"Location Finder" - January 17, 2020

[LaceyK]

Well I had the idea of using the first, second, middle, fourth & fifth letter, but never could come up with the 5 words to use. There are a lot of nonsensical 5 letter combinations on many notepads on my desk. Because FINAL NOTICE came up as the 5th Letter that the IRS sends...that seemed to be a clue that had to be followed. But then the 4th hitter could go with baseball champs NAT? or BAT is in the grid. TRIO jumped out as a 3. GUM often comes 5 to a pack. 4 ANGLES in a square. Possible FIRST GLIMPSE. Second place is a RED ribbon. Then there's all the locations referred to in the clues--cities, countries. And there are clues that say "First", "Two" and "Three" but no 4 or 5. I worked this meta during my long stay on the ship. Hope I find the shore next week.

[Laura M]

My guess (from the title/prompt) was "radar" but I couldn't get anywhere with that. My sneakiest rabbit hole was the first, second, middle, fourth, and last letters of the first word in all of the theme word pairs, which came out IEDAL, which can easily be anagrammed to IDEAL. I didn't like the anagram, or the fact that MIDDLE technically doesn't have a middle letter, or the unsatisfying fit of this answer to the title ("ideal location," I guess?). So fortunately I discarded that one, but it was a long time before I came up with the right answer. Anyway, it was a fun challenge!

[pookie]

But how is ORDER a location finder?
Sorry, I don't get it.

[Joe Ross]

Curious minds want to know: How do you have the listing with the name of the Tuesday crossword?

Those two puzzles, with a holiday gap, were from last year.

[MarkL]

Ouch! So fixated on geographic location that I could not see the solution with ORAER written on the scratch pad!!

Didn't think laterally enough, just too latitudinally!

[Commodore]

Batting "ORDER" brought to mind instantly with Cleanup. But as there is little order on this ship, I skipped past that. Our mechanic on board retrofitted ATLAS into an answer because, wishful thinking, we lost our ATLAS, our SONAR, our RADAR overboard long ago and could use these tools. Some very clever treasure hunters out there, and congratulations to them all.

[pddigi]

yes, "cleanup" is often fourth in an order, but not always - usually in NL ball, not always in AL ball.

and it's a very rough direction to "#4" in the word, but ... it works.

Could you explain this to me? I have been a baseball fan for 50 years and “batting cleanup” has always meant batting fourth (the idea being that the first 3 batters could all reach base without scoring and the fourth batter “cleans up” the base paths by scoring those runners. I’m not sure how having a DH in the American League changes that basic idea.

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cleanup_hitter

[Joe Ross]

Because FINAL NOTICE came up as the 5th Letter that the IRS sends.

First instinct was ORDER based on:

• 1st/initial

• 2nd/second

• 3rd/_______

• 4th/cleanup (batter - in every baseball league)

• 5th/_______

Had I known that the IRS sends a 5th & FINAL NOTICE, I'd have accepted 4 out of 5 and submitted ORDER as my Hail Mary. I'd have been correct for the wrong reason.

Like pookie, I didn't see ORDER as a LOCATION FINDER, per se, but do think that this was a great meta by Mr. Gaffney. "Not Iceland's nearest neighbor..." was much too ripe not to be plucked. Mea maxima culpa.

Congratulations to all beached muggles!

[Bob cruise director]

yes, "cleanup" is often fourth in an order, but not always - usually in NL ball, not always in AL ball.

and it's a very rough direction to "#4" in the word, but ... it works.

Could you explain this to me? I have been a baseball fan for 50 years and “batting cleanup” has always meant batting fourth (the idea being that the first 3 batters could all reach base without scoring and the fourth batter “cleans up” the base paths by scoring those runners. I’m not sure how having a DH in the American League changes that basic idea.

