"You'll Take One Soon" - June 21, 2019

[Bird Lives]

I finally got it, but not before the deadline. I still count that as a win.

When I'm stuck, I look for forced letters. Why HAIRS and not HAIKU, SEGAR and not SUGAR (crossed with Santha Rama RAU)? Those words are anagrams of the last five letters of long entries but with one letter changed (EAGER, RAISE). There was also EAVOR and AVERT. Maybe that's what "take one" referred to. I spent too long in that rabbit hole. The only forced letter that was relevant was ITD instead of ITS.

I also kept thinking that the title would be a clue as to how to proceed. Instead, it was a joke that was funny only after you'd solved the meta.

[Geoduck]

Hi. I'm new here. I'm also newish to the WSJ puzzles. I've been doing the crosswords for a little while but these contests crosswords haven't been showing up in the regular list of crossword, but in the more complete list of all puzzles, which is how I found the contest puzzles this week -- and this forum.

So, I discovered this week's contest and tried to figure it out, without success. Thanks to the hints just posted (supra), I now know how it was solved. Thank you for that --- I may learn enough, in time, to solve one on my own.

Here is my question: I noticed that this puzzle behaves differently from those for the other days of the week. When I complete it, I don't get an acknowledgement that I did so. In fact, the clock continues to tick up, although the tickage stops when I navigate away from the page. I have examined the puzzle closely over and over again and can find no errors. I have never been unable to complete a puzzle before, so is this behavior that these contest puzzles exhibit that the others do not?

Frankly, I'm... puzzled!

[OGuyDave]

Were we given a hint with the triplet "Rea" "Rae" and "ray"? One of the things I saw along the journey. A big "hur'ray'" for all those who got the smiley on this one. Ray to go!

[BethA]

I also kept thinking that the title would be a clue as to how to proceed. Instead, it was a joke that was funny only after you'd solved the meta.

The TAKE ONE part of the title helped me twice in the solution process — take one letter (the first) from each word in the theme answers. Then from the clue list, take one-word clues which are homophones of the words formed in step one. It did make me laugh after solving, as a final confirmation, too!

[BarbaraK]

Hi. I'm new here. I'm also newish to the WSJ puzzles. I've been doing the crosswords for a little while but these contests crosswords haven't been showing up in the regular list of crossword, but in the more complete list of all puzzles, which is how I found the contest puzzles this week -- and this forum.

So, I discovered this week's contest and tried to figure it out, without success. Thanks to the hints just posted (supra), I now know how it was solved. Thank you for that --- I may learn enough, in time, to solve one on my own.

Here is my question: I noticed that this puzzle behaves differently from those for the other days of the week. When I complete it, I don't get an acknowledgement that I did so. In fact, the clock continues to tick up, although the tickage stops when I navigate away from the page. I have examined the puzzle closely over and over again and can find no errors. I have never been unable to complete a puzzle before, so is this behavior that these contest puzzles exhibit that the others do not?

Frankly, I'm... puzzled!

Because the Friday puzzles are contests, they won't give tell you the solution until after the deadline. That includes the grid answers, which is why you can't check a letter/word/grid and you don't get any indication when you've finished whether you have everything right. Sometimes on Monday, they switch it over to a normal puzzle that you can check, but not always (and so far, not today.)

Welcome to the puzzles and the forum! There is a knack to solving these. It gets easier with practice. This week's was harder than average . (They vary in difficulty.) It's addictive though. And humbling. Even when you think you've got the hang of them, a puzzle will come along and show you otherwise. Sometimes it's even one that everyone else says is obvious - we all see different things.

[pddigi]

Belated report from Tennessee: Domenic beat me to the answer easily (may I invoke my interest in the College Baseball World Series Friday night (GO VANDY!) and household weekend chores Saturday in my defense?). It took him coaxing me a bit to get on the right track and finally solve. If by some miracle I win the mug, I will be sending it to Dom, since he beat me and I am not sure that without his ministrations I would have gotten to the shore. That was possibly the most multi-step meta I can remember!

[Jim and Anita]

My educated, besotted guess -- D R I N K.

Commodore, On one of my many rabbit holes, I found names of liquors in the theme answers (asti, lager, vino, sake, anise) so I was driven to “drink” , just not as the meta.

[Joe Ross]

As usual, a great meta! Nicely done!

I went too far and allowed my initial thoughts cloud my answer. "You'll Take One Soon" - on the first day of summer, no less - had me thinking of vacation. Then the meta answers & clues seemed to be associated with work, fellow employees, and reasons for a needed break or vacation.

I plumbed several rabbit holes inspired by the 3-letter homophones, then walked away. A couple of days later, got to BOUGH, via the clue initials, but never connected it with "you'll take A BOW, soon". Instead, I associated BOUGH too-quickly with "when the bough BREAKs" (AHA!) allowing it to 'confirm' my initial thoughts.

The reversal of the homophones BOUGH to BOW works very neatly, too. Well done, Matt!

Take a bow, Muggles! I toast you from my driftwood bough, broken as it may be.

[Wendy Walker]

A shallow rabbit hole for me involved autos, what with BMW, Dodge and Quattro in the clues or grid!

[Dennis]

Do we still get any information Re number of entries and number of correct answers? Maybe I missed it in the conversation. Was pleased to see that "this one was harder than usual," as I never even got close to a first step. After two successes in a row, I probably got cocky and was appropriately punished!

