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6:00 PM
i got it
 
I feel like that section wasn't as vague as I would've imagined
The dog one, I definitely concede was unfair
The flag one was a little sus
@Sciborg But the capital one and the other one you solved first- were those also unfair?
 
it wasn't unfair or anything, the commonwealth and capital ones were fair. i guess i just had no idea how i would have found the dog one without explicit help.
 
yea, sorry about that
 
I mean, you had me trying to figure out if the dog hint was secretly wordplay, referring to Labrador, talking about the presidents having dogs, etc.
 
I'm trying to post a picture of my dog
 
6:07 PM
but it was a good connect wall! just very tough :p
 
I wouldn't say it was great, tbh
I did try to make them very specific though
Not just any herding dog, but whose dog name ended with "sheperd"
 
i think it would have been good if one of the groups was more obvious to give a better entry point - up until i realized the commonwealth one i was very, very lost
 
That's why I used the English flag rather than the British flag, also, the British flag has a 1:2 ratio, which would've screwed stuff up
 
but the groups were fine in general! it wasn't bad, i'm just dumb
 
@Sciborg Psshaw
 
6:10 PM
you are not dumb
 
@Deusovi Do you know the different herding dog named "shepherd"? I certainly didn't
 
@Sciborg you are not dumb
 
I didn't realize the name ending in "shepherd" was the grouping, i was just on the wikipedia page for "herding dogs"
there were a ton to pick from
 
@PrinceNorthLæraðr huh?
 
was that the grouping?
 
6:12 PM
nothing
@Sciborg Yes
[Country people names] + shepherd
 
"countries who have a breed of herding dog that ends in 'shepherd' named after them" is... extremely specific :p
 
also, nitpick: it would be "breed" of herding dog, not species.
 
fixed answer
 
also, nitpick: [country people names] are called [demonyms]
 
i think maybe there could have been a clue in the flavortext about "shepherds" being important
 
6:16 PM
also:
Gee, I thought the novelty and simplicity of the approach itself had value in the future for the OP (since he claimed his head ached), regardless of the answer, especially considering so many "solutions" seemed difficult to accomplish within the puzzle's original 3 minute requirement. Plus, besides asking for a solution, the question is titled "How...", so I thought a non-technical method might be appreciated. — joe snyder 12 hours ago
kinda hurt my feelings
 
....they definitely could have used a nicer tone
 
Apparently the mere presence of a picture makes the answer better, even if it doesn't give all the solutions or provide any method besides "looks right"
 
@PrinceNorthLæraðr I don't mean to gripe, North, if it seems like I'm griping. It was a very good puzzle, I just feel there was one grouping that could have been clued better, that's all :)
 
but that comment has 8 upvotes, so I guess everyone thinks my initial comment was stupid? I don't know.
 
@Sciborg No, I would've griped about it :P
 
Avi
6:19 PM
I believe in this case that the diagram makes the solution significantly easier to grasp
 
fwiw i agree with you that it's not super helpful, but the question got HNQed so it's bound to have a lot of people come in and upvote things
 
@PrinceNorthLæraðr :P it was still a good puzzle even if i had to complain a bit
 
Avi
I couldn't be bothered to read through the accepted answer, but the diagram was enough to get the gist of things
 
@bobble That's... why
 
the commenters in that initial thread who are apparently posting in support of each other came here from Stack Overflow, it looks like.
 
6:24 PM
PSE != SO
 
Avi
I'd say though that the sarcastic tone of the aforementioned comment is more caustic than the comment by Andrew, and that we should endeavor to keep things as pleasant as possible here
 
I'm not intending to be mean or anything, i was just pointing out it is odd they are all immediately bandwagoning on top of each other to rip on bobble's initial comment and they all come from the same place.
 
Avi
I guess
 
it seems weirdly coordinated, is all.
 
