XWord Muggles Forum

Grid was tough as my poet and author and Dali painting knowledge isn’t the best… 70A clue of “Dot” made me think of “Roman” from 2 weeks ago. Also recalled one of my all-time favorite Sunday NYT puzzles from years ago, where “dots” and “dashes” were the Rebus — (Eg: Four letter word: French Actress Brigitte — answer: Bar<dot>. The entire middle of the puzzle was “cry for help” ala <dot> <dot> <dot> <dash> <dash> <dash> <dot> <dot> <dot> — so I went looking for additional “Dots” like an S.

Then I thought about how Shenk mentioned “E” in morse is a Dot, so I went looking for “E’s” — wait a minute, there are only 5 in the entire puzzle? How crazy is that for the most popular letter in English? (Thank you all you Muggle’s commenting on “frequency analysis.”) The first connection was a big box and that didn’t help — recalled 56D for Star, took out a straight-edge and red pen and Voila!

Loved the construction.

OH, BTW, in honor of today, there's an equally amazing NYT puzzle called "Flag Day" from 2010 that still ranks as one of my faves.

MatthewL wrote: ↑Mon Jun 14, 2021 10:32 am Enjoyed the puzzle this week, and got it with only 1 or 2 trips down rabbit holes. But I did have a bit of a nit -- the word "graph" is also a verb. And indeed, drawing a figure by connecting dots could be said to be "graphing". So, not sure why the hint was a five letter noun. Seems like that was a bit misleading, or, perhaps, just unnecessary. But, that small quibble aside, I thought the meta was quite enjoyable.

First off, tons of nouns can be verbs and vice versa. That's not my point, but leads me into my second thing...

I stupidly messed this one up. I figured it out, and (D'OH!) stuck a sheet of paper on my monitor and circled the E locations. I then connected them and looked at the intersections by putting my terribly drawn lines up against my screen and I submitted GRASP. After consulting with another here to see what they got, it dawned on me that MS Paint does a much better job at that...copy, paste, use the straight-line option, and I see GRAPH was the way to go. Oh well...

Anywho, my point being that if someone says out of the blue, "GRAPH", you'll likely picture the object - bars or pies or lines filled in with different colors and a key and values on the axes. Likewise, if you say "GRASP", you picture someone holding a rope or a cliff edge, although someone can graph an x & y axis, and a baseball bat is often found in Miguel Cabrera's grasp. That is why I think he added the "noun" qualifier - to push morons like me who can't draw a straight line and got the wrong answer to think twice before submitting...

I found GRAPH, with two nudges, but PIXEL would have been a nice answer, maybe it will be in a future puzzle.

I asked for more complexity on this week puzzle and just like the fool who pees into the wind I ended up wet in a beach by myself. My anwer was 'Bonus' which you get by alternating the first letter (from left to right) of the Down and Across answers of the words with an E. My overcomplicating mind works in mysterious ways seldomly understood ...

I have 5 preschool age grandchildren, so when I saw "connect the dots," I thought of the child's activity where you connect numbers in order to make a picture. I found the 5 e's and drew simple lines connecting those, which formed a house like a child would draw. Five letters, a noun, and fit the title too. I thought that was finally a good answer, sent it in and didn't give it anymore thought.
Broke a 24 puzzle streak too... unless WSJ want to count that as a second answer. It was a cute house too.

^^^
Love this -- because that's what I got first too --
And when I did I considered that could possibly have worked if it had been a Matt Gaffney offering and his son had helped!

LuscombeDriver wrote: ↑Sun Jun 13, 2021 10:10 pm New to the forum.

Done and done. Really like the meta.

Welcome! Great to see another pilot here! My current plane is a Cherokee.

Got a photo of that lovely Luscombe you'd care to share?

I have no particular flair for these things. Rarely does the microMug value exceed 1000 on the ones I solve, and quite often it is below 1000 on the ones I don't solve. However, this was a case where the pieces (70A, 56D, and 55D) came together fairly easily (not at one sitting, mind you), and this became a comparatively easy solve for me.

Wendy Walker wrote: ↑Mon Jun 14, 2021 10:06 am

femullen wrote: ↑Mon Jun 14, 2021 9:46 am She asked, "Did you try connecting the E's?"

"Oh, that's brilliant," I said, "and that's just how Shenk thinks." Found the five E's, connected them, and told my young Canadienne that they made not quite a regular pentagon. She said, "What if you make a star? There's a clue about a star."

If my average improves, you Muggles will know why.

WOW! You two make a formidable team! Make sure she joins the Forum.

Alert to Cruise Director Bob: my daughter sez she's going to join our scurvy crew before the next meta comes out.

And we'll see if my average improves. To ensure I don't steal credit from her, here is my record of wins and losses since I resumed doing these things back in February. The most recent uptick has to be credited to the daughter unit.

femullen wrote: ↑Mon Jun 14, 2021 4:57 pm

Wendy Walker wrote: ↑Mon Jun 14, 2021 10:06 am

femullen wrote: ↑Mon Jun 14, 2021 9:46 am She asked, "Did you try connecting the E's?"

"Oh, that's brilliant," I said, "and that's just how Shenk thinks." Found the five E's, connected them, and told my young Canadienne that they made not quite a regular pentagon. She said, "What if you make a star? There's a clue about a star."

