detector is on high alert.
WSJ Contest – 02.01.2026
There were five in total:
- 3D: Three down -> The wonder! (UNREAL)
- 10A: Ten across -> Ancestors -> (LINE)
- 31D: Thirty one down -> Noteworthy din (SOUND)
- 40A: Forty across -> Frosty Oscar (WILDE)
- 49D: Forty nine down -> Inn often rowdy (TAVERN)
Now: find step two. The first letters of the above entries spelled ULSWT. Not helpful at first glance. I found nothing in the grid and returned to the the clues. I spotted 62D’s weird clue: [U]nderhanded, [l]ike [s]omeone [w]ith [t]ricks (ULSWT), which is the clue for our contest solution SLY. Interesting and challenging puzzle by Matt, using the “odd clue” meta technique in two different ways. Solvers: please share your thoughts.
Tricky tricky! Took a while to see the first step, but couldn’t figure out the second. But it’s right there! Both steps are really nice mechanisms. Great meta!
Puzzle: WSJ (Contest); Rating: 4 stars
Got the ULSWT, and didn’t know what to do with it. I had a false AHA! moment when I thought to correspond the letters with what numerical letter of the alphabet they were, and then look at the corresponding clue or clue answer. Nothing there. A day later, at a glance, I saw the ULSWT clue and got it.
Puzzle: WSJ (Contest); Rating: 4 stars
I, too, got the ULSWT but never found what to do with it. It was late Sunday and I didn’t think to look for another clue that would solve the meta. Ugh!
Did not get there, but I did note [Frosty Oscar] and [Underhanded, like someone with tricks] as weird clues! Argh, so close!
Puzzle: WSJ (Contest); Rating: 4.5 stars
I don’t get it, even after the explanation. I’ll read it a few more times, as needed.
Rearrange the letters of NOTEWORTHY DIN and it becomes THIRTY-ONE DOWN. Same with the other 4 listed entries and their clue numbers. I didn’t solve it either, but i did suss out that first step.
Why the heck was GILDA clued as “Humorous” and not “Funny” Radner? The other three similar clues all had a two syllable adjective ending in the “ee” sound (Speedy, Folkie, Frosty)…. Definitely got sucked into that red herring way too much and didn’t spot it.
clue meta is not my strong suit, unfortunately
+1
I went down a deep rabbit hole when I saw clues beginning with Underhanded and Overly. HANDED and LY were both in the grid. Then I found Treeless, and ENTREE is in the grid. I spent ages looking for more clues like that.
After a nudge, I found the first step, but never got any further. Kudos to anyone who solved this!
I found 5 clues with repeated letters (you need two to tango, a musical number). The first letters of their answers spelled ALIVE, which you need to be to solve this meta.
Quite a perplexing experience! Congrats to Conrad. I went down the wrong path from the get-go. “Frosty Oscar” seemed to me to be a reference to some movie cartoon (I’ve never seen Frozen, and Oscar Wilde was humorous and funny and witty, but no one ever called him Frosty!) so I assumed WILDE was the name of some Oscar winner. Isn’t there an actress named Wilde? Anyway that led me to look at the clues. I found FIVE including Wilde that featured actresses: Gilda, Amanda, Toni, and Dil. I almost submitted WOKE as the answer, because Dil is a biological male, right? But gave up this charade because Wilde is a surname. The others are first names.
Then I thought TAKE A NUMBER would translate into TAKE FIVE. That confirmed that I was on the right path thinking of actors, the theatre, or movies. I wish I had said SCENE to myself at that point. But I carried on.
Ultimately I submitted ADEPT as the solution because of DEFT and SKILLED and who knows what else. It was five letters after all. But in the end I wasn’t that far off. :)
Thought I had something by taking NO (e.g. number) from various answers either forward or backward. I kinda new this wasn’t right but once the brain starts down a path… It didn’t help that a few of them spelled words when you took the NO out, again either forward or backward (e.g. IRON, NORI, ORO, LINE, SATIRES)
Puzzle: WSJ (Contest); Rating: 3 stars
I spent a lot of time looking for some kind of anagram for the five grid entries, and tried too hard to make ‘take a number’ mean something useful. LINE/LIEN/DINE/LINC/ILE was particularly unhelpful, as was WILDE/WIDER/DIL and TAVERN/TRANCE. By the time I stumbled on the answer I was glad for it to be over. Also, I’ll argue that you don’t have to be SLY to solve this puzzle, but rather to create it.
+1
Puzzle: WSJ (Contest); Rating: 5 stars
That last step took me forever, haha. What a unique meta! I’m also trying to think if I’ve seen one where the answer ends up inadvertently being an answer in the grid, without actually alluding to that in the prompt (i.e. “The answer to the meta is a 5-letter entry in the grid.”) So that was another wrinkle also!
Anyone know who the trio in the video photo are? I thought they might be For Real, but that is an all girls group?
Puzzle: WSJ (Contest); Rating: 5 stars
That is a photo of the stars of Grace of My Heart, a movie that featured For Real: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Grace_of_My_Heart
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FPcoREKDW30
I tried to find a complete video of that song featuring the actual members of For Real, and came up blank.
Fun fact: that song was written by Elvis Costello and was featured on this killer album of Costello covers: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bespoke_Songs,_Lost_Dogs,_Detours_%26_Rendezvous
Other standouts from that album include The Other End of the Telescope (‘Til Tuesday) and Indoor Fireworks (Nick Lowe).
Thank you Conrad. I did not know about the movie. Great choice!
Puzzle: WSJ (Contest); Rating: 5 stars
Every time I run across, “Underhanded, like someone with tricks” as a clue from now on, I’m answering MATTGAFFNEY, even if the fill only has three letters. Very cool meta.
Puzzle: WSJ (Contest); Rating: 4.5 stars
So, to recap…
LEFT HANDED and STOOD ASIDE (both directional “hints”) have nothing to do with it..
And POP OFF (can I remove COLA or NEHI somewhere?) had nothing to do with it…
And FALSE NOSE (“false” = anagram ?? to ONES – a number… oh! maybe take the ONE from ONENIL) had nothing to do with it..
And ROLL TOPS (are “crescent” or “kaiser” in the grid, yielding a C and a K) had nothing to do with it?
It’s tough for me to re-orient when NONE of the longer entries is relevant!!
gotta keep you on your toes
Puzzle: WSJ (Contest); Rating: 5 stars
My scratch pad was an unsalvageable mess! Here’s part of my attempts:
– 5 clues had 5 words each (5A, 30A, 36A, 62A, 62D) -deadend was, ironically, what could I do with “sly”?
– 5 clues had numeric content (5A, 15A, 18A, 57A, 1D)
– 5 clues had a celeb last name with the answer being their first name (47A, 71A,2D, 25D, 46D)
– 5 clues contained a title (5A, 2D, 25D, 37D, 64D)
Space/time does not allow me to detail the various mechanisms I tried with those answers.
Great puzzle! I think publishing an occasional puzzle in the WSJ Contest for the pros among us to solve is good. As a novice – my solo solve rate is around 1/3 – this was a fun puzzle to learn from, despite the difficulty. Thanks for the eceptional puzzle Matt!
I got the first step, but not the second, though it was staring me in the face. A couple of things diverted me: The “Underhanded . . .” clue was obviously important, but I thought the key was that the letters of HUNDRED were contained in “Underhanded.” That led nowhere. I also noted that the “theme” entry UNREAL could map onto the first word of FALSE NOSE. Another dead end. A little bit of overthinking!