"We'll Have Waters All Around" - March 26, 2021

[michaelm]

Random comments:

THOUSAND was derivable; ISLAND was inevitable. Many muggles commented on their desire for something solid to tie in the third word. Personally, I'm fine with not having everything spelled out--we are supposed to make connections and complete ideas when solving, right?

The puzzle was close to offering a slight confirmation of the implied DRESSING. There were 23 islands in the grid. THOUSAND ISLAND DRESSING has 22 letters in it. As Maxwell Smart would say, "Missed it by that much!"

I don't know what else he could have done to get us to dressing:
Some mashup combination of Dresser (Mo.) and Singer (Fla.) Islands?
A clue asking what one puts in a turducken in Grand Isle (grand being slang for thousand)?

I wanted the answer to be Long Island Iced Tea, even though its four words were obviously disqualifying.

Fun puzzle.

The puzzle was close to offering a slight confirmation of the implied DRESSING. There were 23 islands in the grid. THOUSAND ISLAND DRESSING has 22 letters in it. As Maxwell Smart would say, "Missed it by that much!"

To solve that problem, read 1A and 75A as a command and add an A?

[Bird Lives]

I also loved the title. I don't think I ever could have come up with something that good that combined "Islands" with "something you order in a restaurant."

[SusieG]

You guys are going to laugh at my giant rabbit hole! I saw a few AU and OS and BA and my mind went to the periodic table of the elements. Cu + Ba = At (atomic numbers of copper and barium added together = 85, which is the atomic number for Astatine). The problem was that two of the islands only had one element, and some had several. You also end up with a truckload of letters. I assumed the answer was “YOUR BEST TABLE.” Who asks for 1000 island dressing, unless they’re at McDonald’s?

My first thought when I saw the solution was William of Occam. I also whiffed on Matt’s previous puzzle that didn’t use the grid. I don’t feel bad, because I didn’t spend a lot of time thinking about it. Well, except for adding up all those atomic numbers.

[Scraps]

The puzzle was close to offering a slight confirmation of the implied DRESSING. There were 23 islands in the grid. THOUSAND ISLAND DRESSING has 22 letters in it. As Maxwell Smart would say, "Missed it by that much!"

To solve that problem, read 1A and 75A as a command and add an A?

Brilliant, but it would make it four words.

I spent a few minutes trying to convince myself that Thousand IslandS Dressing might be an acceptable variant, before deciding to submit and post before page one filled up.

[LesY]

To Bob's request for funny responses to our friends @ WSJ: "Cheeseburger, Pepsi, Chips!"

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=puJePACBoIo

I figured "island" was in the answer given the acrobatics Matt used to avoid the word - that plus "larger number" landed on TID pretty quickly.
But for the actual mechanism? Well, I tried so many other things first. Think I invented a couple new metas, and it sounds like others did as well.

Interesting week with an always fun group!

[Prozach]

I wouldn't say that DRESSING was implied, given:

• The answer to
  this week’s contest
  crossword is a
  three-word phrase
  that’s something
  you might ask for in
  a restaurant.

• something you might ask for in a restaurant only allows for a noun phrase.

• The extremely explicit 1A clue & grid entry demand that 23 numbers be added to find the answer.

• 23 ISLAND grid entries were crammed, stuffed, cajoled, harangued, & jig-sawed surgically into a 15x15 grid.

• Adding the clue #s for the 23 ISLAND grid entries gives a precise total of a THOUSAND.

What else could the answer be?

I submitted "Thousand Island Please" as the phrase. I think that there is an incongruence between "something you night ask for" and a "phrase". I went with the more likely conversation in the restaurant:

Waiter: What kind of dressing would you like?
Patron: Thousand Island please.

For my calculation, i am continuing my streak, unless i find a stronger explanation for "Dressing".

The challenge in phrasing the clue and description of the answer is not to give it away. I guess in the balance between not giving it away, and making it it rather ambiguous, Matt erred on the side of ambiguity.

I also found the "We'll have waters all around" not particularly helpful this week. With 23 islands clearly observable, and with 1 begging us to look at them, i thought it was redundant. Any suggestions for a different title?

