A sad comedown, title-wise: My previous puzzle (created with Cap'n Rick) was titled "Perfect Content" --- this one is "D-Grade." I hope you enjoy SSSolving it nonetheless!
Thanks to AJK for the title; AJK and Peter Abide for test-solving; and Joe Ross for formatting.
Nudges later today!
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Questo è un concorso/meta puzzle. Per inviare la tua risposta, prima finisci di risolvere la griglia (o rivelala se rimani bloccato o risolvi offline).
Thanks for solving, Meg! DK is actually a category of knitting yarn (not too bulky but not too fine) -- but I figured that would be JUST TOO OBSCURE for an SSS.
Fell down a few rabbit holes, like adding “D” to the pairs (SA-D, FE-D = Eaten, hmmm) then Chemical Elements (“degrade..”: iron, silver, neon, platinum, hmmm..) - and then went back to the grid… aha! Fun one, thank you!
I added D and got exited with NED but not seeing and FED or SAD but seeing SAC I figure other letters and I briefly thought maybe it would be the letters ABCDF for grades. It quickly became apparent that it was not that but other letters. And CYEDA (my cousin? But she spells her name Syeda) and then I looked at the tatoo on my forehead and ....
haha same! i got CYEDA but a quick anagram confirmed the answer... i kind of jumped to the answer when i was thinking of "synonym of degrade that can be summed up by two letters" and DK fit the bill but went back to solve it for real... wonderful puzzle wendy!! :)
When I saw D-Grade I heard DEGRADE in my mind and with 5 letters went to DECAY. I put that thought aside and I solved the GRID, eventually hitting on the SOUNDEX qualities of the themers. But I have to admit I played with SAFE AGNEPT trying to get it to be a word until I thought "what if I add D?" Luckily I tried NED first and when that worked I tried again. Of course no others would...then I remembered PTA and SAC. Nice clean fill and fun AHA! Thanks Wendy for keeping me from a D-Cent into D-Spare!
Just as fun the second time around. :) In fact it took me a a beat to remember how it worked, so I really did get to solve it twice. Great stuff, thanks.
Had to reveal puzzle to fill in 53 (as a people group of Nigeria, A-something-O never googled for me, nor did the engineering school RPI appear on the “best engineering schools list” results that I googled. Oh well… the meta part was gettable, and clever!
I will make my asterisks bigger in the future -- thanks for the heads up!
ReB 4s · più di un anno fa
Thanks Wendy for alerting me to the SSS. Enjoyable solve with no rabbit holes other than being tripped up a bit by missing the asterisk on 1A (though I had was pretty sure that C was the fifth letter by symmetry because SAC was the central clue, especially since DECAY could have been a sixth themer. Finding the asterisk sealed the deal.
It takes a lot longer to solve when you don't remember that some of the clues were starred and just stare at the grid, even when you've done something similar yourself -- a simple one-stepper not nearly as Gaffneyesque --- just a couple of months ago (SSS 9/17). Thanks.