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SUNDAY, Feb. 15, 2009 — Jim Leeds (Poetry movement by Ezra Pound / One treating disorders of the ear / Competed in a velodrome)
Sunday, February 15, 2009
Theme: Double-O Seven — Each of the seven theme answers is a familiar phrase with one of its Os doubled, resulting in a new phrase.
Word of the Day: ANOMIE — social instability resulting from a breakdown of standards and values; also: personal unrest, alienation, and uncertainty that comes from a lack of purpose or ideals (merriam-webster.com).
Hi, everybody. PuzzleGirl here, filling in for a vacationing-and-not-quite-as-connected-as-he-thought-he-would-be Rex Parker. Let's just try to make the best of it.
Overall, I liked this puzzle. Knowing the theme definitely helped with some of the theme answers but not so much that they were Easy. ANNOTATES (46D: Marks in the margin) and PESSIMISM (40D: It "never won any battle," according to Eisenhower) are great words, right? Sure, but some of the clues were a little ... off to me. You want an example? Okay, I'll give you three.
- 33A: Band's plan is TOUR. All I could think of was, like, the program. You know, the list of songs the band makes to remember what they're doing once they're on stage. Now that's a plan. The tour? That's, like, an event. Yes, there is planning involved, but the tour itself is not a plan.
- 83D: IDs is TAGS. I know an I.D. tag is a thing and a license plate on a car is sometimes referred to as a tag which is, I guess, sort of an identifying thing. And there are tags on graffiti, which are used as identifiers, but they're really more like signatures. So, basically, to me I just don't get how IDs = tags.
- 90D: Drill bit? is AT EASE. I know that "at ease" is a phrase used in the military, and I guess it's something a Drill Sergeant might say? And, yes, I see the question mark, but to me that just indicates that the answer doesn't have anything to do with a power tool.
Theme answers:- 23A: Numbskull who likes Macintosh computers? (boob for Apples)
- 33A: Entrees for oilman Pickens? (t-boone steaks)
- 63A: Between a dozen and a score of Disney creations? (sixteen toons)
- 68A: Overexposure or redeye? (photo oops)
- 71A: South Carolina Gamecocks? (team roosters)
- 101A: Kids' whistles and horns? (toys for toots)
- 114A: Place to sit by the highway? (roadside stoop)
Bullets!:
- 22A: 1992–93 World Series champs (Toronto) — Who knew?
- 26A: Irish patriot Robert (Emmet) — I'm thinking to myself "It's something that sounds really Irish ... O-something? Mac-something?"
- 28A: Reddish-orange creatures (efts) — It's a type of newt. Remember it because you'll see it again.
- 43A: Who said "It gets late early out there" (Berra) — Nobody but.
- 70A: Be frugal (stint) — I've never heard this word used in this way. (The example giving on wiktionary.com is "The next party you throw, don't stint on the beer.")
- 80A: Ragtime dance (one-step) — Seems like this particular dance wouldn't be all that difficult to learn.
- 93A: A throw (each) — Could Not figure out what this clue was looking for.
- 98A: Sharp turn back (zag) — Thought this might be uey. Or uie. However the hell it's spelled.
- 108A: Dürer, for one (etcher) — Albrecht Dürer. He is, apparently, regarded as the greatest artist of the Renaissance in Northern Europe. Makes me feel stupid for never having heard of him.
- 110A: Fox News anchor Pemmaraju (Uma) — There's another Uma?
- 118A: One treating disorders of the ear (aurist) — That word just seems all kinds of wrong.
- 1D: Geoffrey Beene, Bill Blass and others (labels) — Me: "They're designers. Why won't designers fit?"
- 7D: Edgar and Tony (awards) — "Tony Allan Poe? ... Tony Winter? ... Edgar Orlando?"
- 8D: Where a redneck gets red (nape) — "On his ... neck? No, that can't be it."
- 10D: Novelist Carr (Caleb) — Never heard of him.
- 11D: Arctic weather phenomenon (ice fog) — Seriously. That's not a thing. Okay, Wikipedia says it is. But it also says it should not be confused with diamond dust. So there.
