"Power Play" August 5, 2022

[woozy]

Am a little curious how many people keep "counting number of letters in a word" high in there tool of arsenals? I just don't but maybe I should start.

[joequavis]

Am a little curious how many people keep "counting number of letters in a word" high in there tool of arsenals? I just don't but maybe I should start.

It's definitely higher on the list for me than letter frequency / distribution, which was key to getting step 1 in Gaffney / Nediger's week 5 MGWCC last month (which I did not get).

My inroad on this one was simply writing out all the theme answers with spaces and it occurred to me there was a one-letter word, a two-letter word, a three-letter word, etc. I first thought about putting those in order, then saw the duplicate six-letter entries in SHOULD and SHAKES, but by then had seen 256. My EE background saw immediately that it was 16^2.

I never really considered SOLAR as the prompt asked for a 4-letter word, and there were already 4 theme entries, with the clue for 59A pointing to the mathematical definition of power.

I do think the meta was quite brilliant - to notice that the letter count in SQUARE ROOT was in itself a perfect square, then to find 3 other such cases to fit into a 15x15 grid is, well, brilliant.

[will's shorts]

Hey! I'm a stowaway on the boat, new to the muggle community...finished the meta but can't figure out the four letter word. I feel like I'm going down two separate paths and I'm not sure if either are anything...anyone feel like nudging me in the right direction or shouting at me from shore? Thanks!

[ship4u]

Hey! I'm a stowaway on the boat, new to the muggle community...finished the meta but can't figure out the four letter word. I feel like I'm going down two separate paths and I'm not sure if either are anything...anyone feel like nudging me in the right direction or shouting at me from shore? Thanks!

Welcome to the muggle community. I guess you are so far out to sea that you didn't realize that people have been discussing the answer since midnight!

[SewYoung]

Hey! I'm a stowaway on the boat, new to the muggle community...finished the meta but can't figure out the four letter word. I feel like I'm going down two separate paths and I'm not sure if either are anything...anyone feel like nudging me in the right direction or shouting at me from shore? Thanks!

Join us on the Zoom meeting tomorrow night at 7:30 Eastern Time. Click on "Muggle Zoom Room" at the top of this page.

[TMart]

I thought this one was very Shenky. Four theme entries and we're looking for a four letter word. And Mike, as he often does, put a big hint in the grid itself. The title was "Power Play". Those two words appeared in just one clue each:

59A Second power’s counterpart: SQUARE ROOT
62A Like a play about plays: META

Therefore, "Power Play" = SQUARE ROOT META. The title points to the mechanism. Aha!

Took a bit to figure out it was the word length numbers that we had to take the square roots of, but I know Matt Gaffney used word lengths in one of his metas in the last couple of months, so it wasn't a completely foreign concept, especially when the themers oddly had words that were one and two letters long. The number 361 doesn't jump out as a perfect square, but when it turned out to be one, I knew I had it.

[femullen]

This post--Sunday thread is brilliant...and it's only 9:10 EST!

My favorite pastime on this site, aside from announcing my rare appearances on shore, is reading Monday's post-mortem. It soothes my ego to see people who are even more clever than I am at leading themselves astray.

[LadyBird]

I was too busy with our visiting Dallas grandsons to do more than solve the grid. Add to that the fact that we had a very determined critter breaking into our utility room from inside the wall by enlarging the space around the dryer vent. All attempts to block and/or trap it were unsuccessful until I used sticky traps. We woke up one morning to find a skunk in the trap in the utility room. Removal by an expert left a lingering odor, somewhat reduced by enzyme spray. Today they're bringing an ozone treatment. Nightmare!

I wouldn't have solved this puzzle even without the boys and the skunk. Congratulations to those who did!

Sticky trap and skunk are two things that do NOT belong together! Yikes!

[LadyBird]

WHY SHOULD I continue to try to tackle these metas when my solve rate is diminishing and my rabbit hole perusal is increasing? Even if I solve, my chance of winning the mug is NO GREAT SHAKES. Plus these puzzles HAD A BAD EFFECT on my weekend (as I spent all this time staring at the grid with no results) and on my ego (I’m not as clever as I thought)! I should know by now that the pursuit of the mug is the SQUARE ROOT of—perhaps not evil—but definitely frustration.

Aah, but the pursuit of the mug is also the SQUARE ROOT of satisfaction and even elation (when I solve). And the humor and camaraderie of this forum has HAD A BAD EFFECT on my opinion of other social media outlets—I’m sure you all have examples of that so I don’t need to share toxic posts that appear on my feeds. If I don’t win the mug, it is NO GREAT SHAKES because I have enjoyed and sometimes participated in some wonderful conversations on this forum. So WHY SHOULD I continue to try to tackle these metas—because the fun definitely outweighs the frustrations and because of the lovely folks here.

But, speaking of frustrations…….here are my rabbit holes. I noticed 59A right away but never cottoned on to the right mechanism. I looked at the letters in all the numbers squared (1, 4, 9….64) but that was gibberish. When you read those letters backwards it did spell GRIN A SIN—which seemed questionable advice and also not a 4-letter word. SOLAR in the middle spot was just a cruel, cruel red herring. I was unable to find any other sources of energy in the grid, although I noticed that the first letter of the 4 long answers are also the first letters of different types of power: W(ind), N(uclear), H(ydroelectric), S(olar). And then 62A with a PLAY about PLAYS—how could that not be something when 25A ends with SHAKES(peare). I also spent time looking for letters forming squares around a center letter that would lead to the answer. But that too was a dead end. And I learned a bit about logarithms thanks to A LOG and TEN.

