"Endnotes" - January 22, 2021
-
- Posts: 313
- Joined: Tue Apr 09, 2019 2:46 pm
We are extremely impressed with the large number of solvers who cracked this contest (since it stumped us at Contest Central, where we saw the clues ending with notes, but missed the DO RE MI notes hiding at the end of the theme-entry words). We had 1556 entries, about 79% correct., right in line with our usual accuracy level.
Some big votes for a few other 6-letter musical words, suggesting that other solvers got part way along the tangled trail: OCTAVE (61), SCALES (47), CHORAL (32), FINALE (17), CHORDS (11), ADAGIO (7), CMAJOR (6), and several others.
Congrats to this week's winner: Carol Lynne of Simpsonville, Ky.! (The third winner in her family, per a post above!)
Some big votes for a few other 6-letter musical words, suggesting that other solvers got part way along the tangled trail: OCTAVE (61), SCALES (47), CHORAL (32), FINALE (17), CHORDS (11), ADAGIO (7), CMAJOR (6), and several others.
Congrats to this week's winner: Carol Lynne of Simpsonville, Ky.! (The third winner in her family, per a post above!)
- C=64
- Posts: 748
- Joined: Mon Jun 08, 2020 8:29 pm
- Location: PDX
One last thing about puzzles requiring anagramming: Mike Shenk has never constructed one; he hands them off to Marie Kelly.
*forehead slap*
*forehead slap*
- DrTom
- Posts: 4212
- Joined: Sat Apr 20, 2019 6:46 pm
- Location: Jacksonville, FL
Well my cat pooped on mine - I guess that is called a cat ass trophy? (sorry, I have NO control!)ky-mike wrote: ↑Tue Jan 26, 2021 7:47 amMy daughter's win happened when she was home from college one weekend and helped work the puzzle. She really never got into it, though. My wife and I have somewhat of a contest each week to solve the meta. I gave a copy to the cat once, but he just coughed up a hairball and walked away.
NUDGES!I am always willing to give nudges where needed; metas should be about fun, not frustration. Send me what you have done so far because often you are closer than you think!
- ky-mike
- Posts: 2201
- Joined: Thu Apr 11, 2019 4:22 pm
- Location: Near Louisville Ky
- KscX
- Posts: 247
- Joined: Sat May 02, 2020 12:09 pm
- Location: Charlotte, NC
Should there be a new MELODY category for “two paths to solve” like PAGEANT “halfway solve”? This seems unprecedented in my short experience. What were some other elegant/messy puzzles?
- C=64
- Posts: 748
- Joined: Mon Jun 08, 2020 8:29 pm
- Location: PDX
"Stress Test" July 3, 2020 had the meta answer sitting almost in plain sight, but the mechanism was a complicated pronunciation thing.
- Al Sisti
- Posts: 2124
- Joined: Thu Apr 11, 2019 1:28 pm
- Location: Whitesboro NY
There was one called "Border Crossing" (June 8, 2018), where the discussion between the two camps of answers led to the two answers being accepted (Maine, the one that Matt Gaffney intended, and New Mexico, the one the other group argued for).
- C=64
- Posts: 748
- Joined: Mon Jun 08, 2020 8:29 pm
- Location: PDX
Good grief, the letters in MAINE appear randomly scattered in the grid and need to be unscrambled for the final step! I give up.Al Sisti wrote: ↑Tue Jan 26, 2021 10:50 pmThere was one called "Border Crossing" (June 8, 2018), where the discussion between the two camps of answers led to the two answers being accepted (Maine, the one that Matt Gaffney intended, and New Mexico, the one the other group argued for).
- cbarbee002
- Posts: 619
- Joined: Fri Apr 24, 2020 6:02 pm
- Location: Philly Area
I just listened for the first time to Dimash, at the suggestion of several Muggles on last night's zoom call. Words can't describe the talent this young man has. If you haven't listened to one of his performances, I strongly urge you to do so.
- Al Sisti
- Posts: 2124
- Joined: Thu Apr 11, 2019 1:28 pm
- Location: Whitesboro NY
He really is unbelievable...cbarbee002 wrote: ↑Wed Jan 27, 2021 11:57 am I just listened for the first time to Dimash, at the suggestion of several Muggles on last night's zoom call. Words can't describe the talent this young man has. If you haven't listened to one of his performances, I strongly urge you to do so.
