"Jewel Case" - August 13, 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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Bill Bovard
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#341

Post by Bill Bovard »

Miki wrote: Mon Aug 16, 2021 12:36 am I guessed a 5 letter word before started solving. My word was 3/5=60% correct
SHINY? That was my wild guess.

I was surprised that HOPE was in the clue and the answer, in a way, this seems to violate general crossword principles.
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mntlblok
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#342

Post by mntlblok »

It came together so *painfully* slowly. Fortunately, we can both get a kick out of laughing at ourselves. The initial brainstorming found the H's and then the P's, but it was quite a while before noticing that they were all separated by just one letter. DonnaMae then noticed all the O's and E's stacked in the same order over all the long answers. Neither of us came *close* to noticing that they lined up with the HP thing. Didn't help that she had found out via googling that there are high pressure (HP) diamonds (artificially made) and that there had been a legal CASE concerning them. :-) I finally noticed that there were some other H and P combos about, but only HOPS had them in that order and only one letter apart. That gave us a vowel for making a "sort of" related adjective, thus the relatively early comment about "inelegance" and that littoral zone. Then, even after finally seeing that those O-E things were also encasing those same letters, we failed to relate them to the HPs. :-) Only after later following them all the way around each of the letters a few times and noting that they might all be in the same order did we finally see that a word could be made from them. OH! Forehead smacks. As I sad, we're just not very good at this. :-) Only after reading the above post did the rhombus thing come to me. These puzzle writers are freaking brilliant. Would love to follow along inside their minds during the process. Oh, and sorry about my role in the spoiler incident. Guess I was thinking that it was closer to midnight than it was.
Last edited by mntlblok on Mon Aug 16, 2021 8:12 am, edited 1 time in total.
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Streroto
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#343

Post by Streroto »

Agh. I started looking for diamonds within a few minutes of completing the grid, but the title had me looking for musical acts in spite of the glaringly obvious gigantic hint from Matt in the middle of the grid. Finding none, I focused on Pearl Jam and Neil diamond for a while, which went nowhere; star of India sent me in a different direction to no avail, and I eventually found that one could make opal out of John Paul, at which point I noticed the preponderance of O and P but still did not get the click.

Congratulations to everybody who figured it out, stay well
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Mister Squawk
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#344

Post by Mister Squawk »

I spent a lot of time looking at:

HIGHSPEED
LIGHTPEN
HOPS
OVERHYPED

And I saw JOHNPAUL but I couldn't make it click. I reached out for a nudge, but my nudger sent me in the wrong direction, so I spent a lot of time looking to see how I could find Neil Diamond album or song titles in the grid ("Famed Jewel" coupled with "Jewel Case" -- a reference to a CD case).

Oh well...
MaineMarge
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#345

Post by MaineMarge »

With all the sports related words in the grid, I thought of taking a pass on this meta, but decided to fumble my way through it. Not long after I saw the H&P in four long themers, my eye saw the O&E above and below with a letter encased inside the diamond. A quick search found the missing 5th letter in HOPS.
We’d seen this visual method in the meta about directions, where the letters NSEW enclosed the answer letters.

What better time to show you Isaac’s hops vine in the stern garden (just like mine!)
42B719F7-8DF8-4F58-86DA-F8E422D20652.jpeg
Enlarge to see the individual hops. Cute! In a few weeks I’ll cut off some of the bines to make interesting dried arrangements. Maybe have a good Stone IPA while doing so. 🍺
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mheberlingx100
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#346

Post by mheberlingx100 »

After solving, my first thought was of the Flintstones. They would have celebrities animated and placed in their stories but with their names changed to give a Stone Age feel to them. Tony Curtis became Stony Curtis. And Ann-Margret became Ann Marg-Rock.
Dplass
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#347

Post by Dplass »

hoover wrote: Mon Aug 16, 2021 12:14 am
ajk wrote: Mon Aug 16, 2021 12:04 am Spent so much time trying to make something out of HIGHSPEED/LIGHTPEN/JOHNPAUL/OVERHYPED. :lol:

