"Body Language " October 6, 2023

[Ergcat]

Not my favorite Gaffney. It appears that a good chunk of people got to the solution by skipping the first step. That's how I got it as well and then I just anagrammed the snot out of snout

Agree

[whimsy]

I was CONVINCED that Spanish and English names of body parts were in the mix due to clues that mention the languages by name. What was worse was that HIP in Spanish is CADERA, one letter away from CAMERA, and RIP is one letter away from HIP. ARGH!

I toyed with Spanish also. Because Habanero PEEPERS could be "Spanish Eyes." You're welcome for the ear worm.

[LadyBird]

I was convinced it was going to be a "traditional Gaffney", with HUART -U +E = HEART and 14A of UAE, giving me an "A"

and with OYES -O +E =EYES, and 68A of OLE, so giving me an "L"

and that path led towards ULNA, but never got there This was me exactly--so ULNA was my Hail Mary.

with some "think about body slang-uage", I got there, but it was a last minute rush through the waves This was NOT me (except after the Last Call!

[SamKat9]

I was one of the people that got the answer from inadvertently skipping a step. I first saw three of the entries one letter off from a body part: SEETH (teeth), OYES (eyes), and MONTH (mouth). When I look at the replaced letters I got S,O,N. I then noticed 36-down is also the only clue with a body part and the answer is NOS...so phonetically the answer I got was NOSE but I couldn't figure out what happened to the E. I later got a helpful suggestion to tie the 5 theme entries (I didn't realize the theme initially) to the meta answer, and I finally saw the way I was meant to go.

[DaveKennison]

Late on Sunday, I posted what turned out to be the correct answer. I held off until then because I hadn’t grokked the initial step, without which the process seemed too inelegant for a Gaffney meta. Apparently, I wasn’t the only one to have gotten SNOUT by anagramming five letters that jumped out at me, observing that it’s a slang synonym of NOSE, and then noticing the “wink, wink, nudge, nudge” of NOS in the very center of the grid. Of course, I now feel pretty stupid that I didn’t take another look at the long Across entries … sigh … .

[TeaJenny]

Why, it's as plain as the NOSe on my face...

I, too, started at the second step, spotting HUART/HEART and TRAIN/BRAIN, then the others. Took me until last night to finally see the hidden slang names and match them up with what I already had to get the correct order for SNOUT.

I'd spotted NOS early on, but thought it was too obvious. Sneaky, Mr. Gaffney, very sneaky...

[HunterX]

When solving with the kids, we skipped the first step and went right to the second, without, of course, knowing it was step 2. But we tried using the changed letters before we found TRAIN. When TEUE didn't spell anything, I asked, "What about SONU?" We also had thought about including ERR for EAR, and RIP which gave us either RIB or LIP. At one point I did mention NOS, though the kids said, "Different mechanism, you're adding a letter." And when I pointed out POODLE/NOODLE, they said, "That's not really a body part."

After our call, I used my POODLE and my TRAIN figured it out.

At first I thought Step 1 didn't provide anything more than the order of the words in Step 2. But it also provides the key to taking SNOUT and interpreting it as NOSE.

[Aragorn]

I am also in the camp of those who found step 2 before step 1. I was initially hesitant since for a 4-letter answer I expected 4 clues that fit, not 5, but "SNOUT" was too on the nose (haha!) to be a coincidence.

Very cool to see the bigger picture how the 5 themers put the letters in order. Much more elegant than unscrambling them.

[Richard]

I had a very busy weekend and really little time this. Right off the bat I saw MS from Mystery Shopper, PC from Pinhole Camera, HP from Haberno Peppers and figured it had to do with computing etc. Was told that was not the right track. Gave up as had tickets to two football games and other stuff to do. Now that I see it wish I had spent a little more time. Well, I won't win the mug but am confident I will win the Powerball tonight if I buy a ticket.

[DBMiller]

Count me in the bypass crowd. Noticed pinhole/piehole while filling out the grid and laughed.

Finished the grid and noticed all the body parts off by one letter. I started with just the across ones because RIP could be HIP or LIP.

Came up immediately with SNOUT and knew NOSE was the answer. But didn't post or submit right away because I wanted confirmation.

Saw the middle down entry, but that wasn't good enough. When someone else mentioned seeing PIEHOLE, and I had already found the real parts, everything clicked.

[woozy]

Well, Like I said, someone had actually accidentally told me the answer before I even started. Still I couldn't make sense of the themers at all. I did see a OYES could make EYES (although I was at that point more convinced it had something to do with languages and OLE occurred elsewhere) and HUART mad HEART. I found a few more but: Where this all there was to the puzzle that would in my opinion not be a acceptable and I don't think it'd be up to Matt and Mike's standards. With no symmetry it'd be only a matter of trial and error and too tedious to find them all and there'd be too many coincidental subjective ones (Is PATE a body part? RIP can be either RIB or LIP and ERE can be EYE and ERR can by EAR and what's the cut off).

Any how the replacing letters spelled ETUBE if read strictly left to right regardless of rows. And the replaced letters were TNOSU which could be an anagram of SNOUT and I already knew the correct answer was NOSE. Since order is essential and there were five things that where obviously themers (although I had no idea *how*) the order had to come from the themers so MYSTERY SHOPPER had to be tied with SEETH/TEETH and PINHOLE CAMERA with MONTH/MOUTH etc. And thus it came clear.

