XWord Muggles Forum

hoover wrote: ↑Mon Nov 06, 2023 12:51 am I was stuck on S-for-small followed by an animal, as in S-ASS, S-COW. I was looking for a S-T* so I could have CAT.

I looked at this for a long time, including searching for variations to make foal and calf (their babies).

I also spent a lot of time with animal idioms — sacred cow for politically protected spending, holy cow or hold your horses for whoa!, horsepower for watts, hawk for pro war , etc.

This appears to be the second time in recent memory when a Gaffney puzzle answer appears in a grid somewhat obviously. The other was when the meta answer “nose” appeared a few weeks ago. Just sayin’….
Congrats to those who solved and to meta master Matt for a fine puzzle.

I was absolutely certain SCARF would refer to WOLF and PROWAR would refer to HAWK and the COW would be an alternative answer to "Far Side Organism".

See I figured each each animal would occur twice. Once as an alternative answer to a clue and a second time as a synonym to an entry.

Far Side Organism = Cow = Intimidate
Down = wolf = Scarf
Journalists =Hounds = Pester

But I couldn't get it all. No clue about selling for hawk. And there were the animals in the entries. SOW in SnOW and ScOW (which also had Cow) might also go with the BOONDOGLE = PORK.

I know I had seventy percent of it but I also knew only seventy percent of what I had it was on track. But I didn't know which parts of either were the good stuff.

I found the six animals but decided not to pursue it further. I'm generally not a fan of the find-another-grid-entry-that-relates-to-each-step-one-word metanism. TAR was one of the first entries I filled in, and I thought "Well, that's obviously RAT backwards, so that can't be the answer."

Edit: Also in STARR.

I was doomed from the start on this one. Once I saw "Prefix with path" as the needed clue for COW, I could not unsee it. And of course that was the only intended clue that would end up providing a vowel for SNITCH. So while I'd considered the correct mechanism, I immediately wrote it off because I came up with six consonants. Then I was stuck with finding a mechanism that did work. My thought was that there must be a seventh three-letter animal that could also be clued with one of the clues in the grid. The only one I could come up with was, ironically, "Push around" which I could build a case for RAM. As a confirmation, the clue "No. four of a dozen" (which yielded APR) could have been a hint to the zodiac sign which starts in April, which is Aries the RAM. (Even though the clue hints at an abbreviation and also the fourth zodiac sign is technically Cancer the Crab.) I could argue my case, but was smart enough to sense that this wasn't the intended answer.

I also thought it was cute that in the grid there was scARF (DOG), homBRE (ASS), and hoMEO (cat). Originally thought that was going to be the path.

Nope. I was looking for small animals so ignored yak and cow and ass. Not sure I would have connected to the alternative answers even if I had gotten step one. Congrats to those that solved this one. Impressive.

Using the middle letters, lines cat-to-dog, ass-to-cow, and boa-to-yak draw a nice triangle around MEN. There is another MEN right there, with OMG sitting on top of the first. MAN lept out of my mind. Sort of weak, I know, but once I saw that I could not get rid of it, no matter how many other times I looked at the grid. So I submitted it. A short while later, jimbo1 made a post beginning "Man this one was fun!". Since that did not get redacted, i figured I was wrong, and so made a post confessing this. That post included the line "Likely a loser, though, as a post here since that time remains unredacted. Drat." Shortly after all of that, ergcat sent me a private message beginning "Funny you should bring up redacting a previous post! I was debating if I should flag your post to the administrator for redaction of a word which contains the answer…but I won’t. It’s probably fine".

Drat sums it up for this week.

COW is also a Far Side cartoon organism, and alternate for AMOEBA. And ROO is another 3-letter animal that isn't involved in the mechanism. So I was searching for a away to make the themes spell SCRATCH and planned to submit RAT, the 3-letter animal embedded therein, even if I couldn't make it work.

Then I found INTIMIDATE/COW led to SNITCH, and submitted NIT.

Wow! Congrats to all who solved that one. Way too clever for me!

