XWord Muggles Forum

Well, for the record OBOES will work as well for the last letter even if it does not follow the convention exactly.

Now I wanna hear the ALTERNATIVE answer, I'm all on pins and needles I cannot:
MADE A COMPLETE 360 TURN ON THE HIGHWAY
ARTIST WHO LIVED IN GIVERNY
FAMOUS FOLK MUSIC VENUE
MEAL SERVED AT AROUND FOUR IN ENGLAND

So I knew this was not the correct answer but one of the things I looked at was some of the proper names in the grid - Cecil, Heidi, Olga, Igor, and Ross...Their first letters would Spell out CHOIR- which sorta goes with the SOUND title and then I googled all those proper names together just to see if there was some connection and like the 4-5 item down was an item from the WSJ list Bernie MadOFF’s victims and all of those names were among them in some way.

I was CERTAIN that the silent letters in BIZET, SCI TECH, ROAM, and OBOES were going to be the key to solving this, until i got hinted in the right direction.

WORKER BEES: BIZE(T)
STEEL MEN: ????
SKY HIGH: S(C)I TEC(H)
ROAD SIGN: RO(A)M
VIOLIN BOWS: OBO(E)S

i was staring at something like this for the last couple of hours

I knew I was wrong. Saw "robots" by "steel men" and thought that was a pathl

TPS wrote: ↑Mon Jun 01, 2020 12:06 am So I knew this was not the correct answer but one of the things I looked at was some of the proper names in the grid - Cecil, Heidi, Olga, Igor, and Ross...Their first letters would Spell out CHOIR- which sorta goes with the SOUND title and then I googled all those proper names together just to see if there was some connection and like the 4-5 item down was an item from the WSJ list Bernie MadOFF’s victims and all of those names were among them in some way.

3D7A0E9D-E067-4969-A03B-EED8A6B564D1.jpeg

Hmmm- signpost up ahead, Twilight Zone. I guess you are one more person Madoff cheated? He took your interest and diverted your principle! (OK, OK, I'm stretching, I know that, I guess you'll Bernie me at the stake)

Did anyone else get stuck on these clues:

25a Field of interest
58a Field of interest

22a Survey
3d Do some surveying


I couldn't remember if non meta crosswords would do this cheeky stuff with clues. The "Field of interest" clues especially threw me off. I was stuck for about two days with this in mind until we did some other non meta puzzles and I noticed those same type of copied clues.

DrTom wrote: ↑Mon Jun 01, 2020 12:11 am I guess you are one more person Madoff cheated?

This made me

TPS wrote: ↑Mon Jun 01, 2020 12:06 am So I knew this was not the correct answer but one of the things I looked at was some of the proper names in the grid - Cecil, Heidi, Olga, Igor, and Ross...Their first letters would Spell out CHOIR- which sorta goes with the SOUND title and then I googled all those proper names together just to see if there was some connection and like the 4-5 item down was an item from the WSJ list Bernie MadOFF’s victims and all of those names were among them in some way.

3D7A0E9D-E067-4969-A03B-EED8A6B564D1.jpeg

Good now I don't have to
DO A DOUBLE U
MONET
HUNGRY I (and yes I know you have to be ancient to get that one)
AFTERNOON TEA

any longer!

camandsampowercouple wrote: ↑Mon Jun 01, 2020 12:06 am I was CERTAIN that the silent letters in BIZET, SCI TECH, ROAM, and OBOES were going to be the key to solving this, until i got hinted in the right direction.

WORKER BEES: BIZE(T)
STEEL MEN: ????
SKY HIGH: S(C)I TEC(H)
ROAD SIGN: RO(A)M
VIOLIN BOWS: OBO(E)S

i was staring at something like this for the last couple of hours

That’s the rabbit hole I started down at first, but I couldn’t make sense of anything and there were too many silent letters.

