"I've Got Two Words For You" - July 30, 2021

A place to discuss the weekly Wall Street Journal Crossword Puzzle Contest, starting every Thursday around 4:00 p.m. Eastern time. Please do not post any answers or hints before the contest deadline which is midnight Sunday Eastern time.
Locked
User avatar
escapeartist
Posts: 419
Joined: Fri Oct 09, 2020 12:24 am

#381

Post by escapeartist »

Joe Ross wrote: Mon Aug 02, 2021 12:32 am
HumbleScrivener wrote: Mon Aug 02, 2021 12:30 am

I think you can drop the "semi-".
"Semi-" is "half" of the fun & is in reference to several previous posts. 🙂
"Semi" is a character from the HUGO award winning EXPANSE series.

Don't drop the Semi! :D
* 2022 WSJ Mug Winner - I bask in its Glory *
FrancesY
Posts: 48
Joined: Mon Apr 29, 2019 12:54 am

#382

Post by FrancesY »

Was distracted for a while because I was sure there was a reason each author’s clue named two works.
User avatar
Abide
Moderator
Posts: 1275
Joined: Thu Apr 11, 2019 11:16 pm
Location: Biloxi
Contact:

#383

Post by Abide »

I think it would have been just as easy for Matt to insert HAIR GEL or HOT GLUE in the grid, so you have to assume NKJ was "CHO-sen" to make most solvers learn something new.

I was vaguely familiar with Broken Earth series but did not know the author. I'm fine with learning about what other nerds like.
The site is just a web page, a meeting place, a clubhouse - it's the group that's special.
—Brian MacDonald
User avatar
whimsy
Posts: 2718
Joined: Sun Jun 21, 2020 9:51 am
Location: Hopkinton MA

#384

Post by whimsy »

Well, the answer did turn out to be who I wanted it to be, even though I was unsure I had "enough" -- Found her readily from NICEKID, and after reading her qualifications decided she was certainly deserving of being the answer. (I haven't read much science fiction in the last 10+ years.) But I kept looking for something that would give better credence to her last name, or possibly reference two of her books.
Finally, with my typical playful approach to these puzzles, I came to the conclusion that 43A worked well enough for me as I pictured N K Jemison, at home, writing, with her 'JAMAS on.
User avatar
Limerick Savant
Posts: 220
Joined: Sun Jun 09, 2019 12:22 am
Location: Mobile, AL
Contact:

#385

Post by Limerick Savant »

Final installment

Lovely Solution

I’m ashore now, so make it official
There’s a meta in things interstitial
Find a writer for nerds
Using only two words?
Well, your first step must be the initial
               - L.S.

And thanks to @SReh26 who sent me this alternative finish:

“-but don’t make it so artificial?”
Last edited by Limerick Savant on Mon Aug 02, 2021 1:07 am, edited 1 time in total.
Dedicated to no nonsense nonsense
User avatar
KayW
Moderator
Posts: 3131
Joined: Wed Apr 10, 2019 12:10 am
Location: Chicago

#386

Post by KayW »

Great meta.

And I apologize to Ms. Jemisin, the sci-fi fans, and any who found my "well-known???" post spoilery - either towards or away from the correct answer.

Conrad said it well:
Conrad wrote: Sun Aug 01, 2021 3:47 pm These are two critically different statements:

- I have never heard of this author
- This author is not well-known

This author is quantifiably well-known.
I'm not familiar with the genre, never heard of her, and I just couldn't resist a lame joke about yet another "well-known" meta entity.
Contest Crosswords Combating Cancer (CCCC) is a bundle of 16 metapuzzles created to help raise money for cancer-related charities. It is available at CrosswordsForCancer.com.
User avatar
Limerick Savant
Posts: 220
Joined: Sun Jun 09, 2019 12:22 am
Location: Mobile, AL
Contact:

#387

Post by Limerick Savant »

A discussion with another Muggle about the correct spelling of the author’s name, its relationship to a favorite Irish whiskey, and autocorrect; led me to thinking about an earlier side discussion on this thread. So, with apologies to O. Nash, here is my response to that discussion:

The one-l lama
He’s a priest
The two-l llama
He’s a beast
I bet you’ll see
A three-l lllama
Before you grasp
The Oxford comma
Dedicated to no nonsense nonsense
steveb
Posts: 379
Joined: Tue Apr 09, 2019 5:25 pm
Location: Silicon Valley, CA

#388

Post by steveb »

I wonder if Mike will accept the misspelled "Jemison" as correct.
User avatar
CallMeShane
Posts: 150
Joined: Fri Oct 18, 2019 5:16 pm
Location: Victor, NY

#389

Post by CallMeShane »

ON THE USEFULNESS OF SPREADSHEETS IN SYSTEMATIZING KNOWLEDGE

I saw the four authors right away and realized that they all were best known in the form

Initial.Initial. Surname.

