#721 - “I As in Interrobang”

[BobDylan]

Think I've got it. Thanks to @BarbaraK and @Wendy Walker - gave me a little flash of light when I was totally blind and fumbling in the dark.

We can hear the night watchman click his flashlight; Ask himself if it’s him or them that’s really insane

[Jeremy Smith]

Beamed up last night with a bit of an assist.

[TeamDoubleTow]

We have submitted. Hopefully the correct answer. Tip of the hat to Wendy Walker for her reading a page's worth of ideas and pointing us to the relevant glimmer.

[ajk]

Beamed up after a couple of kindly and helpful nudges. Don't think I'd ever have gotten there without the first one. Probably should have been careful enough to avoid needing the second.

[patpatchica]

Beamed up, but whew! This felt like a Week 6 to me! I never would have gotten there without some nudges.

[MaineMarge]

On the board at #249- almost the same number of nudges it took to get me there.
Amazing meta.
Looks like they sent a Mars shuttle for me today

Lenticularis clouds over Italy via the Cloud Appreciation Society

[rjy]

• Phew... 'twas a bit harder than 2 × 2 = 4 — but with an artfully obtuse nudge from Bird_Lives I finally got it.

[Joe Ross]

[Bird Lives]

[I knew that Joe Ross would have a beautiful, clear, concise and multi-color graphic exegesis of this one.]


The answer is MARK TIME, a brief way of saying that it’s time for punctuation marks.

1. Eight of the clues have non-alphanumeric punctuation marks. The initial letters are the key: A as in Apostrophe, etc.

A Apostrophe
B Bracket
C Comma, Colon
D Dash
E Ellipsis
EP Exclamation Point
H Hyphen
P Parenthesis
P Period
S Semicolon

2. In each of the eight clues, the initial letters for the marks will spell a word, e.g,. — ... ! = D E EP
3. The clue for another entry in the grid can also be a clue for this new word. (“Last word of the title of a hit that topped the charts for Adele.”
4. The initial letters of those entries taken in order will spell the answer.
.

.

.

[ajk]

This is pretty brilliant. I was too focused on the specifics of the interrobang, and trying to look for duality in entries/clues/etc. Don't think I'd ever have backed off to general punctuation unless nudged. I feel like most of the time my problem is failing to get an initial foothold by being unable to back off and start fresh.

[Wendy Walker]

How much did I love this puzzle? As a copy editor, punctuation is a big part of my life -- and an even bigger part is my dearest partner Mark!
As you can see, TASSEL was the last part of the puzzle to fall. I kept thinking it should be MIC as in a dropped capital letter at the start of a chapter.

[MikeyG]

Just rambling, most likely.

I concur; this was actually quite magnificent when you break down everything. The fact that you would think that initial letters of punctuation marks would spell something and be able to orchestrate them in such a way that they would spell words, then have the synonyms, then have a reasonable meta answer is remarkable.

When I first started Friday night, there were three things I simply couldn't reconcile:

• The title. I know that an interrobang is that combined punctuation mark. Do I draw it on the grid? Do I look for the I's? No idea.
• The clue TWIST ENDING. I kept twisting things around in the grid - looked for all the "END" and "ING" clues, but that's not really a Gaffney thing (it might be a Mikey G thing, though!). Nothing there.
• The fact that, like DRIFT, this puzzle was only in .PDF form. So there had to be some reason for that.

And I was having the wildest time trying to figure out how any of that connected. I looked at the puzzle for two hours and nothing.

I'm not exactly sure what happened Saturday, but @woozy had it spot-on when he was like:

It's weird, really, really, weird and inconsistently weird.

It was probably weirder than any other puzzle that I can remember, and I was trying to figure out why. I didn't think the clue for STEPHEN KING was too off, but certainly the CAPITAL and TRAINS ones were bizarre - as a tutor, partly in grammar, the ridiculously worded clue with the additional semicolon was so backward that I couldn't let it go (and, obviously, that was relevant).

I really don't know what caused punctuation to come into my mind, but I noticed the brackets in the STEPHEN KING clue also, and the two weird clues did have punctuation mark - and then there was the bizarre thing with the LOUD clue - and then I'm like, "Wait a minute." I went over it twice, and when I saw eight clues had punctuation in it, I was like, "Holy cow."

