XWord Muggles Forum

PQ63 wrote: ↑Mon Mar 29, 2021 12:05 am Huh? I get the Thousand. And I get the Island. But where’s the Dressing?

Sorry to be a party pooper but that’s not a phrase. It’s a noun. I submitted “Bread and Butter” because that’s definitely a phrase.

I thought the same. I submitted Thousand Island (without the dressing); wonder whether they'll accept that as the correct answer.

PQ63 wrote: ↑Mon Mar 29, 2021 12:05 am Huh? I get the Thousand. And I get the Island. But where’s the Dressing?

The Dressing is in the dressing down I would like to give myself for blowing my streak. Able was I ere I saw 63D

Nope. I was nowhere close. One observation that I had is that in addition to the 23 islands, there are also 23 three-letter grid entries if you don't count ADD at 1-across. Try seeing that and not making it part of a mechanism.

Success - the one rabbit hole was trying to determine the body of water around each island since the title of the puzzle...but that idea dried up pretty quickly.

Oh, no...no, no, no
DRESSING is IMPLIED? Every answer I can remember since doing these is found somewhere in the grid or the clues or the title.
If they're accepting IMPLIED answers, then you can accept mine that was implied by all those islands surrounded by water...SURF AND TURF.
Gimme a break.

Well, this was a disastrous week. Leaving 19 across off and using 60 across instead gave me 23 answers, but not the correct ones, so did not add up to 1,000! I was done after that. Apologies to those who tried to help me with nudges!

HunterX wrote: ↑Mon Mar 29, 2021 12:07 am
The irksome part was the additional word, "dressing," which doesn't seem to be indicated anywhere. (That I know of.)

But MY pet peeve was, I can't imagine I would ever actually ASK for thousand island dressing in a restaurant. Pu-LEEZE...

Agreed. The only time I ever ask for Thousand Island dressing is to go with my Delaney at Tommy’s restaurant in Coventry Village in Cleveland.

pookie wrote: ↑Mon Mar 29, 2021 12:41 am Oh, no...no, no, no
DRESSING is IMPLIED? Every answer I can remember since doing these is found somewhere in the grid or the clues or the title.
If they're accepting IMPLIED answers, then you can accept mine that was implied by all those islands surrounded by water...SURF AND TURF.
Gimme a break.

Remember that the only rule is that there are no rules. There have been plenty of puzzles in the past where the answer was implied or found by some other means than letters in the grid or clues or title. See 11/20/15, 3/18/16 (an all-time favorite of this crowd ), 2/13/17, 5/12/17, or 12/15/17 for a few examples.

Every week the mechanism is unpredictable. That's why they call them puzzles!

After jumping down many rabbit holes, I thought I would submit Thousand Island Dressing as a joke. Then it occurred to me to add up the clue numbers - and bingo! I was astonished.

steveb wrote: ↑Mon Mar 29, 2021 1:18 am

pookie wrote: ↑Mon Mar 29, 2021 12:41 am Oh, no...no, no, no
DRESSING is IMPLIED? Every answer I can remember since doing these is found somewhere in the grid or the clues or the title.
If they're accepting IMPLIED answers, then you can accept mine that was implied by all those islands surrounded by water...SURF AND TURF.
Gimme a break.

Remember that the only rule is that there are no rules. There have been plenty of puzzles in the past where the answer was implied or found by some other means than letters in the grid or clues or title. See 11/20/15, 3/18/16 (an all-time favorite of this crowd ), 2/13/17, 5/12/17, or 12/15/17 for a few examples.

Every week the mechanism is unpredictable. That's why they call them puzzles!

Sorry, steveb, I'm not looking up any of those puzzles. I wasted too much time on this one already. I do these for fun, not to find out I have to read Matt's mind.

The turning point for me in solving this was "OCCAM."
Less is more, look for the most direct pathway, don't over think. Also there's a small clue in 29D "SAUCE." Oh, and do not underestimate how delicious a side of Thousand can be on your In n Out burger and fries! But then I'm a So Cal gal...This was fun and kind of nice that it wasn't too obvious.

