XWord Muggles Forum

I was quite surprised to find I was first to report to shore. I started the puzzle around 7 after, and for me it was straight forward:

1) Open the page in the browser. Noticed the plus signs right away. Odd layout, I thought. I wonder how many grids cause that many plus signs.
2) Finished the grid. I get into grid solving mode, and don't usually pay much attention to the meta.
3) Re-read the title. Hmmm... Didn't a clue mention summer? Ah yes, the clue to "PLUSFOURS". Wait, what about those plus signs?
4) Checked the points, nope. Checked the corners K-N-E-E (Looking good) BREECHES. Done and done!

I probably would have never gotten this. I was stuck on counting 3s and 4s and 7s (four PLUS) and just didn't see the mechanism.

Harumph. I'm in a 5 week slump... hopefully this week will break it.

I noticed the plus signs right away, along with the PLUSFOURS, but remained fixated on the tips of the plus signs. When that proved to be gibberish, I found myself fixated on the 6 long words (they HAVE to be theme answers). Then I tried to place a fourth plus sign, figuring the displaced letters would form the answer. Then I counted down 4 boxes/"inches" from the plus signs. Nearly 48 hours later, I looked at the non-point letters by the plus signs and went "duh-woo hoo!"

Just checked my email and the title "The Email You've Been Waiting For" immediately caught my eye. Unfortunately, it was the weekly Walgreens ad.

C=64 wrote: ↑Mon Oct 19, 2020 2:08 pm

flyingMoose wrote: ↑Mon Oct 19, 2020 1:08 pm Hmm, the location of 15A and 63A in the grid are complementary? Congruent? Something. Help me, Wendy, et al.

This geometry teacher would go with (rotationally) "symmetrical".

Yep, that's the perfect word.

LadyBird wrote: ↑Mon Oct 19, 2020 4:52 pm Just checked my email and the title "The Email You've Been Waiting For" immediately caught my eye. Unfortunately, it was the weekly Walgreens ad.

Didn't know the Nigerian Prince was pushing Walgreens now.

MaineMarge wrote: ↑Mon Oct 19, 2020 9:48 am What a great meta! Right away I knew the shape of the 3 pluses would be involved ( see Hints for Solving Metas here). Going up and down and all around those eventually led me to knee breeches. I had to check that spelling, as Grandma always told me I was “getting too big for my britches”.
Another check of plusfours gave the biggest smile- thus called because they were 4” longer than knee breeches.
Loved that not all of the longest answers were involved in the meta. Point taken for meta toolbox. Thanks Mike- we needed that!

I always thought "Plus Four" was a reference to the expert golfer's handicap; perhaps the double entendre was intended by the inventor(s).

tim1217 wrote: ↑Mon Oct 19, 2020 8:52 am For those that missed the reference regarding Saturday's NYT puzzle, here it is. When I downloaded it Friday night, it confirmed to me that Shortz and Shenk get together on these things to play with our heads!


Screen Shot 2020-10-19 at 7.49.55 AM.png

i gotta admit, i never saw the plus signs in the WSJ until after i did the NYT on Saturday.

LadyBird wrote: ↑Mon Oct 19, 2020 4:52 pm Just checked my email and the title "The Email You've Been Waiting For" immediately caught my eye. Unfortunately, it was the weekly Walgreens ad.

Maybe they are having a mug sale?

flyingMoose wrote: ↑Mon Oct 19, 2020 1:08 pm After finishing the grid on Thursday, the only "connections" I noticed among the long answers was THREEpeat and plusFOURS. The next day, the three pluses in the grid jumped out at me. The letters at the end of the plusses yielded gibberish, but the letters in the "notches" gave me the answer. Later, I decided I should have read THREE PLUS from the long answers, using the first word of each. That would have provided a "verbal" clue in addition to the "visual" clue of the black squares.

Hmm, the location of 15A and 63A in the grid are complementary? Congruent? Something. Help me, Wendy, et al.

Symmetrically placed?

boharr wrote: ↑Sun Oct 18, 2020 3:24 pm

CPJohnson wrote: ↑Sun Oct 18, 2020 3:18 pm Any other Dodger fans out there? I married into Dodger fandom; my husband has followed them since he was 5 (and they were in Brooklyn).

I suppose then he's not to fond of us Yankee fans? Still, tell him I hope the Dodgers beat the Braves.

