"Going In All Directions" - May 3, 2019
-
- Posts: 101
- Joined: Tue Apr 09, 2019 5:05 pm
What article was that? Tried googling and nothing. Thank you!
- Bird Lives
- Posts: 2797
- Joined: Tue Apr 09, 2019 6:43 pm
- Location: NYC
- Contact:
"How to Weaponize an Existential Threat"mflaminio wrote: ↑Mon May 06, 2019 8:17 amWhat article was that. Tried googling it and nothing. Thank you.Wendy Walker wrote: ↑Thu May 02, 2019 5:32 pm Solving this one reminded me of my most memorable WSJ puzzle experience. And no, not that vile Three Musketeers one (still smarting), which some of you old-timers will recall! This week's meta is a 100 percenter.
Oh, and yes, I loved that Epstein piece last week on "vogue" words!
Apr. 29, p.13
As I commented on Wendy's original post, there are plenty of words that we use ("we" including Epstein) and think are just fine that the Epsteins of some early period would have dismissed as "vogue" words or as just plain incorrect.
Jay
- Wendy Walker
- Posts: 1749
- Joined: Thu Apr 11, 2019 7:44 pm
- Location: Unionville, PA
Nope, never! It is certainly a word, just a rare one.Bob cruise director wrote: ↑Mon May 06, 2019 7:09 am Wendy or one of our other editors - have you ever seen the word Eddying before?
Good luck, fellow Muggles!
- Wendy Walker
- Posts: 1749
- Joined: Thu Apr 11, 2019 7:44 pm
- Location: Unionville, PA
Beth, all the W's were the "tell" for me. Thank goodness!
Good luck, fellow Muggles!
- KayW
- Moderator
- Posts: 3466
- Joined: Wed Apr 10, 2019 12:10 am
- Location: Chicago
Aargh. KAS 4 for me. I saw all the Ws, and I even tried to find directional words but never saw what in hindsight should have hit me in the face. I did see "ORBITS" in an L shape in the SE corner, but naturally that only led me in circles. I also got distracted looking for a Left/Right rabbit (LAW DEGREE/RAW NERVES).
Wonderful puzzle, kudos to all who solved and good luck winning that mug!
Wonderful puzzle, kudos to all who solved and good luck winning that mug!
Contest Crosswords Combating Cancer (CCCC) is a bundle of 16 metapuzzles created to help raise money for cancer-related charities. It is available at CrosswordsForCancer.com.
- FrankieHeck
- Posts: 839
- Joined: Tue Apr 09, 2019 8:57 pm
- Location: West Virginia
I started out by looking at the letters above the Ns, below the Ss, etc. Same strategy I had tried incorrectly in a PGWCC last month. Then I had the great idea to color in every N, S, E, and W to see if they revealed something. That was a lovely mess. Fortunately I thought of the correct strategy after I put it away for a while, before I did more damage to my puzzle and brain.
- Bob cruise director
- Cruise Director
- Posts: 4588
- Joined: Thu Apr 11, 2019 2:38 pm
- Location: Any golf course within 500 miles of Littleton MA
At first I was totally dead in the water and had no clue where to go. For some reason, all of a sudden the N,S,E,W pattern jumped out at me. It took a little longer because I missed one of the patterns so I was a letter short. Then I had to look up to find that "eddying" is really a word.
Amazing construction.
And I wish I could figure out why some weeks the answer comes quickly and others it never comes.
Amazing construction.
And I wish I could figure out why some weeks the answer comes quickly and others it never comes.
Bob Stevens
Cruise Director
Cruise Director
- Janet P
- Posts: 553
- Joined: Tue Apr 09, 2019 6:29 pm
I started off in a completely obscure rabbit hole looking for synonyms for "going" that wound around. Found wend, wind, gone, and a couple that I no longer recall. Then my brilliant son suggested that if one heads east then west one ends up back in the same place so I saw the multiple instances of E [?] W. Once I noticed that each of those was also lined up with N above and S below to complete the compass rose, I realized I had it!
