Comment by 650

6 hours ago

[Spoiler] Here are three words: pine, crab, sauce. There’s a fourth word that combines with each of the others to create another common word. What is it?

YXBwbGU= (Use Base64 Decoding) [/Spoiler]

I've played enough NYT connections that this was immediate for me, at the expense of the promised "Aha!" moment. :D

  • Interesting haha, I've played enough NYT connections that I would never have gotten it on my own because when I thought of the correct word with sauce, I thought "_ crab" ? no, can't be that...

    • Haha, I know what you mean! Though in fairness, Wyna Liu isn't beyond throwing in a "mostly works" category from time to time...

      Wild tangent incoming...

      One instance that recently bothered me with an NYT puzzle was the crossword clue (3 letters): "Chromebooks, but not MacBooks". The answer was "PCs" which doesn't make sense to me under any level of categorization for PC.

      If we go narrow/historic, then it means x86 IBM PC derivatives which eliminates a lot of chromebooks.

      If we use the "home computer" interpretation, then I think it's unreasonable to except Macbooks from the PC umbrella.

      If we go literal, well then everything is a PC, including smartphones, tablets, smart devices. The only reasonable test seems to be "Can it play Doom?". :D

      Using PC in a "every consumer computing device but Mac" probably made sense in the 80s/90s, now it seems to dilute the term to the point of confusion. I have personally never thought of a Chromebook as a PC, given that it ships with an OS incapable of many things people generally associate with PC activities.

I went from thinking this was too hard to guess on the fly to suddenly getting it within a minute or two. Interesting.

If anyone wants an additional hint, the word you plug in here isn't put in the same spot for all three words.