Avi
But either way the answer does add some value that wasn't there before
 
6:27 PM
It's not a bad answer or anything, the comment section just got weirdly toxic on it and I'm not sure why
 
Avi
What might've been a more solid approach for the answer would be to add the visualization to the accepted answer, as long as it doesn't change the meaning
but I guess it's not really easy to be altruistic
 
it's just weirdly... sockpuppety how much they are eagerly going like "keep up the good work! don't let bobble discourage you! perhaps bobble is an LSAT examiner lol!"
does that not seem odd to you?
 
agreed
bobble is most definitely not an lsat examiner
 
yeah, deleted the comments that crossed the line - they're more mean than helpful
 
Thank you Deus, that's appreciated.
Toxic comment section weirdness isn't really what we try to do here
@bobble deus has removed the nastier comments, it may be best to stay out of the comments for a bit
 
6:34 PM
I can confirm that I am not an LSAT examiner
 
good(?)
 
(I only commented in the first place because it popped up in First Posts, and I noted how many other answers there were already)
 
that comment was particularly weird and smarmy
 
Avi
@bobble There go my plans to bribe the LSAT examiners
 
like, why would they even post it
 
6:38 PM
to be mean? ¯\_(ツ)_/¯
 
Avi
yaaa
 
in the interest of restoring wholesome energy to the chatroom:
 
Avi
Slimy combatants found by sun and moon (6)
 
have a kitten
 
Avi
S + M + ARMY
 
6:40 PM
are "sun" and "moon" abbreviated S and M?
 
Avi
pokemon sun and moon are abbreviated SM
 
true
but i'd say they would need to be capitalized then
 
Avi
they'd normally be capitalized but i couldn't bring myself to hit the shift key cause lazy
Slimy combatants found by Sun and Moon (6)
 
@Sciborg I would like a kitten and bunny together, please?
 
ooh, let me find a kitten and bunny
 
babies!!
 
Avi
fluffy
 
awwww
 
floofy babies
 
6:42 PM
floof
 
let me find some of my doggo, hang on
 
Fillomino #8 is interesting, a lot of just-barely enough space to pack logic
 
ah yeah that one's neat
 
@Sciborg Those kinds of "swarming" isn't unusual....
 
it's totally fine to leave a polite rebuttal comment with a comment you disagree with, it's not fine to gang up on someone with all your friends and make them feel bad
 
6:45 PM
From my observation, they seem adequately different enough that they aren't necessarily socks, but just users being jerks
 
yeah.
bobble would you like to meet my pupper dog?
 
yes pupper pupper
 
am not bobble but YES
 
this is my pupper
 
yay pupper
 
6:46 PM
pupper!
has pupper attempted to steal Poofy?
 
she is murdering that poor giraffe
 
her name is sadie and i will die for her
she lives at my parents' house so she has not met Poofy yet :)
 
aww pupper!
 
will she attempt to steal Poofy?
 
probably yes
 
6:48 PM
you must keep poofy in a safe space then
 
i will guard poofy with my life
 
please tell sadie we all love her
 
^
 
i will tell her
 
since we're sharing picture of pets
 
6:49 PM
BUNNIES
 
these are Diana and Midnight, they are sisters
 
i would die for them
 
aww!
 
hey pepper!
 
6:50 PM
The chat is full of fluffy babies and i'm so happy
 
<3
 
will have to show you my doggo sometime
unfortunately my schedule is complicated so it will likely not happen until next thursday
 
The other one is PJ
 
cuties!!
 
6:51 PM
deus - got any floofs for us?
:p
 
everyone must share their floofs, it is the law
 
oh absolutely, one sec
 
Pepper's a little punk though
 
do fish count as floofs? i have some fishy babies too
 
sure!
 
6:53 PM
i will find you a picture of the fishies later i promise
 
KITTY FLOOFS
 
KITTY KITTY
 
this is nala! she only has three legs but we don't think she's realized it
 
6:55 PM
i would DIE for her
 
da kitty!
 
she is beautiful kitty
 
she likes hiding under furniture and clawing at people who walk by
 
i will find pictures of my old cat, hang on
this was my kitty cat <3
 
6:56 PM
Diana & Midnight mostly chill all day - they have some boxes to sit in.
 
do they hop around?
 
