"Name Dropping" September 1, 2023

[KayW]

....and talking poor, wonderful @KayW through MMM file prep over the phone...

It was the very least I could do and is something that poor, wonderful @Joe Ross does nearly daily. Let me tell you, I knew in my head that Joe does a lot for the forum, but having walked 50 feet in his shoes... he does a LOT for the forum. Thank you, Joe!!!

[CAe39]

Greg Norman is still alive and was born in the 50’s

[hcbirker]

[MaineMarge]

Marge is short. 5’.
Garden helper/handyman Buddy is tall. 6’3.
Marge is short for Marjorie.
Nobody has ever called me by my given name except when taking my wedding vows.
2017 photo

[DBMiller]

Many of the same false starts. Also considered Walt (Disney) connected to mousy.
Name dropping also had me looking for names that were both across and down. JoshGibson and omnia gave Sonia. Sec and AlfLandon giving Cal. Tonic and WaltKelly giving Nick. GregNorman and Arrau giving Nora. Absolute mess that led nowhere, that I initially thought might lead to SCaNt. Couldn't make it work.
Joshua/USA was my inroad as I was thinking about the Joshua tree at the time.

[Luxmea]

Oh no! I used the EAU answer instead of the USA one and came up with OTHER as answer. And since it's an adjective . Alas! That is very very frustrating.

[HunterX]

ARRGH! I forgot to submit AGAIN

Me too! I just realized that I never submitted my answer to WSJ. But more importantly, I did declare myself ashore in the muggles forum! That’s what really matters most

I almost didn't submit. But not due to forgetfulness. I hit "Send" on the email but it apparently didn't get sent. Yesterday, I opened my computer and was looking at email when I noticed that there was a '1' next to my Outbox. Huh? Made sure it got sent. Phew!

So now I'm guaranteed the mug, right?

[JAQT]

I got a different 5-letter adjective when I just took the missing parts of the first names: ua, trice, red, er, and ory. The first letters of these anagram into outer. Guess I'm on the wrong island?

NEVER rely on an anagram without without a justification. And never trust an answer that is an word unrelated to any other aspect of the puzzle (unless it's a lead pipe cinch-- i cant say they never happen).

I initially did something similar to @Annabelle, only I used the last letters of the missing parts. Those letters anagram to "ready," another 5-letter adjective. But there was no way to justify the changed order of the letters. And I remembered the anagram rule correctly given by @woozy, so fortunately I kept looking and eventually arrived at the beach (but not until I was typing up my request for a nudge that turned out to be unneeded).

[Scott M]

Completely missed this one, but hats off to Mike. Great puzzle!

[sharkicicles]

I got a different 5-letter adjective when I just took the missing parts of the first names: ua, trice, red, er, and ory. The first letters of these anagram into outer. Guess I'm on the wrong island?

NEVER rely on an anagram without without a justification. And never trust an answer that is an word unrelated to any other aspect of the puzzle (unless it's a lead pipe cinch-- i cant say they never happen).

I'm really lazy so a lot of times I'll put the letters I have into an anagram solver... get an answer that makes sense... then backsolve how to get the "real" answer based on the order of the items in question (entries/clues/entries that are valid based on other clues, etc.) But I won't submit until I see the "real" mechanism (oh, i was supposed to read these letters left to right, not in grid answer order, etc.)

[sharkicicles]

ARRGH! I forgot to submit AGAIN

Me too! I just realized that I never submitted my answer to WSJ. But more importantly, I did declare myself ashore in the muggles forum! That’s what really matters most

I almost didn't submit. But not due to forgetfulness. I hit "Send" on the email but it apparently didn't get sent. Yesterday, I opened my computer and was looking at email when I noticed that there was a '1' next to my Outbox. Huh? Made sure it got sent. Phew!

So now I'm guaranteed the mug, right?

I hope you get it. Unless I do.

