"Why Not" September 27, 2024

[Joe Ross]

Wishing all in this path the very best!

Power outage map as of the posting time.

[docison]

Ashore. Nice and tight. One particular piece of this made me laugh out loud.

Just want to give a shout-out to Mike. "OHM" going to "OH MY" is really really excellent.

[JakeDaSnake1112]

My personal rabbit hole was noticing we had 7 sets of "NO" touching in the grid (if you double count ANNO and NOICE) and each of these could be given a letter and anagrammed to form a negative response. I had ANTON -> CANNOT, NOICE -> NODICE, ONEAL -> NO DEAL, ONE -> NOPE, ANNO ->NOMAN, NOTE -> NOT ME, and GRATEON -> NEGATORY. This gives us the letter bank CDDNMMY, which if you squint your eyes, sorta spells DUMMY, in response to me spending an inordinate amount of time chasing this particular lapin.

[Hidden in 3D]

And now, for your enjoyment, a terrible poem describing a rabbit hole that I dug because of my reluctance to believe that a Mike Shenk puzzle didn't involve numerous steps and really was that ____ (you know the missing word):

Oh my word! Good golly wow! How could it be that easy?
No, I thought, the author's Shenk - his metas make me queasy!
He always has an extra step, another path to take.
Adding a Y is just a start; dig deep for heaven's sake!
I need a letter from the words whose meanings are the same;
Must be the first one in each word; that's how to win this game!
One P, two A's, then comes a G, and now another P.
The U is next, just one to go - the seventh one is G!
This rabbit hole is just too deep; I cannot turn around.
Think I'll just go to sleep for now and stay here in the ground.

I really was determined to make PUPA GAG or some equally ridiculous acronym work. Finally, I reluctantly decided I would submit EMBARGO, knowing I would be embarrassed upon seeing it as one of the alternate answers that Mike Miller always lists.

[Mister Squawk]

Just want to give a shout-out to Mike. "OHM" going to "OH MY" is really really excellent.

ohmy

adjective

1. of or related to Georg Ohm
2. (of a law or theorem) valid in one field, invalid in another

[Notbitter]

Ashore. Nice and tight. One particular piece of this made me laugh out loud.

Just want to give a shout-out to Mike. "OHM" going to "OH MY" is really really excellent.

All of the other words in the solution had four letters. So, even though I had the meta, I spent an inordinate amount of time trying to figure out what “okray” meant.

[whimsy]

Ashore. Nice and tight. One particular piece of this made me laugh out loud.

Just want to give a shout-out to Mike. "OHM" going to "OH MY" is really really excellent.

All of the other words in the solution had four letters. So, even though I had the meta, I spent an inordinate amount of time trying to figure out what “okray” meant.

Only means something if Ray is a boomer.

[tommy]

While I was floundering, I noticed DERRy kind of crossing GyRATEON if you flipped it, which struck me as perhaps a bit risqué in addition to being a stretch . Before I latched onto that they had to be related to "theme" answers, I had ANTONy and GABy as part of my set of what seemed like the *only* possible set of seven that could be extended by Y. Somehow I had ruled out READy (synonym for bookish?) in addition to OHMy as others have mentioned.

[The XWord Rabbit]

Nostalgia time, Muggles.

Do any of you remember Steve Allen’s variety show on Sunday night? It competed with Ed Sullivan, so if you were old enough to watch, you were likely too busy, waiting for the Beatles or Topo Gigio.

In any event, one of regulars on that show was a guy named Dayton Allen. He was part of Steve’s “men in the street” troupe that included Don Knotts, Tom Poston and Louis Nye. Remember them? Well, they were all very funny guys who greatly influenced your Rabbit during his formative years.

Dayton Allen had a signature catchphrase on the show: “WHYYYYYYYYY NOT?”
Hilarious, right? Maybe you had to be there. Anyway, it became so well known that it launched toys, a book and a record album. You can find a bunch of them on eBay for ten bucks or less. Your Rabbit is fairly certain they’ve been there for a LONGGGG time.

