XWord Muggles Forum

Thank to @woozy, it turns out I am on the wong beach! Oh well, will wait for the reveal in a few.

how they're going to fit that solution into a little box in the paper will be interesting to see

Thanks to hcbirker, we are now onshore. Thank you, and thank you to dogguy as well. We tried to PM you, but it got stuck in the Outbox. Not sure why.

The grid answer to 36D NOS, right in the middle of the grid, confirmed it for me.

I can see how some might have worked around the first step in the theme answers and found parts of the body off by one letter throughout the grid.

I was CONVINCED that Spanish and English names of body parts were in the mix due to clues that mention the languages by name. What was worse was that HIP in Spanish is CADERA, one letter away from CAMERA, and RIP is one letter away from HIP. ARGH!

I was convinced it was going to be a "traditional Gaffney", with HUART -U +E = HEART and 14A of UAE, giving me an "A"

and with OYES -O +E =EYES, and 68A of OLE, so giving me an "L"

and that path led towards ULNA, but never got there

with some "think about body slang-uage", I got there, but it was a last minute rush through the waves

escapeartist wrote: ↑Mon Oct 09, 2023 12:10 am The grid answer to 36D NOS, right in the middle of the grid, confirmed it for me.

I can see how some might have worked around the first step in the theme answers and found parts of the body off by one letter throughout the grid.

I thought this was a trick - if you didn’t solve the meta, there’s no way you’d use “nose” as a Hail Mary when “nos” was so obvious in the middle of the grid. It would seem too easy.

I could *see* the beach if I squinted, kinda - I saw the SEETH/TEETH, MONTH/MOUTH, HUART/HEART and then I just I wrote out all the other 5 letter words. Definitely didn't see TRAIN/BRAIN or OYES/EYES. Also went after the "OO" words because 65D for a little bit. That was not useful.

Matt=Mad
Gaffney=Genius

Gman wrote: ↑Mon Oct 09, 2023 12:11 am I was CONVINCED that Spanish and English names of body parts were in the mix due to clues that mention the languages by name. What was worse was that HIP in Spanish is CADERA, one letter away from CAMERA, and RIP is one letter away from HIP. ARGH!

Me too. But I've learned if something works clearly for two but you need 4 and you don't clearly have more... it's not going to happen.

escapeartist wrote: ↑Mon Oct 09, 2023 12:10 am The grid answer to 36D NOS, right in the middle of the grid, confirmed it for me.

I can see how some might have worked around the first step in the theme answers and found parts of the body off by one letter throughout the grid.

Exactly what I did. Now feeling like a cheat.

I worked it out of order. First noticed the body parts off by one letter (but also included ERR to EAR and RIP to LIP) then worked with those to find the changes in the themes. So ended up trying to work the solution from the changes letters in the themes not the body parts! Close but could not finish.

mheberlingx100 wrote: ↑Mon Oct 09, 2023 12:26 am I thought this was a trick - if you didn’t solve the meta, there’s no way you’d use “nose” as a Hail Mary when “nos” was so obvious in the middle of the grid. It would seem too easy.

It appears to be intentional because “desire” could easily change to “retire” by changing “hyped” to “hyper” and “nos” to “not”.

When I was stuck at first, I was going to use nose as my guess because of “nos” in the middle. Eventually I found all the body parts starting with “huart”, and then noticed they anagrammed to “snout”. I got the correct order by using “snout” to line up the body parts with the theme answers. Laughed when I saw mouth next to “pinhole” and quickly figured out the rest.

Wrong shore for me. Had some parts of the themes but missed choppers and pie hole. Got all five ‘one letter off’ parts but focused on the letters subbed in rather than those in the grid… Also got tied up with ERR/EAR and homophones like ERE and, of course, the central NOS. Altogether, not firing on all cylinders. Well done solo solvers - hope you win a MUG/FACE

This one came right down to the wire for me. I managed to make it ashore with all the pieces, amazingly, but the path there took so long I wasn’t completely convinced I was correct.

I also found the body parts off by one letter first. They didn’t spell anything in order, nor did their changed letters, so I kept looking for more than. 5. That’s when I noticed piehole and peepers.

Funny enough, I noticed NOS in the very center early on, accompanied by a body-language clue (thumbs down). So that definitely would have been my Hail Mary. The Hail Mary turning out to be correct contributed to my feeling that I wasn’t completely correct

Ugh!! I was in all the right rabbit-holes, but chasing all the wrong rabbits.
Or chasing the right rabbits, but in the wrong holes?
Wait...I was chasing the right rabbits, and the rights holes, just...not at the same time.

No Rabbit, is what I'm saying...or more simply: "Hi, Isaac."
Tricky enough for a Kas5, but I was close enough to have some Kas4 agita.

(Happy holiday, everybody.)

I was about to give up - I didn't think the long answers were part of it since there were 5 and the answer was said to have 4 letters. Often that means it's going to be found elsewhere in the puzzle. But then PINHOLE/PIEHOLE jumped out at me, followed quickly by SHOPPERS/CHOPPERS.

I still struggled to get the other 3, but it helped that it alternated - second word, then first word etc. It helped narrow down what I was looking at. Maybe that wasn't even intentional, I don't know.

As far as doing anything with it, I just had to write it all down in columns and underline the changing letters. That got SNOUT to pop right out of the 4 sets of letters.

Not my favorite Gaffney. It appears that a good chunk of people got to the solution by skipping the first step. That's how I got it as well and then I just anagrammed the snot out of snout

Weren't happening. Too much gotta-thinka sumpm.