"Consider the Alternative" October 6, 2022

[Limerick Savant]

I just submitted an answer that I am not happy with even though it makes sense.
Been stewing over this since Friday when I solved the grid and had a pretty good idea of the mechanism but it appeared only 80% successful. So I chose the only alternative that blew me ashore.

[Joe Ross]

[Joe Ross]

Each "One of..."-clued Theme Entries have ONE Alternative in its respective group with the same number of letters. In other words, each unique set of the respective Theme Entries had only TWO Alternatives within the set with the same number of letters.

The initials of the two Alternatives are the first two letters of a three-lettered word within the group. The last letters of those three-letter words speel OPTION, in top-down/left-right grid order, the six-letter meta answer.

(THE TEMPEST has 10 letters, 3 more than MACBETH. Similarly, HENRY IV, Part 1 (2 & 3) and HENRY VI, Part 1 (2 & 3) have 11 letters plus 1 number, also more than MACBETH. MISSISSIPPI, NORTH DAKOTA, and SOUTH DAKOTA are not New England states. RUTHERFORD is a first name. GERALD FORD is a first & last name. Neither are last name, only, like WASHINGTON & EISENHOWER.)

[shalmanezer]

How many letters are there in "The Tragedy of Othello, Moor of Venice"?

[Joe Ross]

Nit many.

[CopperRiver]

I had all six option answers and couldn’t close the deal. Shoot!!!!!!! Congrats to those that did.

My rabbit hole was:
Eisenhower = Ike =Ire= R
Saturday = Sat = Tso = O
October = Oct = Etc = E
Othello = ???
Rhode Island = RhI = Chi = C
Harvard = Har = Her = E


I over complicated it.

[vandono]

I'm just going to sit here and lol at myself a bit. Another lesson to remember for a future meta. Glad I noticed the first step, though; that's something that I wouldn't have got not too long ago. Congrats to the solvers!

[Bonnibel]

I came up with OTHERS, as an anagram of the first letters of 6 possible alternative answers:
EISENHOWER, SATURDAY, OCTOBER, TEMPEST, RHODE ISLAND, and HARVARD. ESOTRH = OTHERS). This also seemed to fit the theme of "alternative."

Note: In the Shakespeare category, there are actually 3 possible alternate answers: TEMPEST, OTHELLO, and HENRY IV. Of course one is a comedy, one a history, and one a tragedy, but all are considered plays. And it could be said that TEMPEST is actually THE TEMPEST. The only one of those 3 that would anagram to a 6 letter word was TEMPEST.

I would have to say that HENRY IV is another viable possible alternative to MACBETH, although that leads nowhere. All the other themed answers have only one possible alternative.

I have been doing these long enough to know that there had to be another step linking all of this to the clues or grid, leading to the ultimate answer, but alas I never saw it. I did give it the old college try however.

Therefore, I was not confident in my answer and my inability to find that last step was ultimately my downfall. All that said, OTHERS was a decent shot.

Congrats to all the great minds out there who solved!

[Bill Bovard]

What? If you choose TEMPEST instead of OTHELLO, the first letters of the alternate answers anagram to OTHERS, my submission.

EISENHOWER
SATURDAY
OCTOBER
TEMPEST
RHODEISLAND
HARVARD

ESOTRH = OTHERS

I hope this alternate (and simpler) answer will be accepted.

[Bonnibel]

Me too! Great minds and all that... Cheers!

[JerryF]

"Gerald Ford" is also 10 letters, so the ONE alternative isn't quite true. Doesn't really matter because I never would have thought of the steps it took to solve this one. Diabolical doesn't quite describe it.

[Limerick Savant]

Me too! Great minds and all that... Cheers!

Right there with you

[woozy]

No-one had the rabbit ... footprint... that IVY LEAGUE SCHOOL => BROWN<= BACK TO THE FUTURE SURNAME ?

[Conrad]

No-one had the rabbit ... footprint... that IVY LEAGUE SCHOOL => BROWN<= BACK TO THE FUTURE SURNAME ?

I also went back in time. https://crosswordfiend.com/2022/10/09/w ... er-7-2022/

[curtremarks]

I had OTHERS with the alternatives listed but with TEMPEST. Got started of course in the Back to the Future rabbit hole convinced that McFly-Brown-Cornell had 5 other examples in the grid somewhere.

[TeaJenny]

I also came up with OTHERS by using TEMPEST instead of OTHELLO. However, I couldn't figure out how to get the letters in the proper order until I realized that O-T-H corresponded to answers at the bottom of the grid and E-R-S corresponded to answers at the top. So, it seemed somewhat reasonable that ROTATES (7D) was an additional clue indicating that the letters were to be "rotated" by placing the last 3 first and the first 3 last. Admittedly, that logic is a bit of a stretch, but I couldn't see any other way forward.

[oldjudge]

As Joe said the play is The Tempest, not Tempest, so it doesn't work. Secondly, as a tip for solving Matt's puzzles, Matt is too polished to give solvers a random group of letters to anagram for a solution. Almost always the letters composing the answer will be found in grid order. If you have to anagram to get your answer be very skeptical of what you have.

[Miki]

No-one had the rabbit ... footprint... that IVY LEAGUE SCHOOL => BROWN<= BACK TO THE FUTURE SURNAME ?

Oh, I totally did. And then I went to the cat list to see if there was a Mrs Harvard, etc. in that movie...

[Miki]

Please enter me in the "oops- I was so sure I had the right answer, but no....!" Group, and then enter my rabbit hole submission into the best "consider the alternate" contest.
E/W, S/T, O/J, O/M, R/C, H/C
I figured you pick from each pair.
I picked C, H, O, O, S, E.

And submitted "choose"

[oldjudge]

I like that alternate answer—very creative!