They're nocturnal, so they don't hop much while I'm awake
 
Hoppity-hop!
 
but at night they chew on their boxes and throw around their food bowl
 
6:58 PM
cuteee
 
they are very fast when they don't want to be picked up
 
i would like to announce i have virtually adopted all of these pets and no one can stop me from loving them
 
(also: Midnight is the one trying to steal food out of Diana's mouth. She tries to maximize her food by taking Diana's)
 
@bobble It's like the mother bird feeding her chicks, except, opposute
 
<lunch>
 
7:01 PM
See ya!
 
Bye matt :)
 
I'm trying to figure out the parsing for msh's C4
 
'borg: are there too many floofs now?
 
i can never have enough happy floofs
 
we got a new puppy recently too
 
7:04 PM
OH MY GOD
 
OH MY GOSH
 
PUPPY PUPPY
 
What kind?
 
Look at the little face, i'm crying
 
7:05 PM
 
Wait let me guess
 
a sheltie! he is very small
 
baby sheltie floofer!!!
 
7:05 PM
So cute
 
yesterday he learned about mirrors
 
an important lesson
 
Okay so C4 brainstrom
I think the word that msh is talking about in the "by no dictionary definition" is probably "cooler"
Like more awesome or something
Bc that's not an actual def. according to Merriam Webster
 
seems unlikely to me that "cool" ~ "awesome" is not in any dictionary
 
7:07 PM
Maybe "cooler" specifically?
 
i have a guess for what the word is
 
wanna share? :P
 
would you like to share with the class
 
how large is the class?
 
well, 12 people at the moment
 
7:08 PM
deus, please tell the class what you learned
 
hm, give me one second
 
Yeah, bc I don't see anything :P
 
interestingly enough, my brain parses "bc" as the word "because", no screeching-halting
 
interesting :D
 
"tween" is a word in animation - specifically it refers to inserting intermediate frames in between 'keyframes'
 
7:11 PM
ohhhh
 
so we could read it as "in between, for example"
 
no - it's specifically a verb
 
ahh
 
something like "animate" or "interpolate" would work
 
7:12 PM
that is a good class contribution, i'll give you an A
 
hooray!
 
So an anagrind of a sort?
 
i don't think so
 
that was probably what his hint meant about the weird word, too - "i'm using a word not according to any of its dictionary definitions"
 
Oh, you're saying that could be the definition
for is the split
 
7:14 PM
possibly, or just a component
i don't think "for" is the split
 
I'm inclined to think "tween, for example" is the def half, but could be wrong
 
because "[wp] for [def]" is good, "[def] for [wp]" not so much
 
so "for example" likely either applies to "tween" or "waves", or maybe just gives EG
 
@Deusovi You said "I have a guess for what the word is" ... were you going to share that?
 
7:15 PM
ah, sorry - "the word" being "the word that is being used in a non-dictionary way"
i couldn't find a good potential answer
 
ah
I agree that tween=interpolate is a plausible candidate for the non-dictionary word
 
interpolate which word?
 
no, it would be the def
 
"interpolate" is a synonym of "tween"
 
7:17 PM
other less-known meanings of "tween": (1) it's used in a somewhat-famous science fiction story to mean something like "person of high intelligence but within the range of ordinary humans", (2) it's the (trade?)name of a variety of surfactant chemicals.
I also wondered whether "tween, for example" could be the def, meaning that we want a word that describes a process that produces words like "tween", but I couldn't think of any such process with ten letters.
 
Hehe, puberty
 
Neither my 1 nor my 2 counts as a widely-used non-dictionary definition, though.
@Pric
oops
@PrinceNorthLæraðr I did notice that ADOLESCENT is ten letters but I can't make any part of the wordplay fit that.
 
Bwahahahahaha
@GarethMcCaughan I see that's how you really think of me. Flattered
 
ouch
 
7:19 PM
uggh someone else chimed in with a "this answer is great" comment that @-ed me. Every the nicely-phrased ones now are too much.
 
(I should perhaps remark that I can in fact spell.)
 
