XWord Muggles Forum

40A was just a stupid joke on my part - didn't work out

Ha! I got the answer, but the rose/rows thing went right the heck over my head :-) Excellent work, @madhatter5 !

madhatter5 wrote: ↑Sun Jul 04, 2021 10:56 am Solution:

The title was meant to get you to look at the columns (i.e. not the rows) of the grid. You will find that eight such columns feature the name of an automobile, followed by the name of a country.

The answer is therefore CARNATION, a solution which I hope meets with DrTom's full approval.

Happy Fourth to all the Americans out there

APPROVE? I LOVE it, I did (just as Josh predicted I would) kick myself in the butt for not solving it. I was going way too far afield. I IMMEDIATELY knew it was columns not ROWS (ROSE) from Josh's title. I unfortunately thought that the FLOWER was going to be MISSISSIPPI or RHONE, or even ERIE CANAL! I tried the place the car was made combined with the country (by the way I am a Lithuanian who drives a BMW so of course I figured there had to be a link), the letters horizontal and then vertical, the opposite of that. Never once did I just think of CAR NATION and you would think I would.
Just to show you WHY I am laboring to maximally injure my gluteus, here is the actual text of an email I sent to Josh when I had stalled:

"Oh, I already tried swapping the name of the car for the "Nation" they are made in - got a LOT of vowels but no words."

Fun meta and, as usual, a fun grid - Josh gets the prize for his artistic grids, I think my favorite might have been Thesaurus though.

Oh - forgot to mention - kudos to MamaE for being the only solver to spot the Easter egg (first letters of the first 25 across entries)

And surely when people solved they were remembering that old school yard joke --- "If everyone in the US drove a rose-colored Ford, what would we have?"
And from there "mature" Muggles could leap to this!

whimsy wrote: ↑Mon Jul 05, 2021 11:35 am And surely when people solved they were remembering that old school yard joke --- "If everyone in the US drove a rose-colored Ford, what would we have?"
And from there "mature" Muggles could leap to this!

Now that IS odd - I was just humming that song to myself yesterday, having no relation to the META. I was thinking, I ought to put up a picture of someone in tan shoes with pink shoelaces and see who would get he reference, obviously you would have.

However, I am afraid you ahve me at the disadvantage over the rose colored Ford...what would we have?

Petals to the metal
Thornderbirds
Nothing but Mr. Lincolns
????????

DrTom wrote: ↑Mon Jul 05, 2021 1:44 pm

whimsy wrote: ↑Mon Jul 05, 2021 11:35 am And surely when people solved they were remembering that old school yard joke --- "If everyone in the US drove a rose-colored Ford, what would we have?"
And from there "mature" Muggles could leap to this!

Now that IS odd - I was just humming that song to myself yesterday, having no relation to the META. I was thinking, I ought to put up a picture of someone in tan shoes with pink shoelaces and see who would get he reference, obviously you would have.

However, I am afraid you ahve me at the disadvantage over the rose colored Ford...what would we have?

Petals to the metal
Thornderbirds
Nothing but Mr. Lincolns
????????

Poor @DrTom, you must be having a bad day to not see this groaner:

If everyone in the country drove rose-colored Fords, we'd have a RED CAR NATION.