"Following Directions" - May 14, 2021
- CallMeShane
- Posts: 163
- Joined: Fri Oct 18, 2019 5:16 pm
- Location: Victor, NY
This is a meta that fell pretty quickly if you did a frequency analysis on the theme answers.
The 43 letters in the theme answers had some interesting and revealing properties.
There were 8 different letters with the following frequencies:
D 10
E 10
L 2
N 2
R 6
S 9
U 3
W 1
The letters T,A,I, and O together amount to about 32% of a random passage in English. I would expect roughly 12 of those characters to be present in the theme answers. There were zero!
I would expect about 2 D’s; there were 10!
I would expect about 5 E’s; there were 10!
R’s and S’s were also way out of line!
Frequency analysis told me that there was nothing random about the theme answers. The letters themselves were crucially important.
From the title I was already contemplating the existence of North, South, East, and West. And there were N,S,E, and W!
What about D,L,R,and U? Also directions? Head slap. Yes!!!!!!!!!!!!
Where to start? The helpful clue told me where there was “a good place to start”.
And off to the races.
This was a very fair meta. It did not require any outside specialized knowledge, and required no guesswork. It was a 100% solid, no ifs, ands, or buts solution.
The 43 letters in the theme answers had some interesting and revealing properties.
There were 8 different letters with the following frequencies:
D 10
E 10
L 2
N 2
R 6
S 9
U 3
W 1
The letters T,A,I, and O together amount to about 32% of a random passage in English. I would expect roughly 12 of those characters to be present in the theme answers. There were zero!
I would expect about 2 D’s; there were 10!
I would expect about 5 E’s; there were 10!
R’s and S’s were also way out of line!
Frequency analysis told me that there was nothing random about the theme answers. The letters themselves were crucially important.
From the title I was already contemplating the existence of North, South, East, and West. And there were N,S,E, and W!
What about D,L,R,and U? Also directions? Head slap. Yes!!!!!!!!!!!!
Where to start? The helpful clue told me where there was “a good place to start”.
And off to the races.
This was a very fair meta. It did not require any outside specialized knowledge, and required no guesswork. It was a 100% solid, no ifs, ands, or buts solution.
- KayW
- Moderator
- Posts: 4021
- Joined: Wed Apr 10, 2019 12:10 am
- Location: Chicago
I noticed 13D and the NSEW immediately, but it was a long while before the UDLR directions smacked me in the head. In my early attempts to get something besides gibberish, I also tried starting with SQUARE ONE of each theme entry. Using just NSEW that starts off promisingly with BIAS. But then devolves into an old MacDonald-ish refrain of vowels. Wow. This puzzle is a marvel of cruciverbalist engineering!
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.
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- Posts: 1
- Joined: Mon May 17, 2021 7:21 am
Could somebody please explain how the letters in the path were selected? I figured out the directional situation but MODRSOSEYEGAE(etc) didn't mean anything to me. Thanks.
- Joe Ross
- Moderator
- Posts: 5497
- Joined: Fri Apr 12, 2019 4:46 am
- Location: Cincinnati
Explained in detailMartin Blank wrote: ↑Mon May 17, 2021 7:24 am Could somebody please explain how the letters in the path were selected? I figured out the directional situation but MODRSOSEYEGAE(etc) didn't mean anything to me. Thanks.
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- Posts: 86
- Joined: Sat Aug 08, 2020 11:05 am
- Location: Clearwater, Florida
But what was the point of the starred clues? Several of them don't even figure into the solution. Were they just distractors?
Even with the "solution" laid out, I'm still not seeing the path as to why the specific letters were selected.
Even with the "solution" laid out, I'm still not seeing the path as to why the specific letters were selected.
- eagle1279
- Posts: 325
- Joined: Mon Nov 11, 2019 7:00 pm
- Location: Indianapolis
Before finding 13D as the starting “direction,” I spent lots of time trying to find the key in 17A, including looking for HEREs and THEREs and reading through the entire text of One Fish Two Fish looking for hints. And noting that book has a character named Ned (14D)! Not a total waste of time because the book is such a delight, can’t wait to hear our grandkids read it (in a couple of years…).
