Each square is a word or a phrase or a saying or a name. The goal is to interpret the words (or picture) through their placement to one another or where they are within the square that you see to figure out the answer.

If no one minds, I know that everyone will have D1 so I'll use that as an example.

Inside the square D1 you see the two words Man and Board. The word Man is on top or over the word Board so the answer is Man Overboard.

Sometimes the placement could be Under or beside or next to. Sometimes the words are backwords as in A1 and you have to rack your brain for a phrase that would fit that.

Sometimes they're easy and sometimes they're on the tip of ones tongue or sometimes they elude you forever.

Jasdip gives us the solutions when she figures that she has frustrated us enough. Just kidding :)

Anyone want to add anything or clarify please do so.

Bpath, a cheer? I’d be interested in hearing that later since I had to use a different skill set to get that one.

I’ll likely not get A3 either if it is obscure.

Great explanation. Too bad it didnt help me with a couple of them.

Outside, he went to Purdue, if that helps you understand my thinking.

I'll provide the cheer after the answers are posted tomorrow.

Building on what blfenton said, many are solved with no special knowledge, but some require maybe some background knowledge of a person, event, subject. Like today!

HINT ALERT ——- FOR BPATH - She was living in a city whose nickname sounds like a young female horse. Not during the bicentennial (!) but during the mid-upper 90’s.

Lol, FOAS. What a cheesy hint!

Hmm, well, I’ve never been there, and in that time period I was busy getting married and having babies, so there were no other goings-on in the world for me. Wait, mid-to-upper? not mid-to-late? is THAT part of the hint?

1995-1998 is the timeframe in question. No hint in that part of my wording.

Ha! A1 just jumped out at me!

That leaves me with D3. My answer is growing on me but I can’t imagine how it relates to a cheer. I don’t want to google to find out so I guess I’m still working on it.

I’m pretty sure that I have D3 but I can’t relate it to a cheer either. ☹️

The cheer is what helped ME, it’s surely obscure enough that it won’t help anyone else. But, I did mention that Dad learned it at university, at Purdue. THAT should help you understand why it helped me. But I don’t think that’s a hint that will help anyone else solve it.

bpath, I just Googled part of my guess with the word cheer and LOL, I’ll be darned!

Yes, there is a cheer for it.😁 Several schools had a cheer with that word in it.

(Not a hint, just a comment)

I just googled my guess with cheer and nothing came up. Square one.

I need to undig my heels. The more I think about my answer the more I like it. But ”cheer” is throwing me a curve ball.

FOAS, maybe you need to look at it from a different angle.

Oh, yes! I think you have it with your curve ball.

I’m positive with my answer for D3, but none of what you guys are saying is making any sense to me!

OH!!! And I just got A1 - yay!!!! Finally…

A1 shouldn’t have been that hard I think! Glad I finally got it or I’d be kicking myself. Again.

But D3, I’m waking up not quite as happy with my answer. The image needs to be slightly modified for my preposition to be correct. Not sure if I should let that disuade me.

lettersatoz,

SPOILER ALERT,

If your answer for D3 has to do with contracts and agreements then we’re on the same page 😀

FOAS, D3, I suppose the two things should be touching but remember-wiggle room for these puzzles.

I was confident of my D3 answer before i heard about ’cheer’ (must be a regional thing) and am still confident. I agree with roxsol.

Forget the cheer.

Okay, time for hints for A1. Anyone?

Our turn to give bad hints? 😉

Hmm, things seem to be taking a different direction here.

Haha, FOAS - well isn't that a fun change of circumstances! I'd say it's fair play...

Ah, okay! But it needs an additional word, for me, to be what I normally hear.

Just for that, here’s the cheer, giveaway word replaced by the dotted line.

e to the x, dy dx

e to the x, dx

co_ _ _ _, secant, tangent, _ _ _ _

3.14159

YaaaAAAY PurDUE!

I don’t see the need for an extra word.

But thanks for putting the pi earworm in my head again. My daughter used to know all 100 digits, wonder if she still does.

You mean the first 100 digits given that it's never ending. ;)

Yes, I slmost corrected that! I meant all 100 digits from the song.

Still stuck on A2 & 3. Fairly confident about the rest, but you never know...

@carolb_w_fl_coastal_9b - I'd love to stay and help you but I have to go - I think there's an Amazon package waiting for me at the front door!

@carolb_w_fl_coastal_9b.......letter just gave U a clue to A2.

A1 and A2 as well a some others jumped out at me as I was posting this, and you guys are better at this game than I am. A3, I have no idea who he even is.

A3 should be the name of an IHOP menu meal.

So I showed A3 to my husband who usually never gets these puzzles, and he said "(the answer)". That man is full of surprises!

SPOILER.....Answers

Turn of events

Purchase Online

Jerry Stackhouse

Sideburns

Golden gloves

Partly cloudy

That's underhanded

Side by side

The rain in Spain

Man overboard

Good understanding

Sign on the dotted line

I have never, ever, heard of Jerry Stackhouse. And apparently spellcheck hasn't either, judging from how hard it was to get it typed in here.

bpath, this is what I got when I Googled sine cheer

E to the X - DY -DX
E to the X - DX
cosine, secant, tangent, sine,
3 - point - 1 - 4 - 1 - 5 - 9
square root, cube root, log of pi,
DISINTEGRATE THEM, RPI!

Thanks, Jasdip 😁

I love the last two lines! Dad would have, too. Thanks, roxsol! Um, what does RPI mean?

And thanks, jasdip, these are so fun.

Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute

They sound pretty tough.

Well I didn't get A3 and had Back to Back events for A1 but got the rest of them.

Thanks Jasdip

I had in good standing for D2 and I like that better.

A rare perfect score for me!

I’ve never heard of Jerry Stackhouse, and didnt Golden Gloves. Not a boxing fan, so that one just never came to me.

The cheers are cute, and I had never heard them.

I knew from early comments that I wasn't going to get A3, so stopped trying. Now that I look him up, I can see why -- I'm a big sports fan but have never followed basketball. Got everything else, though, and liked that a couple of them made me think.

See you Sunday!

Whoa - I actually had them all!

I landed on 'Jerry Stackhouse' and the name seemed familiar, so I checked that it was a real person, but I couldn't tell if he was famous enough to warrant being the answer. Shows how much of a sports fan I am 😄

Got all but A3. Figured, from some of the comments, I wouldn't get it, so didn't try vary hard. And have to thank my grandson for getting B2 right. I was thinking about it and happened to glance up at a medal he won in Junior Olympics for boxing. The big 'DUH!'

Beginning to think I'm never going to get a perfect score again.

But it's still fun!

Rusty