If once is happenstance, twice is circumstance, and three times is enemy action (see Auric Goldfinger), then four times is the crack into the mechanism.

I pondered the title. Conveniently in proximity to DH Lawrence, Don Ho jumped out at me ( … but I fended him off. Back to the luau, Uke Boy!!!!)

It didn’t take too long to find the other three double word answers.

Now what?

I took out an index card and created a primitive spreadsheet, four rows, three columns. Column 1 contained the author surnames, column two the author initials, and column three the two word grid answers.

I contemplated the description of the meta answer. Another author. Huh. Glanced at the spreadsheet. Hesitated, then added a blank fifth row to my pre-VisiCalc no-tech spreadsheet.

[ attn: Grammar Police (Yo Wendy, Hunter: this Bud’s for you!) no-tech or no tech?]

Hypothesis: row 5, column 1 is the meta answer.

Do I have any way of determining the initials (i.e. row 5, column 2)? Come on H.G. !!! No dice.

Do I have any way of determining the two word grid answer (row 5, column 3)? NICEKID had been sticking in my craw since I filled out the grid. A mondo weird answer.

Ok, if row 5, column 3 is NICE KID, then row 5, column 2 is N.K.

Now I started to feel apprehensive. I read. A lot. Really, a LOT. I knew of no author N.K. somebody.

Did I make a clerical error? Worse, was I Elmer Fudd sticking a shotty down one more vacant bunny hole?

In desperation I fed “N. K.” into Gman ( not OUR Gman, the one AKA Mr. G). Out popped a defensible answer.

Et voila …
User avatar
Mister Squawk
Posts: 241
Joined: Fri Sep 04, 2020 9:15 am
Location: Boston

#390

Post by Mister Squawk »

I submitted the correct answer, but I didn't claim to be ashore because I regarded it as a Google-fueled guess.

I had the answer fairly quickly, and then spent about 6 hours trying to figure out how to derive "JEMISIN" from the grid or clues. Noticing the presence of a single J in the grid (JOT DOWN) and the clues (Carry On, Jeeves) much fruitless time was spent. After noting the dissimilarity of "PASS GO" from "HOT POT", "DON HO", and "JOT DOWN" -- all but "PASS GO" have two words each containing an 'O' -- I tried to find the names of Monopoly properties int he clues. And then I went to bed.
User avatar
Commodore
Posts: 362
Joined: Thu Apr 11, 2019 7:12 pm

#391

Post by Commodore »

Chased down the well?known white whale this week. AHA But...
Question for the archivists: How often does a meta answer include letters not discovered within the grid or clues by way of clever mechanism or other torturous sorcery? J-E-M-I-S-I-N
User avatar
Ben B
Posts: 171
Joined: Sun Apr 25, 2021 11:50 pm
Location: Houston

#392

Post by Ben B »

My rabbit hole this week was EWE. I focused on finding two words for YOU and found EWE and sEWEr. But the only other “you” I could find was USE and WodehoUSE so tried for two days to work this path. Then my solving parter son rolled his eyes and noted the commonality of the theme answers initials and connection to the two word answers. It also helped that the author is well-known to him.

Fun puzzle! And for the others who are new to metas the growth week to week is astounding. Keep at it!
User avatar
Joepickett
Posts: 401
Joined: Sat May 09, 2020 5:38 pm
Location: Virginia

#393

Post by Joepickett »

Commodore wrote: Mon Aug 02, 2021 6:11 am Chased down the well?known white whale this week. AHA But...
Question for the archivists: How often does a meta answer include letters not discovered within the grid or clues by way of clever mechanism or other torturous sorcery? J-E-M-I-S-I-N
I chalked this one up to being similar to the 1000 Island Dressing answer where dressing was implied.

