I submitted CHER. I saw the U, then US, then HE and SHE and saw HER and added the C. Seemed logical.
"Make Him From Them" - January 29, 2021
- hcbirker
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Heidi
- BethA
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Before hitting on the right answer, I had an idea that we might use the theme answers as clues, finding a proper name in the grid to match the pronoun. Like HEGOTGAME could be ELI manning. Then the first letters of the proper names could spell the answer. But couldn’t really connect any others too well.
For me, this one was really reminiscent of last October’s MMMM “Mind the Overlap”. The grid had lots of 3-letter words, and eventually saw that they had 2 letters in common. My worksheet for that one is attached.
For me, this one was really reminiscent of last October’s MMMM “Mind the Overlap”. The grid had lots of 3-letter words, and eventually saw that they had 2 letters in common. My worksheet for that one is attached.
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As do I. We're such a bunch of literary sophisticates are we not!
Why, I even have some Kliban greeting cards with the verse and image posted by whimsy at #182
and fond memories of Alexandria, a beautiful black cat who would request (actually, it was more of a demand) my assistance in hunting mice.
She would lead me to the location where she knew the mice were, triangulate their exact location with few quick movements of her ears and then point with her tail in the direction she wanted me to go to set up the ambush. She would then go in the opposite direction and I would mirror her movement so that we had the mice in between us. She would sit regally opposite me like the statue of an Egyptian cat I saw in the World Book Encyclopedia (That is how I came up with her name. I think she just called me "The Big Doofus Who Thinks He's a Cat").
She would give me the signal to start moving forward. I would move towards her in tiny steps a about an inch and a half at a time. When I would get within about three feet of the mice, they would all jump vertically about a foot in the air, their beady little eyes staring right at me. When they hit the ground, they would scatter in all different directions. One of them would invariably run close enough for her to pounce on it.
Alexandria would carefully pick it up in her mouth and carry them to a safe, flat location with no brush where she would toss it in the air with her paws and bat it around. She would pounce on the mouse again if it tried to run away.
After she was done playing with the mouse, she would pick it up in her mouth again and carry it to me and offer to let me play with it (cat etiquette, you know). I would decline her generous offer (wish now I would have accepted, in retrospect, if for nothing else but to humor her). I would bend over, pet her and tell her she was a very smart cat. She would let the mouse fall from her mouth and it would take off like a little rocket for the nearest patch of weeds.
Sometime later, I tried to see if she remembered our mouse hunting safari by imitating her pouncing on an imaginary mouse on all fours. She remembered!!! She responded by pouncing on her own imaginary mouse. I repeated my mouse pounce and she again responded with her own pounce. We did this several more times, so I think of this as our "Mouse Pounce Dance". We must have looked like idiots to anyone who happened to see us jumping around like that under the full moon (I don't anybody did though). She was a wonderful cat and I miss her.
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Yes, I toyed with Cher ( and Eminem), but couldn’t get anywhere with either. And I read the HIM in the title to confirm gender.
I wouldn’t know Usher if he ushered me to the front row to see his fabulous performance of Singin in the Rain. After I saw Usher had the pronouns fully covered, I googled all his recordings and the songs he had written for others, and found many grid entries ( like the above confirmation ) that are in his song and album titles.
Dissecting the themers later revealed Matt’s buildup to Usher.
Count me a fan, belatedly.
And a current Gaffney fan.
- C=64
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My initial guess upon seeing the prompt, before starting the grid, was BONO. Then the first 2 theme answers had pronouns beginning with U... If this had been my first contest try, I probably would have done the same. But in my vast [8 months of] meta experience, I have learned that if there appear to be 5 theme answers, you'll need to use them all. Lick those wounds and get ready for this week!mitchel674 wrote: ↑Mon Feb 01, 2021 12:40 pmWelcome!anaerobe wrote: ↑Mon Feb 01, 2021 10:27 am OK, my first contest try, got it wrong. But licking my wounds and wondering if I can take advantage of the forum I just joined to get a little constructive criticism.
USHER is now obvious, I get it 100%. My answer was: BONO. You see folks: I got 'U2' in my head, then one-named singer ....see what I did there? So would you say 'oh yeah, you're wrong but I can kind of see how one might arrive at Bono';...or 'nope, hopelessly off the rails thinking like that'
Thank you in advance......
Can you explain how you arrived at BONO? I mean other than the fact the he is a one named singer (which would just be guessing).
- Janet
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I got the right answer, but something must be wrong -- where is my mug!
