"Just Look at Yourself" - January 28, 2022

[vandono]

I guess that entries like NENE, ADIT and ETUI are -- thankfully -- giving way to a new day.

Hmm... ETUIS - Not a bad 1st attempt on Wordle... Sure, SUITE would work, but where's the fun in that?!?

I start Wordle with orate…….

"IOTAS" is my usual start. twice this week it was all gray, though. or was it grey? i can't remember.

[drbockel2]

The number in parentheses is the number of letters in the synonym for the hyphenated phrase.

So 39A 3-________ (4 letters) is the 3-letter body part EAR; the word to be entered in the grid (SPLITTING) completes the adjective. The synonym (at 61D) is LOUD, which is four letters.

The "3-" on that clue was useful for me when I deciphered what it meant, as my initial thought was "Hair". Although after the excitement wore off I realized that phrase is usually only said in the opposite construction ("splitting hairs").

Also...
I GET KNOCKED DOWN!
BUT I GET UP AGAIN!
NOTHING'S EVER GONNA KEEP ME DOWN!

Funny...because I shared Tubthumping with the person who was giving me nudges and she didn't realize that was the name of the song. I was having a whiskey drink, not a cider drink, nor a lager drink. I couldn't sing songs that reminded me of the good times because the darn meta just wouldn't come to me.

[LadyBird]

All those numbers and parentheses were giving me the usual Gaffney fits. Then, for some reason, I though of the title "Just Look at Yourself" and CHEST-THUMPING just came to me, along with the word VAIN. So now I knew the mechanisms. But I could not get (3)-DROPPING. All I could think of was EYE-DROPPING. Finally, I wrote down all of the 7-letter words in the grid and looked just at the adjectives--saw AMAZING and finally came up with JAW-DROPPING. Then, like alot of others, I was stuck with VELNA? Anagrammed NAVEL and then saw it made more sense when I highlighted those words on the grid.

I try not to highlight my grid--at least until I've forced my husband to try and figure out the mechanism as well

[LadyBird]

Maybe I'm too old, but I've never heard of Navel-Gazing,

If there's an age divide among people who have and have not heard of navel-gazing it is definitely that the young are less likely to have heard of it. I'm a bit surprised that you are familiar with the word "omphaloskepsis". Most people hearing that for the first time ask what it means and are told it means navel gazing.

Yeah, I always liked that word. As for navel-gazing, I guess I was absent that day/era/location where it was taught. I thought the same thing for another of Matt's puzzles where the answer was "Side eye." I had never heard of that either. I guess that entries like NENE, ADIT and ETUI are -- thankfully -- giving way to a new day.

I rather enjoyed being the recipient of this side-eye

[ZooAnimalsOnWheels]

She gets *really* annoyed when I draw the ravens. But she likes it when she draws the ravens. But she's gets annoyed when the ravens come late in the game or are forced to be discarded in predation.

But we both like the ravens too much when we get them to take them out. And they don't *always* break the game. But dang... put the Chihuahan Raven in your grasslands and... just lay eggs and you *never* have to worry about getting the right food for your birds again! (Nothing worse than wanting certain foods but not having them show up in the bird feeder. Which is interesting. We came across a situation tonight, that in hindsight is surprising we didn't run across earlier. She had bird with a "take a worm from the birdfeeder" action in her forest so every time she took food she *always* remove all the worms and as half my cards needed worms I *never* got them)

But we hate many of the bonus cards. The backyard naturalist encourages you to play low cards... that's a winning strategy for sure. And the one where you have groups of four eggs for a measely 1 point each. Yeah like you can ever have more then two or three of those. If you have the european expansion then what about Tucked cards bonus card? It takes 4 different birds with tucked cards to get started and 7 to get the high score. It's a good game when we get three different birds with tucked cards.

Yeah, I agree they don't always break the game, but if you get one early enough to play it first in the grasslands... look out! My group took out the ravens and also the killdeer and Franklin's Gull (2 cards for one egg) because if someone got them in their opening hand it felt like they had a huge advantage. I understand the expansions mitigated the situation, but I haven't played those.

And I sympathize with all your other experiences. Drawing terrible bonus cards, drawing incompatible additional bonus cards, and the birdfeeder that never has the food you need and never seems to get re-rolled before your turn! As frustrating as it can be, it's still such a fun and well-deigned game.

[ZooAnimalsOnWheels]

Hmm... ETUIS - Not a bad 1st attempt on Wordle... Sure, SUITE would work, but where's the fun in that?!?

