A place to discuss the weekly Wall Street Journal Crossword Puzzle Contest, starting every Thursday around 4:00 p.m. Eastern time. Please do not post any answers or hints before the contest deadline which is midnight Sunday Eastern time.
mitchel674 wrote: ↑Mon Jun 28, 2021 8:02 am
Saw the ladder clue. Arranged all of the twelve 4 letter words. Sadly, I still couldn't make the leap to the answer despite "hot" being in the title.
Asked for a nudge, but I'm glad I didn't follow through with offers. I still would not have solved without being clubbed over the head with the answer.
On to next week!
100% this. Had the exact same experience. Saw the words, saw the ladder clue, came up with 3 different ladders of words, and never, ever thought to fill in the blanks. Even when I saw the solution, my first reaction was "what the heck??!!" Was going to throw a wild hail mary and submit "Sausages" (I mean, it fits with the title of the puzzle), but never got around to it. Next chance beckons in only 4 days.
100% my experience as well. Now I have plenty to time to not solve the MGWCC.
Happy to give nudges. If you notice I've solved, please tell me about avenues you've explored so I can nudge you in the right direction and not off a cliff.
Mister Squawk wrote: ↑Mon Jun 28, 2021 8:14 am
I may be the only person who took the title to indicate a WWW related answer. After much time trying different world ladders, in particular tracing different lines on the grid between word ladder pairs (literal ladders a la Chutes and Ladders) the answer came to me as I was composing a nudge request.
My guess was going to be INTERNET.
This was my first rabbit hole. Hotlinks are a type of web link, and there were so many Ws in the 6 words, that it felt like a url or something might be in there. But I couldn't find anything that fit the 2x4 letter words of the other clues.
Fortunately the right path showed up late last night.
Ann wrote: ↑Mon Jun 28, 2021 10:50 am
The cost of solving the puzzle was steep: the hideous strains of “wildfire” running through my brain.
Dave Barry does an excellent analysis in his list of bad songs. And it’s bad. Really, really bad.
Darth wrote: ↑Thu Jun 24, 2021 5:06 pm
I'm counting myself on shore.... but I doubt myself. The answer makes sense in a couple of ways -- at least in my mind.
Monday confirms my answer was indeed correct. I thought it was interesting that the word ladder went from WELL to GOOD, which are WORD FORMs of another kind. Mug or no mug, just happy to have made page 2 as a Muggles Forum noob.
I happily clicked this trying to get that damn Peaches song (on the radio every time I get in the car) out of my head. Unfortunately it's not working. Now accepting any and all earworms.
I happily clicked this trying to get that damn Peaches song (on the radio every time I get in the car) out of my head. Unfortunately it's not working. Now accepting any and all earworms.
JeanneC wrote: ↑Mon Jun 28, 2021 8:43 am
Missed it this week. But I almost spit up my coffee this morning when I realized the song people were alluding to this weekend. Gawd, what a maudlin song! I remember rushing to turn off the car radio every time it played. What a good laugh I just had!
What is this song that people keep referring to? The puzzle contains "A Boy Named Sue". Never heard it or heard of it. Is that it?
It’s Wildfire by Michael Martin Murphey. If you’ve never heard it, DO NOT LISTEN TO IT. You will have a slow playing ear worm that will drive you insane.
When I was a teenager a boy I liked told me it was his favorite song. I immediately lost interest in him. My family was staying in a hotel where the above-named artist was playing a concert. We could hear the whole thing in our room. The entire family wanted to pull our ears off after hearing that song more than once. I guess he played an encore of the encore.
I just came back into the house from cleaning up outside and saw the other comments about the song “Wildfire”. Mullets, beards, denim work shirts and guitars. We thought it was all so COOL! I’m cracking up all over again! I’ll have a smile on my face the rest of the day. Thank you, Patrick Berry!
