Okay, so I’ve been doing these crossword puzzles lately, you know, trying to keep my brain sharp. And I ran into this clue today: “wasn’t cheerful.” I stared at it for, like, a good five minutes. Nothing.
I started by trying to think of synonyms for “cheerful.” You know, “happy,” “joyful,” “merry”… none of those opposites seemed to fit the number of letters I needed.
My Process of Elimination
Then, I tried a different approach. I thought, “Okay, what isn’t cheerful?” I went through a whole list of emotions:
- Sad? Nope.
- Angry? Nope.
- Gloomy? Getting closer…
- Depressed? Too long.
I even considered words related to specific behaviors, like being “grumpy” or “moody,” but they didn’t work with the crossing letters I had filled in already. It was pretty frustrating!
Finally, I decided to look at the letters I did have. There was an ‘S’ in the middle, and a the end was’T’. So I started playing around with words that fit that pattern. It’s kind of like a game of hangman, you know?
I muttered a bunch of words, sounded them out, “s… t…”. It’s just a simple action, when I got a word “wasn’t” and “cheerful”, so I think is some word like sad, sadness. And, I get it, I really got the answer, “Sullen”! It fit perfectly!
It just clicked. Sometimes you gotta just keep plugging away, trying different angles, and eventually, the answer will pop up. It’s a good reminder, even for things that aren’t crossword puzzles!