- 13D: Spanish diminutive suffix (-ito) — Love this clue. In our house we add the suffix -ito to English words to indicate small size. We're just weird like that.
- 32D: Home of Caterpillar (Peoria) — I knew this without any crosses. How? HOW?
- 42D: It has its privileges (seniority) — As a true Child of the Television Commercial era, I couldn't get membership out of my head.
- 48D: Moisten (hydrate) — PuzzleHusband is big on hydration. Huge on hydration. He basically thinks that any problem a person has can be solved by drinking more water. Sunburned? Drink more water. Tired? Drink more water. Can't finish the crossword puzzle? Drink more water! He also used to say — and frequently, I might add — that nobody ever died from drinking too much water. Of course, he had to stop saying that once he found out it wasn't true.
- 54D: All people, according to the Bible (sinners) — My sister tells this great story about going to a Catholic mass wedding one time. Everything was just perfect. Gorgeous weather, unbelievable flowers, everyone in a great mood and happy to be a part of this beautiful day. When the bride joined the groom at the altar and faced the priest, he began his talk by bellowing: "WE ARE ALL SINNERS." Talk about a buzz-kill.
- 58D: "_____ the morning!" (top o') — Keep this one in your pocket for St. Patrick's day. My grandmother taught me that the exchange goes like this: Person 1: "Top o' the mornin' to ya!" Person 2: "And the rest of the day t' yourself!"
- 63D: Carell of "The Office" (Steve) — When they decide to put this whole Blagojevich fiasco on the big screen, they must not consider anybody but Steve Carell for the lead.
- 64D: Classical poem (epode) — I bet Rex knew this one. I did not.
- 67D: Sharp ridge (arête) — Classic crosswordese.
- 72D: European boundary river (Oder) — Oh man! I have less than two weeks to learn my European rivers! Ack!
- 92D: Competed in a velodrome (cycled) — Only knew this because of a conversation we had here recently. Thank you, smart people!
- 102D: Suspect (shady) — Love this tricky clue. See, it's an adjective. Yeah, I thought it was a noun too!
- 103D: Manhattan Project scientist (Fermi) — Enrico. He has a synethetic element named after him. I bet you don't.
- 104D: "Rock of Ages" accompaniment (organ) — Oh that "Rock of Ages."
- 113D: 2012 Olympics host: Abbr. (Eng.) — To me, England doesn't seem Big enough to host the Olympics for some reason.
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81 comments:
Hey Puzzle Girl, thanks for staying up, it's the only time I get to be early to the party, usually I can't get there until all are finished with dessert.
Loved the puzzle, had a few wierd moments when I filled in rest area stoops, then turnpike stoops, finally got the road side stoops, the liquid paper was pretty thick by that time.
Peoria was a gimme for me as my dad worked for them for many years.
My uncle Walter (not really my uncle but my mother's cousin's husband, but we called him uncle) founded the Trackson Company in Milwaukee with a few colleagues in 1922, he was the head engineer and invented the track system for earth moving equipment that replaced the wheel it was bought out by Caterpiller in 1951. Great guy and I loved him dearly.
My last fill was the Y in YAW, husband helped me with that one. I had OVA in for the egg prefix which he changed to OVI, and I said "what the hell is senior EYETY?" At that point he burst into loud laughter and said "try seniority", at that point a little wine shot through my nares as I burst into loud laughter also.
Favorite of the puzzle was PHOTOOOPS, triple-0-seven.
I liked this puzzle. Even after I figured out the theme I still had to work out where to put the rest of my 00s. PHOTOOOPS looks cool in the middle of the grid.
bOObforapples was the last one to fall. I confess to one Google, for Emmet in the NW which was nearly blank before that.
Me to husband: "who are Geoffrey Beene and Bill Blass?"
Husband to me: "I don't know but they don't play sports."
If only lied had been clued as "told a whopper" or something easy, I might have had a chance there.
Thanks blog for the timely lesson on velodrome, which helped me whip through the SW.
My biggest guess was the abbrev. of MDSE crossing EPODE at the D.
I had UEY and then ZIG for ZAG.
-sillygoose
ID = Tags...think dog tags.
Thanks for the fun write up, you are the go-to-girl!