[Laura M]

I was unusually lucky with this one and pretty much went in a straight path to the solution. All of the long entries had three words, which I connected to a puzzle maybe two years ago where the same was true, and where it turned out that the initial letters spelled out airport codes. (I don't remember all of the puzzles, but some stick in my head!) This time all of the three-letter combinations were words, which seemed unlikely, so for the second step I started going through the clues (also lucky because looking at the clues isn't usually my first instinct!) to see if one of them could also be answered by the first three-letter-word, WIT, and pretty quickly found "Whit" which sealed the deal. Almost makes up for times like a month or so ago ("shine") when I never come close at all!

[Geoduck]

Hi. I'm new here. I'm also newish to the WSJ puzzles. I've been doing the crosswords for a little while but these contests crosswords haven't been showing up in the regular list of crossword, but in the more complete list of all puzzles, which is how I found the contest puzzles this week -- and this forum.

So, I discovered this week's contest and tried to figure it out, without success. Thanks to the hints just posted (supra), I now know how it was solved. Thank you for that --- I may learn enough, in time, to solve one on my own.

Here is my question: I noticed that this puzzle behaves differently from those for the other days of the week. When I complete it, I don't get an acknowledgement that I did so. In fact, the clock continues to tick up, although the tickage stops when I navigate away from the page. I have examined the puzzle closely over and over again and can find no errors. I have never been unable to complete a puzzle before, so is this behavior that these contest puzzles exhibit that the others do not?

Frankly, I'm... puzzled!

Because the Friday puzzles are contests, they won't give tell you the solution until after the deadline. That includes the grid answers, which is why you can't check a letter/word/grid and you don't get any indication when you've finished whether you have everything right. Sometimes on Monday, they switch it over to a normal puzzle that you can check, but not always (and so far, not today.)

Welcome to the puzzles and the forum! There is a knack to solving these. It gets easier with practice. This week's was harder than average . (They vary in difficulty.) It's addictive though. And humbling. Even when you think you've got the hang of them, a puzzle will come along and show you otherwise. Sometimes it's even one that everyone else says is obvious - we all see different things.

Thank you for explaining this to me.

Oddly, it's still counting down -- and I just submitted an answer, which seems to have been accepted.

Because my entry isn't legit, if I win the cup, I'll send it to you!

[Meg]

I finally got it, but not before the deadline. I still count that as a win.

When I'm stuck, I look for forced letters. Why HAIRS and not HAIKU, SEGAR and not SUGAR (crossed with Santha Rama RAU)? Those words are anagrams of the last five letters of long entries but with one letter changed (EAGER, RAISE). There was also EAVOR and AVERT. Maybe that's what "take one" referred to. I spent too long in that rabbit hole. The only forced letter that was relevant was ITD instead of ITS.

I also kept thinking that the title would be a clue as to how to proceed. Instead, it was a joke that was funny only after you'd solved the meta.

Sometimes the title (if you interpret it correctly) points directly at the meta. Sometimes it only confirms the meta. With this one I got BOUGH and then looked around for something to confirm. The title was it and it made me laugh!

[Eric Porter]

Were we given a hint with the triplet "Rea" "Rae" and "ray"? One of the things I saw along the journey. A big "hur'ray'" for all those who got the smiley on this one. Ray to go!

If that was a hint I didn't pick up on it. I didn't see any hints in the title, clues, or grid entries so I was lost for a moment. We often have at least 2 hints.
I started off looking for hidden words in the theme answers but quickly decided that there was nothing so I don't consider it a rabbit hole.
I noticed that all of the theme answers have 3 words, then noticed that their initials make words. I read them aloud several times and realized that I'd seen 'foe' as 'faux' in the clue.
When I figured out what the title meant I thought the answer was 'bow', but then double checked to see that they asked for a 5 letter noun. I hope nobody here accidentally submitted 'bow' after solving the puzzle.

[MikeMillerwsj]

Greetings, this was a tricky one! We had 702 submissions, only 72% correct. Another 13 answered BOW--nice idea, but the instructions specifically called for a 5-letter word. Fully 83 of you submitted BREAK., plus a smattering of other guesses (including 15 for GUESS).

Congrats to this week's winner: Jerry Campbell of Westerville, Ohio!

[mflaminio]

Greetings, this was a tricky one! We had 702 submissions, only 72% correct. Another 13 answered BOW--nice idea, but the instructions specifically called for a 5-letter word. Fully 83 of you submitted BREAK., plus a smattering of other guesses (including 15 for GUESS).

Congrats to this week's winner: Jerry Campbell of Westerville, Ohio!

Mike, you are the best. You didn't have to report it to this forum but you did and always post the link here. Thank you.

[Janet]

Got stuck on the step of looking for the homonyms in the clues (was looking on the grid ), which made me doubt my approach. I was one of the ones entering "guess". I thought if I couldn't get the right answer, at least I could submit a funny one.

[Hector]

I had the three-letter words and started looking for one-letter variations of them in the grid---a changed letter, an added letter, ... We have WIT, so look for "BIT"---wait wasn't there a clue that would work with BIT? What was it? Oh, WHIT. Then all became clear. Lucky stumble.

[BrianMac]

I had the three-letter words and started looking for one-letter variations of them in the grid---a changed letter, an added letter, ... We have WIT, so look for "BIT"---wait wasn't there a clue that would work with BIT? What was it? Oh, WHIT. Then all became clear. Lucky stumble.

I spent some time there myself with:

WIT -- BIT
WAY -- RAY
WAR -- WAD

[FrankieHeck]

Got stuck on the step of looking for the homonyms in the clues (was looking on the grid ), which made me doubt my approach. I was one of the ones entering "guess". I thought if I couldn't get the right answer, at least I could submit a funny one.

That's a great answer