**If someone can explain which comments seemed like spoilers, I'd be grateful because I sure didn't notice any while I puzzled through this one.
Thanks!
**If someone can explain which comments seemed like spoilers, I'd be grateful because I sure didn't notice any while I puzzled through this one.
Thanks!
- BrianMac
- Site Admin
- Posts: 787
- Joined: Mon Apr 08, 2019 11:45 pm
- Location: Connecticut
No spoilers. I thought that all of the comments about how unusual the answer word is and needing to look it up in a dictionary were a pretty big hint. It eliminates a lot and pretty much tells you that the answer is "orthographic instead of referential" to use Laura's phrase from Crossword Fiend last week. But most people didn't seem bothered by it or even notice. I never really paid attention to this issue at the WSJ Blog, so I just wasn't sure where the line is. Going forward, I will remove obvious spoilers and rely on the group to let me know by PM or reporting a post if they think anything else is over the line.
-
- Posts: 130
- Joined: Wed Apr 10, 2019 1:16 pm
Must have been hallucinating since I saw many rabbit holes:
1. Blocks of EAST - others saw that same mirage.
2. 62A AWGEE - could that refer to HAW and GEE?
3. 67A SLAY = going - led me to look for DOA in the grid, including diagonals.
Finally saw the pattern. Noticed the day after that every W in the grid was a compass point. Hope my prior post wasn't a spoiler - was just trying to be humorous. Didn't realize some solvers would key on the Ws.
BTW, I should know by now that all metas are elegantly constructed so I shouldn't waste time on blurry patterns. Silly wabbit.
1. Blocks of EAST - others saw that same mirage.
2. 62A AWGEE - could that refer to HAW and GEE?
3. 67A SLAY = going - led me to look for DOA in the grid, including diagonals.
Finally saw the pattern. Noticed the day after that every W in the grid was a compass point. Hope my prior post wasn't a spoiler - was just trying to be humorous. Didn't realize some solvers would key on the Ws.
BTW, I should know by now that all metas are elegantly constructed so I shouldn't waste time on blurry patterns. Silly wabbit.
Thomas W (since there's already a Tom W)
- jenirvin
- Posts: 205
- Joined: Fri Apr 12, 2019 1:05 pm
- Location: Alexandria, VA
I think my cryptic crosswords helped me with this one. Being tired, I picked up the puzzle and read the title literally, as I would do with a cryptic. That led me quickly to the right approach, looking for something that was inside all the directions (NSEW).
~ Jennifer/jenirvin
- jenirvin
- Posts: 205
- Joined: Fri Apr 12, 2019 1:05 pm
- Location: Alexandria, VA
Thank you, Wendy! A positive spin always helps. So far so good, but not home yet.Wendy Walker wrote: ↑Fri May 03, 2019 10:14 amHope your Mom does OK! Look at it this way: they wouldn't be operating if she weren't in good shape to start with.
~ Jennifer/jenirvin
- Janet
- Posts: 392
- Joined: Thu Apr 25, 2019 5:22 pm
The funny thing is that I thought it could give me a hint, but in the end, it didn't. I guess I'm an outlier in that I didn't think the word eddying was unusual.BrianMac wrote: ↑Mon May 06, 2019 10:23 amNo spoilers. I thought that all of the comments about how unusual the answer word is and needing to look it up in a dictionary were a pretty big hint. It eliminates a lot and pretty much tells you that the answer is "orthographic instead of referential" to use Laura's phrase from Crossword Fiend last week. But most people didn't seem bothered by it or even notice. I never really paid attention to this issue at the WSJ Blog, so I just wasn't sure where the line is. Going forward, I will remove obvious spoilers and rely on the group to let me know by PM or reporting a post if they think anything else is over the line.
