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Do You Give Up?
◆ · By DrTom · Published 2023-09-27T11:30:33.658Z
Meta Prompt
The answer is a sign of our times
OK, let's see if I can publish one that doesn't need to be corrected soon after it goes live! This should be a fairly easy puzzle, though I have some doozies coming up!!
*Kitten
*Calico
Persian
Puma
Lion
Now I say that with some trepidation because some testers did not see it immediately based on the fact that they were looking for more of a Tom-like mechanism. This isn't a cryptic or will require a lot of Google, but you will have to pay attention to titles and clues to get to the answer. As always, nudges Friday, PM help anytime.
Nudges:
Nudge 1] If you are one of those people who subject the puzzle to letter analysis, you had to notice the paucity of something
Nudge 2] Since that is not "natural" or "common" it MUST have something to do with the solve
Nudge 3] Not only is the anomaly in the puzzle, it is symmetric
BONUS NUDGE] If you watched Jeopardy on Thursday evening, one of the $800 questions in the Double Jeopardy round was a spoiler!!!
It would appear that the nudges were not all that helpful, either that or everyone is still struggling with the WSJ like I was. OK, fine then I don't want this one hanging over your head (esp. if you are getting geared up for the MCWCC week 5), here are a few more nudges:
Nudge 4] Everybody knows about "special" places in the grid, and the one most special of all. Surely there is a reason THAT word is THERE?
Nudge 5] There is a very big "nudge clue" in the puzzle that makes use of the phenomena mentioned in Nudge 1
Nudge 6] If you are doing what the nudge clue told you to do, you might want to do it in red...
This is playing harder than I thought so two more nudges.
Nudge 7] There are two big nudge clues which, as it turns out, are both symmetric and contain one of the mechanism elements in them. One if quite near the start, the other quite near the end
Nudge 8] The title of the puzzle, given that the sword wielder is facing a dragon so we are talking a little bit of a back in time or archaic language thing, is there another phrase for "Give Up" that was used?
THE REVEAL:
This puzzle came to me on a morning walk as I passed a YIELD sign. "Hmm that would be easy to draw" a voice in my mind said.
After getting back home (and feeding the cats) I started on it. The hardest part was using only a few Os. I mean most puzzles have 12 but this one had to have only 6. It made the fill harder because so many "good" words have O's (had to skip OREO completely - seemed sacrilegious). But it came together quickly and my testers felt it was a pretty fair puzzle.
1) Very few O's
2) Symmetrically placed
3) Two symmetric nudge clues - 5A5AUniversally recognized octagonal warning[----] Universally recognized octagonal warning, 77A77ABed board[----] Logical way to solve a mystery, connect the ___
4) one of the few and symmetrical Os in each nudge clue
5) DEFER, a synonym for YIELD, smack in the middle
6) a Title that references "Giving Up" or yielding
7) A prompt that mentions "sign of our times"
I figured that people would have it solved in seconds...not to be though because it was so different than my usual silliness that people didn't see what was right there.
Essentially you needed to connect the 6 Os which would give you an inverted triangle. An inverted triangle is a universal symbol of YIELD (or GIVE WAY in the United Kingdom). This was reinforced by the DEFER (or YIELD) in the middle and the title of the puzzle
I had almost 40 solvers so I cannot complain, I just feel badly that it gave some people such a workout. Well the good news is that you get three weeks of the Awesome Aussie, the Roo Rangling Riddler, the Wallaby Wannabe...BEN!
I'll be traveling a bit and my internet access will be spotty at best and my time for puzzles (since I am driving and it is a long trip) minimal. So, until later in October (the 25th I think) I'll say so long for a while.
For a graphic of the solve please go to: https://www.xword-muggles.com/viewtopic.php?p=143676#p143676
Checking for previous play data...
