XWord Muggles Forum

My ill-worded prompt seems to be confusing people. Let me say that the intended answer really has three letters.

By the way (and I thought I posted this last night but apparently didn’t) Josh took all the blame for the “inelegance” but it certainly was as much my fault as his. I should have caught it but was getting packed for my trip.

It is unfortunately all too easy to get lost in the editing process he said, ULTRA easy!!!!

Solved

DrTom wrote: ↑Thu Sep 09, 2021 2:47 am By the way (and I thought I posted this last night but apparently didn’t) Josh took all the blame for the “inelegance” but it certainly was as much my fault as his. I should have caught it but was getting packed for my trip.

It is unfortunately all too easy to get lost in the editing process he said, ULTRA easy!!!!

OK -- I'll take some of the heat too. Although, I am the layman here! I was just glad to get the right answer.

Loved it!

I don’t usually do these. Glad I had a bit of extra time this week.

madhatter5 wrote: ↑Wed Sep 08, 2021 11:14 pm My ill-worded prompt seems to be confusing people. Let me say that the intended answer really has three letters.

I liked that ambiguity. I felt it was actually part of the puzzle and something we actually had to solve (and in my case did help me solve).

I agree completely

Nudge Saturday!

Pay attention to 51D as well as the message in the boxes

Also pay attention to the location of letters in the grid. Four letters are placed only in special positions

The "box peripheries" mentioned in the inner message refers to the letters just outside those boxes.

Finally got the cat out of the bag! I had all the parts to this days ago, just never put it together. I'm a great one for making things harder than they are!

I PMed Josh and Tom a little while ago to tell them I think they are geniuses! I loved this meta - but I definitely needed those nudges!

Needed the nudge but I think I got this one! Very nice.

The answer was there...I really should have gotten it without the nudges. Lol The ambiguity threw me I think, but it actually makes sense now.

You guys are awesome!

The cat is FINALLy out of the bag, but not before asking for and using all of the nudges. And I still had to work at it. I should have paid better attention in class. I think we had this topic in school fifty years ago!

Solution:

The letters outside those central boxes form a double helix made of the letters A,C,T, and G. (Maybe someone less lazy than myself can share an image ).

Those four letters are the nucleotides that make up our DNA, which is the answer. Three letters in the acronym, four letters in the molecule, hence the ambiguity. I guess it also contains billions of letters in another sense as well.

Our ULTRA-embarrassing flaw was that we got the base pairs wrong. In reality A pairs with T and C with G. Somehow I thought pyrimidines and purines only paired with their own kind and I never thought to verify this. Despite what Tom says he got it right while I screwed it up

Now, I just want to say that this is by no means a dis of any comments about inelegance in the puzzle. I know Muggles are simply enthusiastic and generous. I take things in the vein of folks wanting to offer information they may have, be helpful to constructors and other solvers, and share their thoughts.
But..... ..... when a friend sent me this, along with some other silly memes, the other day, well.... the echo of the puzzle title, and the cat with the Tiki Bar concoction were just too spot on for me to be able to resist sharing too! Cheers all!

Ok, slightly less inspired than the beauty in our meta, but passable!

The yellow boxes give the instruction: SEEK BOX PERIPHERIES
The only GCATs in the grid are highlighted in Cyan
to illustrate the answer: DNA

My puzzle didn't have 67 or 68 down clues. Intentional?

Dplass wrote: ↑Wed Sep 15, 2021 8:37 am My puzzle didn't have 67 or 68 down clues. Intentional?

I suspect not as I see the clues in both the PDF and the PUZ file in the OP.
What format are you using that doesn't have these clues.

I thought that different colors would better show the double helix.
.