@bobble I don't get why ppl like that answer tbh
 
visual presentations are often helpful for people - i can see that
but i think it would be better edited into a different answer rather than as its own
 
I think they're reacting specifically for how I said the answer "added no value" - which it didn't to me, since there were a bunch of other answers
 
Is there a word for "waves generally", like
I'm not sure how to explain it
Like to "waves to no one in particular" kind of thing
 
7:24 PM
"generally" is a really interesting word to use, might be an indicator or similar
 
I'm trying to figure out what kind of indicator it might be
 
Avi
@bobble I would argue that an answer provides value if it takes a qualitatively different approach to existing answers (thus, the duplicate coding answer is not providing value, the illustration one does provide value by this metric)
 
"waves, generally" could be defining something
 
like the def of waves?
 
or some general category that includes waves - "curves", or something along those lines
 
7:25 PM
Ah
I have a hunch that "thanks not" could be remove thanks?
 
I wondered briefly whether "for example, waves" could be an element in the wordplay, denoting something to do with online chat where someone might post "waves" or "/waves" or "/me waves" or something of the sort to mean "please imagine that I am waving". But I don't know of any general term describing that sort of thing.
 
Idk if that's legal
 
@PrinceNorthLæraðr My #1 hypothesis is that it means to remove TA.
 
i wouldn't be too surprised if that was something like "remove THANKS/TA/THX"
(with TA being the most likely)
 
Avi
TA is thanks?
 
7:26 PM
yup
 
Isn't that a British thing?
 
mostly a britishism but then cryptic crosswords are pretty British too
On the other hand, I suspect "cooler" means jail, which is a much more American thing.
 
Avi
oh, ta, not T A
 
</lunch>
 
(Stuff I learned from watching Sherlock)
 
7:27 PM
ah yeah, i was thinking that "cooler" had some other meaning but couldn't remember what it was
 
SURFACTANT (Tween, for example = def, with a tween being a class of compounds that includes surfactants; SURF = waves, AC = generally cooler, TANT = 'Thanks'? Not!)
Got it
 
the OED tells me that an obsolete slang meaning of "cooler" is, and I quote, "A woman, esp. one regarded as sexually available; a prostitute." which seems like an extremely strange meaning for that word to have. (Contrast the adjective "hot".)
 
ah nice
 
Avi
7:29 PM
huh
 
Now I feel stupid.
 
Chemistry minor came in handy here
 
what's TANT?
 
not quite sure about TANT but it reminds me of the meme where you add -n't to words that do not take negations that way
 
TA + -N'T
 
7:30 PM
^
 
@Deusovi yesn't
 
I literally had in my notes "tween:" followed by a bunch of meanings, one of which was, literally, "surfactant". Did I notice that that had ten letters? Did I heck.
 
ouch
 
@msh210 confirm?
 
However, I have to protest: @msh210 that meaning certainly is in my dictionary.
 
7:31 PM
not sure that's necessary, it's definitely right
 
@GarethMcCaughan Which dictionary? The one you magically get to write words in and appears in reality?
 
I mean, it appeared in my dictionary too (admittedly the fourth definition but still)
 
The OED. Which I don't actually have on my shelves, but conveniently my local library has a subscription to its online version.
 
Kind of showed up in merriam-webster, but as "polysorbate"
 
and now i get to make the next one... oh dear
 
Avi
7:32 PM
TACO BELL is TELL around (-j)ACOB O.o
 
yes that is a true statement
 
i'm not sure how that is relevant, but yes
 
Oct 29 at 15:07, by Deusovi
congratulations! you've won responsibility!
 
yes but like why @avi
 
I've won responsibility
 
Avi
7:33 PM
have you never lost your head in a /tell
 
it's also in the Shorter Oxford, which I do have on the shelves.
 
also (quoting sciborg's chat profile)
> They/them gentleperson, puzzler and terrible CCCC artist with officially verified fresh meme status. A++ level at completely accidental solutions.
 
"Fresh meme status"
 
To be fair I think this one wasn't as accidental as the last two, I did have to figure it out :p
 
right
perhaps your c4 can somehow include floofs
 
7:34 PM
is "floof" allowed? it might not be a dictionary legal word
 
i'm fine with slang words in cryptics
better than some obscure dictionary-legal words
 
It's a word according to wikitionary
 
Verb: floof (third-person singular simple present floofs, present participle floofing, simple past and past participle floofed)
  1. (transitive, informal, often humorous) To make something fluffy, to fluff (up).
  2. (intransitive, informal) To move in a floofy or fluffy manner.
Interjection: floof
  1. Used to indicate the (supposed) sound of moving air, as in an explosion, a puff of smoke, etc.
Noun: floof (plural floofs)
  1. (Internet slang) A dog, cat, or similar furry pet animal...
 