Never was a Braves fan growing up, as I was a Willie Mays/Giants fan -- BUT -- the star of the Atlanta Braves in the 1991 World Series -- Mark Lemke -- grew up a mile from my house. He would have been the World Series MVP had the Braves won it.

haari wrote: ↑Mon Oct 19, 2020 5:37 pm

tim1217 wrote: ↑Mon Oct 19, 2020 8:52 am For those that missed the reference regarding Saturday's NYT puzzle, here it is. When I downloaded it Friday night, it confirmed to me that Shortz and Shenk get together on these things to play with our heads!


Screen Shot 2020-10-19 at 7.49.55 AM.png

i gotta admit, i never saw the plus signs in the WSJ until after i did the NYT on Saturday.

That was what enabled me to get the meta, the visual clue from the NY Times. I'll accept help in any form.

Tony S wrote: ↑Mon Oct 19, 2020 9:58 pm

haari wrote: ↑Mon Oct 19, 2020 5:37 pm

tim1217 wrote: ↑Mon Oct 19, 2020 8:52 am For those that missed the reference regarding Saturday's NYT puzzle, here it is. When I downloaded it Friday night, it confirmed to me that Shortz and Shenk get together on these things to play with our heads!


Screen Shot 2020-10-19 at 7.49.55 AM.png

i gotta admit, i never saw the plus signs in the WSJ until after i did the NYT on Saturday.

That was what enabled me to get the meta, the visual clue from the NY Times. I'll accept help in any form.

Forfend. Are we saying that the the NY Times offered a nudge?

boharr wrote: ↑Mon Oct 19, 2020 10:32 pm

Tony S wrote: ↑Mon Oct 19, 2020 9:58 pm

haari wrote: ↑Mon Oct 19, 2020 5:37 pm

i gotta admit, i never saw the plus signs in the WSJ until after i did the NYT on Saturday.

That was what enabled me to get the meta, the visual clue from the NY Times. I'll accept help in any form.

Forfend. Are we saying that the the NY Times offered a nudge?

It's what did it for me. I can't imagine another helpful coincidence happening for quite awhile.

I wrote down KNEE BREE CHES and didn't see the answer. I'd like to blame my age, but I doubt that any of us were alive when knee breeches were a thing. I tried to scramble up those letters a million different ways before finally coming here for a nudge, only to learn that I already had the answer... tough way to DNF, but there's always next week!

I don't recall the exact times I ran across "breeches" in books, but they were several and, I assume, in required reading. I do remember heeding Mom's & Dad's advice to "Look it up in the (unabridged) dictionary!" on untold occasions & did so with "breeches."

The etymology of "breeches" may be interesting. One definition of "breech" is "hind end" of the body, as in "breech birth." My guess would be that "leg coverings"/pants evolved from that, or the other way, then getting from "breeches" to "britches" was a matter of continual, repeated, & phonetic misspeeling of the word.

Joe Ross wrote: ↑Tue Oct 20, 2020 9:35 am I don't recall the exact times I ran across "breeches" in books, but they were several and, I assume, in required reading. I do remember heeding Mom's & Dad's advice to "Look it up in the (unabridged) dictionary!" on untold occasions & did so with "breeches."

The etymology of "breeches" may be interesting. One definition of "breech" is "hind end" of the body, as in "breech birth." My guess would be that "leg coverings"/pants evolved from that, or the other way, then getting from "breeches" to "britches" was a matter of continual, repeated, & phonetic misspeeling of the word.

Somehow I also encountered "breeches" on more than one occasion that required looking it up.
There's a lot, probably more than most anyone needs to know, that can be learned about breeches in Wikipedia (not that it's necessarily correct):
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Breeches
Enjoy!

Dplass wrote: ↑Mon Oct 19, 2020 4:34 pm I probably would have never gotten this. I was stuck on counting 3s and 4s and 7s (four PLUS) and just didn't see the mechanism.

Harumph. I'm in a 5 week slump... hopefully this week will break it.

As was I. Also tried 8’s because + 4’s is plural. My stubborn brain just wouldn’t move off the numbers, even though I knew the plus signs had to be signs to something.

cherikee wrote: ↑Tue Oct 20, 2020 8:59 am I wrote down KNEE BREE CHES and didn't see the answer. I'd like to blame my age, but I doubt that any of us were alive when knee breeches were a thing. I tried to scramble up those letters a million different ways before finally coming here for a nudge, only to learn that I already had the answer... tough way to DNF, but there's always next week!

From now on, you can think of plus four pants as sons of breeches.

I just realized this AM that there was another fun, number-related rabbit hole I wished I'd gone down:
One, Two, Three, Four --
Tell the people what she wore -- Anybody else see spots? --