XWord Muggles Forum

Homer Buckle wrote: ↑Mon Jul 19, 2021 1:12 am Well, I got the answer, but I totally disliked the puzzle. Why were the 9 to 5 letters from Nine to Five (VIFOT) not included in the solution? Also, in all my years of working, I've never known anyone to work such hours. I worked at a Fortune 100 company in St. Paul, MN. People worked basically 9 hours. I had some friends that worked 9 to 3; I generally worked from 8:30 to 5:30. No one worked 9 to 5, and I don't know anyone who had such short working hours.

Really? As I recall,they didn’t name the movie “8:30 to 5:30”.

hoover wrote: ↑Mon Jul 19, 2021 12:15 am Now that Joe Ross has posted the official WSJ answer, I'll explain the tiny 5-minute detour I took. I got all the way to NAME CAR COMPANY AT TEN ACROSS, looked at 10A, and saw HAIK. Now, where I live, there is a car dealership called MAC HAIK, presumably named after a man named Mac Haik (pronounced to rhyme with Eisenhower's nickname). And MAC has three letters... I knew that was too localized to be the answer, but it jolted me out of a straightforward solve to spend 5 minutes Googling for a different car company called HAIK. Fortunately I came to my senses and saw KIA hiding there.

I did the exact same thing. While I don't live anywhere near Mac Haik I found it on Google. For about half a second I thought the answer could be MAC.
After a little more searching, I found Haik, Ethiopia. I didn't think a town of 14K people would be making cars.
I really thought that the clue meant that the car company was based there, but realized that I was getting nowhere.
I took another look and saw KIA.

I will be interested to see what the wrong answers are.

Not in a million years. Huge props to those who found it!

oldjudge wrote: ↑Mon Jul 19, 2021 1:30 am Really? As I recall,they didn’t name the movie “8:30 to 5:30”.

I fondly recall the Dolly Parton hit, “6:45-2:49.”

sharkicicles wrote: ↑Mon Jul 19, 2021 1:55 am

I fondly recall the Dolly Parton hit, “6:45-2:49.”

I'm fond of the Woody Guthrie song 9:16,2:44, 4:35.

woozy wrote: ↑Mon Jul 19, 2021 2:40 am

sharkicicles wrote: ↑Mon Jul 19, 2021 1:55 am

I fondly recall the Dolly Parton hit, “6:45-2:49.”

I'm fond of the Woody Guthrie song 9:16,2:44, 4:35.

Jenny worked odd hours, being on call:

8:00. 6:00. 7:00. 5:00. 3:09.

Her time card was a wreck! I can see where she'd have to pour herself the occasional mug of ambition.

Can't kick myself for failing to get this one. Even if I had thought to try that mechanism, would have dismissed it out of hand, as making something like that work *surely* wouldn't be possible for a constructor. Enjoying this crowd more all the time. You folks are most impressive.

Oh, and one of my rabbits was seeing "ess" at the back of "business", seeing it also at the puzzle bottom, and seeing "we're" meandering nearby.

Put me in the MAC club. I thought it was pretty obscure so didn't feel confident, but just didn't think to look at HAIK backwards, even when I had thought of KIA as a three-letter car company.

yourpalsal wrote: ↑Mon Jul 19, 2021 12:41 am

Jace54 wrote: ↑Mon Jul 19, 2021 12:32 am It will be interesting to see the number of IBM submissions. After initially making no progress with the long answers, I looked at the ‘A’ in grid box 9 and the ‘T’ in 5 and saw ambit in 1-across with the IBM in reverse. But that seemed too simplistic and I was able to figure out how to navigate the theme answers. Also a nice touch in the last across answer with ‘REI’ backwards in ‘Fiero’.

It will be interesting to see how many IBMs. That was my guess from just looking at the title before starting the grid. The key that opened the meta for me was seeing “cross” backward in the theme answers.

I, too, wonder about how many IBM answers there will be. I got diverted by all the backwards company names, including:
IBM - in 1A, so it's an obvious one to see first
REI - in 67A, so it's axially symmetrical to IBM
KIA - (which, of course, turned out to be correct) in 10A, because it, too was in a corner
(nothing) - in 65A, which bothered me since there were 3-letter companies in the other corners
CROSS - in 49A, so it's in a themed answer AND it covers the 9-to-5
ROSS - in 49A, in case pens aren't your thing and you need cheap clothing
ARCO - in 23A, which irked me for awhile since it also then linked to 16A, which intersects with OPEC in 13D

I finally saw the directional phrase pointing me to KIA, which made me realize that IBM and REI are red herrings to catch people thinking they have found the answer without finding the mechanism. If KIA was the only backwards 3-letter company name, more people would guess it without knowing the mechanism.