TPS wrote: ↑Mon Jun 01, 2020 12:15 am

DrTom wrote: ↑Mon Jun 01, 2020 12:11 am I guess you are one more person Madoff cheated?

This made me

My work here is done...

I was totally LAS and busy going down many rabbit holes!

mheberlingx100 wrote: ↑Mon Jun 01, 2020 12:16 am

camandsampowercouple wrote: ↑Mon Jun 01, 2020 12:06 am I was CERTAIN that the silent letters in BIZET, SCI TECH, ROAM, and OBOES were going to be the key to solving this, until i got hinted in the right direction.

WORKER BEES: BIZE(T)
STEEL MEN: ????
SKY HIGH: S(C)I TEC(H)
ROAD SIGN: RO(A)M
VIOLIN BOWS: OBO(E)S

i was staring at something like this for the last couple of hours

That’s the rabbit hole I started down at first, but I couldn’t make sense of anything and there were too many silent letters.

I think this is the first time that I've had a real "rabbit hole" it felt sooooo right but it just didn't quite click. I was convinced Sound Off meant Silent letters

How is it not “Steak”? These were the only letters that were “sounded off” via silent letters in the across answers??? Consider me burning and looting the shore .

camandsampowercouple wrote: ↑Mon Jun 01, 2020 12:12 am Did anyone else get stuck on these clues:

25a Field of interest
58a Field of interest

22a Survey
3d Do some surveying


I couldn't remember if non meta crosswords would do this cheeky stuff with clues. The "Field of interest" clues especially threw me off. I was stuck for about two days with this in mind until we did some other non meta puzzles and I noticed those same type of copied clues.

I was also searching for a connection to the duplicate Field of interest clues.
Also kept looking at all the apparent references to the Middle East.
Kept me busy for quite a while unfortunately

Oh. Lord. my rabbit holes were deep and scary. I struggled with ROADSIGN and ROUT for some time figuring that it sounded like ROUTE, and WORKERBEES were HANS since that sounded like HANDS. I played with these forever, getting nowhere with first letters and then I said, hey what if I take the missing letter!!! Well, that almost gave me DRONE with some of my complex twists and turns and I was sure that would be it because:
The first theme word was WORKERBEES (drones)
The middle grid word, often a clue/hint, was SKYHIGH (I ask you does that not scream drone)
The Puzzle title was SOUND OFF, and what do you do when someone drones on, turn the sound off (so I'm giving away my ZOOM strategy now but...)

Had I not gotten disenchanted of this by a Knight of the Meta Table, and literally pushed an prodded into the right direction I had DRONE all locked and loaded for my 11:59 pass. Thankfully it did not come to that, I would have BEEten myself up for arHIVING at the wrong answer, I can hear the buzz now.

MileHighSolver wrote: ↑Mon Jun 01, 2020 12:22 am How is it not “Steak”? These were the only letters that were “sounded off” via silent letters in the across answers??? Consider me burning and looting the shore .

Possibly the alt answer Dr Tom mentioned? Which letters from which words?

AUDIO was the answer I submitted. However, the "d" sound in Heidi first sounded like an "e" to me --- with a, u, i, and o, "e" would have been the 5th vowel, so I thought vowel might be the solution. However, that was out of order reading top to bottom in the grid so I substituted "d" for "e" and got AUDIO.
I was not entirely satisfied because 2 of the "long" answers had 10 letters, 2 had 8, but 4 had 7. Why "sky high" and not the other three 7-letter ones? They did read "lets not look at sci tech" so I figured that eliminated them. This meta took me less time than many because the title "Sound Off" was a huge clue and looking for words in the grid related to the longer answers is standard practice.

MileHighSolver wrote: ↑Mon Jun 01, 2020 12:22 am How is it not “Steak”? These were the only letters that were “sounded off” via silent letters in the across answers??? Consider me burning and looting the shore .

Hmm, that one I am going to need some more information on. I know all about arriving all ready for the trip at the wrong station, but how did you get STEAK? Just curious.