Also tried to find various jewels in a diamond pattern in the grid. Wasn't until I was helpfully refocused on Hope DIAMOND that it finally clicked.
I found and submitted STONY, but I had only seen the letters as being sandwiched between H and P, and I spent way too much time after submitting trying to figure out what HP (Harry Potter? Hewlett Packard?) had to do with diamonds. It wasn't until the next day that I went back and found the O and E, thus spelling HOPE, which made the click.
Same (HP) here. Another muggle pointed out the O and E only after I submitted.
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MikeM000
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#348

Post by MikeM000 »

An admin on a board I used to frequent would say "if you want to leave, don't post about it; just write down 10 random letters and numbers on a scrap of paper, change your password to that, rip up the paper, turn off the "save password" levers, and sign out of your account." I did just that when it was time for me to go.

Oh, and this has been going through my head all weekend...

Ergcat
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#349

Post by Ergcat »

hoover wrote: Mon Aug 16, 2021 12:14 am
ajk wrote: Mon Aug 16, 2021 12:04 am Spent so much time trying to make something out of HIGHSPEED/LIGHTPEN/JOHNPAUL/OVERHYPED. :lol:

Also tried to find various jewels in a diamond pattern in the grid. Wasn't until I was helpfully refocused on Hope DIAMOND that it finally clicked.
I found and submitted STONY, but I had only seen the letters as being sandwiched between H and P, and I spent way too much time after submitting trying to figure out what HP (Harry Potter? Hewlett Packard?) had to do with diamonds. It wasn't until the next day that I went back and found the O and E, thus spelling HOPE, which made the click.
As soon as I saw “Jewel Case” I thought of CD cases ( called jewel case) so I immediately looked for the letters CD on the grid to see if they were encased by letters. No! But then I saw H-P in the long clues and googled “ CD cases”. Guess what? Hp ( Hewlett-Packard ) makes CD Cases. So I found the letters STONY “encased” in H-p “jewel cases” and had an answer that I could justify. My mechanism just didn’t feel too Gaffney, hence the not 100%. But I submitted and found out later from Dplass about the “Hope” connection. Funny, I had seen the “o” above and the “e” below the answer letters but never put them with the “h-p” since I was sure the meta related to CD cases!!!
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JJD
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#350

Post by JJD »

Speaking of CD cases, you can make several of them (open at right angles) in this grid, e.g. COOED, COTED — and they pass through the long clues, too!!

And I know 2 of us saw the DIA IDA repeated throughout the grid too.

Oh, and some of the H_P cases had an E afterwards, so those were my H_PE cases. 🤪
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DrTom
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#351

Post by DrTom »

littlepigeon wrote: Mon Aug 16, 2021 12:46 am
rosiegirl wrote: Mon Aug 16, 2021 12:13 am I was fixated, also, on the four 2-word answers and needed a helpful push away from them. But 4 of the 5 letters in the puzzle answer were in those 2-word answers. I am hoping that someone can explain the significance (if any) of the last letter not being a part of a 2 word answer.
I’m similarly interested in hearing about this. While I should obviously have noticed the HOPEs, it’s exactly this^ kind of . . . *inconsistency* isn’t the word I’m looking for, but I’m writing this on my way to bed, so it’s the best I can do for now . . . that has me feeling so frustrated with these metas sometimes. (Also, when the answer only loosely fits with the rest of the meta and/or when the answer’s definition conflicts with the way it’s presented/defined via the meta; I’m still a little bitter over “paragon” from earlier this summer.)
There really isn't anything to explain since there is no "rule" that says the long answers HAVE to be involved in the META answer. There may have been a little bit of constructor "misdirection" here to keep it from being WAY too obvious, but Matt also gave LOTS of hints at the mechanism