Eric Porter wrote: ↑Mon Jul 19, 2021 1:35 am

hoover wrote: ↑Mon Jul 19, 2021 12:15 am Now that Joe Ross has posted the official WSJ answer, I'll explain the tiny 5-minute detour I took. I got all the way to NAME CAR COMPANY AT TEN ACROSS, looked at 10A, and saw HAIK. Now, where I live, there is a car dealership called MAC HAIK, presumably named after a man named Mac Haik (pronounced to rhyme with Eisenhower's nickname). And MAC has three letters... I knew that was too localized to be the answer, but it jolted me out of a straightforward solve to spend 5 minutes Googling for a different car company called HAIK. Fortunately I came to my senses and saw KIA hiding there.

I did the exact same thing. While I don't live anywhere near Mac Haik I found it on Google. For about half a second I thought the answer could be MAC.
After a little more searching, I found Haik, Ethiopia. I didn't think a town of 14K people would be making cars.
I really thought that the clue meant that the car company was based there, but realized that I was getting nowhere.
I took another look and saw KIA.

I will be interested to see what the wrong answers are.

I worked for car companies for 35 years before my retirement, and it took me a few uncomfortable minutes after seeing the 9-5 clues before I saw KIA. If any puzzle could play to my strengths, this would be it.

And yes, I consulted Mr. G to see if there was a plant or headquarters of a car company in some place named HAIK.

OK, OK, I see why some might think NAMECARCOMPANYATTENACROSS in the long answers might point to KIA, but hear me out - if you follow the “hands of the clock” from 9 (9D NNN), to 5 (32D LLL) to 9 (digits at 47D, SSS), you get to 5 and 9 again (50D, 54A). The three letters TIC around the clock to form IPO, which is to say backing a business. Reading up you go from 9 (5+4) to 5 (5+0).

So I’ll wait for the WSJ to print a retraction

Stage 1: Denial - after all, if you can’t fool yourself, who can you fool?

And congrats to all who got the right answer - well done!

I’m not one to complain about the construction of a meta, but this one irked me. I was hung up on the clue for 59 across: Standard stretch for many at the office, and for you now. My head went to daylight savings time and became stuck. Note in the answer Nine to Five you will see ten and six in Roman numerals, both backwards. I thought this had to mean something. Having said that, I did come close, seeing both name and company could be formed by looking at clues in reverse. But that damn rabbit hole kept me from moving forward……

Whew! That's a relief. Though after spotting the hidden message (like an old-school "treasure hunt") KIA almost forced itself to be the answer as there aren't very many three-letter car companies in the universe. But there was still that niggling doubt that there wasn't another step I was missing besides finding those letters (backwards) in 10A.

I got the first step on my own by scouring the clues. I also figured back was significant. As was the fact that the hint said the answer is three letters long. They didn’t say it was a word.

I applied the pattern to the TAs where I said, if 59A is 9-5, then 17A is 7-1, etc and the corresponding letters. That was one rabbit hole.

I also went diagonally (forward and back) once I identified the 9-5 block of letters in the T-As, coming up with gibberish six letter words. I also looked in back of the result each time.

But my first hail mary guess was INC. - since it’s a 3 letter long answer and is often at the back in business. I also guessed SBA and PPP.

Thanks to hcbirker, Dr Tom and C=64 for graciously nudging me away from all this wrongness, or wrongitude as the case may be. And thanks for Wendy for her kindspirited encouragement to those of us LAS.

very elegant and kudos to Matt. I had all the pieces backwards from the 5 definitions but I never stitched them together. The fact that 17 A finished in 'Ann' (just like 9 D) and 23 A in 'Tic" (just like 5 D) got me in vortex of mental death from which very few can escape. I thought that tied to the 9 to 5 theme and you can only imagine the twisted creations that I tried to concoct after that. Also 23 A 9 to 5 had 'Arco' just like 16 A. All this goes to demonstrate an infallible truth in life: more often than not the answers are in front our noses, we just need to adjust our sight to see that.

P.S. Also pretty cool that Nine to Five was the backward answer for 59 A

My repeated error was counting 9 and 5 from the back of the words and reading the combinations forward. Finally, after two days of repeating my mistake I saw CAR and TEN (backwards) and realized I was starting on the wrong end. As always, it was so easy once I figured it out.

Headline: Zoom to buy Five9 in a deal valued at $14.7 billion.
Would have been fitting this week if this was a reverse merger.

I saw this license plate out on my walk last night

I found this one to be extraordinarily difficult. My first rabbit hole was the double letters in several of the long clues, NN EE DD LL TT SS OO RR SS - of which there were 9 only to reaffirm that it had something to do with 59A, but of course no doubles were in UNDEMOCRATIC so I eventually moved on. I then went to using 9 to 5 in each of the long clues but got stuck looking at letters 9, 2, and 5 and then 6, 7, 8 and thinking "what's between 9-5." After nudge I was confirmed that this was basically the right mechanism but I kept excluding 9 and 5. Eventually it came to me to use all of 9-5, but even after that it took me a fair amount of time to read them together.