I will use "fluff" instead since I think that's more dictionary-legal
 
49 secs ago, by Deusovi
i'm fine with slang words in cryptics
 
7:36 PM
and this actually gives me an awesome idea
 
ooh
 
hmm, maybe "floof" would fit better actually
 
Avi
F_ + (-a)LOOF or FLOO + _F I'm calling it right now
or FLOO(d->F)
so many options, so little time
 
you cannot know my evil machinations
 
Avi
Fluffy failures gather around the toilet (5) - F(LOO)F
I guess floof and fluffy aren't the same?
 
7:40 PM
No, it seems "floof" is defined as a verb ("to fluff up a pet's fur") in the dictionaries that I can find
 
it is also a noun
 
true, but informally
trying to find a way to work it in
 
i don't think you need to stick fully to dictionary definitions
i'd rather see modern slang than obscure scottish words that happen to still be in dictionaries
 
Hm trying to get and &lit of PRINCE
 
That's fair
 
7:42 PM
Thinking maybe PRI(+N)CE?
Knight in figure! Doesn't really work
BUt I could definitiely do something with knight
 
hm, why do you think there's a good &lit there
 
I think you could definitely pull off an &lit with knight---> N
CE maybe common era?
There's a lot of I guess medieval/hierachial sounding stuff within PRINCE
@Deusovi Mostly intuition, which could be very wrong
 
Avi
Figure with a hold on top nobles (6)
PRI(N_)CE
 
Avi
grasping = "with a hold on"
 
7:46 PM
i like "with a hold on" though
the grammar of "top nobles" seems weird to me
 
Avi
most nobles?
 
huh?
 
Figure with a hold on knights? (6)
 
"knights", plural?
 
Avi
@Deusovi basically, how to clue N
 
7:47 PM
hm
 
@Avi yeah, how does "most nobles" clue N?
 
Avi
I guess most = first letter indicator?
but maybe it's not
 
maybe end with N
 
@Avi why? "most" could be "all but the last letter", but i don't think it could be the first
 
Avi
ok
Figure with a hold on "N"
since it should be &lit, then we need to figure out what a prince has a hold on
 
7:49 PM
N_ation?
 
Avi
I guess they have power over some of the nobility, the nation, and perhaps the crown
so somehow an N needs to be extracted from one of these words
 
Figure with a hold on starting nation! (6)
 
Avi
wat
 
beginning of? Wait
 
"starting nation" doesn't make sense to me in the surface, and the grammar also doesn't work
 
7:50 PM
Figure with a hold on the beginning of nation?
of [a nation]?
Hm
 
Avi
"end of reign"?
yikes
 
lead of nation?
 
Figure [something] leads nation?
 
Avi
well, figure is PRICE, so you'd need an insertion indicator
 
Avi
7:52 PM
e.g., Figure grasping..., Figure with a hold on..., Figure with...
 
maybe N is head of nobility or something
Figure with a hold on head of nobility? Eh
Head of public relations....
Head of public relations before common era! PRCE gahhh
 
Avi
Figure that accepts crown at last (5)
 
That accepts?
 
Avi
ehhhhhhhhh
 
"taking"?
 
7:58 PM
Head of public relations of India before common era?
ehhhh
"At home"=in?
How is "elected"=in?
Cryptic crosswords often use abbreviations to clue individual letters or short fragments of the overall solution. These include: Any conventional abbreviations found in a standard dictionary, such as: "current": AC (for "alternating current"); less commonly, DC (for "direct current"); or even I (the symbol used in physics and electronics) Roman numerals: for example the word "six" in the clue might be used to indicate the letters VI The name of a chemical element may be used to signify its symbol; e.g., W for tungsten The days of the week; e.g., TH for Thursday Country codes: "Switzerland" can...
 

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