"In A Comprehensive Manner" September 22, 2023

[Henry Paul]

My first guess was Amazon because it’s logo has an arrow going from A to Z, it’s comprehensive, and it seemed like more of a “brand.”

In my haste, that was my submission. I’ll bet I’m not alone in that thinking.

<Head-slamming on desk>
Me too. Emphasis on "haste"

[DBMiller]

As I did the crossword, I was noticing the preponderance of Z's. When I got to the last entry, I immediately came up with the phrase "From A to Z", which is the current tagline for Amazon. And so I thought the answer MUST be AMAZON. But how do I prove it?

At first I only looked at the six across answers with A?Z in them. Six letters! AMAZON! Gotta be it. But the six letters in between (WBSERN) didn't spell anything. Not knowing I had completely messed up, because I included GENZ in my six across answers and wasn't paying attention.

Then I thought about the Amazon logo with the arrow that goes down from the A, over and back up to the Z. Of course! All I have to do is look at the letter UNDER the letter in between... But that doesn't work for MARZ - Nothing to drop down to. Rats.

Okay, maybe the downs have something to do with it. I find four more letters because I counted ZOA as possibly fitting the pattern, and this time didn't use GENZ. Anagramming those letters (WBSERSOET), I came up with WEB STORES, of which Amazon is one. So is that it?

What if I take out ZOA? Well, now I get WEBSTERS, and I remember that Amazon started out as an online bookstore, and you would purchase a Webster's dictionary from Amazon, so could the answer still be Amazon?????

Once I realize that WEBSTERS is in grid order, and by itself, Webster's would be a brand, and the dictionary tries to be a COMPREHENSIVE list all the words from A to Z, I finally stop clinging to my silly insistence that the meta answer is Amazon. But it certainly seemed plausible, if not THOROUGHLY, COMPLETELY defensible.

Look that up in your Funk & Wagnalls.

[Nycerjohnnie]

the hyphens were clearly just a mistake right?

I don't think so.
From A-to-Z seems perfectly reasonable for the 8 letter phrase (with two hyphens), and also the hyphens are also used in Merriam-Webster, a later version of Webster's Dictionary.

The official WSJ answer said “from A to Z” no hyphens!

[Nycerjohnnie]

Regarding the hyphens — some versions of the puzzle have hyphens in the middle of a word in the line, while some versions use hyphens as expected, at the end of line to continue a word. If the hyphens were important, it would be quite unfair to the solvers, to expect them to notice a word continued by a hyphen at the end of a line.

A commenter on the WSJ site seems to have a reasonable explanation of it. See below —

——————————
Donald Ferrell
21 September, 2023
OK, I get the comprehensive idea, but why the hyphen in the clues?

SCOTT SATHER
2 days ago
I was wondering the same thing, but the reason just hit me last night. It's just a software bug in the WSJ's publishing software. Those of us who noticed the mis-hyphenated words ("comprehen-sive" and "congress-woman") had to have done the puzzle online. If you look at the printed puzzle (or PDF version), those words are properly hyphenated because those words span two lines. The same bug frequently appears in articles when you read the print edition of the WSJ online.
There are two ways you can view each WSJ article: sort of a word processor version, and a PDF version. It seems that the word processor version is kind of an OCR of the PDF version, so that when words need to be hyphenated to fit the column width, sometimes that hyphen is mistakenly left in the word. I notice it frequently when I read the online print edition. Sometimes the hyphen gets removed, sometimes not.
In today's paper (Sept 23/24), page A7 ("Ukraine Strikes Russia’s Base For Black Sea Fleet in Crimea"), there is the phrase in paragraph five:
"The Russian Minis-try of Defense..."
that didn't get corrected, yet "head-quarters", "billow-ing", "resi-dents", and "hit-ting" correctly had their hyphens removed.

————————

Similar problem with today's online crossword. Each clue is followed with the number of letters in the answer in parentheses as if it was a cryptic.

A cryptic on Monday would just be mean.

There we go that makes sense. Some of you are way too nice to the WSJ lol. It’s just a typo!

[Commodore]

Solved! Ashore! What? Good gawd. Late to the party again.

[The XWord Rabbit]

After last week’s Zoom call your Rabbit had high hopes for a preponderance of rabbit hole stories this week.
Alas, it was not meant to be.

First, let’s briefly discuss what seemed to be a hiccup in an otherwise straight-forward solution to Mr. Gaffney’s “In a Comprehensive Manner” puzzle. The 8-letter, four-word phrase referred to in the clue at 74A was “From A to Z”. Some got it; others didn’t. Those that didn’t generally veered off into the land of Amazon or Alphabet.

This is best explained by comments made by CromsFury (Post #329) and DBMiller (Post #345). Your Rabbit certainly appreciates both, but because of their similarity in nature and the fact that they tended to be a bit on the LITFTATT side (See his Post #294 on the “Name Dropping” puzzle) he will recognize them with Honorable Mentions.

Has your Rabbit become a tougher taskmaster than he was when he started over a year ago? Perhaps, but mugs don’t grow on trees, you know. Whaddaya say we all dig a little deeper next week, huh? Meanwhile, here’s a video that seems apropos of the puzzle at hand – from Mr. Yankovic, of course.

[CromsFury]

This is best explained by comments made by CromsFury (Post #329) and DBMiller (Post #345). Your Rabbit certainly appreciates both, but because of their similarity in nature and the fact that they tended to be a bit on the LITFTATT side (See his Post #294 on the “Name Dropping” puzzle) he will recognize them with Honorable Mentions.

