"For Good Measure" - September 20, 2019

[Streroto]

As a physician, I was put off by the clue/answer “Mass/node”, until I realized that it was part of the meta solution. Perhaps a bit pedantic, but it didn’t sit well until I realized why it was used (and I have to bow to colloquial use of “node” in many other circumstances, so I should just accept it!).

I had the letters to the solution and figured it was an anagram of pint. Dom made me feel better when he got there and pointed out the justification for ordering the letters beyond merely anagramming them. This solution had several steps but was only moderately difficult.

As a fellow doc I too struggled with that but only for a minute

[Natalie]

Boy did I miss this one! Laughing as I leave the shore. Saw the gram/dyne et alia business; saw the mass/force et alia force business ... THEN saw 'light' in a big down answer and managed to tease 'lumen' out of a combination of letters that had something to do with all those answers crossing each other or abutting, along with the 'lu' in 'clue' ... well, you get the picture. Way WAY too much work and force for an obtuse answer when 'pint' clearly comes out so easily. Wild hare anyone? Still laughing ...

[Jeanrosz]

There were too many red herrings in there...I got stuck on carb for gram and rose (think wine) for liter. And the gig in the center threw me off too. Just couldn’t make it to shore this time...

[DBMiller]

My nit was not gig, but moles. A mole being a unit of substance in chemistry.

[FrankieHeck]

I got lucky, considering that I didn't print it out. I saw the terms and jotted down area, force, mass, and volume. As soon as I wrote mass, I remembered that slightly odd clue, and found the others. I do need to start paying more attention to the clues in general, though. Maybe I'll start reading them aloud as I fill in the grid.

[KayW]

I guess there is so much talk about grabbing/having/enjoying pints that mention of "pint" and a few reposts during the week went unnoticed, or unmentioned, at least. Is it a spoiler to inadvertently use the (very common) word/answer in a post?? CHEERS!

I thought about that over the weekend, especially when I saw PINT pop up in a few posts. I don't usually mention beverages in my own posts, but there are some here who do so very regularly. I think the word might have become conspicuous by its absence - and a "spoiler by omission" if those people revised their usual toasts So I was fine with it popping up in its usual context.

[Joe Ross]

Finished grid, quickly assembled the clues, saw the gimmick, and then... got stuck. I'll have to look it over again. Isaac, I haven't seen you in weeks! Pour me a good measure of that Guiness, please.

I'm sure that I wasn't the only one rooting that much harder for Janet after she posted this.

[DrTom]

Yes there were herrings in abundance as people have mentioned. Most of them were not part of the "Big 4" clues and though tempted I avoided trying to fit them in. I was led to the idea that it was a 4 letter (and therefore 4 clue) puzzle by FOR Good Measure, though that might have been coincidence. What almost threw me was the POLITEREPLY because, before I saw LITER, I grasped on PLY. 'Let's see that is a measure of thickness and layer of paper or wood - hey you buy them by the piece!' Luckily I saw the correct parts of the words and had already did a 'huh' on "mass" and "node" (also the health care prejudice). So I thought it to be medium difficulty but oh so much fun - which is of course how I define a puzzle I actually was able to solve.

[tim1217]

Meta solving tip number 3,165: If stuck somewhere in the process, go back and carefully read every clue. I normally am racing to finish the grid so quickly because I want to get on to solving the meta, that I completely miss a ‘clue within the clues’.

[Deb F]

It took me longer to arrive at the solution. I had all the words written but couldn't make anything of them. Until I took another look at the clues and I saw "area". Then I went on a hunt for the rest, leading me to solve it. I must say that the urging to print it out (I was already working on a hard copy) did propel me to look at the clues. And voila. Always nice to get a win. Even without the 16 ounce mug!!

[HowardHuddleston]

As a physician, I was put off by the clue/answer “Mass/node”, until I realized that it was part of the meta solution. Perhaps a bit pedantic, but it didn’t sit well until I realized why it was used (and I have to bow to colloquial use of “node” in many other circumstances, so I should just accept it!).

I had the letters to the solution and figured it was an anagram of pint. Dom made me feel better when he got there and pointed out the justification for ordering the letters beyond merely anagramming them. This solution had several steps but was only moderately difficult.

As a fellow doc I too struggled with that but only for a minute

A “matter” of lymph, perhaps?

[CPJohnson]

Those of you who found all the red herrings are operating from an abundance of knowledge that some of the rest of us don’t have! And could someone explain why “gig” was a problem? Cynthia J

[tim1217]

Those of you who found all the red herrings are operating from an abundance of knowledge that some of the rest of us don’t have! And could someone explain why “gig” was a problem? Cynthia J

I briefly thought gig was also a measurement (as in short for gigabyte)

[pookie]

I did not come up with an answer. I briefly thought that an ACRE is measured by AREA, but got no further. I still can't find any meaning in the title, FOR GOOD MEASURE. What does GOOD have to do with the answer?

[steveb]

I did not come up with an answer. I briefly thought that an ACRE is measured by AREA, but got no further. I still can't find any meaning in the title, FOR GOOD MEASURE. What does GOOD have to do with the answer?

Not every word of the title has to have a direct connection to the answer. Remember, there are no rules to this game, except that there is only one mug (most of the time, anyway).

Or ... pints ARE good measures!

(edited to show the posting I intended to respond to)

[Tony S]

Meta solving tip number 3,165: If stuck somewhere in the process, go back and carefully read every clue. I normally am racing to finish the grid so quickly because I want to get on to solving the meta, that I completely miss a ‘clue within the clues’.

Right you are --- and I neglected to do so. I had the measures found in the long answers and I had the next step of identifying the type of measure but there I stopped. Someone on this blog suggested printing out the puzzle and doing it again if you were stuck -- if I had followed that advice I would have solved this! Live and (hopefully) learn.

[DBMiller]

Those of you who found all the red herrings are operating from an abundance of knowledge that some of the rest of us don’t have! And could someone explain why “gig” was a problem? Cynthia J

Gig is shorthand for gigabyte. So the real core unit is BYTE in that case, and it would be a measure of computer storage (memory or disk). Giga is the prefix (meaning one billion), just like there is milliLITER and so forth, and should cause no confusion in my mind. But the chemistry term mole, usually written as MOL is indeed a unit of measurement.

I have been a computer programmer for 40 years and have never seen gig used as a word. But people will pronounce GB or gigabyte as "gig" in conversation.

[juliet]

I, too, had area, force, weight, volume but I never looked in the clues. I hate looking in the clues especially since I'm an online solver. Also, we don't post spoilers here, but someone posted something that had the opposite effect for me. It was posted that this was a classic (Marie Kelly) Mike puzzle. So I said to myself, "Yay, that means no need to look at the clues, for sure!". Using the clues is usually a Matt move, not Mike, in my experience.

Good luck to all the muggles in winning the cup!

I think of Mike's metas as frequently having a helpful self-referential clue/grid entry--in this case it was 17D. Even with "CLUE," provided as a tip, I initially missed the connection between the 4 units of measurement in the long answers and their descriptions, (Area, Volume, etc.). It was only after needing to fill the puzzle out a second time that I found the pathway to PINT.

[Olaf]

Anyone else check their spam folder every week, you know, in case the mug- winning email went there by mistake?

[juliet]

Anyone else check their spam folder every week, you know, in case the mug- winning email went there by mistake?

Thanks for the reminder--just checked (again). . .