Cryptoquote Spoiler – 08/01/19

“You have to expect things of yourself before you can do them.”   —   Michael Jordan

(The same as believing in yourself, I’d say.  Nice quote, Mike!  Much easier than today’s Jumble!  Be well and do good, friends.)   —   YUR

Image courtesy of Google

Tough Jumble Spoiler – 08/01/19

Visual Description:  Cold fusion . . . still an illusion?

HIYTC  =  ITCHY,  NGIES  =  SINGE,  THIUSA  =  HIATUS,  NGOYPS  =  SPONGY   —   Giving us:  ITSIEHTSSNG

Clue/Question:  When their fusion experiment failed, the researchers were – – –

Answer:  “SIGH–ENTISTS“

(I could not get this one this morning!  I put it down and completed the Cryptoquote, no problem.  And, now that I have solved it, I find it surprisingly subtle! 

We have a new clue word today, in “spongy”.  It looks like our old friend ralis95 will have to update his world famous clue word database, once again.  We’ve definitely seen “hiytc” before, but the other three jumbles are coming up as new.  I struggled mightily to come up with “hiatus”!  Good thing I did too.  There is no way I would have come up with the final answer without the H, T and S.  The answer letter layout was a magnificent eleven letter jumble.  For me, it gave nothing away.  The quotation marks really did not help me very much.  I thought the second part was going to end in ING, for a long while.

The cartoon is great, with a lot of interesting detail.  But, with just the one saying “Oh, no.” I wasn’t able to pick up on their “sigh”-ing.  Maybe, if the the woman researcher had also said something like  “Aww!” I would have picked up on it much sooner.  Their body language definitely says disappointment, but that wasn’t enough for me to pick up on “sigh”.  It’s a great pun, but it took me too long to see it.  But, have we had a similar answer in the past???  Hmm!  Be well and do good, friends.)   —   YUR

Images courtesy of Google