They are both, to some extent, related to promoting the sale of the item, I'd say.

There is usually some promotional blurb written on a dust wrapper - reviews from critics and other authors plus a brief plot outline, sort of thing. I agree though that it's a stretch the way it's explained.

Years ago the dust wrapper of a book used to promote other books by the same author or publisher on the back, where more recently you see a photo of the author. I'd guess that would be the tie-in with promotion.

On today's Mind Melt the definition for "utility" was given as something like "of beef; inferior quality". This definition does not seem to be in the OED, and I'm concerned that it is a bit too obscure, even for this type of quiz.

I seldom do the food shopping, but I've heard of utility cuts of beef, and would have made the connection, I think. Doesn't seem obscure at all to me.

It's not a term that I have ever heard used in the UK

I can believe that; "USDA" is the US Department of Agriculture. I'd be very surprised if the UK used the USDA grading system. I would say that "utility" used in this context is slightly obscure, but no more so than other usages in the game.

I think the inclusion of both "overuse" and "overstretch" in today's Mind Melt might be a bit confusing. The correct answers were:

overuse - exploitation to the point of diminishing returns
overstretch - strain abnormally; "I pulled a muscle in my leg when I jumped up"; "The athlete pulled a tendon in the competition"

Yet the OED has "to use too much or too frequently; to injure by excessive use" as the primary definition for "overuse", and "to place excessive demands upon (personnel, financial resources, etc.)" as an extended definition for "overstretch".

The use of less common definitions is a key parts of the challenge of the Mind Melt quizzes, but including both of these in the same quiz might be asking users to make overly fine distinctions among definitions that seem to overlap significantly in actual usage.

Just my two cents.

footwear is related to clothing

footwear means "clothing worn on a person's feet"
clothing means "a covering designed to be worn on a person''s body"


wrapper is related to garment

wrapper means "a loose dressing gown for women"
garment means "an article of clothing"


If all 4 are about clothing, and neither clothing nor garment relate to footwear, then could these two words be too closely related?

This match, although from the third section where relationships can be strained, is simply incorrect.

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food stamp is related to legal tender



You said: supplying

food stamp means "government-issued stamps used in exchange for food"
legal tender means "something used as an official medium of payment"

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In fact (at least in the US), food stamps are non-transferable, and can only be used for obtaining certain eligible food items. A household receives a certain benefit amount, and the government reimburses the retailer for the cost of the foodstuffs obtained with food stamps. It is illegal to use these government benefits to "pay" for anything, making food stamps pretty much the opposite of "legal tender". "Supplying" is an infinitely better match, as the government is, in effect, supplying a benefit to a food stamp recipient. Food stamps are simply not legal tender, as they can not be used to pay a debt (a slight oversimplification of the definition of "legal tender", but close enough).

The other match option, by the way, was "issuing", which can fit without much of an issue with "legal tender". Legal tender is issued every day by governments in the form of currency.

helmsman is related to sea dog

helmsman means "the person who steers a ship"
sea dog means "a man who serves as a sailor"

bargee is related to old salt

bargee means "someone who operates a barge"
old salt means "a man who serves as a sailor"


Aren't sea dog and old salt the same thing?

Buddy, according to the definitions used they are indeed interchangeble.

I got those as well, Buddy. For once, I guessed right. It's odd how often these definitions come up in the same question sets.

Just been fooled by the link between 'sponger' and 'working person'. Sponger, to me, means exactly the opposite to worker not the same!

Rossian, was that pair on the third section of the game? In which case, they are still linked, though not the same. It's akin to, say, "smoking" and "health" being links, but not meaning the same. I do agree with you, though - sponger and worker are complete opposites! That third section can trip you up sometimes, can't it?

The actual definition given was 'a worker who collects sponges', which did make a suitable fit - just not in my mind.

That is too funny!

Sue

Haha, well, that wouldn't be the definition I'd expect :P

deep-six is related to cast aside

You said: cast off

deep-six means "toss out"
cast aside means "throw or cast away"
cast off means "get rid of"

Flip a coin.

I know that this thread is sometimes about venting as much as it is about corrections, but, for the sake of my sanity, can we please not have both "vena" and "venous blood vessel" as choices in the same group? Pretty please?

They were totally interchangeable. When I saw them I shrugged, crossed my fingers and (for once) got them the right way round. The definitions were identical.

Regardless of whether a word/definition seems ambiguous or not, the people playing in the same set have the exact same opportunity to get them wrong lol.

In those ??? instances (but not in the case of vena vs blood vessel lol), I often have an "AHA!" moment, as in "I never thought of it that way". It's good for your brain to deviate from linear thinking once in awhile : )

Yes, but the smoke coming from those brains will cause an increase in global warmth and Al Gore wouldn't like that. Please, no questions which cause our brains to spontaneously combust.

See Darwin lol.

My issue is not with the fairness of the set, my issue is with the correctness of the answer. There is absolutely no semantic difference between "vena" and "venous blood vessel". Like rossian said, it's a coin flip as to which options the set has matched. 99% of the time, I would agree with you about a seemingly counter-intuitive match prompting a different way of thinking, but there is just nothing like that in these matches.

If you re-read my (admittedly flippant) response, you will see that I completely agreed with you on the vena vs venous thing. Definitely not fair. And although we can't necessarily control the dictionary itself at this point (at least as far as I know), I'm sure some sort of written code might someday help with the duplication/similarity/too close for comfort instances : )

Sorry -- I should have been more obvious that I was agreeing with you, and just reiterating my frustration with that particular situation. I don't know how easy it would be to keep matches like that from popping up, but I'm all for it.

No worries sir (assuming you're male).

The results page I got in my Mind Melt game just now was NOT the same quiz that I took. Unfortunately, I can't go back and retrieve the orignal quiz I actually took. As a result, I got stuck with a 4/30 for my team. MM is a crock!