Well congratulations to al the solvers. I managed to add the numbers up three times and got three different answers before I added them up the 4th time (with some cajoling and haranguing) to get the 1000. Of course by that point I was so focused on finding letters that the very obvious never hit me. I feel completely frustrated (though in fairness that is not all the META'S fault) and luckily I'll be away for a week so I won't be tempted to try them and may get a chance to either clear my head or shake my addiction.

However, I do have to marvel at the ability to not only get 23 islands into a grid (I am trying to fit a MUCH smaller number of themers into a grid and it has taken me three weeks!!) but then getting them to add up to 1000. I would not even know how to BEGIN that process. I stand in awe.

The "Dressing" part was very un-Gaffney. IMO.

But it still beats a sharp stick in the eye.

This may have been cheating, but I thought that 1+2=3, and there were two D's, which I added to equal 1000 (so the article A stands in front).

In other news... As is my mind upon seeing the reveal.

Tip 'o the cap to creator & all solvers!

Random comments:

THOUSAND was derivable; ISLAND was inevitable. Many muggles commented on their desire for something solid to tie in the third word. Personally, I'm fine with not having everything spelled out--we are supposed to make connections and complete ideas when solving, right?

The puzzle was close to offering a slight confirmation of the implied DRESSING. There were 23 islands in the grid. THOUSAND ISLAND DRESSING has 22 letters in it. As Maxwell Smart would say, "Missed it by that much!"

I don't know what else he could have done to get us to dressing:
Some mashup combination of Dresser (Mo.) and Singer (Fla.) Islands?
A clue asking what one puts in a turducken in Grand Isle (grand being slang for thousand)?

I wanted the answer to be Long Island Iced Tea, even though its four words were obviously disqualifying.

Fun puzzle.

First time for me - threw up a Hail Mary and it was the correct answer! In trying to solve, I added numbers together all over the place to try to see a code, didn’t think to add ALL the numbers together.

I liked this one, eventually.

I had a good guess at the answer after finding the fifth island and looking at the title. Lots of islands. What else could it be? Maybe this was more obvious to me because the choice of dressings at most Wisconsin fish fries is limited to French, Italian and Thousand Island.

It took me several hours and many, many readings of the 1A clue to find thousand. I was trying to add up the numbers of smaller clues and all kinds of crazy combos when, finally, inspiration struck.

The dressing part was a problem. Where is the click? I looked up "phrase" on Google and there is such a thing as a noun phrase, so I was fine with that.

I needed three words. Could it be "ONE Thousand Island"? After all, that is what the clue numbers ACTUALLY added up to. Not according to Mr. G.

Wait! There are 23 islands. Could the letters in Thousand Island Dressing add up to 23? NO.

There are lots of islands, though, so perhaps it Thousand Islands Dressing? Mr. G ruled this one out also.

Back to what I could ask for at a fish fry. Thousand Island Dressing please! That had to be it.

By the way, my wife and I are two weeks out from our second vax and are attending our first Friday Night Fish Fry in over a year this week. The 4:30 serving is not crowded. We are going to a place with lots of room. We will wear our masks in and when the server is at our table.

Joepickett wrote: ↑Fri Mar 26, 2021 7:24 pm

Joepickett wrote: ↑Fri Mar 26, 2021 6:55 am Still stumbling around for an answer
Trying to use the razor of 45A to lead me to the solution.

I woke up way too early this morning and had the answer and the rest of the day I have been trying to back solve to it.
Confirmed by a nudge now.

Yep this one I solved by sleeping on it. Did the grid on Thursday and fooled with the 23 answers to no avail. Went to sleep and woke up at 2am like I do and thought "island" and food and there was the answer.
I should have stopped there instead of trying to get it the "right" way.
I'm not very happy that dressing was implied.

Perhaps DRESSING can be justified/confirmed because we had to ADD it (1A and the mechanism).