"Three Little Words" - August 6, 2021

[Gman]

At sea. I see a lot of rabbit holes, but none has revealed a rabbit so far. I'm certain from the chatter that I'm overcomplicating the mechanism.

[MaineMarge]

Came ashore on Thursday.
Another fun one, Mike. Mike is such a fun guy!
( That’s fungi, in DrTom-speak).

[woozy]

Wow! I made that more difficult than it needed to be. I was distracted by two things which were far afield from where I needed to be but I had trouble ignoring them.

Me too! And because I was distracted by the things that were far afield when I did consider the correct mechanism, I insisted on applying it in weird and complicated ways to tie into the things that were far afield, that somehow it never occurred to me to apply it the easy way.

[Tom Wilson]

Ashore ... finally!

[mntlblok]

[...]
But... I did think the question was regarding the "but." And any proper grammarian will tell you, it's spelled with an ellipsis: "But..." Ending a sentence with "but..." and leaving off the unfinished part in order to indicate that there are potentially many other possibilities which you can imagine for yourself, is quite common and not particularly regional.

At least it is in my experience, but...

[...]
Have become a utiliser of that "end of the sentence" ellipsis. Even read up on em and learnt (from one source) that there should be double spacing between those "dots".

Egad! I had no idea there should be double-spacing between the dots! (Yes, I used a hyphen there.) I can never show my face in good grammarian company again without hanging my head in shame! And Microsoft Word autocorrects it to be a single character with, seemingly, less space between the dots than three single-spaced periods. (Let's start a new Bill Gates conspiracy theory!)

Learn sumpin' new every day...

Well, that was only from that particular source.

Speaking of hyphens, during my interaction with Richard Lederer, I thought I'd impress him with one I'd just heard, and asked if he thought "anal retentive" should be hyphenated. He immediately came back with "I don't know, but it has a colon." One of the other guys with us asked if he'd heard another one, and Lederer replied that he had written it about fifteen years previously.

[Franklin.Bluth]

I count 29 three-word number 1 song titles for those who might try to brute force it. But it's a taller task than, say, picking FRANKINCENSE from a list of 12-letter words relating to Christmas.

Yeah, that's where I went when staring at the grid and the clues didn't reveal anything.

It's literally how I solved last year's Christmas puzzle. I was new to metas, and finally just googled the meta clue: "a 12 letter word". FRANKINCENSE was an obvious choice, and I found it in the grid soon after.

[Franklin.Bluth]

[...]
Have become a utiliser of that "end of the sentence" ellipsis. Even read up on em and learnt (from one source) that there should be double spacing between those "dots".

Egad! I had no idea there should be double-spacing between the dots! (Yes, I used a hyphen there.) I can never show my face in good grammarian company again without hanging my head in shame! And Microsoft Word autocorrects it to be a single character with, seemingly, less space between the dots than three single-spaced periods. (Let's start a new Bill Gates conspiracy theory!)

Learn sumpin' new every day...

Well, that was only from that particular source.

Speaking of hyphens, during my interaction with Richard Lederer, I thought I'd impress him with one I'd lust heard, and asked if he thought "anal retentive" should be hyphenated. He immediately came back with "I don't know, but it has a colon." One of the other guys with us asked if he'd heard another one, and Lederer replied that he had written it about fifteen years previously.

I tried to press Lederer about the neutral "they" and how I thought it was an ungrammatical recent invention, and he responded with a list of sources showing the neutral "they" in use hundreds of years ago.

[Richard]

Not my best category.

Found the grid to be easy but not seeing much for the meta. Frustrating.

[mntlblok]

Egad! I had no idea there should be double-spacing between the dots! (Yes, I used a hyphen there.) I can never show my face in good grammarian company again without hanging my head in shame! And Microsoft Word autocorrects it to be a single character with, seemingly, less space between the dots than three single-spaced periods. (Let's start a new Bill Gates conspiracy theory!)

Learn sumpin' new every day...

Well, that was only from that particular source.

Speaking of hyphens, during my interaction with Richard Lederer, I thought I'd impress him with one I'd lust heard, and asked if he thought "anal retentive" should be hyphenated. He immediately came back with "I don't know, but it has a colon." One of the other guys with us asked if he'd heard another one, and Lederer replied that he had written it about fifteen years previously.

I tried to press Lederer about the neutral "they" and how I thought it was an ungrammatical recent invention, and he responded with a list of sources showing the neutral "they" in use hundreds of years ago.

The boy certainly seems to have done his homework. Interestingly, when I got him out to the tennis courts, he claimed that two of his kids were making a living playing poker in Las Vegas. I thought, "Yeah, right". This was back before all the poker shows were on TV. Turns out his kids are Annie Duke and Howard Lederer.

[Bob cruise director]

Good morning muggles

First a welcome to our newest muggles RussHiggins (who we welcomed to our zoom call last Tuesday), Colin&Chuck, Puzzled, and Chantellebeal who because our 1000th muggle since we started on the WSJ comments.

A fun contest from Mr. Shenk and we have 10 on the ship and 168 on the shore.