Loved the Shady video, tho I can now never eat fast food again. (I guess I should thank you for that)
I think my boy Patrick Blindauer had a 007 puzzle this past year, I'll have to dig it up.
Caleb Carr wrote "The Alientist", a 500+ page novel about a psychologist in NY in the 1890s who is called in on a murder which takes place just about a block from the ACPT locale! (Or maybe it was the Williamsburg bridge...)
Just sayin'...
@ PG -- Many thanks for pinch-hitting! Good job, and I agreed with your take that the cluing was "off", same places. And I loved your story about the lovely wedding bubble punctured by the priest's SINNERS admonition!
You probably picked up on Peoria linked with Caterpillar if you watched Pres. Obama speaking there this week to a crowd of worried workers... ANOMIE indeed. And Schubert's LIED is "song" in German, pronounced "leed". (Plural is "lieder", as in punny "Take me to your___")
I did like the puzzle gimmick, especially T BOONE STEAKS, which gave me the theme I hadn't read before starting! Also fond of the Greek isle NAXOS crossing SIXTEEN TOONS, and new word to me -- IMAGISM for Pound's poetry, though I hope not to see AURIST again...
∑;)
Hi, PuzzleGirl. I saw the title and thought what, is it 7 OO answers? Pretty much.
Actualy, a few more OO's around. SOONEST, OOH, ROOTS.
How could you not know Toronto won the 92 and 93 World Series? Didn't you share seasons tickets at the Skydome those years? Wouldn't you have been at the 93 finale when Joe Carter hit THAT home run if you weren't moving out west at the time? Wasn't you? Must have been me.
Just when you think LIED and UMA can't be disguised, along comes today's puzzle.
HEBREW crossing BLESS and BRAS; joke in there somewhere but I can't find it. Andrea?
My boss and I had a discussion about ICE FOG last week; I didn't believe it was a real term, but I humored him, or so I thought.
NAXOS? Is that near NABES and NATICK in the NA portion of the pretend dictionary?
I haven't been getting comments emailed the last few days. Anyone else have this issue or is it on my end?
Great write-up PG. Thanks once again for your humor and insight. What would Rex and the rest of us do without you?
This puzzle was great fun. I seem to be warming up to these add-a-letter puzzles lately. Got rolling with the theme on T. BOONE STEAKS which I thought was a real groaner, yet made me smile and eagerly seek out the rest of the puns. Loved BOOB FOR APPLES and, of course, couldn't help but notice that BRAS was neatly tucked into the grid as well. I'm sure all the guys noticed that; doubt it's coincidental.
The entertainment industry has certainly gotten a lot of mileage out of novelist Patrick Dennis' AUNTIE Mame. It became a highly successful Broadway play in 1956 starring Roz Russell who then repeated her performance in the equally successful movie version (penned by puzzle denizens Comden and Green) in 1958. Jerry Herman got his hands on the property and it returned to Broadway as the musical, Mame in 1966 starring Angela Lansbury and Bea Arthur. The cycle was completed when Mame was filmed with Lucille Ball and Bea Arthur in 1974. Each successive version seemed to progressively weaken and dilute the delightful source material until rock bottom was struck with the musical film which is, I'm sorry to say, just plain awful (and I'm pretty forgiving when it comes to musicals).
I have been an internist for 25 years and I have never come across the term AURIST. ENT physician? Yes. Otolaryngologist? Yes. Audiologist? Yes. But, AURIST? I know it's a real word because I looked it up this morning. Just totally outside my lexicon, although obtainable via crosses.
@PG - great write up - thanks for being there!
@ArtLvr - thanks for explaining Lied. It was a lucky guess, along with Emmet - otherwise the NW corner would be a gaping hole.
Agree "aurist" is just wrong. And seedman??? That's a real job/person? I think not.
AURIST sounds like someone who really likes gold. Scrooge McDuck, maybe.
Thanks to PG for covering for me. It would have been ... inconvenient for me to do the write-up today. Monday will be no problem.
Oh, and I enjoyed this puzzle. I did it in 17 min., but I did it with people coming in and out of the room and having conversations with me, so I don't know what my "real" time would have been. A bit faster, I'm guessing.
