.png)
Noted Hungarian puzzle / WED 11-28-18 / Govt watchdog until 1996 / Contemporary of Pizarro / Historical event suggested by each of six groups of circled letters / Betting game popular with Wyatt Earp Doc Holliday / Contents of football shower /
Wednesday, November 28, 2018
Constructor: David J. Kahn
Relative difficulty: Challenging (6:10, which is LOL slow ... it's an oversized grid, but still)
Word of the Day: BENNY Andersson of Abba (57D) —
Göran Bror Benny Andersson (Swedish pronunciation: [ˈbɛnːʏ ²anːdɛˌʂɔn]; born 16 December 1946) is a Swedish musician, composer, member of the Swedish music group ABBA, and co-composer of the musicals Chess, Kristina från Duvemåla, and Mamma Mia!. For the 2008 film version of Mamma Mia! and its 2018 sequel, Mamma Mia! Here We Go Again, he worked also as an executive producer. Since 2001, he has been active with his own band Benny Anderssons orkester. (wikipedia)
• • •
- 1D: Good-for-nothing (ROGUE) — a good example of how the cluing on this puzzle just lost me. This is not what I think of when I think of ROGUE. Something about "good-for-nothing" makes him seem like a layabout or a loser, which is not how I think of ROGUE as all. Also, I think of ROGUE more often as an adjective for something that's gone off-pack or off-script. Or I think of ROGUE as an X-Person. I know this clue is dictionary-defensible, but ugh. And on a Wednesday. ("On a Wednesday?" was a thing I was thinking a lot today)
- 43A: Strawberry, e.g. (FLAVOR) — by far the hardest thing for me to get today, largely because of TULLE, which I had only as TUILE or TOILE. Ugh, TULLE. Like, a million times ugh at that crosswordese fabric. Anyway, for [Strawberry, e.g.], at one point I had FIELDS.
- 30D: Attempt, informally (WHIRL) — another one I just couldn't see for the longest time. My brain: "Is it STAB?" Me: "No" My brain: [shrug]
- 18A: Echelons (STRATA) — got the ST- quickly (yay!); wrote in STAGES (boo!)
- 21D: Abbr. in help-wanted ads (EEO) — OK, look, is EOE a thing? Because I wrote in EOE which I thought stood for "equal opportunity employer" so ... what is this EEO thing?* Also, can you please never use either ever in your grids again ever ever because they're both bad? Great.
*Equal Employment Opportunity
[Follow Rex Parker on Twitter and Facebook]
Save And Share :
115 comments:
Played fast, but ended up slow in time. Never got the theme, but didn’t need it. Guessed the reveal right away.
Holy c**p that was hard wtf?
I read Rex with yesterday's comment by @Ichooserex in mind. I defer to his expertise in analyzing a puzzle and his critique is interesting. As a solver I enjoyed this puzzle. It was not easy but it was satisfying, going entry by entry, letter by letter. There were difficult spots like the south central and to some extent the SW. There were many clues I did not know but managed not to google anything. I did use the "check" function liberally. I really liked seeing some old friends, AGORA, APU (please don't bore me with your outrage). FRENCHREVOLUTION went in early and the cirlce French things were noted. OK, not bad, but not my main source of fun today. Are the any DESOTOs still on the road?
Equal employment opportunity is a government policy that requires that employers do not discriminate against employees and job applicants based upon certain characteristics.
The Office of Economic Opportunity was the agency responsible for administering most of the War on Poverty programs created as part of United States President Lyndon B. Johnson's Great Society.
This was definitely a puzzle where the payoff didn't justify the sacrifices in the construction of the grid or the quality of the fill. It joins the ranks of the overly ambitious, awkward Wednesday puzzles that seem to fall through the cracks a few times every year.
Curious puzzle. I had no over-writes, which normally means an easy puzzle. But it didn’t feel that way. I just was never in sync with the constructor, so much so I couldn’t even come up with wrong guesses for the clues. No major holdups, but things just took a little extra thought today.
KICK UP A ROW seemed green paintish.
Favorite themer was the French LE POOD.
With 45 entries involved in the theme, there must have been a great deal of strain on the grid, yet the fill holds up OK.
Definite toughie. I got held up, with AFEW in for ATAD and PUN in for POW, which led to the reasonable VENDED for HAWKED.
I did think the theme was cute but was annoyed by the profusion of three-letter entries.
One more problem: “Emory board feature” makes no sense as a clue for DEANS. Members of a university board are called trustees or regents. Deans are university officials in charge of a school or function, a couple of echelons below the president.
This one took me longer than some Saturdays. Not a fun solve.
Ugh, can we stop all 'help wanted ad' clues? They're almost all online and they use entire words these days. These days meaning for 20 years now.
Ok. So because of the nature of the beast, we can’t have any odd-number French things like toast or fries. No biggie. But I really wasn’t familiar with a French CUFF. Duh. Seems it’s just a shirt you wear cufflinks with. I like those shirts. There are also Italian cuffs. And rounded, convertible, mitered, and barrel cuffs.
Is there a difference between DOWDY and frumpy? Asking for a friend.
It absolutely has to be deliberate that David chose BETTER DAYS and KICK UP A ROW for the long downs:
Peasant A: This sucks. We’ve seen better days, but not for a long time. And I’m sick of brioche.
