The Difference Between You And Me (Meta)

Thanks, Ben! The phrase goes back to the 1300s at least, per OED, and interestingly it's picked up currency only in the last few decades (says google ngrams), and mostly in Australia (says google trends): https://trends.google.com/trends/explore? date=all&q=%22chalk%20and%20cheese%22&hl=en

Excellent! Amazingly the first thing I tried worked :-)

Thanks, Ben. I think seeing a lot of Britcoms on TV helped me with this one.

Wow. How did you make that work?

I kind of feel like we're the cool kids who solved this without any nudges. Also, maybe I'm biased, but this seems like one of Ben's more impressive puzzles. Really well done.

I should have done my Ed Sheeran research before getting the nudges - I did not realize "-" meant Subtract (and that there are +, x, and [divide symbol] albums as well). Also had to ask the internet about the Meta answer phrase - not familiar with it.

As the opening blurb says, there were a couple of serendipitous moments in the creation of this puzzle. The first was that I had considered putting a hint in the centre of the puzzle but I hadn't decided on what. Then I just started out with a promising grid template (it had lots of places to put 5-letter words), with a 9-letter central entry. After placing all the themers and the letters of CHALK, I started looking for something suitable for the centre. And, lo and behold, PARTNER UP fit in perfectly. Then, when I came to clue SHEERAN, it suddenly occured to me that he had albums named after mathematical operations. As it turned out, his most recent album (at the time) was entitled "-" or "Subtract", which is the operation involved in finding the difference between two numbers. Amazing how these things work themselves out!

Had all the steps without the nudge, and I went to sleep last night puzzling over how to make a word out of CLLAK. “So close to Clark, so Lois and Clark? But what does that have to do with the title?” But this morning I checked my math (my nemesis) and got to CHALK, and googled “chalk and…” and there it was. The phrase did ring a bell once it came up but I would not have thought of it without google! STILL - this was an excellent puzzle and I’m proud of myself for figuring out the mechanism pretty early, even if my math skills are really sloppy.

Well with the huge nudge 5 (why do i never think about grid number entries?) I got CHALK so the only three word phrase involving CHALK that I could think of was CHALK IT UP. Wasnt it so i googled "chalk and" and came up with a hit for "chalk and wire" but several for "chalk and cheese". I think i may have heard someone say this but i assumed it was deliberately to be off as if i were to say "tea and sodium bromide" or "what's that got to do with the price of custom fit ball bearings".

Guess its more well known than i'd have thought.

You will notice a lot of guesses by me. I have never heard of this phrase and had to Google a LOT to find it. AMAZING construction!!!

I'm glad I got this before the nudges came out because I have the feeling that the Ed Sheeran nudge probably would have been UNhelpful to me! The only thing I really know about him is whatever I saw in the movie "Yesterday." And yeah, British movie; kinda why I know things like chalk and cheese, I suppose.

Before nudges, I got four of the partners and even tried subtraction of clue numbers. But for some reason I initially missed HIGH and DRY… needed that to finally get CHALK. I wasn’t familiar with the phrase and had to google to find CHALK’s partner. Fun learning new things, and fun puzzle! Thanks!

Oh, and amazing construction, Ben!

I got all the themers right away, but didn't have a clue what to do with them. I got stuck trying to make pairs with other words in the grid- ToeJam and 10D, 13D and feather, 35D and Silent Bob, 57D and Allie, etc. I needed ALL of the nudges! Nice one!

Very nice. I got to all 5 of the partners without nudges, but I missed the "difference" aspect and wasn't getting anywhere from there. Another thing I need to add to my rolodex of metanism techniques!

Needed the nudges (had step 1, but step 2 totally eluded me). I have never heard of this phrase, but sometimes, Google is your friend. Thanks for the puzzle, Ben!

Well, I proudly solved this on my own (without nudges) after realizing I had spelled a word. I had paused between steps because when I ended up at KISSME/KATE and got K A C H L, I thought it was gibberish. Lol The "UP" in PARTNER UP put me in a wormhole (Darth-speak for rabbit hole) trying to find some metanism that moved in an upward direction. ... Then, I thought, Could it be something with...? and a quick Google search landed me at a three-word phrase fit the theme. :D It was an amazing concept and construction, Ben, I'll give you that! ;)

This is not an AmE saying, but fortunately I've read enough popular British lit to be able to pull it out of the depths of my brain.

Also add me to the (short?) list of people who know nothing about Ed Sheeran.

Yikes!! Haha I had NO idea what that Sheeran clue meant. I googled "Sheeran dash" to no avail. Finally got nudged to CHALK. Hmmm CHALK and WHAT??? Google to the rescue once again. Very clever!! And always happy to learn new things.

Like several, I had the pairs identified. But, I had to use the nudges to figure it out from there. This is a new saying to me.

Well it took nudges (never would have thought to subtract, and did not recognize the Sheeran clue as a nudge) AND someone correcting my math (I had HIGH and DRY as 56 and 21 giving me a J???? I knew I was wrong somewhere and did my math several times, but did I actually check the clue numbers, nooooooooo. Took a WIsconsin nudge (thanks lbray53) to get me to the L and then knowing British slang fairly well, CHALK AND CHEESE came natural (isn't it funny that a Wisconsin nudge got me to see the CHEESE!). I'm not sure this would ever be my favorite Ben puzzle (which would be hard anyway because there are so many) but it is as creative as we have come to expect.

Thankfully I watch Skill Up, an Aussie YouTuber so I knew what CHALK AND CHEESE was. Love how effortlessly the puzzles plays, another great one! Used most of the nudges even though I had the right idea from the beginning lol, maybe I should be more confident

I'm not sure if these were references or just red herrings, but there are a lot of entries that could be parts of pairs: 43A, 63A, 13D, 35D, 38D, 57D. I also never heard of the solution phrase, so I had to google it.

I somehow knew this phrase without googling it and I have no idea why.

63A… I spent a lot of time looking for HALL in the puzzle.

Ugh, could only find 4 of the pairs. Nice mechanism! Something I actually had a shot at haha