Grid: 30 minutes; Meta: got a nudge
Patrick Berry’s Fireball contest, “Making the Rounds” — Conrad’s writeup
This month, we are asked, What four-letter word is hinted at by this puzzle? There were sixteen entries with “Round” in the clues. Here they are, in order of the rounds:
FB Contest – 04.23.2023
- 36a PARTS – Expense on a garage invoice [Round 1]
- 39a TORCH – Item pictured on the back of a dime [Round 1]
- 44d HES – Opening word of the Beatles’ “Nowhere Man” [Round 1]
- 56d TIP – Lifehack, e.g. [Round 1]
- 7d CAME – Put in an appearance [Round 2]
- 13d NEST – Digs in a tree [Round 2]
- 43a CHIN – Uppercut target [Round 2]
- 57a EMIT – Send forth [Round 2]
- 4d SKI – Travel some trails [Round 3]
- 31a SNOG – Spoon, to Spooner’s “canned grids” [Round 3]
- 55d GOO – Sticky substance [Round 3]
- 59a INDO – ___-European [Round 3]
- 11a RITE – Established practice [Round 4]
- 12a AMEN – “You said a mouthful!” [Round 4]
- 35a NICE – “Great shot!” [Round 4]
- 37a AVER – Profess [Round 4]
I got stuck on this one, and asked my solving pal Wendy for a nudge. She mentioned that each “round” entry shared some common ending/beginning letters. I managed to put everything together with that nudge: connect each round’s entry to create an interlocked square/rectangle:
TORCH CAME SNOG AMEN
I E H M K O V I
PARTS I I INDO E C
NEST RITE
When followed around the edge: the interlocking words formed two new words which mapped to other grid entries:
- ORCHESTRA PIT -> Theater section: (T)IER
- TIME MACHINES -> Sci-fi conveyances: (U)FOS
- NO GOODNIKS -> Scoundrels: (R)ATS
- CINEMA VERITE -> French-titled film genre: (N)OIR
The first letter of each mapped entry spells TURN, our contest solution. Yet another amazing meta by Patrick Berry, kudos to everyone who got it.