Peasant B: I know what let’s do.. let’s kick up a row. François – fetch me that map to the Bastille. Hold my beer and watch this.
Ha ha how could anybody find this puzzle hard I simply don't know. Those circles were all gimmes, they were all "French something" after I saw PASTRY and FRENCHREVOLUTION I just started filling them in. Zippo bango.
There were a few weird answers here and there but whatever. Whining about it is not the JOHN X way. I agree a ROGUE is not a "good for nothing," a ROGUE just might not be good for you. And isn't the FRENCHREVOLUTION in July or is that just The Bastille? I guess it went on for a couple of years.
I like reading here all the new words that need to be banned. Off with their heads!
I thought this was a nice smooth Wednesday puzzle, just like cake. Don't hate me because I'm beautiful.
I'll start a list of words that go with French: FRIES and TOAST (from @Loren), QUARTER, OPEN, PRESS, DRAIN...
Clever theme, and I love having WHIRL in the grid echoing it.
There were many DEAR old crossword friends today, some of three letters (ETE, IRE, APU, OLE, LOO, OSA, ERA, EEO, ROO), and some of more (APSES, AREEL, IAGO, ELISE, OSSO, TULLE, ISERE, ATAD, AGORA, ERTE, ESTEE). There are many who hate these words. I have a fondness for them, for the continuity they bring crosswords, but if they show up at the door too often, they begin to grate, and Will, IMO, has been a good gatekeeper.
And so, between the clever theme and old friends, I had a good time with this at every turn.
I feel like EEO shows up a fair amount in grids (even though, like Rex, I expect EOE), but for me it was the southeast corner that gave me the most heartburn. An ABBA member, French over, Shakespeare quote, Greek square, defunct government agency, and Hungarian puzzler all conspired against me.
I also spent way too much time wondering what French SKIS were...
Wouldn’t this puzzle be more appropriate on July 14? Just asking . . .
Your guess is correct. French cuffs ARE the cuffs designed for use with cuff links. I wore shirts with French cuffs for church when I was a kid. My favorite set was little derringers with a matching tie clip. I am now an anti-gun atheist.
Yes, dowdy is out of style whereas frumpy is dowdy, ill-fitting and probably includes lint.
I'm easily amused so I'm okay with the puzzle. Now I have to go later up: it's in the 40s!
Can someone please explain DEAR for Pricey?
Heck, took me way longer than normal,but it was fine. Even "rib" for "roast a bit".
Rib... as in "kid"...
I had an enjoyable time working through this puzzle. Kept trying to work with strawberry "blonde"...
Ugh what a terrible puzzle. I had such a hard time with it that I eventually just gave up - it was just no fun. KICK UP A ROW? You must be kidding. I wanted Pick a fight, which obviously made that whole corner impossible to figure out. And this after Tuesday’s puzzle was easier than some Mondays.
I thought the gimmick was silly but clever, and the puzzle full of bons mots. En bref, I liked it. While I used to think Le Roi’s analysis of crosswords was insightful and revelatory, lately OFL seems to be tetchy, irascible, lazy and uninspiring. It’s as if he disparages a clue or answer simply because he has to think more than a nano second about it. He wants the solution to be the first thing that pops into his head. HENCE his dislike of ROGUE. Words have lots of meanings, not just the most obvious, or overused, or easily googlable definition or connotation. “Je pense donc je suis.” Something to think about, Rex.
With about half the puzzle done, I was already at my average Wednesday finishing time and so annoyed that I just looked up the completed grid on Crossword Fiend and slapped the rest of the answers in so I could keep my streak going. I've never done that with a puzzle before, but this was miserable.
Did I do the same puzzle as Rex?
I had fun and admired how hard this must have been to construct.
I thought the double meaning of revolution was cleverly used.
Don't you get a little kick when you notice that the odometer is about to roll over and enjoy watching it go? It's more fun with an analog odometer though. In your DeSoto maybe?
My first thought when I read the clue "I am not what I am" was
Popeye! Oh, wait. That would be "I yam what I yam".
I got pissed right off the bat with the "Roast a bit"/"Roast bit" gag. Almost everything Rex said was something I ran into and it all only contributed to my not liking the solve and getting more irritated.
KICKUPAROW and LOO...Hey, I love our British allies just like the next guy, but seriously...
(and I'm just guessing that KICKUPAROW is British because it's full of English words but not something I've ever heard, and I only hear it in my head with a British accent).
I'd like to kick up a row with this puzzle.
I also agree with yesterday's I choose Rex's assessment...this was a great critique vis a vis yesterday's blog entry.
I found this a bit busy (I'm not a fan of circles, especially when there are lots of them), and with some slightly INAPT clues -- it was challenging but not an unenjoyable solve. I had almost the entire bottom half filled in and just couldn't figure out what sort of REVOLUTION would involve POODLE, PASTRY, and SKIS. My eyes finally opened up with HORN -- actually, that was a nice a-ha moment. I also had ToiLE for awhile, which held me up in the middle.
I'm often a bit surprised when Rex takes such a strong dislike to a puzzle as he did today ("a mess," "unpleasant," "kept wanting to quit"). It makes me feel that I should have hated the puzzle, too -- but I find that rarely happens. I certainly enjoy and appreciate some more than others, but very rarely do I think any particular puzzle was terrible. Oh well.