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- Posts: 1748
- Joined: Tue Apr 09, 2019 9:57 pm
I saw the 8 directional letters composing all the starred words early on, but, like others, took 13a to mean starting with square one of each word. Nada. Then we heard through the grapevine to start with M, and my partner drove us home.
Kudos to you solo solvers who crushed this one!
Kudos to you solo solvers who crushed this one!
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- Posts: 844
- Joined: Mon Jun 22, 2020 8:12 pm
- Location: Seneca SC
Yes, I was also trying to see if the clue “from there to here, etc” had some meaning! I also thought 52D “ENDS” had something to do with it after I saw 13D a “good place to start”.eagle1279 wrote: ↑Mon May 17, 2021 7:43 am Before finding 13D as the starting “direction,” I spent lots of time trying to find the key in 17A, including looking for HEREs and THEREs and reading through the entire text of One Fish Two Fish looking for hints. And noting that book has a character named Ned (14D)! Not a total waste of time because the book is such a delight, can’t wait to hear our grandkids read it (in a couple of years…).
- LadyBird
- Posts: 926
- Joined: Fri Apr 17, 2020 4:20 pm
- Location: Chicagoland
My solving journey almost exactly! In addition to this: I looked at the NSEW letters in each of the starred answers--looked at the adjacent letter in the appropriate direction (so if it was an N I looked at the letter above, E I looked to the right). More gibberish. Then I (finally) figured out the right mechanism and began spelling out the word. As soon as I got to M-E-A-N, I said to my husband--it's going to be MEANDERS. This was a tough one!KayW wrote: ↑Mon May 17, 2021 7:11 am I noticed 13D and the NSEW immediately, but it was a long while before the UDLR directions smacked me in the head. In my early attempts to get something besides gibberish, I also tried starting with SQUARE ONE of each theme entry. Using just NSEW that starts off promisingly with BIAS. But then devolves into an old MacDonald-ish refrain of vowels. Wow. This puzzle is a marvel of cruciverbalist engineering!
- minimuggle
- Posts: 612
- Joined: Wed Nov 04, 2020 7:33 am
Well I never was too good at following directions. This puzzle did me in. Feel defeated that I couldn't get it even after a nudge from Wendy. I did enjoy reading One Fish Two Fish again and searching for "funny things everywhere"...like "gag". Even knowing the mechanism I came up with nonsense. Now that I see the explanation I feel like an idiot. Amazingly tricky for me. Great job to those who cracked it.
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- Posts: 55
- Joined: Fri Apr 26, 2019 11:57 am
- Location: Myrtle Beach SC
- TheCatt
- Posts: 89
- Joined: Sat Feb 06, 2021 9:53 pm
Ooof. We tried following NSEW and got nowhere. We pondered "maybe it's directionals (up/down) instead"... ugh. We even noticed the unusual only same 8 letters being used, but somehow got stuck on DERSU since the others were rarer.
There's always next week.
There's always next week.
- camandsampowercouple
- Posts: 140
- Joined: Fri Apr 24, 2020 2:58 am
Did anyone else notice that, apart from the 7 entries, there were 7 other words that only included NSEW UDLR letters?
DRESDEN ---> ESSEN intrigued me but I couldn't come up with pairings for any of the other 6.
Once I noticed the Square One clue again everything fell into place. What a tricky rabbit hole.
DRESDEN ---> ESSEN intrigued me but I couldn't come up with pairings for any of the other 6.
Once I noticed the Square One clue again everything fell into place. What a tricky rabbit hole.
- CPJohnson
- Posts: 1184
- Joined: Tue Apr 09, 2019 1:38 pm
- Location: Kingsport, TN
This mechanism might have been more familiar to those who have been doing the WSJ metas for a while. Previous puzzles using the path-through-the-grid mechanism are 10-18-19, 7-13-18, and 10-23-15. There may be more.
Cynthia
- TPS
- Posts: 721
- Joined: Sun Mar 15, 2020 2:19 pm
- Location: Florida
I didn't look at the puzzle until yesterday afternoon - fortunately didn't spend too much time on it because it was a terrible puzzle. I've spent 15 minutes this morning with the answer trying to make it work and still can't.