- anaerobe
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Well, I was thinking....artists....bands....pronouns.....you as in U2. Voila, yet another example of thinking logically to the wrong conclusion.mitchel674 wrote: ↑Mon Feb 01, 2021 12:40 pmWelcome!anaerobe wrote: ↑Mon Feb 01, 2021 10:27 am OK, my first contest try, got it wrong. But licking my wounds and wondering if I can take advantage of the forum I just joined to get a little constructive criticism.
USHER is now obvious, I get it 100%. My answer was: BONO. You see folks: I got 'U2' in my head, then one-named singer ....see what I did there? So would you say 'oh yeah, you're wrong but I can kind of see how one might arrive at Bono';...or 'nope, hopelessly off the rails thinking like that'
Thank you in advance......
Can you explain how you arrived at BONO? I mean other than the fact the he is a one named singer (which would just be guessing).
Seems like writing out the answers and seeing them on paper is a common strategy.
- anaerobe
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Yeah ok. I'll remember they all have to fit. Thanks!C=64 wrote: ↑Mon Feb 01, 2021 3:11 pmMy initial guess upon seeing the prompt, before starting the grid, was BONO. Then the first 2 theme answers had pronouns beginning with U... If this had been my first contest try, I probably would have done the same. But in my vast [8 months of] meta experience, I have learned that if there appear to be 5 theme answers, you'll need to use them all. Lick those wounds and get ready for this week!mitchel674 wrote: ↑Mon Feb 01, 2021 12:40 pmWelcome!anaerobe wrote: ↑Mon Feb 01, 2021 10:27 am OK, my first contest try, got it wrong. But licking my wounds and wondering if I can take advantage of the forum I just joined to get a little constructive criticism.
USHER is now obvious, I get it 100%. My answer was: BONO. You see folks: I got 'U2' in my head, then one-named singer ....see what I did there? So would you say 'oh yeah, you're wrong but I can kind of see how one might arrive at Bono';...or 'nope, hopelessly off the rails thinking like that'
Thank you in advance......
Can you explain how you arrived at BONO? I mean other than the fact the he is a one named singer (which would just be guessing).
- anaerobe
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Thanks. I noticed others also wrote out the clues...seems obvious now, but I'm going to try that this week.DBMiller wrote: ↑Mon Feb 01, 2021 11:04 am How I arrived at it:
1) We're looking for a singer, and there are five song related clues
2) Those five answers are symmetrical in the grid with the addition of the answer PRONOUN
3) Each of the five song titles contains a pronoun. Coincidence? I think not
4) As there were only five song related clues, and everything was nice and symmetrical, I felt no need to look at other pronouns in any other answers.
5) Laying out the pronouns, you get a nice little ladder that each contained the previous letter:Usher seemed pretty obvious at that point.Code: Select all
U US SHE HE HER
- pookie
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How do you say "Pounces with Cats" in Lakota?FKelly wrote: ↑Mon Feb 01, 2021 2:43 pmAs do I. We're such a bunch of literary sophisticates are we not!
Why, I even have some Kliban greeting cards with the verse and image posted by whimsy at #182
and fond memories of Alexandria, a beautiful black cat who would request (actually, it was more of a demand) my assistance in hunting mice.
She would lead me to the location where she knew the mice were, triangulate their exact location with few quick movements of her ears and then point with her tail in the direction she wanted me to go to set up the ambush. She would then go in the opposite direction and I would mirror her movement so that we had the mice in between us. She would sit regally opposite me like the statue of an Egyptian cat I saw in the World Book Encyclopedia (That is how I came up with her name. I think she just called me "The Big Doofus Who Thinks He's a Cat").
She would give me the signal to start moving forward. I would move towards her in tiny steps a about an inch and a half at a time. When I would get within about three feet of the mice, they would all jump vertically about a foot in the air, their beady little eyes staring right at me. When they hit the ground, they would scatter in all different directions. One of them would invariably run close enough for her to pounce on it.
Alexandria would carefully pick it up in her mouth and carry them to a safe, flat location with no brush where she would toss it in the air with her paws and bat it around. She would pounce on the mouse again if it tried to run away.
After she was done playing with the mouse, she would pick it up in her mouth again and carry it to me and offer to let me play with it (cat etiquette, you know). I would decline her generous offer (wish now I would have accepted, in retrospect, if for nothing else but to humor her). I would bend over, pet her and tell her she was a very smart cat. She would let the mouse fall from her mouth and it would take off like a little rocket for the nearest patch of weeds.