In England “dear” means expensive.
Cute puzzle, challenging.
I don't think that counts. How do you live with yourself?!
Loved it! Totally clever. I thought AREEL was pushing it, but apart from that, it was a great time.
Sorry you woke up on the wrong side of the bed this morning, Rex. May your day improve. Mine certainly has, as a direct result of conquering this puzzle. I'm so thankful for the smart, witty people who put them together. Thank you, Mr. Kahn!!!
Funny how people's perceptions of the same puzzle differ. I found it quite easy, and partially for that reason, quite liked it!
Also the theme helped me which is always welcome - I was about to natick on the final letter I needed to place - the 'S' of isene and oates (never heard of either), when I remembered the theme element which forced the 'S' and saved me running the alphabet for likely letters.
The hardest thing about posting this comment was trying to make out the buses on the grainy, small images of the 'prove you're not a robot' challenge - any chance of having some more friendly option? I'm surprised people bother going through that every time they want to post, not sure I'll bother again.
EOE Eosinophilic esophagitis (EoE) is a chronic, allergic inflammatory disease of the esophagus (the tube connecting the mouth to the stomach). It occurs when a type of white blood cell, the eosinophil, accumulates in the esophagus and persists despite acid-blocking medicine.
Rex, quit your whining, you big baby. This was fine for a Wednesday. As @Quasi said, any answer that requires more than an instant write-in is cause for your hysterical screams of outrage. I am amused by the straws that you have to grasp at to justify your (self-imposed) failures.
Did anyone else get stuck on "Betting game popular with Wyatt Earp and Doc Holliday"? I've never heard of or seen it. Also, "Contents of a football 'shower'" made me cringe, what with the Penn State scandal...seems there could have been a better choice.
85 words? I didn’t notice that aspect while solving but I’m not surprised. The first thing I noticed upon opening the paper was all the single and double black squares chopping up the grid. Then I solved the NE first and noticed it was but tenuously connected to the rest of the puzzle. The question on short fill is typically, ”does the theme make the inevitable glue holding the rest of the puzzle together worth whatever EEO/EOE BS is required?” Today the question is more, “Hey constructor, did you forget to wipe up the glue because there’s a lot showing?” FRENCH REVOLUTION and the circles are a nice piece of word play/grid play. But is it worth all the three and four letter answers? The choppiness and excessive gunk is a direct result of having six circled answers. I think going with just four FRENCH REVOLUTIONs would have improved the grid, relieved the pressure on the fill, and saved us all from APU and an OSA playing FARO at the ICC.
@kitshef - LE POOD got a chuckle.
@relicofthe60s - The clue is “Emory board” not “Emory Board.” I’m thinking that lower case b makes the difference, but I haven’t figured out quite why, yet.
My only writeover was ELTON John before John OATES. My last letter in was the W in TOWED/WIELDS. Wasted many precious nanoseconds wondering how to make fIELDS or yIELDS work. I finally s.l.o.w.l.y. ran the alphabet before doing the D’Oh slap.
Like Rex, I found this to be an unpleasant solve. I made the same mistake on TULLE (TOILE?) but ultimately disagree that it's crosswordese. 1980s Madonna will attest enthusiastically to its legitimacy.
It's French Poodle! ��
Am I the only one who was annoyed at 46A? The "Little RASCALs" shorts were made for movie theaters, not for TV. They predated TV by about 20 years.
Enjoyed this a lot -- precisely because it was harder than most Wednesdays. And I learned my lesson today: never change a winning game...
I always ignore annoying tiny little circles, but today I didn't, not completely. Having seen the revolving HORN and immediately gotten the revealer, I had C--F in the midwest section and confidently wrote in CheF. And that threw everything off in the entire middle of the puzzle. Finally put in CUFF, but I wasted so much time that had I been in a tournament, I would have finished last.
When I had -L-V-- for "Strawberry, e.g.", I wrote down eLeVen. I thought that might have been the baseball player's number. A little sports knowledge can be a dangerous thing.
My beloved Snoopy had a brother named OLAF??????? Who knew?
Enjoyable puzzle that took me twice as long as it should have.
Slog-O-Rama.
I probably enjoyed the puzzle and didn't even know it.
I got the FRENCH REVOLUTION reveal. OK. I bet there are some French words in here. Yep. Saw PASTRY ad hoped for some eclairs or such.
Saw French KISS. A bit of trivia for you. "The French kissing came from British and American soldiers returning home from Europe after World War I, who greeted their wives and girlfriends as they observed the 'sexually adventourous' French to do - with lusty passionate kisses." So now you know where all the slobbering comes from.
I think I'm becoming a @Nancy and disliking little circles. I appreciate that it means the constructor has to do all kinds of aerobatics in order to get the theme to gel, but it's tedious trying to line them all up like good little soldiers and figure out what they mean.
@Suzie Q... I was crossing the Golden Gate in my 69 VW Bug when the odometer changed its 9999 to the 100,000 mark. I'll never forget it because I almost had a crash as I kept looking as the wheel kept turning to its milestone......
ESTEE ERTE ELISE and Sons.
RON Darling? Who cares? Ron Howard. Ron Paul. Ron Reagan. Da doo Ron Ron.
You are trying too hard.
