Conor Sefkow author page
1 puzzle by Conor Sefkow
with Jeff Chen comments
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ALLITERATION + NATION = ALLITERNATION? I spent a full 30 minutes on the Goog and befuddling Siri. I don't think ALLITERNATION is a real-world "thing," more a made-up construct for this puzzle … yes? On one hand, it's a perfect term to describe what's going on: alliterative two-word phrases where the first word is a country.
On the other hand … why?
I let this one sit for a day, and to my surprise, my admiration grew. ALLITERNATION is so creatively kooky. Also, I got curious to see how many other possible theme phrases I could find. There's AMERICAN AIRLINES, the CANADIAN CABINET (okay, a bit arbitrary), MEXICAN … MOLE (sauce)? There are probably more, but the ones here are fine, in-the-language phrases.
A tough grid to debut on, and Conor worked in so many delightful bonuses. I'd usually suggest avoiding big corners like the upper right — breaking them up at the IN of DINE IN usually makes things so much friendlier. WATERLOO and OPTICIAN is a great result.
The opposite corner showed some of the typical kinks one might expect from such an audacious layout. AUTOSHOP and LEADPIPE are assets, ESPORT is modern, and I like me a hot TODDY after I drop the kids off at school. Er, I mean, when I'm sick. Are these worth TOPO, TSPS leading into SNEE? Not sure.
It's rare that a puzzle — especially a debut! — is unlike anything I've ever seen before, and this veteran solver appreciates that. Took me a while to figure out the magnitude of my appreciation, but it ended up much higher than I would have first guessed.