WSJ Contest — Friday, October 17, 2025 |
WSJ (Contest) Grid: 10 minutes; Meta: 15 more [5.00 avg; 1 rating] rate it
Mike Shenk’s Wall Street Journal contest crossword, “It’s All Connected” — Conrad’s writeup
This week we’re look for a four-letter noun. I spotted the center horizontal entry: STAPLES (Retailer that sells things like toner, paste, files and paper). Mike is famously literal, and given the title: that was a nudge. I also noticed that toner, paste, etc., were all five letters. Also not a coincidence.
WSJ Contest – 10.19.2025
I saw some anagrammy-looking almost patterns, especially in REAPPROVE (PAPER), but random anagrams are never a meta mechanism. APEMAN was above (it was connected) and I had the rabbit: the grid contained four staples, each surrounding a letter of the solution:
- C -> OZ(ONE)/AR(T)[C](R)ITIC
- L -> PODC(AST)S/(P)[L](E)A
- I -> ONS(ILE)NT/(F)[I](S)T
- P -> (APE)MAN/REA(P)[P](R)OVE
The letters in the staples spell our contest solution CLIP. I loved this meta: it delivered very satisfying aha moment. I have no idea how Mike keeps doing this, but he keeps doing this. Solvers: Please share your thoughts.