[The XWord Rabbit]

As much as Your Rabbit would like to hand out a few nominations this week, he’s chosen to take a pass instead. Why? He’ll get to that in a moment.

The first order of business is to review the methodology of Mr. Shenk’s “Name-Dropping” puzzle. Notice that each of the five names are shortened versions of given names: JOSH (UA), BEA (TRICE), ALF (RED), WALT (ER), and GREG (ORY). Second: Notice that the “outcast” letters appear in grid entries with an additional letter: 22A. U-S-A, 55A. T-H-R-I-C-E, 5A. R-E-D-O, 27A. E-R-R and 64A. T-O-R-Y. Those extra letters spell out the answer: S-H-O-R-T.

Certainly, a challenging enough puzzle with plenty of moving parts to mislead Muggles, and yet… “Name-Dropping” turned out to be one of those LITFTATT’s puzzles: “Lost in the Forest, Touching all the Trees.”

Yes, there were some post-puzzle comments worthy of note: hoover (Post #252) laid it out pretty well, citing a great number of false trails, but also acknowledged there were “random scribblings” in the process. And ZooAnimalsOnWheels had a nice thing going with names within names, but only found one good example (Post #273).

In the end your Rabbit turned wistful, appreciating those who “touched all the trees”, but was longing for some deeper stories, following a single but very wrong path.

Speaking of being “lost in the woods”, it brings to mind one of your Rabbit's very favorite cartoons: “The Cat Came Back” by Cordell Barker. (With apologies to Wendy). Until next week, then --

[Bob cruise director]

@The XWord Rabbit

Is the rabbit going to build on the Short answer and give out an acknowledgement for the shortest muggle. Or does @MaineMarge have the title at a stellar 5 feet even?

[jhseeman]

ARRGH! I forgot to submit AGAIN

Ditto. One sympathizes.

Thanks for the late reminder.

So, a very terrible, mixed-up, ugly weekend without wifi beginning at 6:30 AM ET, Saturday. A very small UHaul truck pulled out of a neighbor's driveway yanking down the fiber optic cable that feeds two homes on the street, which had me debasing myself on the phone with our provider demanding repair sooner than later (if I accepted their schedule, service wouldn't be restored until Wednesday or Thursday - the correct crews are here, now, & service will be restored in a few minutes), missing the use of my Bearcats season tickets for the 1st game of the season, and talking poor, wonderful @KayW through MMM file prep over the phone.

It was very stressful for the whole family.

On Thursday I spent too much time with the 5 "dropping" (Down) proper names & trying to quilt them into an answer. Anyone else mine those depths? Bueller?

Life was busy on Friday, then Saturday happened.

Yesterday, I took to the phone, abandoned the previous rabbit hole, and better-applied @woozy's "some part of the names must drop." I duckduckgoed the TE people, then reconciled the dropped parts of their given first names with the 5 other entries.

Fair puzzle & gettable. Congrats to all solvers & double congrats & best wishes to all submitters.

EDIT: WIFI restored 1 minute after posting.

Yeah, spent some quality time with a 10lb sledge trying to ram that through....had RID_R and was pushing SOOOO hard to slide the E in there....then claim as an engineer I dont' know the difference between a noun and adjective.

[Dickie_Dunn]

Ashore late again! Too many fine pilsners this weekend to have time to solve so let’s mix in a water today!

[MikeMillerwsj]

The contest answer is SHORT. The five theme answers contain first names that are short for longer names (JOSHUA, BEATRICE, ALFRED, WALTER,GREGORY). Five other Across answers consist of the letters needed to spell the longer names plus one additional letter (USA, THRICE, REDO, ERR, TORY). The additional letters spell the contest answer.

Happy September! This was a tricky one, but those who submitted were largely on the money: 1398 entries, with 92% correct. We also had 11 votes for OUTER (rearranging the first of each longer name's additional letters), plus OTHER (25), READY (4) and a handful of others.

Congrats to this week's winner: J. Bradley Barger of Hoover, Ala.!