I don't know if I hadn't known the answer if I could have done it. Maybe if I weren't always in such a state of stressed panic. But it was interesting that step 2 was so much easier than step 1 and that I used step 2 to solve step 1. Had I been used to that concept I may (or may not) have been able to get this. But it sure felt weird and unnatural to think that way.

Rhetorically though: Shouldn't PIE-HOLE be the number one word to fail the breakfast taste? I HATE that word. (Says the guy who doesn't believe in the breakfast test...)

[Mister Squawk]

Spent a lot of time with the doubled letters. Then saw 4 of 5 word clues but missed MONTH. So I was looking for something with the FOUR body parts. Then I saw the fifth, then became depressed, finally saw PINHOLE and WICKER, And that was that. Clearly was solvable from MONTH, OYES, SEETH, HUART, and TRAIN alone, but not satisfying without the order from the other set of answers.

[boharr]

Spent a lot of time with the doubled letters. Then saw 4 of 5 word clues but missed MONTH. So I was looking for something with the FOUR body parts. Then I saw the fifth, then became depressed, finally saw PINHOLE and WICKER, And that was that. Clearly was solvable from MONTH, OYES, SEETH, HUART, and TRAIN alone, but not satisfying without the order from the other set of answers.

I have to get me some graph paper.

[Merry Potter]

I'm kicking myself in a body part. I was so close but couldn't make the final small leap. I had the Brain, Teeth, Eyes, Mouth, and Heart and I tend to use the replacement letters not the original letters but I did go back to the original letters- TSONU and I tend not to anagram letters because that's rarely helpful. But the order was dictated by the long themers. I also had Choppers, Piehole, Peepers, Ticker, and Noodle- just couldn't make the final jump. So there is one less entry in the pool for the random winner drawing - I have increased your odds from 1 in 1296 (square root of 36) to 1 in 1295. you're welcome! Good Luck!

oh, and one more thing:
ps. I kept looking for a pattern of 4 related items not 5 since the answer was 4-letter body part.

[RobM]

I missed the significance of the theme entries, so I got the correct letters but not the order -- and decided I had to be on the wrong track because there were five, not four. Then I noticed that two of them included the name of a language in the clue ("Attention getting Spanish shouts" and "English record producer Warren"), which fit the title of the puzzle, so I wondered if we were supposed to translate the one-letter-off body part into the language named in the clue -- but then I couldn't find two more.

[JoDave]

I got to Snout and even Nose but I couldn’t find the ordering mechanism and it didn’t feel right. At the last moments I went with the language hint in the title. I found 4 across clues related to languages and went with their first letters.

40 - Food
57 - Attention
66 - City
69 - English

As plain as the nos on your face!

Congrats to the solvers! A tough one for me.

[The XWord Rabbit]

Some weeks the meta gods smile on the XWord Rabbit, and any puzzle that ends with the word “nose”
is one of those weeks.

Mr. Gaffney’s “Body Language” puzzle was a multi-step challenge, as follows:

Step One: Recognize that each of the five anchor entries contained a word that could be turned into a slang term for a body part by a changing a single letter: SHOPPERS to CHOPPERS, etc.

Step Two: Un-slang those words (or is it de-slang?) and find them in the grid with a single changed letter: TEETH for SEETH, etc.

Step Three: Recognize that those changed letters spelled SNOUT.

Step Four: Un-slang SNOUT for the answer: NOSE.

Unfortunately, no nominees this week as your comments were mostly contained to seeing some but not all of how to manage the themers. Also, much discussion over NOS (36D) which led more than a few to the answer without seeing the full mechanism. ‘Tis a pity.

Instead, a brief tribute to Mr. James Durante, the great Schnozzola. One of the most notable performers of his generation, now mostly remembered for singing “Make Someone Happy” at the close of the movie “Sleepless in Seattle” and kicking the bucket in “It’s a Mad, Mad, Mad, Mad, Mad World.” He was memorialized in the 1950's with the cast metal coin bank pictured above.

But wait! There’s more nose news. Your Rabbit can’t ignore this clip near at the end of “Sleeper”, either!





Until next week, then, goodnight, Mrs. Calabash, wherever you are.

[Jarrod]

I have an answer that I'm almost positive is NOT the desired answer. But I can show the steps. Will try again...

Follow up:
I did submit the correct answer, but did not follow the mechanic.

SEETH and HUART jumped out at me immediately after solving the grid. I noticed those (especially HUART) were one letter off from body parts. I figured that was a bit easy, so looked at the long answers, but didn't see anything jumping out, plus there were five long answers but the hint said four letters. I found two more body parts with one letter off (MONTH and OYES), and stopped there.

Looking at the replaced letters gave me SNOU, and I assumed I would then perform one more single letter replacement to solve...

ANUS ?!?

I couldn't believe that was the possible answer, yet it was a four letter body part! Showing it to my wife, she looked and then said NOSE fits with the single letter replacement. Could it be? I submitted NOSE, thinking there's no way my first answer would get past the WSJ.

I wasn't using my TRAIN as intended, yet stumbled upon the answer. I incorrectly assumed the long answers were there just to make the grid fit!

[DannyWalter]

But wait! There’s more nose news. Your Rabbit can’t ignore this clip near at the end of “Sleeper”, either! [/size]

https://youtu.be/gDfF2r_Jc8g

Never clone alone!

[KayW]

There is one other nose-worthy individual I'd like to mention - especially since I had the opportunity to see and hear Ringo Starr live on stage last Thursday evening (shortly after nose-ing out the answer to this meta)





Still looking and sounding great at 83!