Oh jeez, that Mississippi area kicked my butt. Initially, I didn’t know Andersson, the John (I wanted ELTON, but had EON so I was waylaid there), or the Hungarian and I wasn’t really sure about the river. So I made a wild-ass guess at ISERE and that helped me see RUBIK, which made me change Eon to ERA and THEN I saw ELTON and the Abba guy had to be BENNY and I was done.
That was a fun puzzle. I’m sitting in a coffee shop in the middle of Amish country, watching buggies clip-clop by on this bitterly cold morning, wondering if they have some sort of heater in there (my bet is lap robes), waiting for my big, goofy boy to get detasseled, and this was just the right kind of distraction. Thanks, Mr. Kahn. Now to go read Rex and my fellow bloggers.
@Eme - FARO is definitely in the “Things I know solely from doing crosswords and have never seen anywhere else in my entire life” category. Go ahead and read that Wikipedia page because FARO will appear again.
@E.J. Copperman - I looked it up and apparently those movie shorts were repackaged for TV and have been in syndication since 1955.
@Dan the man - regarding the captcha - Those of us in blue are logged into our Google accounts and never have to bother with the Captcha. I highly recommend it. As for less arduous captcha options, they are a function of blogger™️, Rex has no control over it. I’ve been commenting long enough to remember when the captcha was random letters graphically distorted and the commentariat would often impart “meaning” to the randomness to, hopefully, humorous effect.
@LMS--8:36--To me, dowdy is, for example, wearing clothes that are no longer in style, or "matronly" looking. For example I have a friend who is about 59 and wears the same type of Alfred Dunner knit pants and tops that my 96 year old mother wears.
But for "frumpy" there is an element of sloppiness.
So my friend is dowdy, but not frumpy.
I'm sure some would disagree, but this is how I would use the words.
Have a terrific day! Your posts are the best part of this blog.
I find it amusing whenever Rex has a little trouble making his expected time he gets flustered. That said, I agree that this was a bit of a mess, and certainly on the tougher side for a Wednesday. I got the theme immediately and ended up besting Rex's time by a few seconds, and this while being tossed around a sardine-packed subway car.
So, it was tough. Is that a reason to carp? You just have to work a bit harder.
OTOH, I do agree with Rex on a number of points.
All in all, quite a feat of construction to get all those French items to rotate. Kudos to Mr. Kahn.
Linda Vale,
Ron darling is actually an interesting guy. Some people think he pitched in the greatest baseball game ever played. I won't bore everyone here with the details, but if you're curious check out "The Web of the Game". It's a beautiful piece from the July 20,1981 New Yorker. It's written by none other than Roger Angell.
Mr. Kahn,
Thanks for the lovely puzzle. I thought the rib/roast bit was great. Hard to get started and that always makes me like a puzzle. Also, are you A Seinfeld fan? I ask because I believe George Costanza's favorite explorer was Desoto.
John Oates is in the R&R Hall of Fame? Man, the bar is set pretty low.
Sometimes alliterative clues have some entertainment value like today with Oaxaca whoop and Kobe cash.
Nice start to my day David Kahn. Good one.
I think @ I choose Rex from yesterdays posts is taking this blog too seriously. I thought we were here to have fun. That musical piece he used as an example annoyed me. Deconstructive art is not art in my little corner of the universe.
Oops! And then I saw OATES. Bouncing between screens on an iPad in order to blog is tricky.
@Dan the man, if you create a screen name for yourself, you will get a blue "name" and get to bypass the Captcha.
Re: Rex's complaint about the number of 3-4 letter words: those are what keep me moving through the grid. And since they aren't quite gimmies (era/eon, eoe/eeo, etc), they take a tiny bit of mental gymnastics as I check the crosses and imagine the options inserted in blanks.
Anyway, I stand by my positive assessment. So there!
When your criteria for a "good" puzzle is one that you can speed through, you naturally aren't going to love a puzzle that slows you down. And if that's also the reader's criteria, then this is the blogger for (some of) you. Like @Ichooserex
Not my own idea of fun so I loved this puzzle! Puzzled through and rewarded w little aha moments, low-low-low pop culture/cruddy fill, and a great little finishing skirmish in that SW corner.
Wow. Impressive.
I gave up on this one about halfway through. I just couldn't get any traction. Oddly, I didn't have any issue with RIB for "roast a bit." Once I got the R in there, the IB just fell naturally. I didn't find that particularly tortured or anything. FARO I also knew just from knowing card games. Before poker, it was the most popular gambling card game in America. I also smiled at being able to plop down Ernõ RUBIK without any help. STRATA also went in rather easily.
But that didn't help. Yet again, the SW killed me. Looking at the answers, none of them were particularly sneaky (though I didn't even think of the musical definition of "beat," so TEMPO never came to me). I didn't know who DESOTO or DRT were, and my brain froze at "Beethoven honoree," for some reason, even though I've played [i]Für Elise[/i] a gazillion times on the piano. It simply didn't click. And KICKUPAROW on the other side I would never had gotten. Looking at my fill, I had -IC-U-AROW and still couldn't figure it out.
Overall, I thought the puzzle was pretty good, I just totally sucked at it.
The beat is the 4/4. 3/4. 6/8 and is more correctly known as the meter. Tempo is just how fast you are playing.
