XWord Muggles Forum

I did everything Joon did. Just didn't get the right mechanism. I don't feel bad for missing this one.

My first thought was that the title had a double meaning, especially if you re-punctuate it with a hyphen: Six Letter-Entries. That gives you the not only the six entries with Greek letters but also six entries that consist entirely of letters: ESL (hi, Meg), EPA, DACA, RCA, ATM, and III. Matt clues this last one as "Letters." I thought that the key to the meta would be the connection between these two sets of six.

I couldn't find anything along those lines, of course. And then I noticed that there was a seventh: ASPCA. Still, it seemed like a good idea at the time.

This seems like one of those where you have to think like a constructor. Long long after finding the greek letters and trying all kinds of things to do with them, I asked myself why an oversize grid? Certainly didn't need it for the themers. Really wouldn't even need it if there were six other random related entries. But if the related entries had to be on the same line....

So I'm curious - what led anyone else to that final step?

BarbaraK wrote: ↑Tue Dec 22, 2020 1:24 pm So I'm curious - what led anyone else to that final step?

This week's WSJCC also used a similar mechanism, with the meta letter on the same line as it's indicator. Thinking like a constructor, I could see Matt creating one, then thinking, "Hey, I can do that again, but differently."

Same, Barbara -- why the big grid? Batted around a few other ideas and then thought of the other longish entries in the same rows as the themers. I think the idea came to me pretty early on, but I discarded it because I had been assuming OMEGA = 24. I returned to it in a spirit of "try it anyway" and finding AMUSE, it was obvious that OMEGA = last, which was indeed amusing.

BarbaraK wrote: ↑Tue Dec 22, 2020 1:24 pm This seems like one of those where you have to think like a constructor. Long long after finding the greek letters and trying all kinds of things to do with them, I asked myself why an oversize grid? Certainly didn't need it for the themers. Really wouldn't even need it if there were six other random related entries. But if the related entries had to be on the same line....

So I'm curious - what led anyone else to that final step?

The two things I noticed right away were the big grid and the lack of a hyphen between the first two letters of the title (so I read Six "Letter" Entries, not six-letter entries).

The big grid actually helped me find the final step. When I was looking for potential themers, there were so many long words, I wasn't sure which were themers and which weren't until I saw the Greek letters, but at that point I had all the long words highlighted, and I noticed that each Greek letter word also had another long word in the same row. Matt has used the "other word in the row" technique before, so I looked at that first since those words were already highlighted.

With Alpha first and Omega last, I started out taking the first and last letters of the other words, and the indexing of the rest fell into place from there once I saw the Greek letters were in alphabetical order. The Omega as "last" instead of 24th was a little twist I had to get over before I submitted, but it fit too well to feel wrong.

Two other issues that made this solve hard/interesting: there really are a lot (20) of six-letter entries, and the title might have been intentionally ambiguous, so I kept looking for things he might have been doing with them (e.g., the first letters of the 1st, 2nd, 4th, etc. in grid order). And while the alphabetical ordinal positions 1, 2, 4, 8, 9, 24 are a natural guess, googling "greek alphabet numbered" reveals that the actual ancient use of these letters as numerals was a bit different (theta and iota are 9 and 10 instead of 8 and 9, with "vau" or "digamma" standing for 6. On that scheme, omega stands for 800!

Just an observation - the OMEGA really did follow the same mechanism. If you start at HITSEND and count 24

H I T S E N D I N C O M E G A P ■ H I T S E N D
1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 24 24

So it is preserved, if not a bit strained. Think of it as a N way of doing it with the letter at the end of the P, ...big Ψ.

KayW wrote: ↑Tue Dec 22, 2020 1:08 pm I got this one after many false starts, such as all the six-letter entries in the grid. My first step (using Joe Ross' excellent excel template) was to highlight all the six-letter entries:

mgwcc655ralphomega.PNG

I then googled Ralph Omega

And several hours later, OMEGA finally clicked, as did the other Greek letters in the grid. My first and lengthiest rabbit hole on that front was to find "near anagrams" of all the letters in the grid... ala 53 across.

ALPHA/PRAHA (I mean, PRAHA?! Really???)
BETA/BEAN
DELTA/ECLAT
THETA... ATEAM/OATES (both of these are 2 letters off both THETA and OMEGA)
IOTA/TITO (or ALTO)
OMEGA... and here I spent a long time trying to convince myself that COMAE/RHINOE could be plausible entries, as COMAE would make a match for OMEGA.

