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drxx, nothing says that you need to shade the world of influence. You need to shade what the instruction is, 32 seems to fit with the world of influence but not the instruction. If 32 is correct, you can only shade two letters of the synonym - why?

@candledave Did you hear the (mulitiple) Doh!? 😄

I went back to it and concentrated...and looked harder at the other set. I'd been trying to make them fit the wrong words and as often got stuck in the completely wrong 'mind-groove' - which are like the old LPs - just keep going round and clicking once a revolution - when they get old/scratched.

I agree with comments about the construction, it's quite an achievement.

And if you shade the other two it compromises the instruction!!

My favourite puzzles are the ones that I gradually chip away at over several sittings and this certainly fits that criterion.
I’m sure I have finished correctly but I’m not sure how some of the words in the two groups are associated with words in the quotation - presumably very loosely?

well done granama - a break usually helps

Pootle, see my trials and tribulations earlier. The words in the groups are associated to the words in the quotation in Chambers....if you look at the right words. 👍

gitto - 'Letters at the imagined world's corners...' means we have the imagined world in the grid, and its corners give a synonym of the 'force'. Obviously we can't shade the whole synonym, as it would disrupt the 'world' - we can't treat the corners in the same way as everything else because they're single letters, so a simple 'shade' instruction is impossible. However, by telling us that the corners are part of the world we can deduce that they must be congruent elements.
If you haven't highlighted the relevant corners you haven't revealed the world - it's a particular thing with a particular shape, and we know what occurs on it because we have the encircled letters (they are very specific elements). Why destroy the meaning of the quotation - which relies on the imagery in the grid - simply because an overt 'shade' command isn't given? It would be extremely clumsy to attempt to fashion such an instruction and completely unnecessary. We know what we need to see in the grid, anything short of this is a travesty.

I think it’s tricky.

I agree that without two corners shaded, the world doesn’t look quite how it should but if you do shade them, I don’t know how the marker can be sure that one has understood the endgame fully

FWIW, I’ll be submitting without the additional shading as I am taking the instructions literally despite the fact that this isn’t quite so aesthetically pleasing

drxx - so there may be ambiguity. My heart agrees with you but my head does not.
My reading of the preamble is that we should shade the cells indicated by the perimeter instruction. This does not include the four corner cells which cannot by any means I can see be related to the specific set we are instructed to shade.
It feels wrong not to shade two of the four corner cells but I dont think the preamble justifies it.
Hence my earlier question. Would a submission with two of the corners shaded be judged incorrect.
If I was submitting I would not shade them.

There's no ambiguity at all - after discussing the 4 corners, the preamble states that "the other letters within the world make up two groups", and we are to shade one of the groups. Thus the 4 corners can't belong to either group and shouldn't be shaded. It may be aesthetically displeasing, or even a travesty, but it's quite clear.