Love the OOO in PHOTOOOPS.
RP
Minor quibble with the clue for 113 D:
Olympics are awarded to cities, not to countries, caused me a little grief when I filled with "lon"
A fun puzzle, solved again by group method on very foggy Captiva. Some of the answers were very funny--loved photooops; and I'm surprised to see Boob for Apples. Hope that doesn't get the NYT puzzle flagged.
New words for us were Anomie and ARIOLE.
Thanks for the write-up Puzzlegirl
Pilots have specific de-icing limits based on the type of precipitation, its intensity, type/concentration of anti-icing fluid, and temperature. Ice fog is one of the more restrictive conditions affecting take-off.
Evil
What Puzzlegirl said. And, my new word is STRIA.
@ Greene -- your recap of Auntie Mame's various stage and film reincarnations is much appreciated!
@ Crosscan --NAXOS isn't exactly a "Natick", as it's in the title of a popular humorous opera by Richard Strauss, "Ariadne auf Naxos"... Divas like Schwarzkopf and Sills enjoyed starring in US productions...
Me too ARTLvr!! T-boone Steaks just slayed me, but also gave the "in" to the puzzle. One complaint for Mr. Shortz -- please discourage the use of any abbreviation for "merchandise" on pain of death. There are too many. They are inconsistent. And they are annoying. That being said: neat puzzle.
Thanks for the work-out Mr. Leeds.
Great write-up PG.
The original Rock is worth a listen.
The Def Leppard version is not on the set list of an upcoming Broadway show Rock of Ages. Debuts 03/17/2009.
@artlvr: Are you trying to take the wind out of all of my sails? [Kudos for giving the correct pronunciation hinf for Lied.] Well, there's one thing left: one of Dürer's most famous etchings.
Although I'm not a great fan of add-a-letter themes, this one struck me as better than average, with some good fill and amusing clues--thank God, I never saw some of them.
Very nice Sunday puzzle, I enjoyed every bit of it, and for some reason even the iffier clues made enough sense for me not to agonize over it. I wonder if we're getting a few easy puzzles thrown at us in the coming weeks to lull us into a false sense of confidence.... Better than the panic I felt yesterday. Thank you PuzzleGirl for your great write-up.
I had "tra" for "ooh" for a bit, which led to Arabic instead of Hebrew. I also thought of uey for zag, and Peoria came just like with PuzzleGirl, no idea from where.
We can consider ourselves lucky with the clue for Naxos, on a Friday or Saturday it would probably have been an opera-related clue.
@Ulrich: when I see the name Duerer I always think of his etching of a lovely hare, which he actually also did in watercolor and gouache.
@ Ulrich -- I didn't mean to induce such drastic Melancholia! But you certainly provided a top example of Dürer's genius... Back to my own personal icefog for now.
∑;(
I suppose AURIST parallels the little-used OCULIST (for ophthalmologist).
"A THROW" is just colloquial for "each," like "A POP," which we see here more often.
I agree with you on CAY--shouldn't a "lot" in the Bahamas be just a part of a cay, not the whole place.
It's a beautiful Sunday here -- get outside, everybody!
Enjoyable, breezy puzzle. In addition to acme's comment on the IDs clue, it helped me to think of the clue and answer as verbs, not nouns. I actually liked the clue for AT EASE, but then I'm a military brat.
Along those lines, I immediately thought of RANK for SENIORITY, but it obviously wasn't close to fitting (There's an old military acronym to explain perceived inequities, RHIP--rank has its privileges).
PEORIA and ANOMIE were my "Where did that come from?" answers today. Just knew them. Don't know why. STRIA, not so lucky.
Hitting the road now.
RP
I had a disastrous NW corner, making similar errors to PG but even more -- I had MOTRIN for ANACIN, SPOTS for ROOTS, SAN for SAO, and SEAMEN for YEOMEN. That was the last place I figured out and I had to google to extricate myself from the large number of errors I had.
I also had REALISM instead of IMAGISM; I knew something was wrong but I had to google to figure out that mistake.
I like STINKO for drunk.
Didn't read all the comments, but
LIED for Schubert composition works. A knowledge of German is handy. LIED is pronounced in a way that rhymes with SEED, and LIED in German means song.