Each of the five letters is inside of a "diamond" formed from the letters of the name of that diamond HOPE. Thus each is "encased" in a jewel figuratively and literally (a diamond shaped case). So his JEWEL CASE refers to the fact that the answer can be found "inside" the encasing jewel. It was made all the more tricky by the fact that the theme answers were NOT the theme answers, they were just answers. The (HOPE first part of clue) DIAMOND smack dab in the middle is of course a piece de resistance since it hints that the answer is right in the middle of the hope diamond, and of course it is.
stony.jpg
The letters HOPE around the needed letter formed a DIAMOND so the letter was inside a JEWEL CASE. Good LORD that man is an artist.
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!
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mheberlingx100
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#352

Post by mheberlingx100 »

Maybe I missed it, but someone must have posted “Keep Hope Alive”.
Jace54
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#353

Post by Jace54 »

There were several comments about preferring “stone” instead of “stony” as the answer. However, the “e” in “stone” would need to be between the “o” and “e” vertically in the grid as part of the “Hope” diamond. I think it would be a challenge to find an answer with an “oee” string that fit the grid, which is likely why “stony” was used.

This one fell immediately for me, which is very unusual. I searched for “hope” in the grid based on the 40-A clue and saw “hops” at 32-A with an “e” below it, then quickly noticed the diamond there and found the rest.
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femullen
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#354

Post by femullen »

Had a good time looking for baseball items in the clues: Fastball, Starter, Brewer's, Out, Wind up, and a few others. Thought maybe there was some connection to the Field of Dreams game the other day. Wrong diamond.

But Thursday's only three days off. Hope springs eternal.
For nudges, feel free to PM me. I won't have a clue how to help you, but you might shove me ashore.
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DrTom
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#355

Post by DrTom »

BrianMac wrote: Sun Aug 15, 2021 10:15 pm
fuggedabowdit wrote: Sun Aug 15, 2021 8:45 pm After having been a member of the Muggle community for some time now, and occassionally following and laughing along with some of the banter and give and take between members in the form of puns, poems, and other suggestive offerings regarding the current puzzles, I am offended that my use of humor in suggesting that a meta solution was easy in some way as to be construed as a spoiler, and then to have my comments removed as such is redicuious. It was not even a close call and was probably removed for it's completely uncontroversial subject matter that did not quite agree with the staid views of the complainer(s) or moderator??
So I guess it's "Adieu, XWORD MUGGLES FORUM" A little uptight for me.
Don't bother commenting as you will just be talking to yourselves.
Fuggedabowdit
Bye.
This whole thing is really a shame. SReh26 is absolutely correct, all the things going on in our world have put many on edge. Trust me I am in healthcare and have some very STRONG opinions that often creep into my personal level of "OH YEAH", BUT there is one place where I can come and be free of those things, and that is here!

I know of no fairer or tolerant individual than our site administrator BrianMac. I echo the comments of the Muggle that pointed out how Brian has to weed through the posts (and given our loquaciousness that can be VERY time consuming) and probably ends up spoiling many of his own solves. He does this unpaid and unappreciated in many respects. I have also had a post removed at one point, and when I asked why it was explained in calm, reasonable terms. I'm not sure if I agreed or not (and evaluating based on my own critical examination of my need to be correct I'd probably say no) but the argument was compelling enough that I accepted it. There is always time to be clever or funny or even humble in the post mortem, but there is seldom a way to retract venom and anger.

I'm sorry Fuggedabowdit felt compelled to leave, but it would appear that he/she selected animus over amicability (such a shame, amicability comes first in the dictionary!) so it probably was just a matter of time.
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!
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Wendy Walker
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#356

Post by Wendy Walker »

I was so lucky to get this one so quickly! My first thought was that "case" in the title indicated that the mechanism would involve some kind of "surrounding" (as in the classic ENVELOPE meta from a few years back). DIAMOND's presence in the middle indicated that the "surround" would be a diamond. I started looking in the grid and -- there it was.
Re: the spoiler incident. I saw the original comment. I didn't understand it but thought it seemed a tad uncivil. If the first rule of the Forum is "No spoilers," the second is "Don't be rude."
Good luck, fellow Muggles!
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Gman
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#357

Post by Gman »