For what it's worth, I also saw the vague RAIN clue for the Adele song, and I was like, "Hmmm, that could be DEEP as well," since I know Matt's pulled that before. Didn't really help, but it just shows that you can think like Gaffney over time, I guess.

All in all, another brilliant creation and one that evokes another, "How does he think of these???"

[Joe Ross]

Not shocking, but always impressive: Nice work, Al!

3. LuckyGuest 03/25 - 16:25


48 hours. 2 days. Shades drawn. Lamps low. Slippers scuffing.

That's my weekend refusing to let go of a couple of solid red herrings.

When I did, life was good again.

[Bird Lives]

I kept thinking it should be MIC as in a dropped capital letter at the start of a chapter.

I got stuck on MIC too when I was backsolving and searching for an M. But I was putting the letters in order of their clues. It was only when I looked at where the letters were in the grid that I saw where the M had to be. And then I kicked myself for thinking that Matt would straight-facedly clue Johnny Mathis as a "singing legend." Chances are you thought the same, but then it's not for me to say.

[Joe Ross]

I kept thinking it should be MIC as in a dropped capital letter at the start of a chapter.

And then I kicked myself for thinking that Matt would straight-facedly clue Johnny Mathis as a "singing legend." Chances are you thought the same, but then it's not for me to say.

If Johnny Mathis is legendary enough to be immortalized as Shy Baldwin on the Marvy Mrs. M., he's legendary enough for everyone, Jay, you included.

Chestnuts, indeed.

[MarkWoychick]

Congrats to all who solved - I did not make it. I was 3/4 on the month, and maybe one day I’ll get a week 4. This was a cool puzzle, especially now seeing the solution. After a number of false starts, including attempts to substitute clues and answers (e.g., MAMBO and TWIST), I eventually thought I was on track when I noticed there were 8 apostrophes in 6 clues. On Sunday, I asked for an assist and expanded my search to all punctuation but still failed. I should know better as a former editor, but I noted the hyphens as dashes even after I wondered, “do I have to distinguish between em and en dashes?” I have ABBA, APP, PAD, and DEEP written in my notes, too. Even if I’d figured out my error, I wouldn’t have got this answer. Chalk another one up for experience, and maybe I’ll get it next time.

[MikeyG]

I kept thinking it should be MIC as in a dropped capital letter at the start of a chapter.

And then I kicked myself for thinking that Matt would straight-facedly clue Johnny Mathis as a "singing legend." Chances are you thought the same, but then it's not for me to say.

If Johnny Mathis is legendary enough to be immortalized as Shy Baldwin on the Marvy Mrs. M., he's legendary enough for everyone, Jay, you included.

Chestnuts, indeed.

Reminds me of one of my students: "Well, it's the Christmas season, time to thaw off Johnny Mathis." Surprised he knew who he was! (This thirtysomething thinks Johnny's voice is great.)

[HunterX]

I quickly saw that the 8 clues with punctuation were the key. 23A was just too obvious with the em dash followed by ellipsis followed by exclamation point. And the pdf-only format made me think the punctuation isn't as robust in the other versions. (Not sure about that.) Didn't take too long for me to focus on the first letters of the punctuation marks, thanks to the title.

I got tripped up multiple times with using E for Em and En dashes, H for hyphens, and just E for Exclamation (instead of EP). Took too long to use just D for Dash. So for awhile I had MAKE TIME because of a substitution on one of the grid answers due to the Em-dash. But I was bothered by the lack of order in the letters of M A K and E. Figured out that issue right at the end.

[rjy]

I kept thinking it should be MIC as in a dropped capital letter at the start of a chapter.

I got stuck on MIC too when I was backsolving and searching for an M. But I was putting the letters in order of their clues. It was only when I looked at where the letters were in the grid that I saw where the M had to be. And then I kicked myself for thinking that Matt would straight-facedly clue Johnny Mathis as a "singing legend." Chances are you thought the same, but then it's not for me to say.

Singing legend... yup! that did bring a certain smile to my face

[boharr]

April should be fun. The 1st is Friday and there is a Week 5.