"Keep on Truckin'" October 14, 2022

[MaineMarge]

10 stars 4 Mike for this one!!!!

This truck driver is a real professional with his semi. Comes every year and dumps 40 yards of garden mulch right on the dime.

[Hidden in 3D]

Oh, powerful and wise @The XWord Rabbit, this is not a rabbit-hole story, so I hope you don’t mind this post about the frustration of having my AHA moment interrupted. There I was on Friday afternoon, sitting in my comfy chair, when I figured out the metanism (or hoped I had) when I found two of the “10-4 clues.” At that moment, my phone rang – daughter calling to tell me about a great leather computer bag she had just found at a local store. I was only half listening (shame on me) as she gave details and sent me links to the website. (Instead, I was trying to look for other 10-4 clues and realized with a quick glance that there appeared to be quite a few. YES! Paydirt!) At about that time, I heard dear daughter telling me that the fantastic bag would make a great gift for her husband. Still distracted, I was only halfway listening until she finally said, “Mom, I’m suggesting this so YOU can give it to him as a Christmas present!” SIL is known for being very particular about his clothing and accessories choices, so a different light bulb went off and I gave this helpful phone call my full attention. Of course, we chatted for a while longer about other things, and then I settled back to find the meta answer. Just as I had identified a few more letters and had figured out the end result, our son calls. This time I had enough sense to pay attention immediately because I knew what was on his mind. His girlfriend had to put her dog down that afternoon and he wanted to know if the gift he had chosen to send her was appropriate. We talked for quite some time, then I settled back in my chair to complete the task at hand. In no time, with a smile on my face, I had solved the meta and was just getting ready to submit my answer when the alert for a Zoom call from our daughter and granddaughter sounded. At least I was no longer distracted and could listen to the detailed descriptions of Thomas and Sally’s latest escapades. (These are her imaginary beagle friends who are constantly getting into all sorts of trouble. She often has to use her play vacuum to clean up after them.) Anyway, I finally did get my answer submitted, and in the meantime, enjoyed a rare afternoon where I heard from all three children. Now, if I could just hear from Mike Miller…

[JeanneC]

Never solved but that’s all on me. I would call this a cunning puzzle. I mean that in a nice way. As I worked on this over the weekend, I felt like a mystery story reader trying to figure out the significance of the clue “ten four”, obvious when read but subtle in application. Well done!

[Kas]

In the immortal words of Charles Brown:

"AAAAAAAAAAAAAAaaaaauuuuughhhh!!!"

Textbook KAS 4 on the scale.
viewtopic.php?t=35

Oh, sure, I saw the "Ten Four," and knew it was relevant.
So I tried to make something of the (2) 10-letter words...and maybe the 4-letter words following? Then I tried to anagram the first letters of all of the 4- and 10-letter words. (At this point, one knows perfectly well that one is in a rabbit-hole...I never said I was smart, but I am nothing if not stubborn...)
THEN I thought, okay...maybe it has to do with the 10th and 4th answer. Nope.
AND THEN I thought, hey, maybe it's the grid answers that are *divisible* by 10 (5) and 4 (16)...and had quite the grand old time trying to anagram: "SPLMMAAPISTECFTINS" (Which by this point was truly just my plaintive offerings to the Frustration Deities, in hopes they would pity me and bestow another idea...)

Then I went and checked the Muggle Blog, and stared seeing all of the "Oh, ha ha! Boy, it's sure obvious when you see it!" comments...and yep-- *THAT'S* when I lost it.

[Flying_Burrito]

i caught this fish by the tail. The 10/4 that caught my initial attention was 10D and 4D (Levi and Stripes which made me think of Levi Strauss and various jeans combinations, like 501 or 505 etc). Obviously too stretched of a jeans solution... Then I focused on the L and S from those 2 answers to see if there were any definitions that started that way. Lymphocyte Site fit that logic. How coincidental, 2 words, one with 10 and one with 4 letters. Then that quickly became my aha moment.

[Joe Ross]

I solved quickly (luckily) by seeing squat in the grid but glancing at the list of clues & catching several long words, which happened to be 10-lettered followed by 4-lettered words. Bam.

To replicate that experience, I made a succession of nudges of increasing nudginess, should anyone ask (& I apologize to the three muggles who requested the first of these last night when I was busy visiting with family). The third was never sent:

[VanVeen]

My only rabbit hole was to look at box numbers that were 10 then 4 away, so 10 -> 14 -> 24 -> 28 -> 38 etc. Wasn't right of course, but I'm going to try to keep that mechanism in the back of my mind because I bet something similar will pop up one day.

[Dplass]

My only rabbit hole was to look at box numbers that were 10 then 4 away, so 10 -> 14 -> 24 -> 28 -> 38 etc. Wasn't right of course, but I'm going to try to keep that mechanism in the back of my mind because I bet something similar will pop up one day.

Same! I tried a few variations on this.

[Dplass]

I solved quickly (luckily) by seeing squat in the grid but glancing at the list of clues & catching several long words, which happened to be 10-lettered followed by 4-lettered words. Bam.