I was fixated on the long answers, too, and I noticed the HOPE with one or two letters different in each long answer. This led to STNAY, which could be an anagram for NASTY or ANTSY, but there was still the dangling HOPS in the grid, and the ST__Y made me think the answer had to be STONY. Since my first answer was just a little too inelegant, I thought that maybe OVERHYPED was an instruction, and noticing the O over each H_P, I realized that I should look for the E below, and voila, there was the answer.
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Flying_Burrito
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#358

Post by Flying_Burrito »

Fun one, started 0 - 2 with couple of missed swings at 2 curveballs but eventually clawed back with a hit (to continue the baseball analogy). Curve ball # 1: enclosed D-i-a-m-o-n-d means the first part of the mechanism starts with "I-am-on"; dismissed that after some rational thinking; curve ball # 2: surely 'Shall We' must be one of the 5 clues. That actually led me to the H-P initial ahaa when compared to others and then to Hops; Stony came quickly after that and then I saw the 'hope' diamond.
Besides fugettabout reference to being high, and the Dutch often smoke it, a 3rd semi-reference to funny cigarettes and potential mole hole came also with the merging of 39 A and 42 A with 'diamond' (WEED if you use the first D form diamond and DART with you use the last D from diamond). If the date of this crossword was 4/20 then it would have been more than a puff of smoke
Senor Guaca Mole :mrgreen:
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mntlblok
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#359

Post by mntlblok »

Wendy Walker wrote: Mon Aug 16, 2021 8:27 am My first thought was that "case" in the title indicated that the mechanism would involve some kind of "surrounding" (as in the classic ENVELOPE meta from a few years back). DIAMOND's presence in the middle indicated that the "surround" would be a diamond. I started looking in the grid and -- there it was.
Dang. Are these even any fun for you guys, anymore? :-) I find that level of insight mind boggling!
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Flying_Burrito
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#360

Post by Flying_Burrito »

DrTom wrote: Mon Aug 16, 2021 8:22 am
BrianMac wrote: Sun Aug 15, 2021 10:15 pm
fuggedabowdit wrote: Sun Aug 15, 2021 8:45 pm After having been a member of the Muggle community for some time now, and occassionally following and laughing along with some of the banter and give and take between members in the form of puns, poems, and other suggestive offerings regarding the current puzzles, I am offended that my use of humor in suggesting that a meta solution was easy in some way as to be construed as a spoiler, and then to have my comments removed as such is redicuious. It was not even a close call and was probably removed for it's completely uncontroversial subject matter that did not quite agree with the staid views of the complainer(s) or moderator??
So I guess it's "Adieu, XWORD MUGGLES FORUM" A little uptight for me.
Don't bother commenting as you will just be talking to yourselves.
Fuggedabowdit
Bye.
This whole thing is really a shame. SReh26 is absolutely correct, all the things going on in our world have put many on edge. Trust me I am in healthcare and have some very STRONG opinions that often creep into my personal level of "OH YEAH", BUT there is one place where I can come and be free of those things, and that is here!

I know of no fairer or tolerant individual than our site administrator BrianMac. I echo the comments of the Muggle that pointed out how Brian has to weed through the posts (and given our loquaciousness that can be VERY time consuming) and probably ends up spoiling many of his own solves. He does this unpaid and unappreciated in many respects. I have also had a post removed at one point, and when I asked why it was explained in calm, reasonable terms. I'm not sure if I agreed or not (and evaluating based on my own critical examination of my need to be correct I'd probably say no) but the argument was compelling enough that I accepted it. There is always time to be clever or funny or even humble in the post mortem, but there is seldom a way to retract venom and anger.

I'm sorry Fuggedabowdit felt compelled to leave, but it would appear that he/she selected animus over amicability (such a shame, amicability comes first in the dictionary!) so it probably was just a matter of time.
I think he/she showed some peevishness and thin-skin by leaving that way. it was not a big deal, even the removal of the post is not a big deal and Fuggedabowdit decided to make this something about him/herself. God speed Fuggedabowdit
Senor Guaca Mole :mrgreen:
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