Oh and if you want to read her first book get in line (or buy a copy)
Attachments
Screenshot_20210802-062000_Libby.jpg
periperi
Posts: 30
Joined: Fri Mar 26, 2021 4:51 pm

#394

Post by periperi »

I got to NK basically right away and had to use Google to get the answer like many others. Didn’t even post here because I wasn’t sure about it and figured there was more to the mechanism that I was missing. I spent awhile looking at the letters left in the 4 two-letter words (ONO, OTOT, etc) but didn’t get anywhere so submitted and gave up only 80% sure. Frustrated as well, much less elegant than usual.
JeanneC
Posts: 616
Joined: Sat Apr 25, 2020 11:25 am
Location: Florida

#395

Post by JeanneC »

Congratulations to those who puzzled out the correct answer. On to the next one!🖖
“I cannot and will not cut my conscience to fit this year’s fashions”. Lillian Hellman
ksbfl
Posts: 10
Joined: Fri Apr 10, 2020 4:49 pm

#396

Post by ksbfl »

Playing on an iPhone (a tiny old beloved SE no less) in the middle of the Adirondacks is not conducive to grasping the gestalt. I “jotted down” the sets of initials, eliminated the duplicates and was left with J G (Ballard.) Violated my rule of never submitting an answer I have to justify.
User avatar
Gman
Posts: 349
Joined: Mon Apr 13, 2020 2:47 pm
Location: Encinitas CA

#397

Post by Gman »

Unfortunately, I am about as up on recent science fiction as I am on pop music since the year 2000. If nothing else, the meta reminded me that I have to read some new authors. Dune and the Hitchhiker's guide can now be found in the classics section.
User avatar
MikeM000
Posts: 579
Joined: Mon Aug 24, 2020 11:31 am
Location: Metro Detroit

#398

Post by MikeM000 »

MikeM000 wrote: Thu Jul 29, 2021 4:50 pm
I feel like Lisa Simpson looking at the YAHOO SERIOUS FESTIVAL theater marquee. I have letters, and those letters can be put together in various name-wielding combinations, but none of them are sci-fi writers that I know of. Google is pretty much mocking my search queries now after about 9 tries; it's just coming back with "no, you moron - that is not the name of a science fiction writer. Please stop embarrassing yourself in front of me."
So....when I wrote this on Thursday, I had noticed the grid entries and the initials. I had DONHO, PASSGO, and JOTDOWN, but in not 1000% noticing the title and the ease of seeing things on the Across axis, I had HELIPAD as my 4th key entry. The rabbit hole I hit was to take the letters between the author initials in the entries; that gave me such possible answers as ELI ASSOTON, ELIOT ONASS(with another IS at the end I would need to backsolve from somewhere, I presume), and ELIAS SOTON. Since I don't know many non-famousfamous sci-fi authors, I mean, why not? Sure, you'd hope ELI ASSOTON would use a pen name but whatever....

Also, I wiped it out immediately on posting as I realized it would denote a living author, but in my "on shore" post I originally wrote something like "wouldn't it be amazing if <REDACTED> does the WSJ puzzle each week, figured out they were the answer, did a fist pump and happy dance, then googled it, found this place, read the "they aren't really well-known" comments, and proceed to open a can of whoop ass on all of us?"
User avatar
KscX
Posts: 234
Joined: Sat May 02, 2020 12:09 pm
Location: Charlotte, NC

#399

Post by KscX »

N K JEMISIN just sold her Hugo award-winning series to Tristar and she will be adapting them into screenplays, I found in my research (aka googlin for the meta). Kudos to her; I look forward to reading the book and then seeing the movie - one of my favorite pastimes. No complaints on the puzzle! Straightforward but fun and added to my library.
User avatar
mntlblok
Posts: 324
Joined: Tue Jun 15, 2021 6:13 am
Location: The Villages, FL
Contact:

#400

Post by mntlblok »

Finding that we are consistently throwing ourselves off to some degree with "recency bias". I immediately noticed the two initials thing and started looking for a way to find H.G. in there. The wifey, who'd only known of J.D., needed a little nudging for completing the grid. But, she was who noticed the initials in the grid. Unfortunately, we both blanked out on them coming from "two word" answers. Kept trying to get all of them to "cross" the theme answers (recency bias). Then with our other recency bias, we never got past listing the letters that landed *between* those initials, but coming up with nothing - whether using hot pocket *or* helipad. The *only* thing that I could come up with for utilizing the title of the puzzle was "not I" or "not me". :-) We also strongly suspected that we were missing something related to the fact that each theme clue included "two" titles. Obviously got nowhere with that, either. BTW, initially tried "good kid" in there.

Am now a bit curious about getting to be listed in such a small group remaining on the boat. Kinda hurts. :-)
Locked