Phoebe Gordon author page
1 puzzle by Phoebe Gordon
with Jim Horne comments
| H | A | R | S | H | G | A | L | A | R | A | Z | Z | |||
| E | L | O | P | E | A | R | I | A | S | A | L | O | E | ||
| A | T | S | I | X | E | S | A | N | D | S | E | V | E | N | S |
| P | O | E | T | M | I | N | T | Y | R | E | S | E | T | ||
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| E | D | G | A | R | N | A | D | I | R | S | P | D | T | ||
| B | R | A | K | E | S | G | U | R | U | C | A | R | A | ||
| B | Y | L | E | A | P | S | A | N | D | B | O | U | N | D | S |
| E | L | L | S | O | T | I | S | A | M | P | E | R | E | ||
| D | Y | S | G | R | A | N | T | S | N | H | L | E | R | ||
| B | O | E | R | C | L | I | O | ||||||||
| C | A | I | R | O | G | O | O | E | Y | L | U | L | U | ||
| O | N | P | I | N | S | A | N | D | N | E | E | D | L | E | S |
| A | T | O | M | O | Z | Z | I | E | G | E | N | I | E | ||
| L | I | D | S | B | E | E | N | G | R | A | S | S |
I know what you're thinking: "Jim, is there any way that, without doing any programming, I can use the OneLook search button on the XWord Info Finder to discover more phrases that match Jeff's ?? X AND Y pattern?"
Your instinct to try the OneLook button is dead on. The standard Search button knows a lot about words but doesn't understand phrases. That is, it doesn't know where words break. The best you can do is ??*AND* which, if you'll click there to see, produces mostly crap.
OneLook search words better for this task. Click the query ?? * AND * (notice the spaces) which means start with a two-letter word, follow that up with anything, then the space-delimited word AND, and then something else.
The search does find all three of today's theme answers. Other interesting results include IN DRIBS AND DRABS, OF MICE AND MEN, IN BLACK AND WHITE, IN FITS AND STARTS, IS PART AND PARCEL, AT BECK AND CALL, TO CUT AND RUN. Not all great, but they demonstrate when our OneLook search can be handy.
Most constructors will never care about these details, but for some of us, WE LIVE AND LEARN.