Steven Morris
East Hampton, New York
I think both IDs and TAGS are meant as verbs, like
"A witness tagged Smith as the pie-thrower".
It's slangy, tabloidy NY Post speak, a short punchy word to fit into a splashy headline. "COPS TAG PIE PERP IN MERINGUE MELÈE" !
My first theme entry was TBOONESTEAKS, which I got early on, and my last was 114A, where I had filled in STRIP as a partial which caused me headaches no end later on.
I moved in a vaguely southeasterly direction out of Pennsylvania, laying waste to great swaths of the puzzle on the way.
I had SEAMAN in the NW which left me with major problems in both the NW and SE which I dealt with at the very end.
This one took me better than 2 hours, not the fault of the puzzle.
Whew! Belvoir, do you do that stuff for a living??? You're good!
"Aurist" sounds Harry Potter-ish to me. Like someone who's an expert on Aurors.
Got road side stoop first so knew the theme. I too liked photooops and all the other double o's that werent in the theme. Northwest was the worst. Had seaman and didnt know lied
Knew 92D from the comments a few weeks ago.
All in all a fun puzzle
Just saw the recipe in the times magazine!!!
Yummm apple crisp with tortoni
Great write-up, Puzzle Girl on this easy-medium puzzle. TBOONESTEAKS was the first theme answer to fall. Like Rex, AURIST sounds like someone who deals with gold. Don't know why. Just didn't care for this puzzle. No reason. Just didn't. Only other mis-start was SAN for SAO.
Meh.
Thanks for write-up PG!
I like the ID's-as-verb explanation for "tags".
Had a fine time ignoring a ridiculously shaky NW till checking in here; trying PARKAS for winter wear; thought Geoffrey Beene and Bill Blass answer might end in "...MEN," thought that might be true for Navy Officers too, made hash of what John McCain might be. SCHISM for ANOMIE, TIFF for RIFT. Etc. Gagh. Irish guy? Couldn't remember enough James Joyce or WB Yeats to get that one. Funny how an entire corner can twist itself beyond repair.
Favorite word: STRIA.
Most skeptical about: WAR ACE, OOH (could be TRA, or I suppose FAH, if the EPODE isn't at the tip of the pencil), AURIST (as duly noted already by others), & MDSE (another commenter's comment reminded me of Random Roman Numerals for whatever needs to be in the fill).
But, lots of fun with the 7 OO's.
Pretty good puzzle. A medium for me. NW corner was the trickiest part. My sister chipped in on this one as she and her hubby are staying with us over the weekend while her daughter uses her downtown condo for a batchelorette party.
I too parsed IDs as a verb.
PHOTOOOPS was my favorite answer.
Nice write up PG but I think you have an error in your grid. I believe its Buenos AIRES and AREOLE.
I too made the seamen/yeomen mistake. It was ugly. The big mystery for me was a clue that was easy (ie formed by doing other clues) but made no sense: 93A, "A throw"= EACH. Then it finally came to me: each, as in how much things cost each eg "those apples are 50 cents a throw." But come on -- it's a crappy clue. And 86A, "excellence" = MERIT. Not the same at all. Merit is ok, excellent is, well, excellent. Two blemishes on an otherwise fun puzzle.
Thanks for filling in so well today. I was finished, but not sure of several answers until I read your analysis. For a change, all of my guesses were right. Maybe it's a good day for me to go to a casino?
Ah, I see RP is cunningly shouted out to twice today. As requested in 98A, please do so, and quickly Mr. Parker!
Re: 4D EMBED, after searching in Blogger Help for how to EMBED a hyperlink (for this blog) and spelling it IMBED, I nailed that answer. I'm lazy (or just efficient) and put the Help link right into my Favorites folder, because I can't remember the string.
Here it is if anyone wants.
I liked the theme--The answers were clever and not groan-inducing!
Solving was slow but steady with only one hitch. I looked up Nestor in the dictionary and then filled in efts. I have never heard of Nestor or ice fog. All the rest came with fill, even seedman, aurist and lied, all of which made me think what? @Thanks Gonzo8 for the info on lied. And what is ewe's milk? Everything else seemed at least familiar.
