Not intended to be pushback, but I interpreted the "Flock Together" as sort of a hint at the meeting point of the two words. (Though this was more an after-the-fact assumption. At first it had me looking for V formations.) I do say "osprey" with a "spree" at the end. I didn't have a problem with the word combinations at all. Did anyone watch The Electric Company as a child? (Dating myself here.) Two people would face each other, say halves of words, then say them put together. These all work for me. "Penn...Gwynn....Penguin." Not how we might say it in connected speech, when we end up schwa-ing a lot of our vowels, but how we would tell someone to say it.damefox wrote: ↑Wed Feb 05, 2020 4:08 pm I also got the WSJ (at the very last minute) and not this one. I hesitate to post this because I'm sure there will be pushback, but I think the reason many people ended up in that boat is because the WSJ word pairs were a little more elegant than these. CHESS + APEAK really does sound like *Chesapeake*, and ditto for the rest of them. PUFF + PHIN does not actually sound like *puffin* (you double up on the eff sound in the middle). I'll give you PAIR + RUT and KEY + WEE, but PENN + GYWNN also feels like a stretch to me, and AWE + SPREE is *really* a stretch. (Does anyone say osprey that way? I've always said/heard it with a long a at the end) Also, why have these phonetic word pairs and then not do anything with the correctly spelled versions? The meta answer is just the crossings. Feels like a missed opportunity for another step in there.
I think I'm going to take a break from PGWCC for a while. I frequently find myself frustrated by these puzzles, whether I solve them or not, and then I get told I'm wrong for being frustrated. Well done to all who figured out this one and the WSJ. Not an easy puzzle week last week.
But that's just me. Your results varied. I like PGW's puzzles. I find myself on his wavelength more often than not. But if I wasn't finding puzzles fun, then I wouldn't do them either.