"We're Back in Business" - July 16, 2021

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.
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MaineMarge
Posts: 1588
Joined: Tue Apr 09, 2019 9:57 pm

#361

Post by MaineMarge »

pookie wrote: Mon Jul 19, 2021 3:56 pm No one saw all of those state abbreviations in there?
OR,MA,ND,MO,MI,IL,NE,KS,IN ?
I was sure that the USA was "Back in business" !
56 A clue was STATE! :o
Alas, couldn't un-see it.
I was right there with you, pookie! Since I live in that 56A state, imagine the big smile on my face when I came to that clue 🤗🤗.
It was only after I started doing these metas that I realized Maine would qualify as that good puzzle clue.
When first seeing the title, my first meta guess was also USA.
RobV
Posts: 1
Joined: Tue Jul 20, 2021 11:23 am

#362

Post by RobV »

I have an alternative answer to suggest for this puzzle: AIR

9-Down and 5-Down are both 3-letter words that connect by the letters "NT" reading them sequentially starting with 9-Down. The only "NT" in the puzzle is in the contraction in 11-Down, and the first word of the title of the puzzle is a contraction. The letter "O" is dropped in this contraction, and there are only 3 occurrences of the letters "NO" in the puzzle: 24-Down, 31-Down, and 36-Down. The next letter after each of these taken in order of their occurrence spells "AIR." Airlines and air travel are back in business in a big way now so the answer fits the title very well.

For what it's worth, these down words also connect the 4 long words spanning across the puzzle's center, tying them to the long answers.

I know this is not the "designed" answer. Does this ever happen? But it is interesting, isn't it?
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KayW
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Posts: 3081
Joined: Wed Apr 10, 2019 12:10 am
Location: Chicago

#363

Post by KayW »

Anyone who struggled with this week’s meta may either laugh or scream at the NE corner of today’s WSJ puzzle “What a Deal!”

https://s.wsj.net/public/resources/docu ... 2021XR.pdf

(Fun puzzle too, for a non-meta)
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.
MatthewL
Posts: 730
Joined: Thu Dec 31, 2020 11:57 am
Location: Atlanta, GA

#364

Post by MatthewL »

KayW wrote: Wed Jul 21, 2021 8:16 am Anyone who struggled with this week’s meta may either laugh or scream at the NE corner of today’s WSJ puzzle “What a Deal!”

https://s.wsj.net/public/resources/docu ... 2021XR.pdf

(Fun puzzle too, for a non-meta)
Saw that, and thought to myself -- now they are just straight up trolling us.
Matthew
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SReh26
Posts: 763
Joined: Thu Apr 01, 2021 10:48 pm

#365

Post by SReh26 »

Don’t mind me if I do state
Thursday I anticipate
It is really hard to wait
meta‘s coming, isn’t it great? :)

Other muggles are just too kind
Such smart folks are hard to find :geek:
Even if I get behind
or need a nudge, they don‘t mind.

Meantime I do the wsj
too easy for others, clear as day
come what will, come what may
I got a sub—10 on Monday. 🥳
Dplass
Posts: 1739
Joined: Sat Dec 28, 2019 10:09 am

#366

Post by Dplass »

MatthewL wrote: Wed Jul 21, 2021 11:16 am
KayW wrote: Wed Jul 21, 2021 8:16 am Anyone who struggled with this week’s meta may either laugh or scream at the NE corner of today’s WSJ puzzle “What a Deal!”

https://s.wsj.net/public/resources/docu ... 2021XR.pdf

(Fun puzzle too, for a non-meta)
Saw that, and thought to myself -- now they are just straight up trolling us.
Reminds me of the possibly apocryphal story about how the 4 beach code names from the Normandy invasion were answers in the NYT crossword puzzles leading up to D-Day

UPDATE: I was wrong about the NYT: https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/che ... n-started/
MatthewL
Posts: 730
Joined: Thu Dec 31, 2020 11:57 am
Location: Atlanta, GA

#367

Post by MatthewL »

MatthewL wrote: Wed Jul 21, 2021 11:16 am
KayW wrote: Wed Jul 21, 2021 8:16 am Anyone who struggled with this week’s meta may either laugh or scream at the NE corner of today’s WSJ puzzle “What a Deal!”

https://s.wsj.net/public/resources/docu ... 2021XR.pdf

(Fun puzzle too, for a non-meta)
Saw that, and thought to myself -- now they are just straight up trolling us.
And they did it again. Check out the Thursday WSJ puzzle (Chop Logic) at 62D. I feel like I'm being mocked.
Matthew
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SReh26
Posts: 763
Joined: Thu Apr 01, 2021 10:48 pm

#368

Post by SReh26 »

MatthewL wrote: Wed Jul 21, 2021 5:27 pm
MatthewL wrote: Wed Jul 21, 2021 11:16 am
KayW wrote: Wed Jul 21, 2021 8:16 am Anyone who struggled with this week’s meta may either laugh or scream at the NE corner of today’s WSJ puzzle “What a Deal!”

https://s.wsj.net/public/resources/docu ... 2021XR.pdf

(Fun puzzle too, for a non-meta)
Saw that, and thought to myself -- now they are just straight up trolling us.
And they did it again. Check out the Thursday WSJ puzzle (Chop Logic) at 62D. I feel like I'm being mocked.
I saw that too when I did the puzzle today.
Don’t worry, they are laughing with us, not at us. 😂
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FrankieHeck
Posts: 839
Joined: Tue Apr 09, 2019 8:57 pm
Location: West Virginia

#369

Post by FrankieHeck »

I feel like they are really taunting me. I have been in a state of anxiety lately as I have been trying to help my son pack all his belongings into a Kia Soul for his trip next week to graduate school on the other side of the country.
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BarbaraK
Posts: 2576
Joined: Tue Apr 09, 2019 2:37 pm
Location: Virginia

#370

Post by BarbaraK »

RobV wrote: Tue Jul 20, 2021 11:11 pm I have an alternative answer to suggest for this puzzle: AIR

9-Down and 5-Down are both 3-letter words that connect by the letters "NT" reading them sequentially starting with 9-Down. The only "NT" in the puzzle is in the contraction in 11-Down, and the first word of the title of the puzzle is a contraction. The letter "O" is dropped in this contraction, and there are only 3 occurrences of the letters "NO" in the puzzle: 24-Down, 31-Down, and 36-Down. The next letter after each of these taken in order of their occurrence spells "AIR." Airlines and air travel are back in business in a big way now so the answer fits the title very well.

For what it's worth, these down words also connect the 4 long words spanning across the puzzle's center, tying them to the long answers.

I know this is not the "designed" answer. Does this ever happen? But it is interesting, isn't it?
Humans are really really good at finding patterns. (So good we often find them even when there’s nothing there.)

So yes, we often find unintended paths in the meta puzzles. Thanks for sharing yours! Reading about the “rabbit holes” everyone dug around in is entertaining and educational - because this week’s wrong path could be another week’s intended path.

Over time you get a sense of what could be an intended path and what’s more likely to be a dead end. But even after years, I’m occasionally so sure that something can’t possibly be coincidence and then it turns out it was.
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