I loved the theme - it seemed fresh and funny.
I agree with artlvr - I knew PEORIA instantly because of Pres. Obama's travels during the week. I wouldn't be surprised if that had been true of the vast majority of us, the stuff he's up to just seeping into our consciousness. It's such a joy.
As others have pointed out, the best thing was PHOTO OOPS.
Second-best thing: Puzzle Girl's picture of Judge Ito, whom I'd completely forgotten about...
Oops, I retract my grid error comment. It looks like an I in the small grid but when you blow it up it's an E, so, never mind.
One more thing. Technically, in the U.S. Navy, yeomen are not officers, they are petty officers which is an enlisted rank like corporal or sergeant in the army.
Nice write-up, PuzzleGirl, especially casting Steve Carrell as Rod Blah-goy-of-Itch. I'm going out right now to stand in line to buy a ticket for that movie.
Nice write-up, PG. And nary a whisper about that state you love or that sport you follow.
I was unable to concentrate enough to do this puzzle. Kept trying to work the spy angle! But I have barely slept the past two nights as I'm shooting a short film and we were doing the night scenes. Typing this comment is sapping me of all my mental strength. I'm off to bed.
I'm with Hudson Hawk (an Air Force Brat) on 42D- immediately thought of RANK but, alas, it didn't fit. Also ATEASE came to mind for 90D: Drill bit?. Great minds, etc.
@Crosscan-
I had season tickets in 1993 to the Phillies and attended a lot of games that magic season, including playoffs and a World Series game.
Joe Carter broke my heart.
Puzzle Girl, I read your line about Carell playing Blago to my husband. He thought about it for a minute and then exclaimed about how perfect that would be. He'd need a wig, of course, but the Michael Scott patheticness/obtuseness/ego that Carell nails is quintessential Blagojevichicity.
@Peter, what other abbreviations have you seen in the crossword for merchandise? I think it's pretty much just MDSE, as mdse. is the only abbreviation listed in your typical dictionary.
@Shamik: looks like we're the only two here who aren't raving about this puzzle. I do not advocate PESSIMISM in any way but am hardpressed to get excited about today's effort. Perhaps I need to to get STINKO.
Oh, and thank you PG for your great writeup!
My favorite theme answer is TOYSFORTOOTS. I especially like it because it fits the clue perfectly both with and without the added O.
Charles
I have a major quibble with this puzzle, and another that I saw recently.
'Knickers' is british for 'panties'. LADs do not (typically) wear them, no matter what you think of british manliness!
@anne
SOAPBOX:
Glad people found the theme fresh and funny...but to be fair, I would like to say it again:
Patrick Blindauer had the EXACT theme not 3 months ago in the Sun
(Thurs Nov 6, 2008)
(For those of you who would like to solve it, it's not too late to get back issues of the Sun for only $12.50. GO to cruciverb.com to find out how.
Plus it would help out Peter Gordon, who has gone to great lengths to honor contracts even after the Sun folded...almost unheard of! (PB and I have one coming out this Wed 2/18 and Peter's already paid us!)
This other "PG" has gone to bat for us tirelessly, has challenged other publications to bump up constructor fees, and has kept the puzzles fresh and funny too!)
SPOILER:
Here is a link to what Orange had to say about PB's puzzle...
http://crosswordfiend.blogspot.com/2008/11/thursday-116.html
(seven fun entries including POOP QUIZ and HOOT PANTS)
THIS IS NOT TO TAKE ANYTHING AWAY FROM JIM LEEDS who I'm sure did not get his idea from the Sun (Will might hang on to a Sunday puzzle for years, so who knows when anyone created what?!) AND all the entries are completely different and there are plenty of OO combos folks can use, and the PHOTO OOPS is fabooloos...
but still, I wanted to give a shout out (shoot oot?) to Patrick
constructor-of-the-year-with-an Oryx-to-prove-it Blindauer for being there first.
@Crosscan
I got nothing. (In other words, I'll leave the bra jokes to the boys!)
@Peter
On pain of death???!!!
