"Of Sound Character" December 29, 2023

[femullen]

Not a complaint, as it's unlikely I would have gotten this one in any case. But does anyone else here not pronounce these letters with an "eye" sound? As I say, I don't think it would matter in my case, but I also never thought "Aha! Greek letters!"

[hcbirker]

Not a complaint, as it's unlikely I would have gotten this one in any case. But does anyone else here not pronounce these letters with an "eye" sound? As I say, I don't think it would matter in my case, but I also never thought "Aha! Greek letters!"

I Googled "how to pronounce chi in Greek" to get the confirmation.

[Gman]

I was super lucky on this one. My first idea was that the ends of the 5 themers sounded like Greek letters, and I noticed CH(A)I in 1A right away. Better lucky than good! Happy new year, all!

[DBMiller]

My journey...

Noticed the sound a-likes for Greek letters, but completely missed Phi the first time around. Looking for indicator clues, I noticed "All there: Sane", which reminded me of "... being of sound mind and body".

All there... What if five letters are missing from the grid? Nope, only J and X are missing.

Okay, try the middle entry, "Three in a row". And I see several rows in the grid with exactly three of a particular letter.

A chAi cpA Angler
io IhOp vIa OOzIng
e bluEbErrypiE
l Locket eLi Link
e EkEsby dod sanE

No help there, What about one word entries with 3-letters...

A AnAthemA
E bluEbErrypiE/ElEvEnty
O OhlOOk

Okay, what about clues with a three-peat letter?

cpa - frequent flier for
zed - londoner's last letter
dir - s, SW, SSW

Sigh... Something about those Greek letters...

chai - chi (Are those homonyms? I don't think so)
sigh - psi
row - rho (Also in heRO, hmmm)
pie - pi (Or just a switch, pie -> pig?)
kai - chi

Wait...

kai -> chi -> chAi

Symmetry check. SemperFi... Yes!

fi -> phi -> ihOp
sigh -> psi -> siMp
row -> rho -> hEro
pie -> pi -> piG
kai -> chi -> chAi

Omega it is.

[Merry Potter]

How many people went down this rabbit hole: Pi, Rho, Phi, Chi, Psi are the letters 16, 17, 21, 22, and 23 in the Greek alphabet and then found
that clues 16,17, etc started with the letters O M E C A. Not only that, but 21-23 are "Three in a row" and 16-17 are "One pair". I'm guessing that it might have been quite a few because of the number of people who said that had 4 of the 5 letters. Would have been an engineering feat if IHOP, SIMP, HERO, PIG, and CHAI had been in the grid positions 16, 17, 21, 22, and 23, but that would have made things more obvious, maybe.

Didn't get this one until late Sunday afternoon. Was too buzy looking at ordinals to look at the other mechanisms.

I went down that rabbit hole before clawing my way back up to the correct answer


Cameo.jpg

I saw that and said, "a cameo could be sorta like a locket", but decided that there was no good reason to order the letters that way.

I felt the same way- the solution is rarely a random anagram. I couldn’t find anyway to reorder to CAMEO so I punted on that answer.

[hcbirker]

[michaelm]

I was super lucky on this one. My first idea was that the ends of the 5 themers sounded like Greek letters, and I noticed CH(A)I in 1A right away. Better lucky than good! Happy new year, all!

Exactly the same luck!

[The XWord Rabbit]

After a rabbit hole drought (just one nominee in the last four weeks) your New Year’s bunny is pleased to report that this
week’s “Of Sound Character” puzzle from Mr. Gaffney made up for it. Three standout entries this time around so let’s not waste time by rehashing a methodology that was just explained in Post #247.

Let’s begin with an Honorable Mention for the inimitable DBMiller(Post #245), although this time around his story was a bit too “lost in the forest, touching all the trees” for the Rabbit. Your stories are always worthy of respect and admiration, although he can’t imagine another venue that would be equally appreciative of your talents.

The XWord Rabbit raises a bottle of Coca-Cola to benchen71 for the remarkable detour he took to arrive at the character (Andrew) Steyn from the movie “The Gods Must be Crazy” (Post #221). Steyn is the shy scientist who repeatedly says, “Aye yai yai yai yai…” That rhymes with all those Greek letters in the puzzle, of course. (It’s also worth noting that so does Carmen Miranda, singing “Yi Yi Yi Yi Yi…” but your Rabbit doesn’t wish to quibble.) This is benchen71’s third nomination since August, having previously gone astray with “The Game” and “Unfinished Business” puzzles. So, bravo, Ben!

Then we have krf (Post #229) who identified the five Greek letters, found their corresponding number in the Greek alphabet, returned to the clues and found reason to note the start letter of each, eventually arriving at CAMEO (with a bit of anagramming.) A bit convoluted? Sure! But isn’t that wonderful? (Honorable mention and thanks to Merry Potter for the lovely visual of this forsaken method in Post #233.)

Your Rabbit knows a story is worthy when he has to read it multiple times to fully understand how it worked (or should he say, failed to work.) Such is the case with the knotty tale from chatger. (Post #232). Nominee #3. Gnarly, dude!

All in all, a great way to start 2024, except for a fitting ending --and for that your Rabbit leaves you with this Walt Kelly “Pogo” comic strip from 1971. Just add 53 years and it works just as well today. Happy New Year!

