"Heads and Tails " June 9, 2023

[Grover]

(artwork by Joe Ross)

I'm always amazed by the artwork that goes into these solution displays.

[Yoda66]

No, but at least it brought to mind "In Hoc Signo Vinces" which means "In this sign thou shalt conquer!" So, never give up!

Onward christian soldiers!

In_Hoc_Signo_Vinces.jpg

As a Sigma Chi I would have welcomed that solution.

[Doug C]

Sharing my wrong answer for amusement of others...

I eliminated the head and tail word of each theme answer to leave the middle words of each: OF, UP, IN, A, NO
Took the head.(first) or tail (last) letter of each of those : O, P, I, N plus the A for the one letter word.
Spells PIANO which Is a 5 letter noun that in no way fits the theme and had to be wrong but was submitted anyway.
I did play 36 holes on Sat so made good.use of the time saved.not grinding over the solution!

[RichA2]

So I saw five COs and five INs in the across grid answers, and spent a lot of time trying to connect them together to mint COINs that might point to the five letters of the meta solution.

Never happened, of course, but I was so far down this rabbit hole that I never made it out.

Congrats and good luck to those who solved.

[vandono]

So close but didn't get it done this weekend. Got the 'heads' part and noted the mom-pop connection but did things like combining 'cap' with 'mad' to make madcap. This is one I should've finished but that's the way it is sometimes.

It was nice catching up with Isaac, though and he says, "Hi" and he misses you guys.

[mheberlingx100]

Saw mom and pop first and ran from there. As with some other muggles, cut and run vs. cut and paste caused me to do a double-take. Once that was settled, it was quick work from there.

[Streroto]

Had everything written out quickly but took a few minutes for the penny to drop. Not used to seeing it be the LAST letter. But as they say all is fair in love and metas.

Stay well all!

(Reading backwards I see that @ship4u said the same. Great minds…LOL)

[VanVeen]

I stewed over this way too long doing everything except take the first letter of the theme answer words. That's like meta trick 101, man, and i just... couldn't... see it.

When I finally tried it, I did some serious face-palming and the rest of the puzzle fell into place.

Glad I got it because Penny is my daughter's name, and if I hadn't, I'd've felt kinda bad.

[DBMiller]

Really liked the triality of the title. Heads for the first letter of each themer. Then the AND, as you usually hear heads OR tails. And finally the tails of the alternate answers giving the meta answer.

5-stars for this one.

[flyingMoose]

I liked two of the "tails" of the "X and Y" being in the corners: gown and only.

[mkmf]

Really liked the triality of the title. Heads for the first letter of each themer. Then the AND, as you usually hear heads OR tails. And finally the tails of the alternate answers giving the meta answer.

5-stars for this one.

Exactly what I thought! All the steps were there in those three words. But I didn't appreciate it until after I'd solved it.

[ship4u]

I liked two of the "tails" of the "X and Y" being in the corners: gown and only.

The "GOWN ONLY" distracted me for a bit, particularly since "DRESS" is a 5 letter word.

[Joe Ross]

(artwork by Joe Ross)

I'm always amazed by the artwork that goes into these solution displays.

Thank you, but I highlighted the incorrect letters (in RED) in the grid. 🙄😕😳

I work through these puzzles using my spreadsheets, highlighting the grid & building lists to the right as I go. Sometimes I don't button-up the spreadsheet before converting to a reveal image.

[OGuyDave]

Nope. Same dead-end detour as @RichA2 in post 285. Hard to believe exactly 5 "CO"s and 5 "IN"s. Couldn't get away from this.

I had a great breakfast at the top left on Friday, but I think I spent the entire weekend in the second right.

TFTXWD anyway

[The XWord Rabbit]

Well, the meta gods were smiling on most of you Muggles this week, but still smirking at a precious few, leaving your Rabbit something to talk about.