Leaderboard (updated hourly)
- Mikey G solved at 18:38 on 9/11/2023
- Hector solved at 4:56 on 9/27/2023
- benchen71 solved at 6:48 on 9/27/2023
- BarbaraK solved at 11:39 on 9/27/2023
- SamKat9 solved at 11:40 on 9/27/2023
- KayW solved at 12:37 on 9/27/2023
- Katiedid solved at 15:01 on 9/27/2023
- rjy solved at 17:35 on 9/27/2023
- hoover solved at 18:09 on 9/27/2023
- kurtalert solved at 18:56 on 9/27/2023
- boharr solved at 19:14 on 9/27/2023
- Gutman solved at 20:23 on 9/27/2023
- CPJohnson solved at 20:33 on 9/27/2023
- andeux solved at 21:06 on 9/27/2023
- MatthewL solved at 21:50 on 9/27/2023
- Philip Chow solved at 22:03 on 9/27/2023
- Cindy Weatherman solved at 22:06 on 9/27/2023
- Meg solved at 22:20 on 9/27/2023
- I K Snamhcok solved at 1:23 on 9/28/2023
- Berto solved at 2:39 on 9/28/2023
- markhr solved at 3:51 on 9/28/2023
- Darth solved at 15:37 on 9/28/2023
- Ergcat solved at 16:18 on 9/28/2023
- JM solved at 11:31 on 9/29/2023
- DIS solved at 16:47 on 9/29/2023
- ajk solved at 17:18 on 9/29/2023
- woozy solved at 18:19 on 9/29/2023
- Laura M solved at 19:23 on 9/29/2023
- badgey solved at 0:27 on 9/30/2023
- Carolyn solved at 4:50 on 9/30/2023
- lbray53 solved at 13:05 on 9/30/2023
- DCBilly solved at 13:18 on 9/30/2023
- whimsy solved at 14:59 on 9/30/2023
- ReB solved at 15:03 on 9/30/2023
- Pair O Ducks solved at 17:20 on 9/30/2023
- Tyrpmom solved at 4:46 on 10/1/2023
- SeamusOL solved at 8:21 on 10/1/2023
- Mwoychick solved at 23:47 on 10/1/2023
- dooiemus solved at 17:28 on 10/3/2023
- name solved at 18:26 on 10/8/2023
Comments
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- SamKat9 🤓12:11 · 2023-09-27T11:42:15.525ZThank you, I enjoyed it!
- boharr 2s · 2023-09-27T19:15:09.037ZWhy pay attention to "titles"?
- The title of the puzzle "Do You Give Up". One way that is often phrased is: "Do you YIELD!" (particularly if you are fighting a dragon like our banner person). It is also why I put DEFER41AA word meaning waiting for (or the outside of a cat?)[-----] (another synonym for YIELD) in the dead center.
- boharr 2s · 2023-09-27T20:41:32.576ZThe plural with titles made me think not the puzzle title but other titles in the clues of which there are several.
- Sorry, not intended to mislead, probably better if I had said "pay attention to the title" - mea culpa
- Woah. Very cool. I'm fairly surprised I managed to stumble onto this answer... I didn't pick up on any of the hints in the clues, I just used one of the meta techniques I've been regularly trying recently. I pop each letter of the title into the "Find" box, and see if anything weird jumps out at me. Sure enough... there's a weirdly small number of Os in the puzzle, and they're symmetrically located, and they make an upside down triangle. At that point, I remembered the stop sign clue, and- voila- YIELD! Lucky for me, O was part of the title... I'm pretty sure that wasn't part of your intended meta solving experience, I was just supposed to get there with the "connect the dots" clue. Oh well... I'll take a W any way I can get it! LOL. Thanks DrTom!
- Whatever works I say! Some people use mechapuzzle and if you did, it too would have shown there were LOTS less O's than expected (but would not have told you they were symmetric, for that you needed you solving skills). I can tell you, eliminating a vowel makes the fill a lot harder; soooo many good words have Os.
- Gutman 1s · 2023-09-27T20:24:44.076ZGreat job, Dr. Tom
- MatthewL 🤓7:44 · 2023-09-27T21:53:53.847ZGot it, but only with some fairly hard shoves. Clever when you finally see it. Maddingly frustrating when you don't. Thanks for the art project!
- Ah yes, been there, done that pulled the hair out. Thanks for staying with it and not yielding!
- Berto 🤓3:36 · 2023-09-28T02:43:28.171ZI literally connected the dots and almost submitted “medial triangle” (there are 6 dots?!) - but then followed instructions: look at title, look at clues. YIELD!!
- Glad you didn't because then we would have needed a RE: medial discussion. Luckily you YIELDED to your inner voice.Thanks for solving
- I was in the midst of grading papers, so I had to 41D solving until I had time to focus. It took me a minute to sign on.
- Ergcat 17:35 · 2023-09-28T16:21:24.713ZFinally connected the dots… after playing around with all the “U”s and ways “UP” ( because of the the title …do “YOU” give “UP”) . Making it harder than it was, as usual! Thanks, DrTom!
- You do know constructors LOVE it when you find other possibilities for the mechanism, because of course that gives us ideas for future metas!Thanks for solving.
- LOL my failure to solve this one until now is funny for reasons I'll mention later. Once the nudges pointed me to the shortage of Os I immediately thought to connect them, but then I got stuck. So I wound up creating various patterns by connecting them in different ways, but nothing clicked, so I needed the Jeopardy shove to get there. Seems like I should have realized it without that, but I'm bad at grid art ones.
- If anyone is wondering about he BONUS NUDGE and did not watch Jeopardy, the Double Jeopardy $800 question under INVEST was: Income from your investments or a triangular street sign. I think they are tapping into the Muggle site because on Monday they had a category "Finish the Malaprop"
- Laura M 🤓13:16 · 2023-09-29T19:33:11.062ZVery clever! I usually do letter analysis but I didn't notice anything odd about the O's until the hint. Before that I was focused on the "up" part of the title which was seemingly supported by the grid (stop up, dug up, rig up, etc.), and also the preponderance of U's (explainable by another vowel being limited!). I even tried to "connect the dots" with the U's, which in retrospect, why didn't it occur to me to try that with the O's? Duh, me :-)
- the "ups" were not intentional herrings. I was all Os all the time from the start. THanks for sticking with it.Tom
- Carolyn 3s · 2023-09-30T04:51:47.599ZThanks for the nudges!
