XWord Muggles Forum

Did anyone else get tripped up on ANZAC PARADE?
Firstly, I had never heard of this particular thoroughfare. I Googled it after getting enough of the down answers to have some idea of the words but "ANZAC PARADE" sounded like gibberish so I double-checked myself. However, when I did that, the first city that came up was Sydney! Fast forward a few minutes, and I came up with "VASATION" ... of course I then realized what the real answer must be, and thought to check whether Canberra had a street with the same name. Bingo.

Edit: Reflecting on it now, I see that all four cities are the capitals of their respective countries, which is largely unnecessary to know in solving the meta but serves as further confirmation that Sydney can be safely ruled out.

Bob cruise director wrote: ↑Mon Mar 22, 2021 12:01 am I have had this earworm all weekend. it is now time to pass it on

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LMo3hHm ... rt_radio=1

As did I. VA-CA-TION.... It was playing the summer our family took our first trip away as a vacation for a week to a beach town on Lake Erie. We could walk down the hill to the lake.

tigerfly222 wrote: ↑Mon Mar 22, 2021 5:29 am Did anyone else get tripped up on ANZAC PARADE?
Firstly, I had never heard of this particular thoroughfare. I Googled it after getting enough of the down answers to have some idea of the words but "ANZAC PARADE" sounded like gibberish so I double-checked myself. However, when I did that, the first city that came up was Sydney! Fast forward a few minutes, and I came up with "VASATION" ... of course I then realized what the real answer must be, and thought to check whether Canberra had a street with the same name. Bingo.

Edit: Reflecting on it now, I see that all four cities are the capitals of their respective countries, which is largely unnecessary to know in solving the meta but serves as further confirmation that Sydney can be safely ruled out.

Ditto! Google definitely misled me for a bit, but the capital pattern saved me.

Would someone please explain 65A?

Wwilson wrote: ↑Mon Mar 22, 2021 7:40 am Would someone please explain 65A?

En and em are typographical terms denoting the size of a dash or a space. IIRC em is a full character width while en is half width.

The Monday puzzle should have a trigger warning about 24A. Guess Mike thinks it’s been long enough. Not sure all muggles would agree.

Wwilson wrote: ↑Mon Mar 22, 2021 7:40 am Would someone please explain 65A?

It is a term used in printing / typesetting. Em and en designate the size of something. en-space is a space the width of an 'n' character, em-space is one the width of an 'm' character. Also used with en-dash and em-dash for the shorter or longer dashes.

Thanks for the explanation.

BarbaraK wrote: ↑Mon Mar 22, 2021 7:48 am The Monday puzzle should have a trigger warning about 24A. Guess Mike thinks it’s been long enough. Not sure all muggles would agree.

I was actually going to log in at WSJ to comment on that

Dennis wrote: ↑Sun Mar 21, 2021 9:19 pm Just got time to log in. On shore. Like a number of Muggles, I thought the grid was hard and a number of the clues are devious. Does anyone know if Mike Shenk chuckles as he writes a clue like 38A or 42A? I had to use a search engine just as many of us did when it involved the periodic table of elements.

Wait, you mean you don't have the periodic table on the wall next to your computer?

tigerfly222 wrote: ↑Mon Mar 22, 2021 5:29 am Did anyone else get tripped up on ANZAC PARADE?
Firstly, I had never heard of this particular thoroughfare. I Googled it after getting enough of the down answers to have some idea of the words but "ANZAC PARADE" sounded like gibberish so I double-checked myself. However, when I did that, the first city that came up was Sydney! Fast forward a few minutes, and I came up with "VASATION" ... of course I then realized what the real answer must be, and thought to check whether Canberra had a street with the same name. Bingo.

Edit: Reflecting on it now, I see that all four cities are the capitals of their respective countries, which is largely unnecessary to know in solving the meta but serves as further confirmation that Sydney can be safely ruled out.

Yes, because my only trip to Australia many years ago found me in Sydney .. on Anzac Day.

Duckduckgo directed me to Canberra - which, unfortunately, was not on my previous trip itinerary. Next visit to Aus, I'll include it.