I start Wordle with orate…….

"IOTAS" is my usual start. twice this week it was all gray, though. or was it grey? i can't remember.

I don't understand the love for words with lots of vowels as the first guess. It doesn't narrow much down and every guess is going to have a vowel in it, so they'll come out eventually. My favorite starters are SNORT, SHUNT, STERN, SNARL, SHIRT, etc. I think having the 1st 'S' and the last 'T' are particularly strong.

[flyingMoose]

I start Wordle with orate…….

"IOTAS" is my usual start. twice this week it was all gray, though. or was it grey? i can't remember.

I don't understand the love for words with lots of vowels as the first guess. It doesn't narrow much down and every guess is going to have a vowel in it, so they'll come out eventually. My favorite starters are SNORT, SHUNT, STERN, SNARL, SHIRT, etc. I think having the 1st 'S' and the last 'T' are particularly strong.

A slew of Wordle linguists online, of course. Real linguists. One suggested SOARE (a young hawk) because it has frequent letters in their common places. Today? Zilch!

[woozy]

I don't understand the love for words with lots of vowels as the first guess.

I understand it but I think the logic is faulty. Finding which vowels are in it will happen in your first three guesses any way. So you should concentrate and the difficult things to track down/eliminate first.

[escapeartist]

My first two guesses are almost always TRIES and COUGH.

Worked especially good today - got it on the 3rd guess.

[MaineMarge]

No hand-wringing or head scratching here. I got this one early on, and am surprised by the number of you who don’t know this term. I’ve come across it many times in various readings.
Enough with all this navel gazing, Muggles. Let’s do some flower gazing-

Oft on a summer day I come upon such a heart-stopping sight.
Red lily and knautia, white cranesbill and water lilies.

[ship4u]

Enough with all this navel gazing, Muggles. Let’s do some flower gazing.

How about some snowman gazing that I made for my love?

[woozy]

Enough with all this navel gazing, Muggles. Let’s do some flower gazing-

With creative gardening you can combine the two.... ew.....

[tmk]

Enough with all this navel gazing, Muggles. Let’s do some flower gazing-

With creative gardening you can combine the two.... ew.....

sheesh, what do you have against navel orange blossoms‽

[CPJohnson]

I understand that there are 2 Wordle camps: First-Word-Vowel-Heavy and First-Word-Consonant-Heavy. We can all be friends! (Until it doesn't work for me, I'll stick with vowels. Second word is usually common-consonant-heavy, unless the first word turned up nothing.)

[Nlobb]

I see the New York Times has purchased Wordle for an undisclosed amount in the low 7 figures. Hope it will still be accessible and free to play!!

[flyingMoose]

I understand that there are 2 Wordle camps: First-Word-Vowel-Heavy and First-Word-Consonant-Heavy.

And then there is Post #5 in the Wordle thread.

[C=64]

I submitted NAVELGAZING and the WSJ answer is NAVEL-GAZING. Would my answer be accepted as correct without the dash?

Picking winning entries is random, but deciding if the chosen one does indeed have the correct answer is done by a human. So, yes, any recognizable punctuation and spelling should be fine. In fact, the online entry mechanism usually doesn't allow punctuation, so people who submitted that way may not even have been able to use the hyphen.

Whenever a bunch of people post "I can't submit my answer using the online submission form!" it's a clue that there's some kind of punctuation in the answer.

[M and M]

Did anyone else look at that title and say "In a Matt Gaffney puzzle, this should mean that the word 'Yourself" is hidden somewhere important in this puzzle? And then did anyone else find the letter Y in buoys, and then twist around from letter to consecutive letter to spell out - yes, wait for it -
YOURSEL _? No F. No F anywhere. No more Yourself anywhere. Just a nice little nasty trap door with a rabbit hidden behind it.

I was so sure..I was so wrong.

That seems like a great song title, by the way.

Fortunately this particular rabbit was so weak that we gave up on it quickly and went on to find the right answer. I just wondered if there were other rabbit hunters allured away from the true path by this little baby bunny.

[boharr]

I see the New York Times has purchased Wordle for an undisclosed amount in the low 7 figures. Hope it will still be accessible and free to play!!

Free "initially, they say. Translation: not for very long. Monetize. Monetize..

[Streroto]

I guess that entries like NENE, ADIT and ETUI are -- thankfully -- giving way to a new day.

Hmm... ETUIS - Not a bad 1st attempt on Wordle... Sure, SUITE would work, but where's the fun in that?!?

I start Wordle with orate…….

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