Mr. Shenk’s “Heads and Tails” puzzle involved multiple steps, beginning with recognizing that each of the 3-word anchor entries needed to be reduced to their start letters (heads), e.g. MEN OF MEANS became “MOM” and so on. The resulting new words each had a mate in the puzzle, forming a phrase in the form of “_____ and _____”, e.g. MOM and POP (26A). The last letters of the words that completed those phrases (tails) spelled out the meta: P-E-N-N-Y.

And we have couple of nominees this week: Doug C who went a step too far too early and came up with this:

I eliminated the head and tail word of each theme answer to leave the middle words of each: OF, UP, IN, A, NO. Took the head (first) or tail (last) letter of each of those: O, P, I, N plus the A for the one letter word. Spells PIANO which Is a 5-letter noun that in no way fits the theme and had to be wrong but was submitted anyway.

And there was ship4u (post #277) who found the second half of the phrases easily enough, but soon became mired in the clues that would define them. (Don, as long as you’re fond of Latin quotes, consider: ‘Ad astra per aspera.” An apt motto for anyone who struggles with a meta – and strangely enough, the state motto of Kansas.)

Finally, for those of you who were stuck in a hole for way too long, thinking that the phrases beginning with CUT and HIT both ended in the word RUN: Here’s a little blast from the past to end on:

[MikeMillerwsj]

The contest answer is PENNY. The first letters (“heads”) of the three words in each of the five longest Across answers spell a word that’s the first half of a common “blank & blank” phrase whose other half is an Across answer (MOM & POP, CUT & PASTE, HIT & RUN, CAP & GOWN, ONE & ONLY). The last letters (“tails”) of those second words spell the contest answer.

A strong turnout for an elegant and tricky puzzle (it stumped us here at puzzle HQ!). We had 1531 entries, about 90% correct, well above our typical 75% rate. Among incorrect answers, a big vote for COINS (44), plus MONEY (5), GROUP (5), SIDES (3), ONION (2), PASTE (2) and several others.

Congrats to this week's winner: Joella Donata Hultgren of Lakewood Ranch, Fla.!

[woozy]

So I saw the three letter words but dismissed it because that's what we did the week before and there's nothing in the the title or clues to suggest doing such an arbitrary thing (motivationless metas are a big pet peeve of mine). But I came back to it. I tried to do opposites POP is the opposite of MOM and PASTE is the opposite of CUT but ... the opposite of HIT is ... caress? hug?... nothing. (in other words I was looking under rocks rather than stones). Then someone somewhere talked about baseball (everybody is talking about that stupid game for some reason) and I thought could the opposite of a HIT in baseball be a RUN? Not really opposites but two sides of something? Then the phrase CUT AND RUN jumped to my mind and I thought X AND Y phrases. HEADS AND TAILS, MOM AND POP, CUT AND RUN and well, my original idea of CUT AND PASTE and my new idea of HIT AND RUN were better. So that was clear. The last step taking the last letter was obvious (after all, the title head to come into play somewhere).... Actually I was surprised at the number of people who pmed me and got the first to steps right away (they were dang hard to me) but got caught up on taking the last letter.

[BarbaraK]

The contest answer is PENNY. The first letters (“heads”) of the three words in each of the five longest Across answers spell a word that’s the first half of a common “blank & blank” phrase whose other half is an Across answer (MOM & POP, CUT & PASTE, HIT & RUN, CAP & GOWN, ONE & ONLY). The last letters (“tails”) of those second words spell the contest answer.

A strong turnout for an elegant and tricky puzzle (it stumped us here at puzzle HQ!). We had 1531 entries, about 90% correct, well above our typical 75% rate. Among incorrect answers, a big vote for COINS (44), plus MONEY (5), GROUP (5), SIDES (3), ONION (2), PASTE (2) and several others.

Congrats to this week's winner: Joella Donata Hultgren of Lakewood Ranch, Fla.!

Woo hoo! Congrats, Joella! Love seeing someone in the muggle family win!

[MaineMarge]

Well gang, we all dodged the pageant bullet this week, but watch out this weekend when my Pageant peony will be in full bloom.
Today’s progress