XWord Muggles Forum

Thanks, FrankieHeck and damefox! I realize that it sounds like I'm being silly. And I am. But for reasons I haven't completely explained (because spoilers), I think it's reasonable for me to make the offer: Everyone, please feel free to PM me if you have a specific 80's-song-related question, and Google won't give you a useful answer.

Laura M wrote: ↑Tue May 12, 2020 10:49 pm Thanks, FrankieHeck and damefox! I realize that it sounds like I'm being silly. And I am. But for reasons I haven't completely explained (because spoilers), I think it's reasonable for me to make the offer: Everyone, please feel free to PM me if you have a specific 80's-song-related question, and Google won't give you a useful answer.

I look forward to getting to that point!

I was able to get it, but the ambiguity delayed me.

When I saw the title and "February", I knew immediately what the mechanism was. I quickly found "Muscle" and "Sophomore". For a while I was confused about "Tragically" and "Lloyds" as they both have a double 'L' where only one is said. Is it the 'L' or the "AL"? After some time, I realized that double letters must not count and I should stick with just the 'A'.

I was also looking for 14 missing letters and there are so many. The H in Ohm. Artoo could do without the A and one O. The I in Ciao. The E in Stye. The H in Ruehl. I even studied German to learn the difference between Ein, Eine, and Eins.
I looked up what the silent letter is in many words, but I didn't realize that the U was silent in Guess. Most people pronounce the U slightly in America so I hear and pronounce it more like gues than ges. My girlfriend got that one and completed 'Cougar'.

Most of the ones which confused me were down answers, which I'd ordinarily rule out, but I was looking for 14 letters. Stars on the clues would have made it too easy. I first had COAR, then probably COGAR, but didn't think too much of it because I didn't know he was Johnny Cougar. Not knowing things like that is a risk I take every month with these crosswords, but I can still solve them.

Sometimes I try to explain to people what solving a mega meta is. You know, that thing where you're trying to solve a puzzle, but you don't actually know what the puzzle is and you have fewer than half the pieces. Totally a thing normal people do.