KscX wrote: ↑Mon Mar 22, 2021 12:09 am

Bob cruise director wrote: ↑Mon Mar 22, 2021 12:01 am I have had this earworm all weekend. it is not time to pass it on

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LMo3hHm ... rt_radio=1

It was this for me
https://youtu.be/2RHTiXvELNg

I'm a child of the 80's who grew up listening to the oldies-so thanks for both of those throwbacks.

I bet the Go-Go's checked all those bags for free, kept their ankle boots on through security, and even got to choose smoking or non!.....*sigh*

DianeA wrote: ↑Mon Mar 22, 2021 7:18 am

Bob cruise director wrote: ↑Mon Mar 22, 2021 12:01 am I have had this earworm all weekend. it is now time to pass it on

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LMo3hHm ... rt_radio=1

As did I. VA-CA-TION.... It was playing the summer our family took our first trip away as a vacation for a week to a beach town on Lake Erie. We could walk down the hill to the lake.

That one also stuck with me most of the weekend.

I submitted CAPITALS - anyone else? Each of the 4 town/country combinations was a town that was the CAPITAL of the country. So CAPITALS was enough to trigger that elusive "click" to feel correct.

minimuggle wrote: ↑Sun Mar 21, 2021 3:02 pm I have a question for the muggles. Is it acceptable to use google for the contest? I know I used it this week. I would never use it for the grid. Growing up we used to call the Crossword Dictionary "The Cheater". That being said, we did have a crossword dictionary which was an admission that at times we had to cheat. But we never considered we had solved it on our own if we "cheated". The contest seems different though. It feels OK to google. Happy Weekend
Marie

It has been interesting to hear the various responses to this question and I can’t keep myself from weighing in too. I started solving crossword puzzles because my mother was an avid fan and later in her life we would work them together though she really didn’t need my help. She was sharp as the proverbial tack (a sailing term ) until the day she died at 89. There was no Web to rely on, only a trusty Web-ster’s with a pronouncing gazetteer or an atlas. I learned to use those tools as an absolute last resort and typically just to double check the word or place that inevitably appeared after filling in the other known answers. Needless to say, that is still my default for grid solving. Any other way is not necessarily cheating but I might feel mom looking over my shoulder encouraging me to work it out.

As to metas, I still try to solve them the old fashioned way but ones like this week’s seem to require a trip to Google or at least the library. (remember them?) I just don’t have the fund of general knowledge necessary and it’s fun to discover new things. Isn’t that what draws us to these puzzles, the fabulous mugs notwithstanding?

So does anyone know when they actually do their “drawing” to select each week’s winner? I’d like to stop obsessing all the time and checking my spam folder. I could probably get 30 minutes of my life back eVery week if I just knew when the winner would be picked!

Olaf wrote: ↑Mon Mar 22, 2021 12:34 pm So does anyone know when they actually do their “drawing” to select each week’s winner? I’d like to stop obsessing all the time and checking my spam folder. I could probably get 30 minutes of my life back eVery week if I just knew when the winner would be picked!

The winner is selected Monday morning & is contacted via the email address by which they submitted. Check your email.

It sometimes takes longer to report the winner when the winner doesn't reply.

Olaf wrote: ↑Mon Mar 22, 2021 12:34 pm So does anyone know when they actually do their “drawing” to select each week’s winner?

Commentary earlier in the forum suggests that the pick is made early in the Monday-morning New York City work day and that the winner is quickly notified by email. Publication of the winner, here and elsewhere, though, is delayed until the winner has acknowledged the email. So we get no news until that two-way communication has been completed.

[Edit -- Joe Ross has faster fingers even when he adds a dismayingly dizzying image to the text.]

kgiano wrote: ↑Mon Mar 22, 2021 10:53 am I submitted CAPITALS - anyone else? Each of the 4 town/country combinations was a town that was the CAPITAL of the country. So CAPITALS was enough to trigger that elusive "click" to feel correct.

You will discover as you progress that answers must be found, not grasped or guessed at.

Good to know! That will save some time. I have been known to continue looking for it through Thursday!