TAG is a common Facebook, Flickr etc. term meaning to ID someone in a photo or specify the content of a picture or pictures. This is so people in a social network can find people and things easily.
PG, but which university has two synthetic elements named after it?
I saw Durer Italianicized recently, all Tintorettoed-out in some form of cultural expropriation. Is this a form of ANOMIE? I doubt it, since it appears he was a willing subject.
Another off-seeming Clue was 1957 for CASTRO. I'm sure he was revolting in 1957, but 1959 was the year of triumph.
Halfway between Rex (17 mins.) and edith b (2 hrs.) on this one, with one error. Both STRIA and ARETE were new to me so I guessed at the crossing and ended up in downtown Natick.
@Adrian
The use of knickers was definitely from this side of the pond, where it refers to those silly trousers gathered at the knee as worn by golfers (think Payne Stewart or Bobby Jones) or, in days of olde, LADs.
@Bill from NJ - I can relate. Rick Monday broke my heart in 1981 when his home run took a World Series appearance away from the Expos. And I have never forgiven baseball for 1994, when the Expos were the Best Team In Baseball in the season that never ended.
And now they are no more.
Sniff.
@chip - I know what you're saying, but both of those words are pretty standard crosswordese. I had it marked on my puzzle as a possible Natick, but have been working all day and didn't get to post 'til now. You need to know it for puzzles, but not in real life.
"Please restart that LP from STRIA 462"
"What a lovely view of the valley, so nicely shaped by that ARETE"
No.
On a side note, the magazine section had a very interesting piece on Shane Battier today. If your into team sports, I highly recommend you read it. It's on their site under the title, "The No-Stats All-Star".
93A: "Five bucks a throw, ten until noon." Catcher in the Rye.
95D: "Honour" is cheap. But then so is most of the puzzle in the post-Eugene T. Maleska era.
@Adrian, in "Trouble" from The Music Man, a very American musical (Iowa, actually), Professor Harold Hill asks, "Ladies, the minute your son leaves the house, does he rebuckle his knickerbockers BELOW the knees?"
Well, yes, I know knickers was originally a contraction of knickerbockers, but it seemed to me that the clue was trying to hint at 'british word for boy,' and in that sense would be wrong.
Though maybe 'lad' is, per Chip, just an old-fashioned word for boy in the US, to go with an old-fashioned word for pants (trousers)?
And I'm sure you all know this, but 'pants' is underwear for boys where I come from.
So confusing. But it was nice to see honour spelt correctly!
Yo, Sartre, you realize nobody is forcing you to debase yourself with Shortz-era puzzles. You can still find books of Maleska puzzles, like this one. Knock yourself out!
I had the same seamen/yeomen problem, but even then after accepting a wrong definition. Seamen and yeomen are enlisted (petty officers), not officers. John
Tag is a VERB meaning to identify. "I tagged him as a poseur."
LIED is German for "song." Schubert was famous for his romantic lieder (German, plural for "song.")
Even after I put in ROOTS, I was staring at the answer, thinking trees weren't really gray, and the roots were probably white. Finally the penny dropped on the hair.
The NW was my last area too. I had ANEMIA and SEN, and wanted to put in PARKAS. I don't know where my ANOMIE came from either.
Generally a decent puzzle. NW was horrible for me. I had SEAMEN as well, and I agree with anon at 10.59pm that YEOMEN are enlistees not officers. It also made me wonder who wore LASERS in winter, which I first blithely chalked up to "some skiing term that people in the tropics don't ever encounter".
Also hate abbrevs for merchandise. And TAGS / IDs as a verb is how I interpreted it.
HONOUR is great to see. Next up, ANALYSE. And finally, 'twas puzzled too by LADs that wear knickers, although I'll grudgingly accept the "old-fashioned American word" explanation. "Marge, you being a cop makes you the man - which makes me the woman; and I have no interest in that, besides occasionally wearing the underwear, which (as we discussed) is strictly a comfort thing."
Im suprised nobody thought of Goldfinger as the aurist, given the 007 theme!
Perhaps the OO7 theme helped me get ANOMIE instantly. I always associate that word with Ian Fleming Live and Let Die, where I first learned it twentysome years ago. At one point, Mr Big confesses to Bond that he suffers from it. Of course, it did not end up in the film version.