@Anons - "dear" means expensive in both American and British English, though the usage is disappearing. "It cost me dearly" or similar might ring a faint bell? The word is cognate with German "teuer" = expensive, costly, precious. In fact, that's why people you value are "your dear ones." They are valuable to you.
My grandmother would complain that the good chickens were too dear...meaning they were priced too high.
Z: I know they were shown on TV but the idea that they were OF TV seemed disingenuous to me. I get it, but I don't like it. I'm with Rex on this one. Didn't enjoy this puzzle.
There were 28 Terrible Threes today, the most that I can remember. Lewis may know if that is a record. Threes are the crab grass of grids. They crowd out sparkly longer entries.
Very annoying puzzle. Clues and answers felt like something out of the '50sj
Not much fun for me, but I plowed through. Got French Revolution very early on and never bothered with the circles. Didn't know "Tulle". Up above, yes the "Board" would be capitalized but this is a crossword clue, not a missive from Emory. No to "Deans".
As for "dear" for expensive, that's something one would hear a lot in America when I was watching the Little Rascals every day after coming home from kindergarten. But in France you'll probably still hear folks say "c'est trop cher" (it's too dear) which, in this context, means it's too expensive. So it works well in today's puzzle.
I enjoyed the theme and the solve. I didn't notice any more short junk or crosswordese than a normal Wednesday.
Last night, Daughter #2 came downstairs singing "Thank You For The Music" so BENNY Andersson came easy. Now, BETTERDAYS has me humming early '90s Springsteen.
Gratuitous John OATES dissing? I can't go for that.
I so wanted it to be Darryl Strawberry to go with RON Darling. Those mid-80s Mets knew HOWTO KICKUPAROW.
@E.J. Copperman - the movie shorts were called "Our Gang" - they were only renamed "Little Rascals" when they went into syndication for television. So, there's that.
Hey All !
I'm impressed at the consruction feat on display today. Alot of the threes and fours have two circled themers in them. This must've been a bear to create. However, to me (and it seems some of y'all) this falls into the Great-Construction-Feat - Bad-Solving-Experience slot. Was wondering why it seemed so tough for me, thought it was just the ole brain not fully WOKE (har), but I see I have fellow "toughies".
Yes, there are plenty of DESOTOs still around. Go on e-Bay and search for them For Sale. Buy one for yourself!
The clue for FLAVOR was a SatPuz level clue. Also the DEANS one. And no one's explained that odd DEAR clue. Tough time getting USER ID in there, having TaLLo for the fabric, and couldn't get actual Ocean Surfers out of the thought process. Has "surfing the web" become that less used nowadays? Man, it seems so.
Daily F count: 4
Daily ROO count: 1
ONLOOKER ON RECORD
RooMonster
DarrinV
QuasiMojo: LATELY he's been "tetchy",...etc??? Just lately?? The guy is a full-on dick. I thought I had gotten over my urge for a taste of a morning dose of hate and negativity so had stopped reading his vitriol for some time, but because I liked this puzzle, I thought, "Mike's GOTTA like this one".
But, sadly, he's the same "cool kid"... miserable about his world and taking shots at everyone who is enjoying life, including these silly little diversions we do each day. Appreciative, nice, complimenting..."cool kids" don't do those things, c'mon!
Not that anyone will miss me, but I can't take his hate anymore.
Hope all here have wonderful, love-filled holidays with family and friends and nothing but happiness and success in the future (even you Mike).
Cheers,
David
Ron Darling went to Yale, you know that place with the Latin slogan “lux et veritas”? Maybe he knows Clare.
Nice puzzle. Quite easy, but still fun. Thanks very much.
TULLE, TUILE, TOILE I can never keep them straight. EEO, EOE, EIEIO, who reads the want ads any more anyway? Apu is the owner not a clerk, right? And is he even still around?
Completed the puzzle ok, but couldn't for the life of me figure out FRENCH SKIS or FRENCH ODOR...
@mathgent -- Sorry, I don't track that.
As others have written, I often chuckle when Rex tears into a puzzle just because it appears as if he has had a bit of trouble with it. Okay, it might have been tougher than other Wednesday puzzles, but I enjoyed it and had fun solving it.
Chill out, Rex. Shouldn't we enjoy these puzzles or, perhaps, simply stop doing them, if there is no fun solving them. And if writing a blog is so often a drag, maybe you should think about whether to continue doing it.
@E.J. Copperman For the record, the clue for 46A is correct. "The Little Rascals" shorts were never in movie theaters. They were called "Our Gang" when in theaters. They only became "The Little Rascals" when they were recycled for TV.
Not fun - not satisfying - too early in the week for this.
Got the FRENCH part of the revealer and the HORN-circles pretty early, which was enough for m&e to latch onto the theme mcguffin. This helped save precious nanoseconds down the road. Cool theme idea … but, yeah -- when mosta yer themers are deployed in circular circle stuff, it gets a little dicey comin up with enough other long-ball fill to get U into the 78-words or less club.
Solution: Make the grid bigger? Not the first thing M&A woulda thought of. Now U may need even longer words. However … ahar! ... once the gridsize ain't 15x15 anymore, the Geneva Conventions on puz word count get kinda sketchy. Sooo … It's different.period; ain't nuthin to it but to bite down on the rawhide strap and solve the overweight puppy.
