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Relative difficulty: Easy
THEME: NO GO (65A: Canceled ... or a hint to answering 17-, 27-, 34-, 45- and 57-Across) — phrases that begin with "GO" have the "GO" dropped, creating ... prepositional phrases! And who doesn't love those!?
Word of the Day: GIL Gerard (41A: Gerard of "Buck Rogers in the 25th Century") —
Gilbert C. "Gil" Gerard (born January 23, 1943) is an American actor. He is most famous for his role as Captain William "Buck" Rogers in the 1979-1981 television series Buck Rogers in the 25th Century. (wikipedia)
• • •
Lots of things to be thankful for today, but this puzzle is not among them. Seemed both substandard (for a NYT Thursday) and misplaced (Wednesday-easy). Taking "GO" out of phrases is not interesting. At all. There is no cleverness here, no trickery, no unexpected delight. Nothing. Just ... NOGO. It's a remedial idea for a puzzle, and I'm surprised it was accepted at all. The grid is certainly adequate, but conceptually, this theme is weak. Aside from the fact that missing "GO" does nothing interesting to the phrases, there's the problem of "GO" being Not Missed At All from several of the phrases. BYTHEBOOK and OVERTHETOP are completely legitimate, self-standing phrases; if it weren't for the cluing, no one would blink at these entries—whereas FORTHEGOLD is nonsense. So many THEs ... a plural ARLENES ... EFGH ... I'm at a loss.Theme answers:
- 17A: Try to win (FOR THE GOLD)
- 27A: Not vary from proper procedure (BY THE BOOK)
- 34A: Follow everyone else (WITH THE FLOW)
- 45A: Deteriorate (TO THE DOGS)
- 57A: Take things way too far (OVER THE TOP)
I think I was slightly slower than I might have been mainly because I spent the first half of the solve overthinking things. Once I finally accepted that the theme was as straightforward and obvious as it
appeared to be, and that the grid was, at best, ordinary, words started to come a lot faster. Had only one real hang-up, with DEBT for CASH (13A: Bills, e.g.), and one real head-scratcher—IRENE (26A: Mrs. Forsyte in "The Forsyte Saga"). No idea what "The Forsyte Saga" is, but IRENE is the crosswordiest woman's name there is (esp. in five letters), so once I had the "I," I just guessed. Took me a while to get SCARAB (brain just kept saying "ANKH!?") (1D: Ancient Egyptian talisman) and ASGARD (9D: Heavenly home of the Norse gods) (learned it from crosswords, and often get it confused with AESIR, which I also learned from crosswords). "WHO'S NEXT?" is an album title (34D: Waiting room query). In what "waiting room" would you hear it as a query? Doctors know who's next. Most service providers with waiting clients do. Who is supposed to be making this query? The waiter or the waitee? Argh.Anyone wishing to get a solid introduction to heavily overused crossword words could do worse than looking here first: OMERTA, GSUIT, OLLA, ARLENE(S), ASGARD, BABA, SRIS, ANO, ROO, EWES etcetcetc.
Enjoy your Thanksgiving. Thanks for reading.
Signed, Rex Parker, King of CrossWorld
ASGARD actually means home of the Aesir, hence all confusion is not confustion but an inate sense of etymology.
ReplyDeleteI was recently in a bookstore, a real live bookstore in a college town, and they had both of the Eddas: poetic and prose. The Eddas had the same shelf space as Jody Picault. That made me much less sad about the demise of my local Borders.
Will is messing with us.Monday was brutal with my worst time ever, then Wed Thurs I have my best times ever.
ReplyDeleteFor a second there I thought I thought I was making a huge breakthrough.
Where did Thanksgiving GO? I was thinking there would be a turkey hidden somewhere in the puzzle-- or may be stuffing. I'd even take yam. But the only hint of food was BABA- hardly classic fare.
ReplyDeleteMy daughter is home for the holiday and she looked over my shoulder as I was solving and cracked up-- ASGARD? Next to HOOSEGOW? Come to think of it, some of the words that find their way into puzzles are plain weird.
But I did like SCARAB, SHANGHAI and SEXT. And the fact the soaked BABA crosses BLOTTO is cool. So, I'll (go) WITH THE FLOW and be thankful for this puzzle, my family and friends, and of course, for Rex and Rexville. Happy Turkey day everyone!
I was looking for the Turkey.I think I.ve found it.I can't iagine what made this a thursday-will Will think we would be too busy to do a puzzle today? 61 across is kinda cute- I wished I'd seen it while I was solving but it went so fast I had no time.
ReplyDeleteRex -- The Forsyte Saga is a series of books by John Galsworthy, and a BBC series (that appeared in the US on PBS) made in 1967. I remember this series well; it was a BIG deal in my house, and I watched it with my mother. The series made a real impression; the name "Irene" came instantly to mind, and 1967 was a LONG time ago.
ReplyDelete"Hoosegow" right above "Outlaw" was my favorite thing here. The theme was "eh," though, so I didn't really like this puzzle very much.
Happy Thanksgiving, all.
@syndy - Had a good laugh with your turkey find.
ReplyDeleteAgree wholeheartedly with Rex's call on the puzzle. Way too easy and whipped through it so quickly I felt I was cheated out of my favorite puzzle day. Only write over was SEXT over tEXT and PPS over PsS (dumb mistake).
Happy Thanksgiving to everyone who resides in Rexville.
Yikes, I guess I have to agree with Rex, almost word for word...
ReplyDeletetho I loved SHANGHAI, HOOSEGOW, settling an OLDSCORE, BEDREST and SEXT.
(I guess there's a mini-story there!)