“I cannot and will not cut my conscience to fit this year’s fashions”. Lillian Hellman
I happily clicked this trying to get that damn Peaches song (on the radio every time I get in the car) out of my head. Unfortunately it's not working. Now accepting any and all earworms.
I suggest Prop Me Up Beside the Jukebox (If I Die), Joe Diffie, or It's a Small World (ever been to Disneyworld with a small child?).
The first thing I jotted down were the three partial ladders. Then felt discouraged both because it didn’t make a complete ladder, but mainly because I was stuck on the idea that the way to get letters out of ladders is to highlight the letter that was changed TO (or maybe FROM). Got MOWDOG plus some other gibberish. Also kept trying to get additional words to complete the ladder from the grid: WARD, endWISE, hemLINE.
Had an initial guess of sausages, but once I filled in the grid, knew it would be a compound word where each part is four letters. Had to be, to fit the usual Patrick Berry elegance/tightness!
Joe Ross wrote: ↑Mon Jun 28, 2021 9:05 am
/\ /\ /\ /\
Joe Ross wrote: ↑Sun Jun 27, 2021 11:40 am
Ashore, battered & bent.
Knew what I had to do in a general way. Couldn't do it. Remembered a major rule of engagement.
I spent more than a few minutes trying to document this "major rule of engagement" in Hints for Solving Meta Contests, but it isn't there. I will add it & reference this contest:
Susan Goldberg wrote: ↑Mon Jun 28, 2021 11:22 am
No. It’s called Wildfire by Michael Murphey from the 70’s. It’s about a now deceased former lover. Wildfire was her horse.
I thought it was her pony. Not willing to listen to the song to find out, but that's what's in my head.
And I bring it up only because I was just this afternoon wondering - are horses and ponies different species or different breeds or what? Sure, I could google it, but with all the smart people here there must be an equine expert to ask
Susan Goldberg wrote: ↑Mon Jun 28, 2021 11:22 am
No. It’s called Wildfire by Michael Murphey from the 70’s. It’s about a now deceased former lover. Wildfire was her horse.
I thought it was her pony. Not willing to listen to the song to find out, but that's what's in my head.
And I bring it up only because I was just this afternoon wondering - are horses and ponies different species or different breeds or what? Sure, I could google it, but with all the smart people here there must be an equine expert to ask
Believe it’s the same species, but they’re just different sizes. Horses are over 14 hands high, ponies are under. Hands are how horses’ heights are measured. I grew up riding Western, but I believe the differentiation is 14.2 for English riders.
Susan Goldberg wrote: ↑Mon Jun 28, 2021 11:22 am
No. It’s called Wildfire by Michael Murphey from the 70’s. It’s about a now deceased former lover. Wildfire was her horse.
I thought it was her pony. Not willing to listen to the song to find out, but that's what's in my head.
And I bring it up only because I was just this afternoon wondering - are horses and ponies different species or different breeds or what? Sure, I could google it, but with all the smart people here there must be an equine expert to ask
DannyWalter wrote: ↑Mon Jun 28, 2021 9:24 am
Huh. A real challenge if you had never heard of a word ladder. I learned something new, so it's a good day.
Credit Lewis Carroll for the word ladder.
Inventor of a rabbit hole himself.
Horses are over 14 hands high, ponies are under. Hands are how horses’ heights are measured. I grew up riding Western, but I believe the differentiation is 14.2 for English riders.
[/quote]
Had not realized the English/Western distinction. 14.2 was what I'd remembered. Believe a hand was four inches last time I looked - about 50 years ago.
JeanneC wrote: ↑Mon Jun 28, 2021 8:43 am
Missed it this week. But I almost spit up my coffee this morning when I realized the song people were alluding to this weekend. Gawd, what a maudlin song! I remember rushing to turn off the car radio every time it played. What a good laugh I just had!
What is this song that people keep referring to? The puzzle contains "A Boy Named Sue". Never heard it or heard of it. Is that it?
This song could easily have been a contender for the Eurovision Song Contest!