[BisbeeTam]

I got it thanks to a helpful nudge from @Sleepy but didn’t submit in time thanks to a little too much champagne last night! Happy new year all!
PS: maybe already mentioned but did anyone else see the connection between 42A(help me) and 38A(three in a row) PHI/CHI/PSI plus 29D(one pair) PI/RHO, alluding to the consecutive letters in the alphabet? And also that the answer “Omega” is associated with “the end” as in the end of the year! Nice little New Year Easter eggs!

[LadyBird]

Well, this one was more than a KAS 5--more like a KAS 12. Even the explanation was a KAS 8 for me.

But I did solve a meta this holiday weekend. My son and daughter-in-law have gotten into metas so they created a bona-fide meta for me to solve in order to find where my present was hidden. I thought that it was quite clever! And the gift was lovely.

[femullen]

Not a complaint, as it's unlikely I would have gotten this one in any case. But does anyone else here not pronounce these letters with an "eye" sound? As I say, I don't think it would matter in my case, but I also never thought "Aha! Greek letters!"

I Googled "how to pronounce chi in Greek" to get the confirmation.

Never too old to learn something. I too looked up how to pronounce Greek letters, and I found that last week's puzzle uses what are common pronunciations in American English. I have been practicing American English for more than 50 years and thought I was getting pretty good. Alas.

My pronunciations are a quirky amalgam of English and Greek, and how I came to them I haven't a clue. I say Pi like "pie," just as everyone else, because if you pronounce it like the Greeks do, it makes school children giggle. Among other oddities, though, I've always said Psi as "psee," Phi as "fee," and Chi as "key"--this last pronunciation I found is equally bad in both English and Greek.

[MikeMillerwsj]

The contest answer is OMEGA. The five theme answers each end with a homophone for a Greek letter: FI (phi), SIGH (psi), ROW (rho), PIE (pi), KAI (chi). For each Greek letter, one grid answer contains its letters plus one extra: IHOP, SIMP, HERO, PIG, CHAI. The added letters spell the contest answer.

We thought this one was tricky! (We saw the first two and last two Greek letters but missed ROW....). We had 1,043 entries (a little lower than usual), with about 78% correct (right in line with our usual percentage). Other guesses included a big turnout for GREEK (61) and RHYME (47), plus VOWEL (19), TONAL (9), AUDIO (5), and several others.

Congrats to this week's winner: David Quirie of Tallahassee, Fla.! A happy new year filled with successful puzzles to all!

[heroine.chic]

Man, this one frustrated me. After some intense staring, I was able to find the homophones for greek letters. Shortly after that clued into the CHAI entry in the grid, but could only find two other instances where the correct spelling of the greek letter was hidden in a word (but still in correct order): ResHOt
PIg
CHaI
So, that left me with 5 letters that were left out (E S T G A) and scrambling them gave me STAGE. (Which, I thought could be related to the title, as in a Sound Stage, or a character in a play on Stage). I was bothered that not all five Greek letters were used, but then clung onto the THREEINAROW entry, as justification that only the three that came after (RHO) were valid for the answer.
Oh well! Congrats to those who figured it out!

[muggleunity]

For a long time, I was stuck on "VOWEL." a down answer with AEIOU, and all five vowels found in the first long answer. Plus, there were three vowels in a row in the answer "THREEINAROW." That didn't feel quite good enough, so I spent quite a bit of time trying to figure out how to get "VOWEL" to work before finally stumbling on the Greek letters.

[Bonnibel]

rsz_50pctnominee.jpg

After a rabbit hole drought (just one nominee in the last four weeks) your New Year’s bunny is pleased to report that this
week’s “Of Sound Character” puzzle from Mr. Gaffney made up for it. Three standout entries this time around so let’s not waste time by rehashing a methodology that was just explained in Post #247.

Let’s begin with an Honorable Mention for the inimitable DBMiller(Post #245), although this time around his story was a bit too “lost in the forest, touching all the trees” for the Rabbit. Your stories are always worthy of respect and admiration, although he can’t imagine another venue that would be equally appreciative of your talents.

The XWord Rabbit raises a bottle of Coca-Cola to benchen71 for the remarkable detour he took to arrive at the character (Andrew) Steyn from the movie “The Gods Must be Crazy” (Post #221). Steyn is the shy scientist who repeatedly says, “Aye yai yai yai yai…” That rhymes with all those Greek letters in the puzzle, of course. (It’s also worth noting that so does Carmen Miranda, singing “Yi Yi Yi Yi Yi…” but your Rabbit doesn’t wish to quibble.) This is benchen71’s third nomination since August, having previously gone astray with “The Game” and “Unfinished Business” puzzles. So, bravo, Ben!

Then we have krf (Post #229) who identified the five Greek letters, found their corresponding number in the Greek alphabet, returned to the clues and found reason to note the start letter of each, eventually arriving at CAMEO (with a bit of anagramming.) A bit convoluted? Sure! But isn’t that wonderful? (Honorable mention and thanks to Merry Potter for the lovely visual of this forsaken method in Post #233.)

Your Rabbit knows a story is worthy when he has to read it multiple times to fully understand how it worked (or should he say, failed to work.) Such is the case with the knotty tale from chatger. (Post #232). Nominee #3. Gnarly, dude!

All in all, a great way to start 2024, except for a fitting ending --and for that your Rabbit leaves you with this Walt Kelly “Pogo” comic strip from 1971. Just add 53 years and it works just as well today. Happy New Year!


rsz_2img_1085.jpg

1971 - a very good year indeed. Well, not counting the Feb 9 earthquake in Los Angeles (my hometown). I got married on July 10 that year. Nearly 53 years with my hubby.