XWord Muggles Forum

Jim and Anita wrote: ↑Mon Sep 16, 2019 9:26 am Like Brian Davidson, we found the lack of vertical integration troubling. In the end, while we were glad to solve the meta, we held it up and asked "does this give us joy?". . . hmmmm.

GlennG wrote: ↑Mon Sep 16, 2019 2:40 pm

Jim and Anita wrote: ↑Mon Sep 16, 2019 9:26 am Like Brian Davidson, we found the lack of vertical integration troubling. In the end, while we were glad to solve the meta, we held it up and asked "does this give us joy?". . . hmmmm.

Definitely not, for me. Worst. Meta. Ever. And that's saying something.

HowardHuddleston wrote: ↑Mon Sep 16, 2019 10:45 am It never occurred to me to leave the spaces blank and fill in new words without integrating them with the verticals. Instead, I doubled adjacent letters and tried to anagram the extraneous ones (quite a headache).

Bob cruise director wrote: ↑Mon Sep 16, 2019 8:25 am

CPJohnson wrote: ↑Mon Sep 16, 2019 7:57 am

Bob cruise director wrote: ↑Mon Sep 16, 2019 1:08 am By the way, can someone explain to me what a "tidiness celebrity" is or does. Is it kind of like your mother yelling at you to clean up your room?

Marie has built an empire telling people how to declutter their living spaces.

My question is why you need someone to tell you how to clean up.

MikeMillerwsj wrote: ↑Mon Sep 16, 2019 1:55 pm This was a complicated puzzle! I'm biased of course but I thought it was breathtakingly ingenious: In a 15x15 grid, you have 10 theme words, in symmetrical pairs, all examples of things that clutter your house, all of which can make a new word with an inserted letter, and the letters spell out, in order, the queen of uncluttering. Whew.

We had a robust 1455 entries, and an impressive 93% correct. Only a few repeat wrong answers: Taylor Swift (7, no doubt alluding to her song "Blank Space," and Kevin Spacey (3). Also Diana Ross, Ashton Kutcher, Rachael Ray, Don Rickles, and lots of others.

And congrats to this week's winner, Frances Yang of San Francisco! (see victory lap above!)

FrancesY wrote: ↑Mon Sep 16, 2019 1:43 pm Omg. Slept in today and didn't realize all the controversy over this puzzle. Then checked my email and...wait for it...I won the mug! The only explanation I can think of for the multiple possible letters making new across words is, ala Marie Kondo, choose the one that "brings you joy."

gfindli wrote: ↑Mon Sep 16, 2019 7:09 am

oldjudge wrote: ↑Mon Sep 16, 2019 1:13 am The elegant solution I was looking for apparently does not exist. For some of the blanks there was only one choice. For others there were multiple choices. Getting the right answer was not difficult, but there should have been an elegant way of getting there. There should have been a reason contained in the puzzle that made you choose PAIN rather than PAWN, or TIME rather than TIDE or TILE. I think this was an unusually poor job by Matt.

Concur. Someone here suggested it was the first alphabetical letter of the choices. But what about the word PAAN instead of PAIN.

Normally it seems like the meta requires a system that maps to only one solution.

Emmaa wrote: ↑Mon Sep 16, 2019 2:22 am

ImOnToo wrote: ↑Sun Sep 15, 2019 6:41 pm

ImOnToo wrote: ↑Sun Sep 15, 2019 6:22 pm Oh, good grief. Post enlightenment strikes again.
I’ve been looking at this off and on since Thursday with nary a clue.
I posted that I was lost and, BAM! On shore!
🏖

I’m also laughing at myself for all of the gymnastics I attempted for four days.

Do share!

FrancesY wrote: ↑Mon Sep 16, 2019 1:43 pm Omg. Slept in today and didn't realize all the controversy over this puzzle. Then checked my email and...wait for it...I won the mug! The only explanation I can think of for the multiple possible letters making new across words is, ala Marie Kondo, choose the one that "brings you joy."

FrancesY wrote: ↑Mon Sep 16, 2019 1:43 pm Omg. Slept in today and didn't realize all the controversy over this puzzle. Then checked my email and...wait for it...I won the mug! The only explanation I can think of for the multiple possible letters making new across words is, ala Marie Kondo, choose the one that "brings you joy."

JimmyJam wrote: ↑Mon Sep 16, 2019 8:35 pm

gfindli wrote: ↑Mon Sep 16, 2019 7:09 am

oldjudge wrote: ↑Mon Sep 16, 2019 1:13 am The elegant solution I was looking for apparently does not exist. For some of the blanks there was only one choice. For others there were multiple choices. Getting the right answer was not difficult, but there should have been an elegant way of getting there. There should have been a reason contained in the puzzle that made you choose PAIN rather than PAWN, or TIME rather than TIDE or TILE. I think this was an unusually poor job by Matt.

Concur. Someone here suggested it was the first alphabetical letter of the choices. But what about the word PAAN instead of PAIN.

Normally it seems like the meta requires a system that maps to only one solution.

I’m right there with you both. I think this meta would benefit from some tidying up.