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cleanup_hitter

Paul
I agree. Batting cleanup has always meant batting fourth even in the American League

[MaineMarge]

A tricky one, for sure. Even though I always spend a lot of time with the clues, it took until Sunday to notice the “not Iceland “. I found 3 others quickly, but the “here” didn’t appear to be “there”. It took a friend with cleaner glasses than mine to spot it.
I had really wanted to use that lone X to make index, so spent fruitless time there. An X can be used to sign a document, supposedly. (?)
At first, ORDER did seem to be a weak answer, but more reflection revealed it to be spot-on.
Just ask Marie Kondo.

[BrianDavidson]

I had the mechanism, but must have been in too much a hurry switching between answers and clues. I mistakenly took the L from Placenta instead of the R from Organ and submitted OLDER. Careless, but still satisfying that I got the mechanism.

[ArnoldMBrockman]

What Is The Answer To "Location Finder"

[KayW]

Because FINAL NOTICE came up as the 5th Letter that the IRS sends.

First instinct was ORDER based on:

• 1st/initial

• 2nd/second

• 3rd/_______

• 4th/cleanup (batter - in every baseball league)

• 5th/_______

Had I known that the IRS sends a 5th & FINAL NOTICE, I'd have accepted 4 out of 5 and submitted ORDER as my Hail Mary. I'd have been correct for the wrong reason.

Like pookie, I didn't see ORDER as a LOCATION FINDER, per se, but do think that this was a great meta by Mr. Gaffney. "Not Iceland's nearest neighbor..." was much too ripe not to be plucked. Mea maxima culpa.

Congratulations to all beached muggles!

Rather than fifth and final notice, I just took that clue to mean "take the FINAL letter" which just happened to be the fifth letter in QATAR. Just as you use the MIDDLE rather than the THIRD letter in FDA. I had heard of CLEAN-UP position but didn't know what it meant; googled to learn that it typically means the FOURTH batter.

Another mind-boggling construction from MG that I enjoyed very much. Though I know it's much easier to say that when you've made it to shore.

[Meg]

In the early days of metas by Matt, odd clues were a big flag. Then he started writing odd clues just for the halibut, or perhaps a desire to play with our wrinkled brains. I don’t know. I do know that I saw "not ice", and for quite a while I just chalked it up to Gaffney whimsy.

[Janet P]

Made it to the beach after finally seeing the method.
Hopefully those left frustrated will keep at it -- it is doable.
Good luck to all on winning the mug!

And, #GoPackGo

Sorry about your Packers but they are getting hammered by the 49ers

Yeah, well... I really hadn't thought they'd get this far anyhow. But thanks for the sympathy.
BTW, tell me about your avatar. Mine is looking up the fabulous staircase in The Rookery in Chicago.

[Geezer Weezer]

There seems to be some quibbles about the puzzle title. To me, LOCATION FINDER is appropriate for both finding the location of the clue word as well as finding the location of the letter within the answer word. Well done, in my humble opinion.

[Bird Lives]

I thought that the title was misleading -- what is the connection between "Location Finder" and "Order"? To me, it was more of a red herring than a hint. There were many locations in the grid and the clues, from Valhalla to St. Lucia, but they were mostly irrelevant.

The other thing that distracted me was ADARE crossing with NAT when ADORE crossing with NOT was available. It seemed so forced that I figured that NAT must be important. It wasn't.

[hcbirker]

While I was finding numerous rabbit holes, did anyone else find the five airport codes hiding in the grid? STL, DAB, LEX, LAS and TRI got me distracted until I went to the clues and found Order. And ORD is another airport code! Just glad I figured it out in time, but I was floundering all over the place with this one!

[spotter]

Wow, I wasn't even close to solving this one. I kept coming back to the Not Iceland clue, thinking it was so obscure it had to be something to do with it, but it never jumped out at me and I concluded I was wrong. Congrats to all the smart muggles who found their way to shore this week!

[TMart]

It was the "Not Iceland's nearest neighbor, by far" which got me going. The wording of that was so weird. At first I only saw the "ice" part, then an hour later I saw that it was "notice".

Exactly what led me to the solution. Matt's way too good of a constructor to have clunky clues, so whenever he has one, it must be intentional. The Rolex as a Timex alternative was another one - not a good clue unless its there for another reason.