[Steve_S]

Has anyone seen any stats/winner for this puzzle? I don't see anything on the WSJ site yet. I'm still available to collect a mug if no one else has claimed it yet!
Steve

[mheberlingx100]

Has anyone seen any stats/winner for this puzzle? I don't see anything on the WSJ site yet. I'm still available to collect a mug if no one else has claimed it yet!
Steve

I’ve been waiting for the email to me since 2017. Not hopeful this week given the likely number of correct answers, but hope springs eternal!

[Inca]

I've been kind of busy lately and so haven't been able to keep up with the forum. Has a winner been announced yet OR am I still in the running for the coveted mug?

UPDATE: Well, looks like someone was "listening". Six minutes after this post, Mike announces the winner!

[MikeMillerwsj]

The contest answer is WEBSTER’S. As hinted in the title and theme clues, find “from A to Z” as the phrase suggested by 74-Across. Then take the eight instances of an answer with an A and Z separated by one letter (PAWZ, BAEZ, ABZUG, KUVASZ, KATZ, PAEZ, MARZ, LASZLO) to find the contest answer.

A big and successful turnout this week--2,445 entries, about 89% correct. Among incorrect answers, we had a large vote for AMAZON (86), which uses "A to Z" as a logo. Also ALPHABET (8), HEINZ (6), NIKE (4), and NISSAN, maker of Z cars (3), among others.

Congrats to this week's winner: Beth Belcher of Lawrence, Kan.!

[sharkicicles]

As I did the crossword, I was noticing the preponderance of Z's. When I got to the last entry, I immediately came up with the phrase "From A to Z", which is the current tagline for Amazon. And so I thought the answer MUST be AMAZON. But how do I prove it?

At first I only looked at the six across answers with A?Z in them. Six letters! AMAZON! Gotta be it. But the six letters in between (WBSERN) didn't spell anything. Not knowing I had completely messed up, because I included GENZ in my six across answers and wasn't paying attention.

Then I thought about the Amazon logo with the arrow that goes down from the A, over and back up to the Z. Of course! All I have to do is look at the letter UNDER the letter in between... But that doesn't work for MARZ - Nothing to drop down to. Rats.

Okay, maybe the downs have something to do with it. I find four more letters because I counted ZOA as possibly fitting the pattern, and this time didn't use GENZ. Anagramming those letters (WBSERSOET), I came up with WEB STORES, of which Amazon is one. So is that it?

What if I take out ZOA? Well, now I get WEBSTERS, and I remember that Amazon started out as an online bookstore, and you would purchase a Webster's dictionary from Amazon, so could the answer still be Amazon?????

Once I realize that WEBSTERS is in grid order, and by itself, Webster's would be a brand, and the dictionary tries to be a COMPREHENSIVE list all the words from A to Z, I finally stop clinging to my silly insistence that the meta answer is Amazon. But it certainly seemed plausible, if not THOROUGHLY, COMPLETELY defensible.

Look that up in your Funk & Wagnalls.

Sock it to me!

[CptnCodon]

Solved! Ashore! What? Good gawd. Late to the party again.
LionelRitchie.png

@Commodore... Eh, close enough . I'd say you're keeping up. But is Commodore keeping up with you?



(Apologies for the ear-worm.)

[Bonnibel]

The contest answer is WEBSTER’S. As hinted in the title and theme clues, find “from A to Z” as the phrase suggested by 74-Across. Then take the eight instances of an answer with an A and Z separated by one letter (PAWZ, BAEZ, ABZUG, KUVASZ, KATZ, PAEZ, MARZ, LASZLO) to find the contest answer.

A big and successful turnout this week--2,445 entries, about 89% correct. Among incorrect answers, we had a large vote for AMAZON (86), which uses "A to Z" as a logo. Also ALPHABET (8), HEINZ (6), NIKE (4), and NISSAN, maker of Z cars (3), among others.

Congrats to this week's winner: Beth Belcher of Lawrence, Kan.!

Wondering if I will EVER win the mug? My family thinks I am a bit off my rocker... seeking something that remains *just* out of reach. Still submitting every week with a very good track record, if I say so myself....I save the completed puzzles so I actually have several file folders devoted to this! Someone please tell me I am not crazy!

[BethA]

It always feels so conspicuous when I see the contest answer in other places during the contest!! This came up on Friday.

[Joe Ross]

Wondering if I will EVER win the mug? My family thinks I am a bit off my rocker... seeking something that remains *just* out of reach. Still submitting every week with a very good track record, if I say so myself....I save the completed puzzles so I actually have several file folders devoted to this! Someone please tell me I am not crazy!

You're crazy & no different than the rest of us mugless!

[LadyBird]

Wondering if I will EVER win the mug? My family thinks I am a bit off my rocker... seeking something that remains *just* out of reach. Still submitting every week with a very good track record, if I say so myself....I save the completed puzzles so I actually have several file folders devoted to this! Someone please tell me I am not crazy!

You're crazy & no different than the rest of us mugless!

Mugless or Muggles--they both fit!

[CromsFury]

Wondering if I will EVER win the mug? My family thinks I am a bit off my rocker... seeking something that remains *just* out of reach. Still submitting every week with a very good track record, if I say so myself....I save the completed puzzles so I actually have several file folders devoted to this! Someone please tell me I am not crazy!

You're crazy & no different than the rest of us mugless!

Mugless or Muggles--they both fit!

One just stings a bit more than the other.