A confirmation question to someone who already solved finally put a stake thru the heart of the anagram monster, and I eventually moved on to the numbers and the answer.

Whew!! That was one tough week 3! Was I AMUSED? Well, yes. Ultimately.

We have the exact same brain. My process, to a T, starting with Ralph Omega and including rationalizing RHINOe....

Oh my dear $diety. This was a never-in-a-million-years for me.

did anyone else look at a,b,d,i,th,o
and try to make some sense out of
thibadeau? ("eau" pronounced "o")

I didn’t solve this one. My first rabbit hole was the 20 six-letter entries. Next was words containing six unique letters. Probably the nastiest rabbit hole was 53A-ANAGRAMS. As deep as I was in these rabbit holes, I completely missed the embedded Greek letters.

BarbaraK wrote: ↑Tue Dec 22, 2020 1:24 pm This seems like one of those where you have to think like a constructor. Long long after finding the greek letters and trying all kinds of things to do with them, I asked myself why an oversize grid? Certainly didn't need it for the themers. Really wouldn't even need it if there were six other random related entries. But if the related entries had to be on the same line....

So I'm curious - what led anyone else to that final step?

I thought that the larger grid was actually necessary. Getting five long across entries in a 15x15 is not easy. Six would be even more difficult. The tip-off should have been (but for me was not) that the each theme entry had only one other entry on the same line. All of the other lines had three or more.

subtly wrote: ↑Tue Dec 22, 2020 3:36 pm did anyone else look at a,b,d,i,th,o
and try to make some sense out of
thibadeau? ("eau" pronounced "o")

Tried and failed. I also scanned the grid for other entries that began with those letters, but I could see that there were too many A-words for that to be the mechanism, and there was not a TH to be found.

After highlighting all the 6-letter words, I saw the untouched RALPH and OMEGA which allowed me to make out the greek. Like others said, based on the assumed construction process, I knew they must represent 1,2,4,8,9, and 24. But from there, stuck, even though I counted umpteen different ways through the grid and clues. Very, very disappointed in myself on this one.

BarbaraK wrote: ↑Tue Dec 22, 2020 1:24 pm So I'm curious - what led anyone else to that final step?

I dimly remembered at least one previous MGWCC or WSJCC which hinged on hidden words or anagrams in the entries on the same line as the themers, so I was thinking about that. The END opposite from OMEGA was very promising, but nothing else supported that path. I had also thought about the letter indexes and tried to make something from boxes numbered 1, 2, 4, 8, 9, and 24, but no dice. As a sudden last thought before quitting for the night, I combined those two ideas, and was very surprised when it worked!

I also went through most of the rabbit holes already mentioned, including the same near-anagrams as KayW. I had a hard time shaking the idea that 53A ANAGRAMS was a literal clue to the meta...

I like that highlighting the 6-letter words (a step I didn't do) allowed OMEGA to show up in a reverse-video kind of way. Probably unintentional, but a nice helping hand anyway!

Edit: I meant to mention that my guess would have been ELATED, since it seems to fit and has six letters which are easily found in the six Greek letters. When I first posted about this puzzle, that's the solution I thought I was working toward, using anagrams :-)

Hi friends- I’m getting back to Matt’s weekly puzzles after a summer too busy to do this along with WSJCC.
I saw the imbedded Greek letters right away, then joined in on most of the rabbit hunts you’ve mentioned. I got as far as SARHEM, then called it a day. Should have thought about the correct last step since it was so similar to his method this week in the crossword contest.
Amused would have been my Hail Mary if I were into such shenanigans. Especially apt because of its embedded MU.
The only one of the 24 made up of just 6 letters is lambda, which warranted some consideration. And there’s ewe at 89A, she said sheepishly.

what "did it" for me on this one, once I found the ALPHA, BETA, ... OMEGA, was to say "why do we have all this other stuff - ALLMINE and AMAZONIAN and others ... that are just sitting there?"

Because one thing Matt G does NOT do is waste half of his grid/theme answers. That's not how these things work.

So once I said "ok, I've got 6 greek letters and six theme answers not being used and need a 6 letter word", it just fell out and landed on me. Took going from Friday afternoon/evening (grid) until mid-morning Saturday, but it fell out pretty quickly on Saturday.

... one rabbit hole I stared at for a while ... was the number of two letter state abbreviations in those 'unused' grid entries. ALLMINE with AL and MI and NE, etc. I thought - ok, pull out the states and what's left? But that dog didn't hunt for long.

"Why so short?", Tom elongated.