XWord Muggles Forum

Not sure if many people remember me, but I was somewhat active last summer. Decided to take a look this week, for old times' sake, and I found an answer. Hopefully it's as easy as everyone seems to think it is.

Ashore during my first tour in months. Well, I would be if there was room. Maybe I'll just sit on this raft here...

Was onshore since Thursday night, but I was pretty sure I was missing a step. Like the week before, there may be a more elegant path but I cannot exactly figure it out. Regardless, I'm happy with my solution.

Submitted my educated guess answer. Just like last week, I'm 100% positive that I missed a couple of steps that make this more elegant than it seems. Or I'm wrong. Will find out in 13 minutes!

On shore, just in the brink of time!

On shore! Well, at least close enough to stand on sand....

Ushering in the puzzle drop in 3, 2, 1...

escapeartist wrote: ↑Mon Feb 01, 2021 12:00 am Ushering in the puzzle drop in 3, 2, 1...

Was just about to type I'm waiting to get ushered to my seat while waiting for it to drop

jhseeman wrote: ↑Mon Feb 01, 2021 12:02 am

escapeartist wrote: ↑Mon Feb 01, 2021 12:00 am Ushering in the puzzle drop in 3, 2, 1...

Was just about to type I'm waiting to get ushered to my seat while waiting for it to drop

It appears great minds think alike

The short cut is to find the two pronouns that combine to make US/HER. But that route misses the sequence that threads through the theme entries. The ending of one pronoun becomes the beginning of the next.
.

My quibble with this was that "HE GOT GAME" seemed to be unnecessary, since the "HE" was already in two other answers. Unless Matt felt that he needed to have 5 theme answers to go with the 5 letters in the answer.

I felt 28D was a confirming clue. You find an additional letter in each pronoun in successive theme answers, starting with the U in 17A

LadyBird wrote: ↑Mon Feb 01, 2021 12:11 am My quibble with this was that "HE GOT GAME" seemed to be unnecessary, since the "HE" was already in two other answers. Unless Matt felt that he needed to have 5 theme answers to go with the 5 letters in the answer.

The only thing that I can think of is that this fourth long answer provided the fourth letter of the solution.

(even though it was in other answers, I mean, c'mon man, there has to be some reason to the mechanism)

The answer does fit the title MAKE HIM FROM THEM, but the process seems a little clunky because of the different amount of overlapping between theme answers. I would think FIND THEM IN HIM would be a more appropriate title.

Oof, I submitted CHER for overly simplistic reasons. Not feeling too smart today!

JRS51 wrote: ↑Mon Feb 01, 2021 12:13 am I felt 28D was a confirming clue. You find an additional letter in each pronoun in successive theme answers, starting with the U in 17A

I think you are saying the same way I understood the mechanism. At each pronoun, you pick up the letter that follows the letter picked up at the previous pronoun.

U .. uS .. sHe .. hE .. heR

If you start with USHER and, in order, read the pronouns it contains (assuming U is a pronoun) you get U US SHE HE HER, so these pronouns make up USHER.

I answered USHER, but I kept looking for a second R. My adult kids knew who USHER is. I gotta start listening to newer music.

Bob cruise director wrote: ↑Sun Jan 31, 2021 4:47 pm

RichA2 wrote: ↑Sun Jan 31, 2021 4:21 pm I have a solution. It isn’t elegant (and as the song goes, “If you ain’t got elegance, you can never ever carry it off”) but I am going to submit it and see what happens. Bob, count me as still at sea until I wake up tomorrow morning and find out whether I made it ashore.

If you think you are on shore - any shore, even a deserted island, we count you on shore. You will not be the first to throw a hail Mary and have it caught.

Turns out I did land on the right shore. After flailing about in a vain search for a mechanism, I googled a list of one-named male singers. USHER jumped out from the list, given the unusual U at the start of the first theme answer and the presence of the remaining letters in his name throughout the themers. I didn't see the overlap from one pronoun to the next, and so missed what was elegant about the construction, and remained in doubt about whether I had it right.

I was surprised at the length of the list of singers, although only a few seem well-known enough to serve as a WSJ meta solution.