I've heard the phrase "sixteen tons" to refer to a crushing burden, but just thought it was one of these mysteries of English, like "the whole nine yards". Googling reveals it's the title of a famous song from at least the 40s, about the misery of coal mining. Possibly the phrase is older.
As someone who has spent most of my life living near or around Philadelphia, the 1993 World Series winner was actually a gimme for this sports ignoramus. Guess who lost to TORONTO that year? On the likely chance that that bit of trivia had escaped my sports hazy memory, it was referred to repeatedly during the most recent World Series.
Sundays take me a long time ... one or two of these Thursday clues ain't too bad but a whole plethora of them - ick for me
AURIST badly forced medical-ese yes a word, but never used. Honest. Trust me I'm a doctor. :-)
LIED is singular for the more proper LEIDER (plural for songs) in Deutschland und Herr Schubert did the best ones. Go to Amazon and try LIEDER then LIED. Big diff. Bonehead clue I got, doubt it was easy for many.
TAGS = IDs "I tagged him as the thief" - awkward
A THROW for EACH is a stretch: That buccaneer corn is a dollar a throw| YECH!
STRIA those are always (wide) stretch marks to a doc hard to get past that one. Even a Geological stria is large related to human terms even if small earth-sized
Hang around here enough and some of these start to seem logical. Scary.
Well, I sure am completing much more of my Sunday puzzles compared with pre December. Friday and Saturday are not sinking in yet
How bad does AURIST suck?
I just monster.com(med) AURIST and got zero, nil, nada, zilch, null, OMEGA results!
Q.E.D.
Other possiblities for IDs:
1) As in "dog tags"
2) As in tags on blogs to ID keywords?
Other than that, pretty enjoyable. I kept trying for Modernism for Ezra Pound even when imagism was all filled in...
not bad. I didn't like ROADSIDESTOOP for 'place to sit by the highway' - isn't that already a roadside stop? so where's the pun? And 'to stoop' is not the same as 'to sit'. Perhaps if it said 'place to bend over by the highway'.
Joe is right, but also, STOOP is the set of stairs stairs that go to the sidewalk from the first floor of an apartment building, and people customarily sit on them. So, it's something distinct from STOP and it's sittable.
You just don't know much of anything at all, do you girl? How old are you anyway?
Jim Finder already addressed stoop, but I want to add my own recollections of growing up in Queens, NY and stoop-sitting up and down the block at various neighbors' houses. On hot summer evenings in the 50s, everyone sat out on their stoops!
Kind of a 1950s theme emerging:
People sitting on their stoops, listening to Tennessee Ernie Ford's 'Sixteen Tons,' Yogi Berra in the World Series, 'Auntie Mame' in the theaters, Eisenhower in the White House, worried about Castro and the USSR....
I must be the only one who couldn't get the Virginia part of the puzzle. ROUTS for No contstss (45D)? AUNTIE for Mame, for one (60A)? ETOILES for Leading lights in a ballet (53D)? Must be because I had BERLE instead of BERRA in 43A until the very last second. This despite knowing that ENNOTATES is not a word. Awesome puzzle!
I'm from British Columbia, where salmon, sturgeon, and grizzly bears frequently get "tagged" [micro-chipped, ID'd].
Ice fog is a common occurrence in Alaska. It's pretty, but makes the roads very slickery.
I thought this puzzle was a nice mix of hard and easy. Didn't make the seamen/yeoman mistake only because we've had yeo recently in several puzzles in a similar context.
10 degrees and sun this morning. Good day to walk the dog on the lake.
When I finally got "Boobs for apples" the yeomen for seamen, the rest came easy
good puzzle.got all the oos before the rest.suspect=shady?
Dear Puzzle Girl,
re: 48D: Moisten (hydrate) — Puzzle Husband used to say that nobody ever died from drinking too much water.
Also refer to poor Jennifer Strange:
AP Jan. 13, 2007
SACRAMENTO, Calif. - A woman who competed in a radio station’s contest to see how much water she could drink without going to the bathroom died of water intoxication, the coroner’s office said Saturday.
http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/16614865/
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