Explanation: Perhaps a bit SAD, but it's mostly happening off-grid: all 9 starred entries do make sense with their clues, but you can turn each word into a 2-word phrase with 9 letters by adding a word before it to maintain the clue's meaning. Per the central entry and title, these will still remain isograms! They are: WINE FLASK, ONCE DAILY, ROUGH IDEA, DIRT CHEAP, GOLF CARTS, AIR QUOTES, MINT JULEP, ELBOW PADS, and SLOW DANCE. The new words' initial letters spell WORD GAMES, an apropos isogram! I do love word games, but logic problems are definitely up there also! Keep on puzzling!
Interesting mechanism. The “added” words were clearly inferred. It was interesting how the isogram limitation guided us to the right answer (elbow pads not knee pads). I have to admit that I used square dance instead of sway dance.
I was actually worried nobody would add the words! The title/isogram meant to help guide you to no repeat letters (which all starred entries have, of course), but then you have to re-isogram the isogram, I guess!
As I'm typing in the answer I realize "word games" is also an isogram. Now that's a delayed aha!
whimsy 🤓8:36 · 18 days ago
A little slow out of the blocks because hip flask rolled off the tongue easier than wine flask. But since the puzzle kept telling me to have a "mint" julep, I knew what I had to do and kept plowing on till I got it. Yes, of course those would be the right kind of games! Thanks, Mikey!
Considering that my favorite beer really is root, I actually don't think I've heard of a hip flask!!
ReB 🤓26:43 · 17 days ago
Tightly constructed and enjoyed the clues. After I listed the 9 starred entries, I realized that 46A really should be a mint julep - and then it was off to the races...Though my mind may have been a bit primed by the mechanism of Tuesday's MOAT.
Oh, that's right! I was doing my best to see if the words would make sense without additions, but - true - I don't know of many other juleps!
HeadinHome 🤓1:37 · 17 days ago
missed the isogram thing… and the nine-letter thing. Just saw that several of them really wanted another word added. I thought at first that word would have to do with a number other than two (don’t think TWICE) — like ONCE DAILY worked, but then clearly it was MINTjulep and GOLFcarts. Others took a bit longer (basic idea? right idea?). Great puzzle!
Bbaack 🤓9:22 · 17 days ago
That was a fun one and very clever!
hoover 6s · 15 days ago
I saw the isogram thing but not that I needed to add words to the existing isograms to get more isograms. So I needed nudge 3.
I assumed we had to replace FLASK with BOTTLE and DAILY with ORALLY and ????? to the rest to get TL?????? I suppose that can technically be considered overthinking but ...
For me the idea that entries were screaming for another word wasn't all that strong to me
I never thought to add a qualifying word. I tried to get a different answer, - Where to find cabs (CAL) - but I could not find more than one, or of any of the other brainstorms I had. Making the necessity for an ISOGRAM and 9 letters was a cool idea because it eliminated a lot of false avenues (BRIGHT IDEA, HIP FLASK). I should have known somehting was afoot because I looked at CARTS so many times and thought, "somehting is wrong here..."
You can and will! Nothing wrong with nudges to get a foothold!!
Bird Lives 16s · 9 days ago
I just got here. I got it, but I don't get it. The part I got (after some letter-count rabbit holes):
Hip flask
Once daily
Main idea
Dirt cheap
Golf carts
Air quotes
Elboy pads
Slow dancing
So HOMD GAMES. I figured that the D had to be a word that hadn't occurred to me so I went with HOME GAMES. Incorrect.
I chaned Hip flask to Wine flask even though I didn't know there were such things. That left the M in Main idea as the misfit. But I confidently tried WORD GAMES, and it was correct.
But I still don't get\
the word that goes with IDEA\
the non-repeating connection unless it's that the answer has no repeats
I wish I knew about a HIP FLASK before I made it - never heard of it.
ROUGH IDEA, and, yeah, I just needed to find some puzzly isogram that had no repeat letters, so that's really it! A bit of a tenuous final answer this time around.
MaddAddams 🤓7:48 · 6 days ago
Wooo! This is my first meta where I solved the prompt! Great puzzle!
Hip flask
Once daily
Main idea
Dirt cheap
Golf carts
Air quotes
Elboy pads
Slow dancing
So HOMD GAMES. I figured that the D had to be a word that hadn't occurred to me so I went with HOME GAMES. Incorrect.
I chaned Hip flask to Wine flask even though I didn't know there were such things. That left the M in Main idea as the misfit. But I confidently tried WORD GAMES, and it was correct.
But I still don't get\