XWord Muggles Forum

I’m beamed up. Thank you, DrTom for your help!

This must be easier than a typical week 4, because it wasn’t too difficult for me — and I’m on vacation, so didn’t spent much time on it. It was fun and I learned a new word that ends with an A.

New streak starts today!

Submitting without a *click." Fingers crossed.

Bird Lives wrote: ↑Tue Jun 01, 2021 7:17 pm @BarbaraK says she spotted something that brings it all together, but whatever it is, it has eluded me.

Just to clarify, I did not see anything that brings it all together, I just noticed something that gave me more confidence in the steps I'd found.

Did anyone get distracted by a huge red herring? A single letter change would have been easy, so I'm begging to doubt that it was an accident and to think that maybe underneath that friendly exterior, Mr. Gaffney is hiding a Mr. Hyde-like evil twin.

The numbers in the grid on the PDF are a little bigger than last time. Was it big enough for everyone?

It took me a few days to solve, but for what it's worth it all came together perfectly for me and without issue when it finally happened. I'm not sure exactly what the small hang-up was for some, but there's definitely a "100% certainty" way to navigate through to the answer.

My excuse for performing poorly & needing to be dragged by the nose to solving this Week 4:

My only "grandbaby" was staying with me for 17 days. She turns 3, today, is quite the distraction, and may be the sweetest mammal. Happy birthday, Layla!

Awaiting confirmation but confident.

This was the easiest week 4 I've completed - fortunate as well because I just started looking at it this morning!

Joe Ross wrote: ↑Wed Jun 02, 2021 10:27 am My excuse for performing poorly & needing to be dragged by the nose to solving this Week 4:

My only "grandbaby" was staying with me for 17 days. She turns 3, today, is quite the distraction, and may be the sweetest mammal. Happy birthday, Layla!

You need no explanations, but the one you had was certainly justification enough!

Tom

The answer is PERFECTA. But I still can't figure out how that word, with our without the A, is related to the title of the puzzle or anything in the grid.
The AD in the title refers to the letters that had to be added to the two-word terms that appear separately in the grid. The solution required finding in the grid another member of the same category.
.

Solved on Sunday, but waited until last minute to submit, in order to unlock two Achievements at same time (Buzzer Beater and Wednesday Warrior). Spent way too long getting sidetracked by the central entry, looking for ways to add AD- to other words like ORES and VISES to get other words. The cross-references jumped out at me, not just by their frequency, but in most cases by their un-necessity. ELBOW PAST and SKI PARK are not common entries, would be better to clue as single words. So why connect them? Wonder how long it took Matt to find two-word phrases you could add A or D at the end and still have something meaningful?

Bird Lives wrote: ↑Wed Jun 02, 2021 12:07 pm The answer is PERFECTA. But I still can't figure out how that word, with or without the A, is related to the title of the puzzle or anything in the grid.

A PERFECTA (also called an EXACTA) is a bet on a horse race where the bettor choses the first two finishers, in the correct (perfect, exact) order, which was required of the solvers with the paired clues & entries.

'A's were added to the second Across entries, 'D's were added to the second down entries.

Adding an 'A' to PERFECT balanced the number of added 'A's & 'D's? I agree that it doesn't tie-in with the title perfectly but does with the two-part nature of the paired clues & entries & certainly with the Meta Clue.

I was close on realizing AD likely referred to ACROSS and DOWN and also noticed the two-word entries but was confuzzled on why there were 7, not 8. Explanation makes sense.

Good puzzle that beat me this time. We can't always be perfecta!

I saw MANI(a) and PAST(a), as well as a few entries that could take a “D” at the end, but that led nowhere. Then I saw the cross-references and the solution. Nice one, Matt.

Include me in the “I have an answer, but...” group. I hesitated to submit because the answer, title and mechanism didn’t really click with me.

Joe Ross wrote: ↑Wed Jun 02, 2021 12:32 pm

Bird Lives wrote: ↑Wed Jun 02, 2021 12:07 pm The answer is PERFECTA. But I still can't figure out how that word, with or without the A, is related to the title of the puzzle or anything in the grid.

A PERFECTA (also called an EXACTA) is a bet on a horse race where the bettor choses the first two finishers, in the correct (perfect, exact) order, which was required of the solvers with the paired clues & entries.

'A's were added to the second Across entries, 'D's were added to the second down entries.

Adding an 'A' to PERFECT balanced the number of added 'A's & 'D's? I agree that it doesn't tie-in with the title perfectly but does with the two-part nature of the paired clues & entries & certainly with the Meta Clue.

I knew what a perfecta is. I just didn't see the order of the words as problematic. The clues tell you (X "with" Y). I figured that the link between getting the meta and winning the perfecta is that it's very long odds against that I can do either.

Bird Lives wrote: ↑Wed Jun 02, 2021 12:07 pm I figured that the link between getting the meta and winning the perfecta is that it's very long odds against that I can do either.

Depending on how one processes the puzzle, there's sort of an unnecessary half-step realization that makes PERFECTA make more or less sense. You can solve it serially (i.e. one word leads to another) or you can see that each clue has a first and second perfect match:

Town where a TV show is Set: (1. TWIN PEAKS, 2. PAWNEE INDIAN-A)
Alternative to ziti or orecchiette: ( 1. ROTINI, 2. ELBOW PAST-A)
Winter garment (1. COAT, 2. SKI PARK-A)
Part of a pirate costume, often (1. EARRING, 2. BLACK BEAR-D)
Oscar-nominated Peter Weir movie (1. FEARLESS, 2. GREEN CAR-D)
National park named for water feature (1. EVERGLADES, 2. BIG BEN-D)
Emergency cash source (1. PIGGY BANK, 2. RAINY DAY FUN-D)

Outside of the Peter Weir movie, it's easy to spot the category pair sans looking back at the clue itself, making it feel less like an actual perfecta.

Bird Lives wrote: ↑Wed Jun 02, 2021 1:53 pm

Joe Ross wrote: ↑Wed Jun 02, 2021 12:32 pm

Bird Lives wrote: ↑Wed Jun 02, 2021 12:07 pm The answer is PERFECTA. But I still can't figure out how that word, with or without the A, is related to the title of the puzzle or anything in the grid.

A PERFECTA (also called an EXACTA) is a bet on a horse race where the bettor choses the first two finishers, in the correct (perfect, exact) order, which was required of the solvers with the paired clues & entries.

'A's were added to the second Across entries, 'D's were added to the second down entries.

Adding an 'A' to PERFECT balanced the number of added 'A's & 'D's? I agree that it doesn't tie-in with the title perfectly but does with the two-part nature of the paired clues & entries & certainly with the Meta Clue.

I knew what a perfecta is. I just didn't see the order of the words as problematic. The clues tell you (X "with" Y). I figured that the link between getting the meta and winning the perfecta is that it's very long odds against that I can do either.

It was enough for me, but Matt hadn't considered the two-part nature of the perfecta & the 7 pairs of clues & entries. I am shocked he didn't have it in mind before starting the puzzle.

In any case, the meta clue was very direct about the word ending in "A." That PERFECT + A makes a word is enough.

I gave two nudges. The first, to get to Step #1, was "read the pairs aloud." I think that if I had done that myself with GREEN CAR and SKI PARK, I'd have gotten there sooner.
The second tip was to avoid Googling Blackbeard. I did and discovered that his real name was Teach, which was also the entry at 83A. Trying to figure out how to get two Ts into perfecta cost me a lot of time. Matt says that it was not a deliberate red herring. But REACH and PEACH would have worked, and they wouldn't have thrown people (or at least me) off the scent.