XWord Muggles Forum

howardl wrote: ↑Mon Feb 17, 2020 1:24 pm Replying to Eagle who spent time "trying to anagram FERKNSNAAN". I have a rule in solving these (attempting to solve): if there is an anagram necessary to the answer it is very short and obvious, so looking for anagrams to a 10 letter sequence means you are barking up the wrong rabbit hole.

I caught FERKNSNAAN at Lollapalooza a couple years back... they rocked!

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Al Sisti wrote: ↑Mon Feb 17, 2020 2:21 pm

howardl wrote: ↑Mon Feb 17, 2020 1:24 pm Replying to Eagle who spent time "trying to anagram FERKNSNAAN". I have a rule in solving these (attempting to solve): if there is an anagram necessary to the answer it is very short and obvious, so looking for anagrams to a 10 letter sequence means you are barking up the wrong rabbit hole.

I caught FERKNSNAAN at Lollapalooza a couple years back... they rocked!

That's weird. A new Indian restaurant just opened here with that name.

Oh, to be as cultured as Al. Here in rural Pennsylvania, we have to settle for biennial visits from a FERKNSNAAN cover band.

Tom Wilson wrote: ↑Mon Feb 17, 2020 2:58 pm Oh, to be as cultured as Al. Here in rural Pennsylvania, we have to settle for biennial visits from a FERKNSNAAN cover band.

Have you seen the FERKNSNAAN impersonators in Las Vegas? Their show is great! I hear they may even be booked onto the Love Boat's next cruise.

I think Isaac might have a case of the 1984 vintage FERKNSNAAN in the back room.

or is that an Indian cuisine I've not yet tried? FERKNS NAAN?

howardl: Dude, see what you started??

Geoduck wrote: ↑Mon Feb 17, 2020 9:40 am I'm still unclear on how some people got part 2 but not part 1.

How did people get OPERAS out of the puzzle?

Acha. This is the first of my three complaints about this puzzle. As promised:

a. There was no mechanism to get "ER" at all. This is the fatal flaw.
2. The description was a "ten letter entertainment category". This is disingenuous, because the answer, while it *totals* to 10 letters, is made up of a 4 letter and a 6 letter word; it's not a 10-letter word. I'll admit this is a bit of poetic license but it still bugged me.
iii. The title, while it followed the pattern, contributed zero to the letters of the answer. Red herring? Maybe.

Rant over.

Dplass wrote: ↑Mon Feb 17, 2020 6:14 pm

Geoduck wrote: ↑Mon Feb 17, 2020 9:40 am I'm still unclear on how some people got part 2 but not part 1.

How did people get OPERAS out of the puzzle?

Acha. This is the first of my three complaints about this puzzle. As promised:

a. There was no mechanism to get "ER" at all. This is the fatal flaw.
2. The description was a "ten letter entertainment category". This is disingenuous, because the answer, while it *totals* to 10 letters, is made up of a 4 letter and a 6 letter word; it's not a 10-letter word. I'll admit this is a bit of poetic license but it still bugged me.
iii. The title, while it followed the pattern, contributed zero to the letters of the answer. Red herring? Maybe.

Rant over.

I had a fourth. Who knew that soap operas were an entertainment category?

Dplass wrote: ↑Mon Feb 17, 2020 6:14 pm

Geoduck wrote: ↑Mon Feb 17, 2020 9:40 am I'm still unclear on how some people got part 2 but not part 1.

How did people get OPERAS out of the puzzle?

Acha. This is the first of my three complaints about this puzzle. As promised:

a. There was no mechanism to get "ER" at all. This is the fatal flaw.
2. The description was a "ten letter entertainment category". This is disingenuous, because the answer, while it *totals* to 10 letters, is made up of a 4 letter and a 6 letter word; it's not a 10-letter word. I'll admit this is a bit of poetic license but it still bugged me.
iii. The title, while it followed the pattern, contributed zero to the letters of the answer. Red herring? Maybe.

Rant over.

a. Yes, there was. All four theme entries and the title provided the key, which is a pattern. Sure, they didn't give you the letters you needed to add to "SOAP to get the answer, but it was pretty easy to figure them out.

2. The description said it was a category. It didn't say it was a word. Categories need not be single words.

iii. The title wasn't a red herring. It provided a piece of the puzzle. No red herring.

IV (for DaveWa): Agreed. Although my mother seemed to become addicted to them.

ℇ: None of what you wrote explains how some people claim to have figured out the second part but couldn't get the first, which is what I asked. I interpret their claim to mean they got OPERAS but had no idea how to get SOAP. I'm open to correction on this, if they meant something else.

Did anyone actually say they got the second part and not the first? I've seen lots of post asking how it's possible, but I don't remember seeing anyone actually claim that.

Well, I have a novel but wrong solution!! I used the 4 theme entries and the title and came up with the leftover 10 letters to spell Nerf arenas. This does fit the 4 letter, 6 letter idea... Anyway I wouldn't have gotten it from soap. What does grid daring have to do with the answer?????
In my behalf, I had almost no time to think about the puzzle as I was busy planning a trip and drinking Guinness... Better luck next time.

Plus Nerf arenas sound much more entertaining than soap operas...

Each of the four theme entries consists of a four letter and a six letter word. The format of the entries is: add two letters to the first word to get an anagram of the second word. The title shares this format. The added letters from the entries lead to SOAP. Add ER to SOAP and anagram to OPERAS.

But... Where did the ER come from? And does the title have any significance other than the format?

I am going to wait until the official solution is published before complaining about this one.

A great answer to grid daring would have been meta puzzle!!

I spent a lot of time looking for instances of AN in the grid, since those were extra letters from DARING. I especially looked for the pattern AN[letter] to match the 3-letter grid words. And, I really tried to find AN next to, or including, the letters in OPERAS. I found them, but there was no consistent pattern. So I went with soap operas, even though I couldn’t deduce operas. I agree with #274 Jacksull.

MajordomoTom wrote: ↑Sun Feb 16, 2020 1:06 pm

Inca wrote: ↑Sun Feb 16, 2020 1:06 pm I'm quite sure I have the correct solution (it's too perfect to be otherwise) but some have posted that they got the 2nd half but can't find the first and that has me wondering how that's possible.

agreed

Yes, at least one person claimed to have the second part first, and these two other posters, like me, would like to know how that is possible.

I also wanted, badly, for there to be a path to an "ER" in the puzzle.

But his book is full of "the answer to this meta would be an excellent 5th theme answer", so ... he has done this before (and will do it again).

Title should have been

DIVA VARIED

That would have provided the "ER" and also the "opera" theme.

CPJohnson wrote: ↑Mon Feb 17, 2020 7:35 pm I spent a lot of time looking for instances of AN in the grid, since those were extra letters from DARING. I especially looked for the pattern AN[letter] to match the 3-letter grid words. And, I really tried to find AN next to, or including, the letters in OPERAS. I found them, but there was no consistent pattern. So I went with soap operas, even though I couldn’t deduce operas. I agree with #274 Jacksull.

The only AN in the grid was 27A CAAN. I tried all combinations of SOAPAN and could not make any words from them. I tried going backwards to make sense of ER and that did not get me anywhere either.

or, and why hasn't anyone seen this already ...

GRID GIRDER?