Kudos to those who figured this out on their own!

[Tripod]

I guessed the word, but did not submit out of lack of confidence and could not tie it to anything. Not sure that counts as a solve, but certainly did have fun looking for different ways to connect to 38A-power and 62A-plays on plays...

[CPJohnson]

I’ve won the mug! I got an email from Mike Miller at 12:44 pm. (526 entries, he said)

If you’ve read my post from earlier today about rabbit holes, you’ll know that it was not a solo solve. I know there is a group who do not submit unless they have solved solo; I am not in that group. Here’s why:
(1) If you tell Bob Cruise Director that you have solved but are not submitting, then Bob counts you, but the Wall Street Journal doesn’t. And I want the WSJ to know how many people are working the puzzles, in case they are deciding what features to offer based on number of participants. In the past, they have discontinued features I liked.
(2) Many folks co-solve. Two (or more) heads are usually better than one.
So I submit unless I did absolutely nothing by myself to arrive at the answer. And, if I don’t solve, I submit my best guess. I want Mike Miller et al to know I’m out there trying.

[BarbaraK]

I’ve won the mug! I got an email from Mike Miller at 12:44 pm. (526 entries, he said)

If you’ve read my post from earlier today about rabbit holes, you’ll know that it was not a solo solve. I know there is a group who do not submit unless they have solved solo; I am not in that group. Here’s why:
(1) If you tell Bob Cruise Director that you have solved but are not submitting, then Bob counts you, but the Wall Street Journal doesn’t. And I want the WSJ to know how many people are working the puzzles, in case they are deciding what features to offer based on number of participants. In the past, they have discontinued features I liked.
(2) Many folks co-solve. Two (or more) heads are usually better than one.
So I submit unless I did absolutely nothing by myself to arrive at the answer. And, if I don’t solve, I submit my best guess. I want Mike Miller et al to know I’m out there trying.

Congratulations, Cynthia! Always great to see a muggle winner!

[BarbaraK]

Does @The XWord Rabbit also monitor the WSJ site? @houmantamaddon posted a great rabbit hole there. I was going to suggest posting it here too, but it's past 4PM, so the comments are closed. (Though I think that when Mike Miller reopens them to post the results, he often leaves them open, so may be possible to post there later.)

[whimsy]

Woo-hoo, Cynthia!!
And why shouldn't it pay off to be out there trying!!

[MikeMillerwsj]

The contest answer is MATH. Each of the theme answers consists of multiple words whose lengths, when strung together, are a perfect square (WHY SHOULD I = 361 = 192 , NO GREAT SHAKES = 256 = 162 , HAD A BAD EFFECT = 3136 = 562 , SQUARE ROOT = 64 = 82 . As suggested by that last theme answer, the letters in the spaces numbered with those square roots spell the contest answer.

This was a tough one! We had 526 entries, and just about 37% correct. As ever, we are in awe of the ingenuity of Mike's construction: seeing that "SQUARE ROOT" letter count is 6-4, itself a square, and then finding 3 other symmetrical entries that fit the pattern. Other guesses included WATT (23), WIND (19), GRID (a nice power/puzzle word, 17), CUBE (13) and many others.

Congrats to this week's winner: Cynthia Johnson of Kingsport, Tenn.! (And Cynthia, thanks for the nice note above, and we love group-solves, the more the merrier.)

[hoover]

I thought this one was very Shenky. Four theme entries and we're looking for a four letter word. And Mike, as he often does, put a big hint in the grid itself. The title was "Power Play". Those two words appeared in just one clue each:

59A Second power’s counterpart: SQUARE ROOT
62A Like a play about plays: META

Therefore, "Power Play" = SQUARE ROOT META. The title points to the mechanism. Aha!

Took a bit to figure out its was the word length numbers that we had to take the square roots of, but I know Matt Gaffney used word lengths in one of his metas in the last couple of months, so it wasn't a completely foreign concept, especially when the themers oddly had words that were one and two letters long. The number 361 doesn't jump out as a perfect square, but when it turned out to be one, I knew I had it.

Sadly, although I knew that SQUARE ROOT had something to do with the META, I could not for the life of me figure out where to get numbers that needed to be square rooted.

The really sad part is that I have all the squares memorized cold up to at least 400, so I would have instantly recognized that 361=19².

I do squares in my head when I'm getting an MRI (don't ask; soccer injuries) or getting my teeth cleaned. It makes the time go by really quickly so I don't even notice the MRI knocking or whatever the hygienist is doing.

[Barney]

37% correct, wowza.

Told ya’ll I was really good at this.

“ With my usual lightning speed, figured out almost immediately to take a pass on this puzzle. Nuff said.”

[JJD]

Most of my rabbit holes have been mentioned I think, but did anyone else look up AC/DC, Tesla, (Robert) Plant song titles to follow the PLAY on POWER?

“You shook me all night long” but I still didn’t find the answer.

[The XWord Rabbit]

Does @The XWord Rabbit also monitor the WSJ site? @houmantamaddon posted a great rabbit hole there. I was going to suggest posting it here too, but it's past 4PM, so the comments are closed. (Though I think that when Mike Miller reopens them to post the results, he often leaves them open, so may be possible to post there later.)

Houman Tamaddon's "solution" is still visible under the "Comments" section beneath the puzzle. It is absolutely worthy of being a rabbit hole nominee, but unfortunately, he is not a member of this Forum. The XWord Rabbit just can't accept entries by proxy at this point, as much as he would like to.

[Abide]

I like a decisive rabbit