I found 5 animals at first: DOG, BOA, COW, CAT, YAK. I was thinking a simple letter substitution. CAT becomes SAT, COW to COL. However, DOG to OMG and BOA to ABU required anagramming--that's not so elegant. But Matt was busy this week with the Q and A, and everyone has an off week (he is human, after all). So I've got M-U-L-S. I won't even bother looking for the other word as it MUST give me an E. Well, MULES isn't 3-letters so Matt wants me to make an intuitive leap. It must be ASS. And look, I just noticed sASS--what a nice confirmation!

Okay, maybe that's not it. Then I noticed alternate meanings. BOA>SCARF (S) -- ASS>NITWIT (N) -- DOG>TORMENT (T) -- COW>AMOEBAS (A) -- YAK>CHAT (C) -- CAT>HOMBRE or HUMVEE (H). But wait, that spells SNTACH. Okay, this is Matt being a mere mortal again and requiring an anagram to SNATCH. A quick Google search shows that a snatch is a group of magpies. A magpie is very similar to a JAY. How nice--a bird related answer!

Well, let's take one more look.... Oh. INTIMIDATE for COW makes it SNITCH (RAT). Although, in my defense, Gary Larson has A LOT of cows! Here is one of my favorites.

Just to prove I haven’t lost my touch…

The first thing I noticed was four 3-letter animals in the across answers:

sASS
CATher
boonDOGgle
sCOW

I also noticed several MEN in the grid. Did that count? I did notice kaYAKs, and hadn't yet seen BOA, so started with the across. Ass/Cat/Dog/Cow

AC/DC with the 40A answer of WATTS makes me want to say the meta is an electric EEL, but there's no real click. So now what? I did see those MEN, and there are 4-letter pieces with a 3-letter animal in them...

SASS - ASS = S
CHAT - CAT = H
AMEN - MEN = A
DOGG - DOG = G <- Should have noticed this wasn't a separate 4-letter answer, counted it anyhow.
SCOW - COW = S

SHAGS? Those are birds, but 5-letters, not 3.

If there's an indicator clue, I can't find it. And I just can't find three themers. If I use the two long across answers plus the middle across, I sort of see the possibility of alternate answers…

Push Around = BULLy (Still didn’t see that COW works here - You dumb-ASS/NITWIT)
Whoa! = HORSE
Politically protected waste of money = PORK BARREL (PIG)

Nothing gets me anywhere! Arrrrrrrrrgh!

What if first/middle/last are the themers?

Ascot instead of SCARF
Nellie or Nag instead of OMG (Whoa, Nellie!)
Tip instead of UPEND

That's ANT, but doesn't feel any better than my EEL. (Okay... No one comment about feeling my eel).

Then we get to the shallow rabbit holes as I keep looking and my free associations really start to take over...

DOG takes me to scARF (Another right rabbit hole, with a wrong turn in Albuquerque)
CAT almost gets me to hoMEO[W]

BO from BOondoggle and AR from ARno = BOAR

That same BOAR square make BOA + R (Oh! BOA is also in uBOAts, and I still only think of the animal)
saSS and ovAL make ASS + L
KOrea and INtimidate make KOI + N
STye and prOWar make SOW + T
cHAt and askERs make HARE (Ooops, different pattern)

Somebody stop me!!!!!!!!

STYe is where PIGs live
B from Boondoggle and ARN from ARNO = BARN... wow - now drop down the W from ARNO and now I'm one letter short from BARNOWL.

Had to stop for the night and sleep on it. The path came to me that night in my dream, but not directly.

In my dream I had somehow made a connection that SMALL and ANIMAL rhymed. I know it my dream that was the key, and I had some answer. Unfortunately, I never remember much, if anything of a dream, so that was all I had when I woke up, plus one other important thing - I had the tune "Yakety Yak" stuck in my head. Remembering I had ignored YAK and BOA earlier, I also remembered SCARF and CHAT which I had previously tried to tie to DOG and CAT, albeit incorrectly. But now I knew I was finally on the right path...

