XWord Muggles Forum

I also wanted it to be TOUCH(something).

As in

START WITH TOUCH
STAND OR NEXT TO INTERRUPT

striking the DON'Ts and the MEs altogether.

TOUCHINESS was the only such ten letter word, but couldn't find anything for the INESS, so that wasn't one of our submissions.

The other was ADMONITION, which is the AD from MADEBACON, the MO from the first clue, the IN from INME fully backwards (NI), the ON from the stand clue, and no TI in sight.

MONOTONOUS doesn't also fit the puzzle title, ADMONITION does, so we submitted two different words.

I didn’t submit a guess, but if I did it would have been “directions” or “boundaries”, which still makes more sense to me. Lol.

BTW, my interpretation was a little different than Barbara’s. I looked at it as how would you remedy the situations that the statements asks you not to do.

1. Don’t start with me. If you remove MO there is no word that starts with me.
2. Don’t touch me. If you remove NOT there are no letters touching me.
3. Don’t stand so close to me. Notice that this is the vertical (standing) me. Removing ON takes away what is standing close to me.
4. Don’t interrupt me. Here is the quandary: do you refer to MADE or MOUSE? Since there are three letters remaining to be found that eliminates Made, and Mouse must be used. Remove OUS and me is not interrupted.

Put it all together and it spells MOTHER, oh wait wrong song, it spells MONOTONOUS.

Dadgumit!
I had “Monotonous” at one point but let it go.
No matter. Every one that I don’t get only gives me another arrow in the quiver to solve future metas!

Uggh I was somewhat close in one of my pursuits. I had start with ME as MEMO and Interrupt as MOUSE. I saw FOOT over ME, and I kept getting distracted with the BY over the ME, or the ON over the ME (both theme MEs, I hadn't clued in to find non-theme MEs). The Standing ME is really clever. Maybe if I had seen that I would have had enough letters to start piecing it together. Of all the 10 letter words that might have fit the theme answers that I tried to back solve with, and there were pages of them, I have to say MONOTONOUS was NOT one of them!

I suspected this was the answer (MOxxxxxOUS doesn't describe any other word that came to mind, since you wouldn't call a clue MONOGAMOUS) but didn't submit because I couldn't figure out how to parse the two middle clues, even though I was pretty sure that AME was involved (because it was vertical). Oh well, another weekend with Isaac, could have been worse.

no that's cool. I had the "ous" towards the finish line before I realized I wasted too much time.
So yeah, I had
Mo
but then garbage like IN me (not not)
then Ron or on.
then ous.

but that spelled nothing

GAH GAH GAH ... so close! I had the MO and the OUS but couldn't finesse the rest, so I figured my approach was wrong ... but I liked my approach SOOOO much. I thought about monotonous, but it didn't seem to fit the title of the puzzle -- how is that 'what not to do?' -- and I've been down that garden path before. C'est la vie. Maybe next week!

I don't like how the MOT wraps around the ME of INME, but ... at least one half of us submitted the correct answer.

I came about the answer in a completely different (& bad) way. I had GUIDELINES stuck in my mind, since it was obvious that the puzzle theme was related to COVID-19 and every article, PSA, company emailing about how they're taking care if its customers, press conference, tweet, posting, etc., seemed to repeat the GUIDELINES of how to prevent, treat, and blah-de-blah.

I could not get GUIDELINES out of my head during a weekend busy with family & the beginning of spring & yard work. I saw some MEs in the puzzle, but also couldn't get them to work and was sick of staring at the same screen, repeatedly, when I actually said to myself, "This is sheer monotony!"

*click* Monotony, monotonous... There is MO in MEMO and OUS interrupting ME in MOUSE! I knew I had it, despite not ferreting out the middle letters until 30 minutes, or so, later.

nice.

my first two "guesses" were DIRECTIONS and BOUNDARIES, but without support for those, started looking elsewhere.

How does MONOTONOUS describe the theme entries? I pretty much figured out what needed to be done to solve the meta but couldn't settle on a word that I thought made sense. While I admire the process I'm disappointed in the solution.

LaceyK wrote: ↑Mon Mar 30, 2020 12:25 am Uggh I was somewhat close in one of my pursuits. I had start with ME as MEMO and Interrupt as MOUSE. I saw FOOT over ME, and I kept getting distracted with the BY over the ME, or the ON over the ME (both theme MEs, I hadn't clued in to find non-theme MEs). The Standing ME is really clever. Maybe if I had seen that I would have had enough letters to start piecing it together. Of all the 10 letter words that might have fit the theme answers that I tried to back solve with, and there were pages of them, I have to say MONOTONOUS was NOT one of them!

“By” tripped me up, too.

Woo-hoo! Never reported myself on the beach (because I wasn't), but I submitted the correct answer about 7 minutes before the deadline. I'm just glad I didn't have to show my work! (I was pretty sure how the word had to begin and end, so I made an educated guess from there, never quite having seen how the middle sections worked. I got the double-negative thing, too.) Still, it counts, stretching my streak to 13 and giving me my first perfect calendar quarter. I'm still a long way from a perfect year as so many others here have achieved.

I agree with Tony S. Saw monotonous early, but didn't see how it described the theme entries.

flyingMoose wrote: ↑Sun Mar 29, 2020 5:57 pm Just submitted my answer.

I can almost, nearly semi-justify it maybe. At a minimum, I hope to give someone in the halls of WSJ, er, the halls of their apartment, a good laugh.

Well, I did get the correct answer, but in a most inelegant way. From the MEs scattered in the grid, I saw MO and OUS. I also saw other letters near an ME that suggested monotonous. But the double-negative completely escaped me, so using the theme entries in the desired manner was lost on me.

Saw monotonous, but thought it had nothing to do with the instructions.

Submitted admonition. Started from m-"ad"-e and me-"mo" and forced it from there.

No wonder the beach was so empty.

Well I'm going to argue that ADMONITION is perfectly acceptable and fits the criteria as well or better than MONOTONOUS: meMO - of course because it starts with ME
mADe is every bit as acceptable as mOUSe and is more like a usual 5 entry (yes one was split in two DONT STAND and SO CLOSE TO ME) because it interrupts ME
IT because it is "standing" on ME
INme because it is touching ME

mO because these are so close to ME
eN

Yielding MO AD IT IN ON, an anagram of ADMONITION which all of the themed entries are. Yes the entries were repetitive, and there is currently a lot of monotony, but when you admonish me not to do something I listen - and answer.

Now there will be arguments that "well you had to have one that was using a theme entry", and last week we had a solve that involved a theme entry. Any argument of, "but you had to force it" is offset by "well you had to ignore one of the MEs and decide between MADE and MOUSE to get THREE letters instead of the usual two.

So ruling judges please - two possible answers?

Tom Shea wrote: ↑Mon Mar 30, 2020 4:33 am Saw monotonous, but thought it had nothing to do with the instructions.

Submitted admonition. Started from m-"ad"-e and me-"mo" and forced it from there.

No wonder the beach was so empty.

Tom - as you can see I agree with your answer and don't think you had to "force" it at all. Now will the judges hear the beat of the Tom Tom...let's hope so.

Hours lost this weekend
To a meta that’s messy
Drove me round the bend!