Did not think the result was real overly desperate. Sure, U got yer scruffy non-PB1-Immunity also-rans such as: TULLE. EEO. DRT. ICC. Maybe a side-eye glance to KICKUPAROW. And a few names from someone else's past than mine. But, still … the overall out-comin blend is certainly as fresh as an AGORA.
staff weeject pick: DRT. Nope nope nope. Nope: Please don't ever ban words from the puzs. [Obvious Exception: PEWIT.] Just do the necessary work to whip up some fresh-as-an-OSA clues. Example: {Result of eating a little dirt??} = DRT. See? Everybody can be happy again!
fave fillins: ONELINER & GATORADE. BADACTOR. RASCAL. RUBIK. INESCROW. BETTERDAYS. FLAVOR.
Oh-so rich veins of weeject ore in grid columns #4,5,11, and 12. Primo mine shafts, there-in.
Thanx for the fun Mr. Kahn. When I saw yer name, I immediately thought dedication puz for Paul Manafort, or somesuch. Hard to beat a puz with French revolvin doors in it, tho. Or that celebrates BasTulle Day. Or that makes yer tete spin. Ok ok … I'll stop.
Masked & Anonymo4Us
This puzzle was originally published during the FRENCH REVOLUTION and has stood the test of time quite well. 85-word grids were vey common back then and circles were all the rage, so I have no complaints about an occasional HOC or YEN. Besides, any puzzle with a FRENCH KISS can’t be all that bad.
I finished this yesterday evening in 13:22 when my average Wednesday time is 18:50, so imagine my surprise this morning when everyone was saying it was challenging! To me, my Tuesday puzzle time was 52:14 an Tuesday average 14:47. What goes?
I loved the circles, and enjoyed filling them in from a few crosses -- my only regret was no French LETTERS (a term from the Little Rascals ERA, for you young folks). Anyway, nothing happened before TV, so that's OK.
I think what OFL was trying to say about the roast is that if you are using the repeated clue gambit, you should be cluing different meanings of the word -- e.g., one could be a piece of meat (such as a prime RIB) and the other one the dinner in your honor.
I'm all for having fabrics and sewing terms in the puzzle (gender parity and all); when I see something like this I just put in T--LE, and wait for the rest -- but just for fun, this Vogue article mentions a gown made with both TULLE and toile. Can't find the photo, regrettably.
FWIW, I do have a blue name, but every once in a while I have to click on the confusing photos anyway. Not too often, though.
@Suzie Q -- Popeye and God.
I feel like the constructor of this puzzle, upon completing it, thought to himself, "Hmm, now that I've got this awkward and oversized grid full of circles that don't help the solving experience, and a ton of obscure names smashed together, how can I make it worse? Oh, I know, I'll make the cluing Friday level to throw people off."
The amount of things I hate in the puzzle are almost too many to name, but I'll start with the worst part: ISERE, BENNY, RUBIK, OATES - all on top of each other. If you're born in the last 40 years you probably haven't heard of these people or this river, and I almost almost almost gave up on the puzzle trying to guess this section. Just terrible.
Other top hits:
ETE - I don't care how many times I see this in a crossword I will never remember it
INAPT - not a word, also you used INANE and INESCROW so cool it
PLAYS - I have no idea what Ascap is, nor do I want to waste time googling it
EEO - how is Equal Opportunity Employer abbreviated EEO, note EOE? I see this in puzzles every time and I don't understand
BOAR - not necessarily wild, that's just what you call a male pig that isn't castrated
TULLE - have never heard this word, and will endeavor to forget it, like this puzzle
KICK UP A ROW - no one says this - kick up dust maybe
ERA - clue "big time" is just terrible, almost as bad as "pricey" for DEAR
AGORA - marketplace not square - do better
USERID - final letter was the U here crossing TULLE - I had to look at it for about a minute to see User ID - thought they were looking for a name like RON JON surf shop - again, Friday level cluing
AREEL - no, just no
IAGO - can we have this clued as Jafar's sidekick for once? That's not as highbrow as NYT would like it to be I know,
Only clever clue of the day was Emory board feature. The rest of this puzzle is trash.
This puzzle had me going in circles, har. I'll go along with "hard for a Wednesday" as a rating. After the 7D revealer filled in, I saw PASTRY and HORN, and, a la @Nancy, tried to use the theme to help solve and went with the CheF. It didn't hold me up all that long, with TULLE (TUiLE first, because of ToiLE fabric and that I once went skiing in La ThUiLE, Italy (and Val d'ISERE, France also)) and FLAVOR helping fix it.
But Eoe before EEO because I thought 24A would end with "to", HENCE 7D was FR_Nt_R (Frontier? Not quite). That held me back. _OGU_ made bOGUs possible at 1D and no less wrong-seeming than ROGUE clued as "Good for nothing". All that got fixed. What nearly made me MIFF it up was _CC crossing _AGO. The fCC is still a thing, I think :-), and fAGO was ringing no bells. How could I forget one of crossworld's favorite Shakespearean villains, IAGO? I just misplaced him A TAD.
So I had many of Rex's missteps but I enjoyed this due to the extra effort, so thanks, DJK.
@Lewis, thanks for the FRENCH drain - I didn't know that's what one called that thing that runs all along my house for drainage into the sump. New knowledge!
