Title: “Famous Last Words”
Prompt: The meta for this puzzle is a famous singer.
Answer: Whitney Houston, found by 799 solvers
Year 14 of the Muller Monthly Music Meta has begun! We start off with an easy one, as is the custom. Our four theme entries are:
25-A: [Brevity, according to Polonius] = THE SOUL OF WIT
32-A: [South Dakota memorial site] = WOUNDED KNEE
49-A: [Taking meds in a non-FDA-approved way] = OFF-LABEL USE
58-A: [Camel’s place, maybe?] = CIGARETTE TIN
With a cue from the title, let’s take the last word of each entry:
Wit-knee-use-tin
That sounds like contest answer WHITNEY HOUSTON, at least in one pronunciation. I say her surname “HYOOSE”-t(schwa)n but many people don’t pronounce the H at the start of certain words such as this one, and with just shy of 800 right answers I don’t think anyone got thrown off-track.
I’m 1-for-1 in 2025, and so are you! Thanks to Pete and his crew for giving us another year of these. Over and out until February.
Thanks Matt!
A record number of solvers this month!
You solved so quickly you may have missed the Easter Egg in the three-letter themers.
Thanks for doing this all these years!
Ha, nice! If you cracked this Easter egg, please give yourself a pat on the back!
I actually saw and got the answer through the Easter Egg before I saw the Last Words
I’m guessing this month’s cover will be HAO WIL EYE NOH. 😁
I had wondered why Pete used a 16×16 grid when he could easily have fit the 12-11-11-12 theme entries into a 15×15. Figured it was something unknowably Mega-Meta-related so left it there, but turns out there was an Easter egg!
I honestly didn’t notice this was 16×16 while solving – but I would just assume it was for convenience in a set where the first/last theme answers have to be 12ers (an infamously annoying length for revealers in a 15×15).