-
- Posts: 188
- Joined: Thu Apr 25, 2019 9:14 pm
From the start I knew there had to be significance to the letters N,S,E, and W so I made a couple of copies of the completed grid so I could highlight these directional letters. I then thought a pattern or outline of something would emerge but all I got was a big mess. I put it down, took a cat nap, and took a second look and, sure enough, distinct groupings of N,S,E, and W were there; this led to the obvious solution -- EDDYING -- but I looked it up before submitting just to make sure it was a real word.
- BethA
- Posts: 638
- Joined: Tue Apr 09, 2019 6:44 pm
- Location: Beaver, PA
You may have an advantage in noticing W’s, Wwwwendy Wwwwalker!!Wendy Walker wrote: ↑Mon May 06, 2019 9:27 amBeth, all the W's were the "tell" for me. Thank goodness!
-
- Posts: 429
- Joined: Wed Apr 10, 2019 1:18 pm
- Location: Brookline, MA
Busy weekend with lots of kids baseball games, but I did find my way ashore. (Just to make sure you are counting me, Bob!)
- Meg
- Posts: 2199
- Joined: Tue Apr 09, 2019 1:41 pm
- Location: St. Petersburg, FL
I had the same reaction! Solving cryptics can really help. I immediately thought, "What picture will I get if I color all the squares containing an N, E, W or S?" Matt had a puzzle once where by shading every N, I, K and E, a swoosh appeared in the grid. Wrong rabbit hole, but it helped me see the right one. Lucky.jenirvin wrote: ↑Mon May 06, 2019 10:42 am I think my cryptic crosswords helped me with this one. Being tired, I picked up the puzzle and read the title literally, as I would do with a cryptic. That led me quickly to the right approach, looking for something that was inside all the directions (NSEW).
Check out and support http://CrosswordsForCancer.com.
-
- Posts: 299
- Joined: Tue Apr 09, 2019 2:46 pm
Congratulations to everyone who cracked this ingenious puzzle (and to Mike who performed an amazing feat of construction). We had an impressive 1073 entries and fully 90% were correct. Incorrect answers were quite a grab bag, including SWEEP, RESOLUTION, SWIPE, SWIPE RIGHT, PERPETUAL, TREMORS, and many others.
And congrats to this week's winner: Kathleen Reilly Graves of Briarcliff Manor, NY.
And congrats to this week's winner: Kathleen Reilly Graves of Briarcliff Manor, NY.
- Al Sisti
- Posts: 2079
- Joined: Thu Apr 11, 2019 1:28 pm
- Location: Whitesboro NY
In my seemingly never-ending quest to ignore Occam's Razor, I started traversing squares in every direction -- not just N,S, E and W, but U, D, R and L -- to see where that would lead me... until I told myself "Not even my ex-wives would be that mean!"FrankieHeck wrote: ↑Mon May 06, 2019 9:34 am I started out by looking at the letters above the Ns, below the Ss, etc. Same strategy I had tried incorrectly in a PGWCC last month. Then I had the great idea to color in every N, S, E, and W to see if they revealed something. That was a lovely mess. Fortunately I thought of the correct strategy after I put it away for a while, before I did more damage to my puzzle and brain.
- JJD
- Posts: 143
- Joined: Fri Apr 19, 2019 9:13 am
Well, I almost went in the right direction, at one point highlighting every occurrence of N, S, E, or W, and noticing some letters were surrounded, but of course there was an E inside the first NSEW rose, so I highlighted in, and was confounded by a word starting with DD and tried other paths, like...
My most amusing wrong pass The clearly INtentional INclusion of all the INstances of "IN" in the puzzle, as one can clearly INtuit from the "Going IN all directions" clearly INdicates. (There are INs going Depending on which of the all directions you follow, you can even find a series of letters that anagrams to "SAT WONKY", which could be a direction... ha!
My most amusing wrong pass The clearly INtentional INclusion of all the INstances of "IN" in the puzzle, as one can clearly INtuit from the "Going IN all directions" clearly INdicates. (There are INs going Depending on which of the all directions you follow, you can even find a series of letters that anagrams to "SAT WONKY", which could be a direction... ha!