Copy and paste this into your Xword dictionary:
EEOC-- Equal Employment Opportunity Commission
EEO--Equal Employment Opportunity
OEO--Office of Economic Opportunity
EOE is an esophageal medical condition
Hands up for PICK A FIGHT crossing SHOPPED at square 36. That slowed me down quite a while.
My cousin lives in FARO Yukon, which is remote enough that the Google StreetView mobile didn't bother visiting.
At the end of Hell Week when I was pledging Theta Chi at FSU the same year that “Animal House” depicted at Dartmouh, we neophytes were treated to a road trip to Atlanta, where we had to visit one of the brother’s girl friends at Emory. We ended up at a big beer bash. Much later in life, I ran through Emory’s campus during the Atlanta Marathon. I never saw any deans.
@Suzie Q I had Pogo for a while... It seems like that cartoon is the answer for a lot of random quotes.
So you’re saying that eliminating every word and clue that might make someone somewhere cringe a little is a bad idea? That’s crazy talk. I don’t think Rex would approve.
Medium-tough. For me the clever theme trumped the fill problems, liked it. You could say it tickled my fancy.
It’s too hard, therefore it’s not fun. An opinion shared by Rex and many commenters. I loved it, precisely because it gave me a Thursday or Friday-like workout on a Wednesday. Sure, some of the clues and solutions had me shaking my head, but, overall, great fun, three-letter words and all. So put me in @QuasiMojo’s camp.
I'm a little surprised at the unfamiliarity of many people of the "pricy" meaning of the word "dear." It's not the primary usage of the word in American English, but it does get used from time to time in my dialect. It certainly does get used a lot more in non-US varieties of English, so perhaps that is also why it is more familiar to me. Also shows up in the lyrics of "When I'm Sixty-Four" ("Every summer we can rent a cottage in the Isle of Wight if it's not too dear.") But here in the Midwest, "dear" does occasionally get used to mean "expensive," though probably more by the older crowd. But I will find myself (age 43) sometimes saying that something is "too dear" or "quite dear."
It's interesting to me, as in the languages I know, they have a word with the same dual meaning. As mentioned before "cher" has both meanings of the word "dear" in French. In Polish, we have "drogi" which can mean either expensive or adored/cherished. (Similar cognates in I think all other Slavic languages, as well as Hungarian.) Same deal with German "teuer," meaning expensive or beloved. "Caro" can similarly be used in Spanish. Etc. Seems to be a common concept across at least Indo-European languages (and the Finno-Ugric one I mentioned, though that is borrowed from the Slavic.) I don't know if other language families share similar usage of expensive and beloved by a single word.
So infrequently do I agree with Rex over so many points. But there they are. With the exception of FLAVOR which I wrote in immediately.
Ungkley puzzle and cluing.
It's a common British usage. if something is expensive you might say it's a bit dear, or too dear for me
Hate to tell you this but someone in the blog trashed your "only clever clue".
Please don’t go. We need folks like you for balance.
@Anon 9:59am, That New Yorker article on the Ron Darling Yale game is fantastic! I actually re-subscribed just to read it. Worth the money.
The term Abba, as opposed to ABBA, threw me off. Isn't the band always called ABBA?
Much agree re robot maze.
No write-overs, but a way long solve. Cluing was all over the place, and I totally misread the revealer as the circled words represent the historical event, and not the other way around. So I thought..."ok, pastry makes sense with 'let them eat cake', and cuff makes sense since the French aristocracy wore all those poofy cuffs in those days, and I suppose the all had poodles, kissed each other a lot, and hired a lot of trumpeters, but what the heck has 'door' got to do with the French Revolution???" To be honest, laughing at myself over that misunderstanding was the most enjoyable part of this slog.
It's only a puzzle guys - it's only a blog. I wonder where all of you would go if you didn't bash Rex?
Yet another proper name (DESOTO) crossing a completely arbitrary letter (DR"T"). Obviously could have been DR-anything. Seems like there are more and more of these lately. Is this just not seen as a problem by the editor?
I thought the clue for NINES was very clever.
Needed the theme answers to give myself a chance at the bitsy fill, but the theme was immediately obvious at that gave me enough to work with to get the job done. Still slow for a all Wednesday for me, clocking in at just over half an hour, but at no point did the end-goal se unattainable, so I'll call this a decent Wednesday puzzle and forget about it immediately.
@E.J. Copperman - I see several have pointed out the Our Gang vis à vis The Little Rascals distinction. However, I’d disagree with your “of” premise even if the movie shorts had kept the same name when they were adapted to television. For example, can Harry Potter only be clued as “of” the novels? Aren’t he and his magical friends also of the movies?
@anonymous 12:19 pm today posting in yesterday’s comments - I get why people think Rex is harsh, but I’ve never agreed with that assessment. He is pretty damn good about focusing on the work not the constructor. Better than most, I would say. He focuses on what can be better which makes it seem to people that he is never satisfied and never compliments. But I find it not surprising at all that former students would gush. If I want compliments I’ll ask my mother-in-law’s opinion. If I want to know if something is good and how I might improve it I will ask someone like Rex.
Maybe this will help sort out the EEO/EOE issue.
EEO is more of a want ad (do they even have these anymore) or public notice of job openings tag that means the job/position is an Equal Employment Opportunity one.
The federal agency that regulates employment equality and fairness in hiring is the EEOC - Equal Employment Opportunity Commission.