- whimsy 13:14 · 2023-09-30T15:19:18.409ZAnother one here who got stuck on the U's and P's in the grid and the mentions of "up" in the clues. Also thought INFER33DDeduce from clues and available evidence[-----] was the important word in the grid, so I finally (post nudge #1) was able to infer the sign from the shape. Thanks, DrTom!
- ReB 3s · 2023-09-30T15:20:29.313ZDuckDuckGo behaved terribly on this one. I realized after the first nudge that we were dealing with the meaning of an inverted triangle, but I couldn't find a suitable match up for "inverted triangle", nor even a match up for "inverted red triangle" (courtesy of the last nudge)*. It wasn't until Dr. Tom shoved me via PM that I was looking for a traffic sign that meant a synonym for DEFER41AA word meaning waiting for (or the outside of a cat?)[-----] - only then did did I conclude that I was likely looking for a YIELD sign, which I was then able to confirm when I entered a search for "traffic sign red triangle" and found an appropriate picture with the caption "Yield Sign".Very aggravating process that unfortunately took the fun out of solving an ingenious puzzle by Dr. Tom.*DuckDuckGo was happy to provide multiple matches for a math operation sign, and later on to link to inverted red triangle as the Nazi concentration camp badge for political prisoners, but that was about it.
- Well I guess it was DuckDuckGoAstray in this instance. I don't use it, though I have thought about it. Perhaps this will convince me not to once and for all. I am glad you eventually got home with my nudge, this played a lot harder than I suspected
- Finally got it with the nudges. With connect the dots, I was thinking Braille, but I couldn't "see" anything with that approach.
1A
Cutlass, e.g.
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Across
- 1ACutlass, e.g.
- 5AUniversally recognized octagonal warning
- 9AChocolate source
- 14ASomething dished up at a coffee klatch
- 15AOscar follower?
- 16ACause a scare
- 17AHeavy cart
- 18AWhat you hear when the flock stops for a second
- 19ABorder
- 20AGlossy linen or cotton fabric
- 22AHelen Mirren; there is nothing like her
- 24AGrooved on
- 25APlace to find oil
- 27AThe word, so to speak
- 28AArea where one can find very large schools
- 29AJanuary 26th for everyone, and every Tuesday for Muggles
- 35APeople will take this if they cannot take anymore
- 36ABleed
- 37ARemnants in the crayon box
- 40AGoals
- 41AA word meaning waiting for (or the outside of a cat?)
- 44AHold onto
- 46AJosip Broz, familiarly
- 48AParty time, maybe
- 49ADoctor's exam, usually
- 50AHappening without fanfare or warning
- 54AInitials on the Pennzoil can
- 57AOld sailor
- 58AUpper limit
- 59ASomething to bring up and chew on for a while
- 60ATough to keep up, especially when you are in trouble
- 62AExpel from law practice
- 67A"Gladiator" setting
- 69AOffering often found at the top of a page
- 71AThis often precedes a big headache
- 72APlant branch
- 73ALoch Ness may have Nessie, but this lake has Bessie
- 74A"Key" part of a pitch
- 75ABias
- 76ALogical way to solve a mystery, connect the ___
- 77ABed board
Down
- 1D"What are the ___?"
- 2DItalian dough from long ago
- 3D"Dang!"
- 4DEye problem
- 5DDon Quixote, e.g.
- 6DFlat hat
- 7DKind of column
- 8D"A Man, a Plan, a Canal, ___"
- 9DAlley Oop, for one
- 10DPint purchase, perhaps
- 11DBaseball collectables.
- 12DBicker
- 13DAlpha's opposite
- 21DDisplay your humanity
- 23DStuff smeared at a spa or slung at a sap
- 26DBond
- 29DAlias
- 30DMillimeter, centimeter, meter or kilometer.
- 31DRoad-hog, at times
- 32DChallenges
- 33DDeduce from clues and available evidence
- 34DCanadian territory whose capital is Whitehorse
- 38DTitanic mistake, briefly
- 39DMammal with flippers
- 42DAntithesis of good
- 43DCinders and dregs
- 45DToilet paper characteristic
- 47DPariah or black-sheep
- 51D"Go team!"
- 52DReady
- 53D___ Amin
- 54DWarrior's identifiers
- 55DBased on sound data
- 56DSwelling
- 61DFiddler on a hot tin roof?
- 63DNatural pouches
- 64DAnimal you can throw or fight
- 65DLength x width, for a rectangle
- 66D"Adam and Eve on a ___" (diner speak for poached eggs on toast)
- 68DSister who will probably never give you a nephew
- 70DMinor quibble
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