BOA -> SCARF (Why didn’t I see this earlier????)
ASS -> NITWIT (Why oh why)
YAK -> CHAT (For Christ’s sake)
COW -> INTIMIDATE (Was like, oh yeah, the verb)
DOG -> TORMENT
CAT -> HOMBRE (Dude... Ugh)

Ergo, SNITCH -> RAT

My brain hurt.

Can someone please explain hombre/cat?

Oh man I wasn’t even close. I thought I had it with Abbreviation answers. I somehow overlooked COL.

Without that one I found 3 3 letter abbreviation answers:
PEI
STS
APR


The middle letter of each spells PET, and the first letter of each spells ASP which is what I submitted.


My mother submitted Puppy which is a small animal only using 3 letters PUY which I thought was clever and she noticed several dog answers. You can connect letters in the bottom left to spell Maltese and bottom right to spell Pug.

Interesting puzzle!

woozy wrote: ↑Mon Nov 06, 2023 1:24 am I was absolutely certain SCARF would refer to WOLF and PROWAR would refer to HAWK and the COW would be an alternative answer to "Far Side Organism".

See I figured each each animal would occur twice. Once as an alternative answer to a clue and a second time as a synonym to an entry.

Far Side Organism = Cow = Intimidate
Down = wolf = Scarf
Journalists =Hounds = Pester

But I couldn't get it all. No clue about selling for hawk. And there were the animals in the entries. SOW in SnOW and ScOW (which also had Cow) might also go with the BOONDOGLE = PORK.

I know I had seventy percent of it but I also knew only seventy percent of what I had it was on track. But I didn't know which parts of either were the good stuff.

I also connected COW with Far Side. I mean, those bovines are all over that comic!

clonefitz wrote: ↑Mon Nov 06, 2023 4:41 am I was doomed from the start on this one. Once I saw "Prefix with path" as the needed clue for COW, I could not unsee it. And of course that was the only intended clue that would end up providing a vowel for SNITCH. So while I'd considered the correct mechanism, I immediately wrote it off because I came up with six consonants. Then I was stuck with finding a mechanism that did work. My thought was that there must be a seventh three-letter animal that could also be clued with one of the clues in the grid. The only one I could come up with was, ironically, "Push around" which I could build a case for RAM. As a confirmation, the clue "No. four of a dozen" (which yielded APR) could have been a hint to the zodiac sign which starts in April, which is Aries the RAM. (Even though the clue hints at an abbreviation and also the fourth zodiac sign is technically Cancer the Crab.) I could argue my case, but was smart enough to sense that this wasn't the intended answer.

I also thought it was cute that in the grid there was scARF (DOG), homBRE (ASS), and hoMEO (cat). Originally thought that was going to be the path.

I mistakingly went HARD down the animal sound path. In my desperation I tried to justify finding MU (backward) in hUMvee for COW, and HS for BOA in luSH. Then I remembered (invented?) that some people say that the sound a YAK makes is "YAK." So with the final clue spelling out UPEND, I gave into my crossword puzzle narcosis, and submitted YAK as my answer.

I had even found two instances of RAT upended in the puzzle in 42D and 38D, but I couldn't produce any sort of convoluted mythology to make it fit. Oh well! On to a new week

Zobo3737 wrote: ↑Mon Nov 06, 2023 7:42 am Can someone please explain hombre/cat?

2.
INFORMAL•NORTH AMERICAN
(especially among jazz enthusiasts) a man.
"this West Coast cat had managed him since the early 80s"

Zobo3737 wrote: ↑Mon Nov 06, 2023 7:42 am Can someone please explain hombre/cat?

As in "Go, cat, go!" i.e., Dude.

2.
INFORMAL•NORTH AMERICAN
(especially among jazz enthusiasts) a man.
"this West Coast cat had managed him since the early 80s".

Interesting, clever puzzle, but that’s really a stretch. Kudos to anyone who made that connection.

I was also on team NIT. It seemed obvious: the smallest animal in the puzzle.

@The XWord Rabbit has its work cut-out for it this week...

oof