If my average improves, you Muggles will know why.

WOW! You two make a formidable team! Make sure she joins the Forum.

Alert to Cruise Director Bob: my daughter sez she's going to join our scurvy crew before the next meta comes out.

And we'll see if my average improves. To ensure I don't steal credit from her, here is my record of wins and losses since I resumed doing these things back in February. The most recent uptick has to be credited to the daughter unit.

Fraction solved.png

I'm here! and ready for another solve : )

femullen wrote: ↑Mon Jun 14, 2021 4:57 pm

Wendy Walker wrote: ↑Mon Jun 14, 2021 10:06 am

femullen wrote: ↑Mon Jun 14, 2021 9:46 am She asked, "Did you try connecting the E's?"

"Oh, that's brilliant," I said, "and that's just how Shenk thinks." Found the five E's, connected them, and told my young Canadienne that they made not quite a regular pentagon. She said, "What if you make a star? There's a clue about a star."

If my average improves, you Muggles will know why.

WOW! You two make a formidable team! Make sure she joins the Forum.

Alert to Cruise Director Bob: my daughter sez she's going to join our scurvy crew before the next meta comes out.

And we'll see if my average improves. To ensure I don't steal credit from her, here is my record of wins and losses since I resumed doing these things back in February. The most recent uptick has to be credited to the daughter unit.

Fraction solved.png

So we will have metaDad and metadaughter II

Great to have her

Nlobb wrote: ↑Mon Jun 14, 2021 3:03 pm I have 5 preschool age grandchildren, so when I saw "connect the dots," I thought of the child's activity where you connect numbers in order to make a picture. I found the 5 e's and drew simple lines connecting those, which formed a house like a child would draw. Five letters, a noun, and fit the title too. I thought that was finally a good answer, sent it in and didn't give it anymore thought.
Broke a 24 puzzle streak too... unless WSJ want to count that as a second answer. It was a cute house too.

LOL - see my post at #333. Is my house better than your five preschool grandchildren?

An extremely clever one from Mike this week! WIth a big turnout--1763 entries, and about 80% correct (a bit more than average). We had something of a "pageant"--99 solvers connected the dots and submitted HOUSE. Another 14 noticed ARBOR sitting inside the dots. Plus SHAPE (7), ASTER (3), ANGLE (2) and lots of others.

Congrats to this week's winner: Shari Boone of Sioux Center, Iowa!

boharr wrote: ↑Mon Jun 14, 2021 11:04 am
Me. I actually has to google to remind me how to draw a star. True story.

Ask any 2nd grade teacher how to draw a star. We’ll never forget.
Didn’t anyone else think about that “j” in the sweet spot at 1A/D? At first I tried to make that the focus of the Rorschach Inkblot Test I was creating with the dotted I’s plus the 5 E’s. There didn’t seem to be any there there, so I went with the E, node, star clues and got it in short order.
By coincidence my Early Star peony is in full bloom today

MaineMarge wrote: ↑Mon Jun 14, 2021 9:26 pm Didn’t anyone else think about that “j” in the sweet spot at 1A/D?

The title and the j got me thinking about dotted letters -- I remember a past thread saying that M. Gaffney did this once -- but there were too many i's so I abandoned that plan pretty quickly and focused on the grid. Maybe it's because I'm an algebra teacher, but I immediately recognized that the NODE and STAR clues were the instructions -- "Okay, we're connecting five dots and getting the five letters of the meta from the intersections" -- and once I got to the DOT clue, the mystery was solved.

Does anyone else's heart sink a little when they see that MikeMillerwsj has posted and you realize that the mug--once again--will not be coming to you?

LadyBird wrote: ↑Mon Jun 14, 2021 11:19 pm Does anyone else's heart sink a little when they see that MikeMillerwsj has posted and you realize that the mug--once again--will not be coming to you?

Well, yes, I suppose mine does. But the feeling is somewhat like that irrational disappointment I experience when a cousin steals from me the prize I just stole from an elderly aunt at the white elephant gift exchange during one of our family Christmas gatherings.

Michelle B wrote: ↑Mon Jun 14, 2021 1:17 am I noticed that the 5 E's formed a star, but I was determined to make something of the diagonal O's. I corralled my reluctant husband/sounding board, and I told him what I thought the pieces were. The instant I read the clue for 55D, I had my Aha! moment.

My wife and I have been trying these for a couple of months now - with very close to zero success. Well, we *have* incorporated "rabbit hole" into our conversations. I also tried to make the five pairs of diagonal "o"s do something, and came up with MINOR. Even went to the trouble of reading up on the Morse Code symbols. Looks like I would've (in hindsight) found that two dots (o's?) stood for "i". The "e's went right over my head. At least I'm getting used to it. Does it get better??

BTW, took that pic of the baby rock beauty on Saturday out back before starting the puzzle.

mntlblok wrote: ↑Tue Jun 15, 2021 6:41 am My wife and I have been trying these for a couple of months now - with very close to zero success. Well, we *have* incorporated "rabbit hole" into our conversations.

Does it get better??

Welcome!

Yes, it gets better. You two are in the company of kindred spirits, here.

Nice photo & pretty fish!