But if you are an employer, you describe your organization, assuming you in fact are, as an Equal Opportunity Employer - an EOE.
So, the job is an EEO, the agency is the EEOC, and the employer is an EOE.
Every summer we can rent a cottage
In the Isle of Wight if it's not too DEAR
We shall scrimp and save (we shall scrimp and save)
Grandchildren on your knee
Vera, Chuck, and Dave
—Sir Paul
@Nighthawk, EEO, EEOC, EOE... cluck cluck here, cluck cluck there...
I found this longer-taking than usual, and a satisfying puzzle. Easy is not fun. French Revolution, cute idea!
@Rex: TULLE is completely different from toile. Tulle is found cascading from a bride’s head. She would break her freaking neck if all that fabric were toile. Toile is that type of heavy fabric with pen-and-ink drawings of chubby while people, generally having innocent fun in bucolic settings. Your grandmother had it in curtains. Remember?
Since OFL often talks about his day, I’ll say mine is being a music conductor at a large school of music in the Midwest. There is no such thing as a French Horn. It’s a horn. Period. Nothing French about it. Never was and never will be. Horn in F? Yes! F doesn’t stand for French I assure you. English horn? Yes, that’s a thing. But no composer, ever, wrote a piece that called for French horn.
Anon 3:41,
Im so pleased you liked it. It really is a gem. Of course tbe world has changed mightily since that day, but that Yale squad was remarkable. I believe it had four men who would play sports professionally.
Im biased, I know, but Ivy league athletes can be pretty good.
This was my experience , too. I enjoyed the challenge of this puzzle. Getting French Revolution turned everything around.
Hilarious!
@Shawn Vondran 8:12. Welcome to the United States. English is the only language that calls it a French horn. The story behind the F from France is always interesting. Baroque hornists would love for the Yanks to change the name. Never gonna happen. Ergo, here in the land of cotton candy, we call it the French Horn and I'm sure there is an American composer or two who has Called for the French Horn to be played by a magnificent hornist......
Liked it. You’d think there’d be a finite number of themes but these guys keep coming up with new ones. Kudos David Kahn.
"Every summer we can rent a cottage in the Isle of Wight, if it's not too dear. We shall scrimp and save.. " (The Beatles, "When I'm Sixty-Four") See also French: "C'est trop cher. "
Kicking up a row had me kicking off a dance. Off to post-grad Idiom School with you, Rexy.
“Every summer we can rent a cottage
In the Isle of Wight if it's not too DEAR
We shall scrimp and save...”
Beatles, When I’m 64
Popeye: I am what I am.
God: I am that I am.
BENNY MEETS ELISE
It’s ONRECORD that in BETTERDAYS
before a RASCAL TAPPED a miss,
that ROGUE got a FLAVOR if she PLAYS
ORELSE at least HOWTO FRENCH KISS.
--- AMY LOO DESOTO
OFL mentioned lotsa short words; 28 threes by my count. That’s plenty, 33% if the 85 word count is correct. Compare that to the same % arbitrary break point for PPP. Even more laborious methinks.
Gotta love the Maleska ERA Darling clue for RON.
And OLE stands alone.
AMY Adams is circled today.
No write-overs but those short words slowed the TEMPO.
I successfully completed but not without some difficulty. Rex is being ATAD harsh. He does like to KICKUPAROW sometimes. The themer was quite clever and symmetrical so the constructor should get some credit for pulling off a tour de force. Bravo to David J. Kahn.
Enjoyable twist to the clueing made solving slow but rewarding. Good one.
Vive Le Revolution! Good puzzle, and I don't care how many damn 3-letter words there are. This was a neat theme, though easy to get, and the puzzle had a quirky style that pleased me.
First thought for 1A was kId, but realized that the "k" wouldn't work. The actual answer, RIB, can be taken two ways, so kinda cute. Anyway, with RIB in there the NW fell quickly. The rest of the puzzle too a little time, but it was time well spent, in my opinion.
Liked it.
Yes, challenging, with very clever theme and FRENCH REVOLUTION revealer. But, alas, was guillotined in the SE.
Down there, wanted Dated instead of DOWDY and gAGa (as in Lady) instead of IAGO. Cheated to correct those, and the rest filled themselves in.
Favorites elsewhere were GATORADE for "football shower" and DEANS on "Emory board". (Doubt that many DEANS serve on university boards, though.)
Enjoyed the challenge.
Finir.
HAWKED fell in place and, POW, I got it.
Lady Di
Had a couple of wrong guesses for the circled FRENCH things: with STR in place I thought of BISTRO but couldn't get it to work; eventually PASTRY came to light. And then with C__F, who wouldn't write in CHEF?? Obvious! ehh...no. It was CUFF. That BADACTOR cost me many nanominutes.
I did prevail in the end, though not without some nose-wrinkling at never-used real words like INAPT and AREEL. I bet you can't find one quote ONRECORD using INAPT.
Another misdirect was hall-of-famer John, not Elton {duh!) but...OATES?? And I suppose his partner Daryl Hall is an Oates-of-famer. The two of them can't hold a candle [in the wind] to EJ. Bah.
O:LE may be without Sven but at least he has OLAF. Unanimous DOD is AMY Adams. Feeling charitable today, and understand the theme density stress. He did about as well as he could. Par.
Post a Comment