- KayW
- Moderator
- Posts: 4021
- Joined: Wed Apr 10, 2019 12:10 am
- Location: Chicago
I remember that puzzle! I had stumbled into the Maine camp quite accidentally. Another Rosie Ruiz miracle. Hmmm I seem to have a history of those...C=64 wrote: ↑Wed Jan 27, 2021 1:35 amGood grief, the letters in MAINE appear randomly scattered in the grid and need to be unscrambled for the final step! I give up.Al Sisti wrote: ↑Tue Jan 26, 2021 10:50 pmThere was one called "Border Crossing" (June 8, 2018), where the discussion between the two camps of answers led to the two answers being accepted (Maine, the one that Matt Gaffney intended, and New Mexico, the one the other group argued for).
Anyway, I had been solving the WSJ crosswords and metas from day one but always lurking, never posting. That was the week that finally lured me out of the shadows to join the NM/ME debate.
Back then muggles dwelt in the WSJ site; and BTW it looks like conversations that far back are now scrubbed from the interwebs. Another reason to rejoice and give thanks for BrianMac and this ever-expanding forum!
Contest Crosswords Combating Cancer (CCCC) is a bundle of 16 metapuzzles created to help raise money for cancer-related charities. It is available at CrosswordsForCancer.com.
-
- Posts: 3
- Joined: Thu Nov 14, 2019 9:40 pm
I admit to not having read all of the posts so I apologize if this was already said (or was obvious to everyone else), but I think Mike gets a ton of credit for using this double solution method so that we didn't have to use an anagram to solve it. I did anagram of course because I didn't see it until he posted his solution on Monday. Anyway, the DO-RE-ME s hidden in the long answers correspond to notes in the C scale. Those notes correspond to the lettered clues like "IMAX 3-D." If you then use the last letters of the answers to the lettered clues in the order of the DO-RE-MI scale (leaving off the F) it spells MELODY in order. I am astonished as usual.
- BarbaraK
- Posts: 2769
- Joined: Tue Apr 09, 2019 2:37 pm
- Location: Virginia
I hope that some day Mike will do another live Q&A and that when he does I'll remember to ask about this puzzle and how he intended it to work.
My guess is that he started building it, and assumed that people would start solving it, with the do-re-mi's in the theme answers. He'd done that before, in the June 28, 2017, puzzle, where translating do-re-mi's to C-D-E's spelled the answer (BADGE). This time, he started with that and then took it a step further by not stopping with the C-D-E's themselves but using them to get to the next step.
I'd guess that either his test solvers did the same and didn't even notice that you could skip the whole do-re-mi part, or that at least they thought it unlikely that many people would do that. In fact, I think if he realized how many people would go straight to the notes at the ends of the clues, he would have hidden them better, maybe just having them as the last letter of a word instead of capitalized single letters.
But it's entirely possible that I'm just assuming that other people see things as I do (which I really do know better than!) And only Mike knows what he was thinking. So I hope one day he'll share that with us.
My guess is that he started building it, and assumed that people would start solving it, with the do-re-mi's in the theme answers. He'd done that before, in the June 28, 2017, puzzle, where translating do-re-mi's to C-D-E's spelled the answer (BADGE). This time, he started with that and then took it a step further by not stopping with the C-D-E's themselves but using them to get to the next step.
I'd guess that either his test solvers did the same and didn't even notice that you could skip the whole do-re-mi part, or that at least they thought it unlikely that many people would do that. In fact, I think if he realized how many people would go straight to the notes at the ends of the clues, he would have hidden them better, maybe just having them as the last letter of a word instead of capitalized single letters.
But it's entirely possible that I'm just assuming that other people see things as I do (which I really do know better than!) And only Mike knows what he was thinking. So I hope one day he'll share that with us.
- FrankH
- Posts: 242
- Joined: Sat Apr 13, 2019 4:15 am
It could be avoided if there is also a clue that ends in F (e.g., composer of Concerto in F) thus completing the notes in the scale, and that the meta answer has a repeated letter.