"Body Language" - March 25, 2022

[C=64]

Of course, it would have been awesome if there were a kidney (with one letter off; is there a word that would qualify?)

[MikeM000]

Of course, it would have been awesome if there were a kidney (with one letter off; is there a word that would qualify?)

I had this very thought earlier today and briefly remembered going shoe shopping at Kinney (the Great American Shoe Store) every August in the late 1970s.

I believe one of the 2 dozen ish constantly employed comic actors who first gained fame in the troupe The State in the mid 90s is Kerri Kinney as well.

Weird seeing the solution posted at 7 something on Sunday evening. I do have to say as an early rising sports on TV watcher, Hawaii time is kind of incredible. I'd love to be able to roll out of bed at 6am on autumn weekends and watch college football...

[littlepigeon]

Posting way late, but I did make it to shore on time this week. Really enjoyed this one; the solve, when I *finaaaalllyyy* got there, was more satisfying than usual for some reason.


Having admittedly not read back through all of the however-many-pages of posts in this thread (so apologies if this has been discussed already), I'm wondering if anybody else got temporarily hung up on those two crossing ORALs at the center of the grid. (It wasn't the only red herring I fell for, but it's probably the one that irked me the longest.)

[M and M]

I also looked briefly for a matching word in the grid but I was resigned to not finding one since the same thing happened in the past couple of months on a similar solve.

That said, my nomination for a match would have been Sidney. I can't think of much else that works! Sir Philip maybe?

[mrmd]

Although ureters, bladder and urethra are undoubtedly part of the renal system, they have their own adjectives: ureteric, vesical and urethral. And yes, calyceal is also a word

Medical school - the gift that keeps on giving!

[Mister Squawk]

I would hate to see this devolve into a p*****g contest...

[Deb F]

The answer did seem pretty clear to me but once folks started talking about possibly submitting the wrong answer, I started to relook at having already submitted "KIDNEY". I thought it was a good puzzle with a satisfying answer.

Good luck on the mug, Muggles!

[MaineMarge]

I thought kidney and bladder were both good options for renal.
When first looking over the grid, 53A GALLoped had brought to mind gallbladder, so my brain thought that might be a hint to steer us to bladder as the meta answer.
To paraphrase @Bird Lives’s comment in a PM, I would have been p_____ off to have selected the wrong answer.
Moot point, as I forgot to submit bladder!

[Bird Lives]

I understand people's gripes about the answer, but RENAL means KIDNEY to the majority of people. Yes, the ureters, minor calyx, major calyx, renal collecting ducts, urine, ureters, urethra, etc. could all be answers if the mechanism spelled out RENAL SYSTEM, but it didn't. Still, Matt may relent but he would have to honor about 20-30 different answers.

DrTom seems to be a medical professional -- I think he served with Major Calyx at the VA. Either that or he latched on to a good medical text. Whatever. If he says it means KIDNEY, that's good enough for me. If you submitted URETERS and didn't win the mug, you're just like me and all the hundreds of others (with one exception) who submitted KIDNEY and didn't win the mug.

Often, when Matt senses ambiguity, he'll put letter-length in the prompt. something along the lines of "The answer is a six-letter body part." Asleep at the wheel this time, he never noticed all those people who were going to submit COLLECTING DUCTS.

[ReB]

There's an old medical school saying that seems apropos here:

When you hear the sound of hoof beats, your first thought should be horses, not zebras...

And KIDNEY was clearly the horse in this field, there being no reason to look for something more obscure.

[mrmd]

I would hate to see this devolve into a p*****g contest...

[femullen]

I come from an entire clan of life scientists--mother, father, older brother, et al.--any of whom would join @LadyBird in a learned discussion of the honorable and distinguished organs associated with the renal system.

Me, I became an engineer. And sometimes it pays to live in blissful ignorance of anatomy: when I found RENAL, my first reaction was, "Aha! An anagram of LEARN!" "Learn," it turns out, was good advice, because when I looked up RENAL, I discovered it was "Of, pertaining to, or in the region of the kidneys." Thus straight to the answer without worrying about organs downstream.

[Inca]

Just for the record, although I submitted kidney and it seems clear to me that it is *the* correct answer, if the powers that be selected one of the other body parts and decided it qualified for the mug, I'd be ok with it. I probably wouldn't win on the 2nd draw either, so just another week without the mug. I really want to win that mug, but I'm used not doing so by now. At least I solved this week.

[otlaolap]

I solved! I solved! I solved! I told my wife -- LIVER! Showed her the mechanism. She asked: doesn't renal pertain to the kidneys?

[Flying_Burrito]

Submitted kidney but had some hesitation at the finish line. I was not sure whether or not Matt wanted us to stop at Renal or induce the organ answer. Renal is 99% kidney but just like oral could be mouth or tongue, there could have been more than just kidney. That's the thing with Matt's metas: great mechanisms but always 1% ambiguity with the answers.

[OliviaL]

Did anyone else initially follow the path of finding SAY (ORAL), ATE (DENTAL), WALK (PEDAL), and SEE (OCULAR)? All had one additional letter, which I assumed would lead to the answer, but I couldn’t find anything for DERMAL and didn’t like ATE being past tense so I finally gave up on that path and eventually got on track to find KIDNEY.

[Bob cruise director]

The answer did seem pretty clear to me but once folks started talking about possibly submitting the wrong answer, I started to relook at having already submitted "KIDNEY". I thought it was a good puzzle with a satisfying answer.

Good luck on the mug, Muggles!

@Deb F I think that most of those who admitted that they submitted the wrong answers over the weekend stopped at RENAL and submitted that.

[Bob cruise director]

There's an old medical school saying that seems apropos here:

When you hear the sound of hoof beats, your first thought should be horses, not zebras...

And KIDNEY was clearly the horse in this field, there being no reason to look for something more obscure.

@ReB

Bob - I don't think that anyone doubts that Kidney is the better answer but the question is whether others like Bladder are also acceptable as qualifying. I am sure that the WSJ hopes or is thankful if the first right answer pulled out is Kidney. After that it is just for statistics how many other answers would be acceptable.

[Barney]

The answer did seem pretty clear to me but once folks started talking about possibly submitting the wrong answer, I started to relook at having already submitted "KIDNEY". I thought it was a good puzzle with a satisfying answer.

Good luck on the mug, Muggles!

@Deb F I think that most of those who admitted that they submitted the wrong answers over the weekend stopped at RENAL and submitted that.

Agree. And would note this is stopping too soon.

Every other body region ending in “al” led to the grid entries off by one letter, whose “wrong letter” spelled out renal, which by the identical pattern led to kidney. That’s the last step.

My solve rate is low. For some reason this one was easy for me, though I slightly tripped on “teeth” and “feet” before switching them to tooth and foot and thus finding their grid corollaries.

[Barney]

I don’t think you’d find a nephrologist in the country who would say renal —> bladder.