To replicate that experience, I made a succession of nudges of increasing nudginess, should anyone ask (& I apologize to the three muggles who requested the first of these last night when I was busy visiting with family). The third was never sent:


WJCC KoT nudge 1.png


WJCC KoT nudge 2.png


WJCC KoT nudge 3.png

(Not that I needed these nudges) but... what exactly are the nudges? I don't follow.

[Katiedid]

What a cool meta. I'm sorry I didn't get it. I was on a road trip all day Saturday & Sunday, and saw LOTS of Semi Professionals, but alas, it didn't help.

[Joe Ross]

I solved quickly (luckily) by seeing squat in the grid but glancing at the list of clues & catching several long words, which happened to be 10-lettered followed by 4-lettered words. Bam.

To replicate that experience, I made a succession of nudges of increasing nudginess, should anyone ask (& I apologize to the three muggles who requested the first of these last night when I was busy visiting with family). The third was never sent:

(Not that I needed these nudges) but... what exactly are the nudges? I don't follow.

Nudges 1 & 2 worked for several people.

Nudge 1: The grid doesn't hold Step 1. Look at the clues.

Nudge 2: Clues further refined to Across clues, only, and put into a fixed-width font to make it easier to see the TEN FOUR clues aligned, vertically, in the column.

Nudge 3 (not used): Overlaid hatching to accentuate the aligned TEN FOUR clues.

[OliviaL]

I was stuck on the notion that it must have to do with ten of the four-letter answers in the grid. I finally uncovered that ten of the four-letter answers can be found within ten-letter words in the clues. Ex: The letters in DIET can be found in DETRAINING, ORAL can be found within CLOVERLEAF, and so on. This spelled out SEMPROFEIO. At that point, I realized the answer must be SEMI PROFESSIONAL and back solved to find the true mechanism. I made it much harder than it needed to be!

[femullen]

When the meta dropped on Thursday, The Smarter Half and I were on a sunny South Carolina beach for what we call our Extra Week of Summer, she escaping the snows of Quebec and Madame et moi the frosts of the Shenandoah. We solved the grid quickly, and TSH soon observed that 38A contained instructions. I misapplied these at once, noting that there were two grid answers of length TEN, and that FOUR must refer to the numerous four-letter grid answers crossing them. This quickly gave us BEEBRERADNOR, which, unscrambled, is BE BEER, DARRON. Assuming Darron was the name of the trucker, this is exactly what any sensible person would call to him...once he'd done driving, of course. That half hour of vacation well spent, TSH and I returned to our rum buckets.

[Gman]

Is it me or are these puzzles getting harder? The TENFOUR in the middle could have been used in a bunch of ways. There are two TEN letter answers. There are other references to ten and four (FILIPPO from the 1400s). Bobby ORR wore number 4. The word TEN is hidden in TENSEST. There are about 10 names. Clover can have 4 leaves. DECODERS was a tantalizer that somehow there was a math angle (per recent posts above). Had I not been saved by a merciful muggle, I was left with GOOD BUDDY, RUBBER DUCK and PIG PEN. How MS came up with 16 two word clues with exactly 10 letters in the first word and 4 in the second is beyond me.

Uncle, puzzle masters, uncle!

How about a simple word search META?

[JetStream]

Very clever! I have to admit I've been lost at sea for a month now but I do enjoy reading how the puzzles work on Monday.

[MikeMillerwsj]

The contest answer is SEMI PROFESSIONAL. Hinted at by 38-Across (TEN-FOUR), there are 16 Across clues that consist of two words of lengths ten and four letters. The first letters of the answers to those clues spell the contest answer.

This was one of those "purloined letter" puzzles where the solution was hiding in plain sight, so cleverly and unobtrusively did Mike slip in all those 10-4 clues. He slipped them by a lot of solvers--we had 759 entries (somewhat fewer than usual), with about 70% correct.

Other entries included a big turnout for GOOD BUDDY (90), plus CBER (23), TEAMSTER (10), and BREAKER (3).

Congrats to this week's winner: Howard Green of Winchester, Va.!

[Homer Buckle]

For a long time, I was fixated on "Organ Donor" being trucker slang for a motorcyclist without a helmet. Reset, and found the meta.

[woozy]

Nudge 1: The grid doesn't hold Step 1. Look at the clues.

I don't understand what that means.

What is "step 1" and in what way can the grid hold it or not hold it?

[Lyman]

My rabbit hole started when I noticed that there was an "A" immediately below each "B" in BEER BARREL. Then I saw that there was an "I" above two of the "E"s in BEER BARREL. And an "N" below each of two "O"s, an "E" above each of two "N"s and an "S" above each of two "O"s in ORGAN DONOR. And to mix it up, one "T" above an "R" and another "T" below an "R" in BEER BARREL. Surely this cannot be happenstance! (Even though it had nothing to do with trucking, or TEN FOUR.) But of course it led to nothing but frustration, until a nudge relieved me of my fixation.

[Collegetowngirl]

My rabbit hole— there are four grid answers that have the word “ten” anagrammed in them - ENTer recENT priNTEr aNET. Anagramming those you get CARRIER wow plus SPER. Then decided okay maybe the fifth word with ten not anagrammed, TENsest, probably needed to be in there too but CARRIER PRETENS didn’t add up to anything.

Hours of struggle. Luckily I went back to how weird “detraining” was … and then suddenly that light bulb.