With Isaac and saying those three important words - make it another!!
Andrew B
Mulligan
hoover
norrin2
Kas
kfahey
JeanneC
Janet
Gman
LittleGood


And on the crowded shore keeping Meg's cabana boy busy are:

Les
docison
TeaJenny
Al
Kay
darth
Meg
Wendy
pjc
Heidi
sanmilton
oldjudge
Tmart
Dannyvee
sharkicicles
HeadinHome
Larrry
dpl11
Jim and Anita
Mike H
joe
stmv
mbryant
Jace54
mattythewsjpuzzler
Schmeel
Beth A
boharr
Franklin
otlaolap
Magistra
hunkra
paige
minimuggle
Matthew
bskptkl
Begbie
Anita
Laura
mlvilv
NuYear68
CallMeShane
rwillhrco
C=64
Zach
Samantha
MajorDomoTom
femullen
BrennerTJ
Fred
Amanda Hugginkiss
kdubs
mntlblok
Chris
David K
Barbara K
RobM
streroto
tonearm
benchen71
SReh26
mindle
Toby
MamaE
Rita and George
JimJim
Mister Squawk
Powers2020
Lyman
jh773
Shirley
Zagman49
Omnibus
Eric P
dudeski
Ergcat
Trey and Marion
dk letter
Bill
Hidden in 3D
meowmiao71
TeamDoubleTow
AnnieMac
whimsy
Moi
ADS
SusieG
Jeremy
Joseph B
Josh
ladybird
Tina
higgysue
802puzzler
Joe R
Steveb
Cindy
Jordanian
ky-mike
Joepickett
Commodore
spotter
jimmyd
mheverson
Georgeall
Henry Paul
Cosmo
KscX
Lacangah
Beth C
JaneGummy
Miki
architect
Kimberly
cbarbee
joes
brulo
Janet P
Alexleah1
Puzzled
Peter
dplass
EVJ
Olof
jrdad
jdb
escapeartist
DannyCincinatti
Dave C
sf592000
Doug M
Deb
M and M
TheCatt
HunterX
Jackie88
Homer
Doug C
copperriver
michaelm
Debbie
livpolfan
sfed
auee89
Grover
meekmouse
RussHiggins
Chantellebeal
Colin&Chuck
Beth T
RDaleHall
Tom Wi
D B Miller
MaineMarge
lbray
Cindy N
Kris Zacharias
jimbo1
Greg W
Thurman8er
Jarrod
BreeZynCO
joequavis
EmilyW
Colin
phofer
DannyWalter
woozy

Good luck to all winning the mug and let me know if I missed anyone in the crowd.

[mntlblok]

But..

Mulder & Thompson, 2008, 'The grammaticization of but as a final particle in English conversation' in Ritva Laury Studies in clause combining. John Benjamins. pp. 179-204.

And the Cruise Director's post resonated because I read Irish and Scottish and English crime fiction.

Reminds me that I want to now go back and re-read some of those Dick Francis novels now that I can Google all the unfamiliar British slang.

[DrTom]

Better late than never.....ASHORE

I got a "don't go there" from K when I was going down a Yellow Brick Bunny Trail and since that had been my only good idea I floundered for days. Finally it hit me what I was supposed to do while researching another of my faux paws (mistakes related to rabbits of course!). I'm glad because I was beginning to question my abilities - well I still do but I am at least two* for four (* small nudges/warnings on both) for the week. Have not started MGWCC and cannot crack MEOW but I'm working on them!

[mntlblok]

I am on shore, as of 2 am last night.

It's a GOod thing that the cabana boy left a LIght on over the tiki bar since it was a little hard to find the gATHering on shore in the wee hours of the night. Couldn't sleep last night, so I had to find some otHER thing to do besides stare at the ceiling. Came downstairs, spent a few minutes looking upON the meta, and there the answer was. Now for some coffee plus (not "real" coffee as my husband and daughter say) since I need a caffeine jolt and the day awaits.

Ohhh.... I started to reply, "Is there an extra H in that word?"

It wasn't until I clicked Reply/Quote that I realized that what I was reading as GO ATH HER ON i.e. Goat (H) Heron is actually GO LI ATH HER ON i.e. Goliath Heron. Not sure what a goat heron would be. Maybe like a cattle egret but for goats?

Oh look, you really can find anything on the Internet!

I actually googled goat heron before finding the "LI".

[Prozach]

On Shore.

[Preterosso]

Ashore: clued in pretty quickly to the hint.

[Susan Goldberg]

On shore earlier today. Fairly new at this so it was nice to solve one of these easily.

CHANTELLEBEAL - CONGRATULATIONS.

YOU ARE OUR 1000TH MUGGLE.

OUR GROUP HAS BEEN INCHING TOWARD THIS MILESTONE EACH WEEK AND YOU ARE THE LUCKY ONE WHO HIT THE MARK

GREAT TO HAVE YOU AND ALL THE OTHER MUGGLES HERE.

Welcome, Chantellebeal, and congratulations! I was the 500th Muggle, so does that make you my double? At the time I was sort of hoping Mike Miller might decide to award an extra mug that week to celebrate my historic status. (No such luck.) Your 1000th Muggle milestone is much more illustrious! Perhaps he might reconsider in your case if you ask REALLY nicely???

[Susan Goldberg]

This all makes me wonder…what number muggle am I?? Do we all have a number?

[Susan Goldberg]

I’m on shore!

[madhatter5]

My ship has sailed!

[DrTom]

Cruise Director - SURELY you have our Muggle Numbers? It would be interesting to know.