It's not surprising the that the third word is controversial, and rightfully so, i think. But, this doesn't diminish the heroic effort of fitting these 23 islands into the grid with the over-imposing constraint of summing them up to 1,000. This is a heroic task.

[auee89]

One rabbit hole. I looked for the bodies of water that surrounded each island and looking for the biggest body. I found that they could be put into 3 groups and played with the starting letters (and others) of the islands - to no avail. Then I did the sum and aha! As with others here, I kept looking for "dressing." That would have made the puzzle "elegant" in my mind if that loop was closed. Fun puzzle!

[zacmoretz]

Dang it! I guessed this answer right away but did not submit because I did not figure out the actual metric and did not have time to work through all the numbers. Besides, we don’t do math, we do words right? If I wanted to do math I would do sudoku! Aunt Norma got it though!

[michaelm]

The puzzle was close to offering a slight confirmation of the implied DRESSING. There were 23 islands in the grid. THOUSAND ISLAND DRESSING has 22 letters in it. As Maxwell Smart would say, "Missed it by that much!"

To solve that problem, read 1A and 75A as a command and add an A?

Brilliant, but it would make it four words.

I spent a few minutes trying to convince myself that Thousand IslandS Dressing might be an acceptable variant, before deciding to submit and post before page one filled up.

Brilliant, but it would make it four words.
Oops!
Thousand Island A(d)dressing?
Nah, can't repair that blunder.

On first attempt, added the numbers up to 1,000 Thursday evening and actually thought to myself if I don't solve this meta at least maybe I'll have something interesting to add to the forum Monday morning. Friday brought the most deserved Homer Doh! in quite a while.

[TPS]

I am impressed that Matt got 23 Islands into one grid but there were two things I took issue with.

1. This puzzle was easier to guess the correct answer based on the title and prompt (and maybe solving for a couple of the island answers) - than it was to solve the entire puzzle and then use the correct method. Both involve presuming the final word of the phrase. I think had Matt simply made the prompt “Something you order in a restaurant” that would have made it less easy to guess (I know I wouldn’t have guessed it anyway). I’ll also point out that what I used as my confirmation was that someone else had clearly guessed it correctly on page one and then later went back and confirmed it - So I knew it was a puzzle where you intuit the answer and use the method to confirm.

2. There are 22 letters in TID - if you have the skill to get 23 islands in a grid that sum to 1000 I would imagine you have the skill to get 22 islands into a grid and get them to sum to 1000.

If he had left the “3 word phrase” out of the prompt but had 22 islands which also equaled the 22 letters in TID it would have been a subtle confirmation.

Anyway my streak continues - I guess - although I don’t feel good about it after successful Hail Marys of Marie Curie and TID.

***Also for those who asked - My Redacted post basically said you can guess this puzzle as easy as you can solve it just based on the prompt and title and think about what could fit both. This typically isn’t the case but it was for this puzzle.***

[Joe Ross]

My shore leave was delayed for 2 days because I had added the numbers by hand, and came up with 998. I discarded that as another rabbit hole. This morning I thought about using a calculator and it all “added up”.

My most common nudge to baffled Muggles was "check your math." Several came SO CLOSE!

Sometimes that guy Joe Ross has a point with the spreadsheet thing.

Two-things:

• This is the first time I've used the mathematical capabilities of Excel to solve a meta. (Are you reading this, Meg?) I started and continue to use it for it's easy & superior mark-up, list-building, & ink/toner/paper-free characteristics.*

• To one muggle, I used variants of "Re-check your math!" 64 times. That beloved, unnamed muggle claims it was only 4, but we disagree. It's *possible* that my count is a tad hyperbolic based on extreme AYFKM?!?!? emotions, but we'll never know...

*Checkout HunterX's wonderful Suggestion for using an iPad app to solve Metas!

[TPS]

Oh, no...no, no, no
DRESSING is IMPLIED? Every answer I can remember since doing these is found somewhere in the grid or the clues or the title.
If they're accepting IMPLIED answers, then you can accept mine that was implied by all those islands surrounded by water...SURF AND TURF.
Gimme a break.