- DrTom
- Posts: 4212
- Joined: Sat Apr 20, 2019 6:46 pm
- Location: Jacksonville, FL
Well this puzzle certainly brought out all the possibilities. I initially thought that it was entirely different because I mistook the " in 36A "Surely you can't think I did it" to be an asterisk. It made little sense except that I needed 8 letters and that was the 8th word. Wow, never saw any of the big boys use a three letter theme word, but....
After I noticed it was a quotation mark and looked at the REAL words I saw the NSEW and, since I have been trained by some of the best (Joe, Oldjudge, and all the others who have held my hand over the past few years) I immediately latched onto the Square 1 reference. That was frustrating because of course it went nowhere. Then I had flirtations with "no black squares", "start over with each word", and all of the various rabbit holes I have seen mentioned.
Finally I looked and saw that the OTHER letters in the theme words were UDLR - OF COURSE!!! From there I made my life considerably easier by thinking, "OK, so what would be the most logical thing - I have a starting letter and 7 sets of directions, I must have to begin there and "follow directions" to the next letter and so forth...". Here is where Joe's spreadsheet REALLY was a lifesaver. Rather than try to do it on paper (something that was yielding odd words) I took the directions and wrote them on a separate piece of paper. I then put my cursor in Square 1, highlighted it a nice blue and used the CURSOR key to move. After each stopping point I highlighted the square and by the time I got to MEAN I knew where it had to lead. I suppose it would have been really special had it ended up in the bottom right, but that would have been SUPERNATURALLY AMAZING given all of the constraints this puzzle's construction must have imposed. So I'll settle for AWESOME and delight in the fact that for this week at least, I was one of the people who solved it. This goes right up there with ADOBE on my "META RED LETTA DAYS".
After I noticed it was a quotation mark and looked at the REAL words I saw the NSEW and, since I have been trained by some of the best (Joe, Oldjudge, and all the others who have held my hand over the past few years) I immediately latched onto the Square 1 reference. That was frustrating because of course it went nowhere. Then I had flirtations with "no black squares", "start over with each word", and all of the various rabbit holes I have seen mentioned.
Finally I looked and saw that the OTHER letters in the theme words were UDLR - OF COURSE!!! From there I made my life considerably easier by thinking, "OK, so what would be the most logical thing - I have a starting letter and 7 sets of directions, I must have to begin there and "follow directions" to the next letter and so forth...". Here is where Joe's spreadsheet REALLY was a lifesaver. Rather than try to do it on paper (something that was yielding odd words) I took the directions and wrote them on a separate piece of paper. I then put my cursor in Square 1, highlighted it a nice blue and used the CURSOR key to move. After each stopping point I highlighted the square and by the time I got to MEAN I knew where it had to lead. I suppose it would have been really special had it ended up in the bottom right, but that would have been SUPERNATURALLY AMAZING given all of the constraints this puzzle's construction must have imposed. So I'll settle for AWESOME and delight in the fact that for this week at least, I was one of the people who solved it. This goes right up there with ADOBE on my "META RED LETTA DAYS".
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!
- DrTom
- Posts: 4212
- Joined: Sat Apr 20, 2019 6:46 pm
- Location: Jacksonville, FL
TERRIBLE puzzle? TERRIBLE puzzle? C'mon TPS, it was a beautiful puzzle that had to take great planning and many hours to construct. It gave you everything you needed to solve it, it had a clue to the starting point and, if you analyze it logically, a set of theme answers that SCREAMED directions (as the puzzle title implies). The word it yields fits perfectly and makes inherent sense.
So, yes, it was a challenging puzzle, but just because one doesn't have the ability to do it doesn't make it terrible. I cannot paint but I don't look at Monet's Nymphéas and say, "I couldn't do that they must be ugly!"
The puzzle was superb.
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!
- boharr
- Moderator
- Posts: 3365
- Joined: Fri Sep 06, 2019 8:57 am
- Location: Westchester, NY
Mike's done this before. On the RICHARD III puzzle, once I figured out what to do, I didn't know where to begin. After looking at the grid for what seemed like hours, I saw the word START sitting right there toward the bottom. Duh. Lesson learned. When he uses the word "start," listen up.