Oh, yes, the puzzle. Almost forgot. Six entries became different words entirely with the addition of the letter Y. Those +Y words matched up with six clues. When taken in grid order those first letters spelled out the meta: EMBARGO.

A couple of honorable mentions this week. Bonnibel found Tatum O’Neal in the puzzle, but unfortunately, had nowhere to go with her. Hidden in 3D roared out of the gate with a bit of verse but abandoned the race at the end.

In the end, your Rabbit couldn’t say NO to JakeDaSnake1112’s sorry story (Post #263). It was a uniquely off-the-mark method and while the coda is a bit messy it’s certainly in the right spirit.

So, until next week, then. WHYYYYYY NOT?

[JeanneC]

Just want to give a shout-out to Mike. "OHM" going to "OH MY" is really really excellent.

ohmy

adjective

1. of or related to Georg Ohm
2. (of a law or theorem) valid in one field, invalid in another

First name of famous stooge in Pig Latin.

[ksbfl]

I may have missed a mention but: 2across "Can't not" (dead smack top middle) with the answer "must" was my starter. Except that it was so clearly intentional that I tried to force must onto all seven long answers. It took my son (Mr.I know what this is. It's hexadecimals.) suggesting adding y's to other words to break me free. God love Millenials.

[CPJohnson]

As I write this, I am watching a 3-truck utility crew from Kansas City, Missouri, reattach electricity to two of my neighbors' homes in Cincinnati, Ohio. I'm impressed how utilities nationwide step up to help each other. If you'll allow the analogy, this isn't unlike muggles worldwide helping new muggles learn the ropes of meta solving.

My section of the neighborhood was without power for 48 hours, due to Helene. A power truck from Oklahoma got us connected.

[MikeMillerwsj]

The contest answer is EMBARGO. Each of the seven longest Across answers has a synonym ending in Y that, with the Y removed, appears in the grid: PREMATURE = EARL[Y], AIRLESS = MUST[Y], ABDOMEN = BELL[Y], GRATE ON = ANNO[Y], PREPARE = READ[Y], UNCLEAN = GRIM[Y], GOOD GOLLY = OH M[Y]. The first letters of those answers spell the contest answer.

Oh my, this was a clever puzzle. We know some solvers (including this one) went down a rabbit hole and tried to get a solution about of the first letters of those seven long across answers (PAAGPUG?). We had 1,042 entries, an impressive 87% correct. Incorrect answers included a big showing for BECAUSE (58), which seems like a somewhat wild guess... plus BAD OMEN (9), INERTIA (8), I SAID SO (7), ILLEGAL (5), UNREADY (4) and several others.

Congrats to this week's winner: Donald Engleman of Cincinnati, Ohio!

[DBMiller]

I had tied DERRY in the puzzle because there was a Naval Base there during WWII.

When the D wasn't going anywhere, I went through each and every grid entry, trying to add a Y. Of course, BELL was at the bottom, and when I finally noticed it, i was like, "D'oh! Naval vs navel!"

Time to go and contemplate my navel.

DB

[Merry Potter]

The contest answer is EMBARGO. Each of the seven longest Across answers has a synonym ending in Y that, with the Y removed, appears in the grid: PREMATURE = EARL[Y], AIRLESS = MUST[Y], ABDOMEN = BELL[Y], GRATE ON = ANNO[Y], PREPARE = READ[Y], UNCLEAN = GRIM[Y], GOOD GOLLY = OH M[Y]. The first letters of those answers spell the contest answer.

Oh my, this was a clever puzzle. We know some solvers (including this one) went down a rabbit hole and tried to get a solution about of the first letters of those seven long across answers (PAAGPUG?). We had 1,042 entries, an impressive 87% correct. Incorrect answers included a big showing for BECAUSE (58), which seems like a somewhat wild guess... plus BAD OMEN (9), INERTIA (8), I SAID SO (7), ILLEGAL (5), UNREADY (4) and several others.

Congrats to this week's winner: Donald Engleman of Cincinnati, Ohio!

What are the chances of muggles from Cincinnati winning two weeks in a row? Let's find out!