XWord Muggles Forum

The kitty is out of the bag and appears to be hungry.



Nice kitty kitty.

Not sure I understand 71-D or 86-A, but they don't seem to affect the answer.

Cat is out of the bag! Very enjoyable puzzle!!

Well done. Witty clueing. Cat is out of the bag.

Submitted and assume the cat is roaming free.

Found this challenging but doable and rewarding, just like I like them. Answer is one of my favorites!

Someone explain 2D for me .. apparently I’m missing something.

UPDATE: Yes I solved correctly, and thanks for the several explanations of 2D. Doh!

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The cat's is just enough out of the bag to see the answer but no further.
I knew what the answer had to be. It was like Josh's Braille puzzle -- ingenious but with a prompt (blind poet) and structure (six things each leading to a letter) that limited the choices. Not too many 6-letter blind poets wandering around.
But I still haven't discovered the mechanism that has brought enjoyment to the real solvers.

Awaiting confirmation but confident that the cat is free to inspect the perimeter now - once put on the right track, baseline knowledge was good for 50%, google machine for the other half.

Nudge Saturday!

There are six sports-related across entries in the grids. Each one will correspond to a letter of the final answer.

There are also some names in the grid. Only women's names matter.

For the final step, you may need to do a bit of Googling to find what you need to apply the parenthetical numbers.

I got the answer right off the bat just from the title but could not find the mechanism.
I got the mechanism this morning thanks to a slight nudge, before I saw MadHatter's.
It's embarrassing how much Googling I had to do because of my ignorance.
I'm pleased that MadHatter has changed his signature line from odious to Ozzie.

Bird Lives wrote: ↑Sat Apr 10, 2021 2:21 pm I got the answer right off the bat just from the title but ould not find the mechanism.
I got the mechanism this morning thanks to a slight nudge, before I saw MadHatter's.
It's embarrassing how much Googling I had to do because of my ignorance.
I'm pleased that MadHatter has changed his signature line from odious to Ozzie.

Oh come now, DrTom isn't all that bad

Okay, got it with the nudges, but needed all three to get me on the correct track.

Solved. Great puzzle. Some nice symmetry.

I needed the first two spoilers to get there.

The second spoiler did it for me. Always obvious in hindsight! Another clever one - - well done Josh and Old Judge!

Solution:


Six sports-related entries in the grid:

SANDTRAP

FLIPTURN

BANKSHOT

FLOORMAT

FINALLAP

GOALKICK


What was harder to spot were the six women's names crossing these entries:


SANDTRAP -> ANNIKA

FLIPTURN -> KATIE

BANKSHOT -> DIANA

FLOORMAT -> SIMONE

FINALLAP -> JACKIE

GOALKICK -> MIA


Each of these names corresponds to a woman athlete who is famous in that sport:

ANNIKA SOREN(S)TAM

KATIE L(E)DECKY

DIANA TAU(R)ASI

SIMONE BIL(E)S

JACKIE JOY(N)ER-KERSEE

MIA H(A)MM


Applying the appropriate parenthetical index to these surnames we spell out SERENA, which is the answer.