Sometime later, I tried to see if she remembered our mouse hunting safari by imitating her pouncing on an imaginary mouse on all fours. She remembered!!! She responded by pouncing on her own imaginary mouse. I repeated my mouse pounce and she again responded with her own pounce. We did this several more times, so I think of this as our "Mouse Pounce Dance". We must have looked like idiots to anyone who happened to see us jumping around like that under the full moon (I don't anybody did though). She was a wonderful cat and I miss her.
- LadyBird
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Did you know that there are over 100 pronouns? I got caught up with various pronouns scattered throughout the grid. My rationale for not being a first-pager is that I learn so much chasing all those rabbits! (OK, but deep down I do really want to be a regular first-pager).
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I know that feeling, Janet!
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I won the mug on the very first answer I ever submitted. At the time I thought they must just give away a bunch of mugs. Don’t hate me. Little did I know...
- sharkicicles
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AHA! I remarked earlier in the thread I knew that I had seen this mechanism before at some point last year.BethA wrote: ↑Mon Feb 01, 2021 2:41 pm Before hitting on the right answer, I had an idea that we might use the theme answers as clues, finding a proper name in the grid to match the pronoun. Like HEGOTGAME could be ELI manning. Then the first letters of the proper names could spell the answer. But couldn’t really connect any others too well.
For me, this one was really reminiscent of last October’s MMMM “Mind the Overlap”. The grid had lots of 3-letter words, and eventually saw that they had 2 letters in common. My worksheet for that one is attached.
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Agh it was staring right at me and I still couldn't figure it out.
I went down *so* many rabbit holes, but I think my favorite was trying to make something of BAUERS being an anagram of BELARUS with an added 'L.' I was so certain that was the mechanism -- either finding other words that match this pattern (and the added letters spelling out the answer), or a sequence of anagrams from BELARUS down to AUS (and then 'US', maybe?), removing a letter each time (not sure what the next step would be from here though).
Need to remember to take a breath, use common sense, actually "see" whatever it is I'm looking at, and not overcomplicate things.
I went down *so* many rabbit holes, but I think my favorite was trying to make something of BAUERS being an anagram of BELARUS with an added 'L.' I was so certain that was the mechanism -- either finding other words that match this pattern (and the added letters spelling out the answer), or a sequence of anagrams from BELARUS down to AUS (and then 'US', maybe?), removing a letter each time (not sure what the next step would be from here though).
Need to remember to take a breath, use common sense, actually "see" whatever it is I'm looking at, and not overcomplicate things.
~ Adam
- sanmilton
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Just for Bob's record, I did submit the correct solution shortly after I posted this hedge, but even then, I was looking for a stronger confirmation of the answer than the overlapping of the pronouns. Not the first time I've been guilty of overthinking a problem.
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I don't hate you. I won the Financial Times Saturday prize contest the first time I entered back in 2019 --- and it was also the first time I ever completed that puzzle without resorting to references. My prize was a copy of Simon Winchester's The Meaning of Everything --- The Story of the Oxford English Dictionary. (It's a great book by the way.)Notbitter wrote: ↑Mon Feb 01, 2021 7:33 pmI won the mug on the very first answer I ever submitted. At the time I thought they must just give away a bunch of mugs. Don’t hate me. Little did I know...
- LadyBird
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Winchester also wrote The Madman and the Professor. Also about the OED--an excellent book as well.Tony S wrote: ↑Mon Feb 01, 2021 10:49 pmI don't hate you. I won the Financial Times Saturday prize contest the first time I entered back in 2019 --- and it was also the first time I ever completed that puzzle without resorting to references. My prize was a copy of Simon Winchester's The Meaning of Everything --- The Story of the Oxford English Dictionary. (It's a great book by the way.)
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Just saw the movie. Quite well done!
Sean Penn as The Madman is phenomenal.
Sean Penn as The Madman is phenomenal.
- mheberlingx100
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I have been working on winning a mug for 3 years and still no success. I have had to cup my hands and drink my coffee like that. That’s painful enough, but murder when I try to make Irish coffee - so sticky! I’m hopeful of winning soon so I can drink my coffee in the morning burn-free and with dignity.Tony S wrote: ↑Mon Feb 01, 2021 10:49 pmI don't hate you. I won the Financial Times Saturday prize contest the first time I entered back in 2019 --- and it was also the first time I ever completed that puzzle without resorting to references. My prize was a copy of Simon Winchester's The Meaning of Everything --- The Story of the Oxford English Dictionary. (It's a great book by the way.)