I can definitely remember 1 Matt Gaffney WSJCC puzzle from last year where this was not the case...”These go to 11” (or something like that). The prompt was a Beatles Song and the solution was Hey Jude and the methodology was recognizing that there were 11 Na in the puzzle. I didn’t love that the Dressing in TID was implied with no true confirmation but it is FAR less esoteric than recognizing that there were 11 cases of Na in a puzzle and that might mean something!

[Wendy Walker]

I am shocked to see that you fill in the grid with lower case letters!
In our house, only capitals letters are used to fill in the grid.

I have always gone the lowercase route; I don't know why. I received this message from a fellow Muggle when I shared that image with him yesterday: "WAIT A MINUTE. First no one, that is absolutely no one, puts the dots over I's in a crossword puzzle."

[Meg]

I am shocked to see that you fill in the grid with lower case letters!
In our house, only capitals letters are used to fill in the grid.

I have always gone the lowercase route; I don't know why. I received this message from a fellow Muggle when I shared that image with him yesterday: "WAIT A MINUTE. First no one, that is absolutely no one, puts the dots over I's in a crossword puzzle."

There was an MGWCC some years ago which employed the morse code. The dots were from all the i's and j's in the grid. I always write capital letters and I didn’t get that meta. So, there you go.

[Wendy Walker]

There was an MGWCC some years ago which employed the morse code. The dots were from all the i's and j's in the grid. I always write capital letters and I didn’t get that meta. So, there you go.

That was a great puzzle! And I DID get that one, but only because my Dad was a pilot and there were always Morse code handbooks around the house.

[mheberlingx100]

One rabbit hole. I looked for the bodies of water that surrounded each island and looking for the biggest body. I found that they could be put into 3 groups and played with the starting letters (and others) of the islands - to no avail. Then I did the sum and aha! As with others here, I kept looking for "dressing." That would have made the puzzle "elegant" in my mind if that loop was closed. Fun puzzle!

Capture.PNG

I tried the bodies of water, but gave up quickly after a blizzard of p’s and a’s.

[Schmeel]

I missed it this week. My excuse is that Passover took precedence - but I honestly just didn't add it up.
I see that it was noted that TID has only 22 letters, but when I looked at the puzzle I saw that the title has 23 letters, and then 23 entries needed to be added so that threw me off for a bit.
I also saw that adding was required, so I got to practice gematriyas in English this week. It works much better in Hebrew...

[Kris Zacharias]

Conversation this morning after I read what the meta is and how to determine it:
Me: I did write down a column of all the numbers of the clues and add them up, but I did not get 1,000!
Husband: You should have used a calculator.

[MatthewL]

Respectfully disagree with those who contend that the grid was irrelevant, and that all you needed was the clues to solve the meta. Technically true, I guess, but so what? It's a crossword puzzle -- you're supposed to fill in the grid. That's part of the fun. I enjoyed filling in a rather straightforward grid and trying to figure out the island names from crosses where necessary, rather that having to laboriously come up with the non-intuitive long themers that often get included in the Friday puzzle (looking at you, "Nile Sludge" and "Welcoming Grotto" from the recent past). Plus, I think you sort of had to fill in the grid, if only to eliminate certain rabbit holes like -- do the answers combine to form some sort of shape?

As to the complaints about having to guess the last word of the solution, again -- so what? Wasn't the "Trial Judge" puzzle from a few weeks ago all about taking an educated guess as to which words rhymed with which? Or the movie puzzle where you had to fill in the last word of the movie? How is knowing that if you have "A Bug's", and you're looking for a movie title, the answer has to include the last word "Life", any different from knowing that if you have "Thousand Island" and you need a final word for a phrase of something you might order in a restaurant, "Dressing" sure makes a lot of sense. I mean, at the end of the day, you really do have to stand back and applaud cramming 23 island names into a puzzle (without ever using the word "island" in either a clue or in the grid answers) and having those clue numbers add up to exactly 1000. For that, I can overlook any perceived inelegance in the meta.

[Wendy Walker]

Conversation this morning after I read what the meta is and how to determine it:
Me: I did write down a column of all the numbers of the clues and add them up, but I did not get 1,000!
Husband: You should have used a calculator.

Kris, please share with us the conversation that followed that oh-so-helpful comment!