There will be those who love BLOTTO, I suspect, who will be the opposite of those who go "BLOTTO, wtf???!!!" (Probably same folks who will know ARLENE Francis)
Structurally, I would have left out FORTHEGOLD...not only is it meaningless as a stand alone, but it has GO in it...(as does HOOSEGOW and IGORS come to think of it)
Anyway, fun idea, but yes, she should have extracted the letters GO from a phrase, leaving a funnier phrase.
Rather than turn this into a slag-fest, on Thanksgiving no less, perhaps we can all take turns coming up with a phrase that drops the letters GO, leaving something sensical...and perhaps by the end of the day, we'll have the makings of a NOGO puzzle worthy of submission, somewhere!
I'll start. Um. Hmmm. It's more fun to ADD GO, like even FUN becomes FUNGO! Girls just want to have FUNGO!
But let's see...how about...
hmmm, I keep thinking the other way, SLUGGOFEST (Nancy's party for her beau?)
OK, one more try...
(This is way hard...Sharon's just dropping the initial GO is starting to make more sense now)
WAITINGFORDOT ...Anxious to get to the end of this sentence?
RYANSLING "Drive" actor in a "cast"?
Having ready The Forsyte Saga, all I can say is be thankful it was one of the characters with a normal name. The other characters include a Soames, two Jolyons and a Swithin!
ReplyDelete@ACME: If we're adding GO then how about MANGOONTHEMOON (spoiled for choice here!) or FARMERSTANGO?
Having ready The Forsyte Saga, all I can say is be thankful it was one of the characters with a normal name. The other characters include a Soames, two Jolyons and a Swithin!
ReplyDelete@ACME: If we're adding GO then how about MANGOONTHEMOON (spoiled for choice here!) or FARMERSTANGO?
Easy except for TEA time, LAIRD for LIEGE, and @chefwen tEXT. Liked the long downs but the rest was more of a meh Tues.
ReplyDeleteYou're right andrea, it's way hard, so I'm ING to stop trying.
last tan in paris -- end of a chinese dynasty in france?
ReplyDeletecarp lane -- chute in a fish farm?
well's far -- bad news in the desert?
ogle search singles bar activity?
od for nothing --outcome of free drugs?
ne with the wind -- gliding from new york to boston?
@r.alphabunker
ReplyDeleteLASTTANINPARIS !!! Fabulous!!!
ODFORNOTHING!!
You see! Much more constructive...literally!
WELLSFAR is nice, good definition even, but on the short side at 8....
Ok, here we...
Oh, I wish I had time to play this game ... the turkey is waiting.
ReplyDeleteI have to agree about the puzzle but it did prompt me to write:
SHANGHAI that OUTLAW to the HOOSEGOW! WHO'S NEXT?!
Happy Thanksgiving everybody and many thanks to @Rex!
Liked the juxtaposing of HOOSEGOW & WHOSNEXT.
ReplyDeleteThe line does not appear in the novel, only the Gregory Peck movie.
ReplyDeleteSTARBUCK, FIRST MATE
It's late; you should turn in.
CAPTAIN AHAB
Sleep? That bed is a coffin, and those are winding sheets. I do not sleep, I die.
Here is the plan hatched last night. I now live in the country and have friends with AREA measured in squares (many acres). And, I learned how to make sheep's milk cheese whilst living in VT. And, people hate to cut grass. So we start a lawn service with cheese as a by product:
ReplyDeleteEWE MOW.
YOU DO NOT!
(did I mention last night was winey Wednesday at Orchard Creek, half price OLLAs of vino).
Following the code of Ena: "If you can not say anything nice... make a joke at your own expense.
I stared at 38D where I had UPCLOtE and in a flash it came to me: I am so out of touch.
** (2 Giblets) I am going to see if Netflix has Dr. NO to watch while I prep.
gooble gooble
SPECTRE = SPecial Executive for Counter-intelligence, Terrorism, Revenge and Extortion.
ReplyDeleteNothing to add, except that WHO'S NEXT is actually the title of a sadly prophetic Tom Lehrer song.
ReplyDeleteHappy Thanksgiving, everyone!
My searcher cried "eurEka!".
ReplyDeleteToday I am thankful that a car-flipping colleague removed a non-functional vehicle from my driveway last night. Not only made it disappear, but handed me a check. We'll class this place up yet.
I'm getting together with a few relatives tomorrow, because I can't deal with all of them today.
Happy Thanksgiving All.
Any puzzle with ARLENE in it is fine with me! Maybe I'll be famous someday too! www.listeningclosely.com
ReplyDeleteI don't usually like to disparage the puzzles, but this was really disappointing for a Thanksgiving Thursday. This is the best puzzle Will received?
ReplyDeleteYankee doodle doo. Happy thanksgiving everyone!
ReplyDeleteMaybe the theme is all about travel - or more accurately, a tacit suggestion to FORE__ it this weekend...NOGO, RAIL, AIR...????
ReplyDelete@dk - Did you read the NYT article last week about the entrepreneur in Ohio that rent his sheep out for mowing of lawns?
Am trying for some NOGO cluing, but it's not easy...!
And I have much to bake before I sleep.
Happy Thanksgiving...
Oooops! My name didn't come up on my previous comment - here it is again.
ReplyDeleteAny puzzle with ARLENE in it is fine with me!
Maybe I'll be famous someday too!
Here's my book website - and my book actually has a curious crossword puzzle incident in it.
www.listeningclosely.com
I found this puzzle about like the majority. Meh.
ReplyDeleteLEAR before AHAB, TEA/ABCD before TEE/EFGH (lame either way), NFL before AFC, SÜD before OST, and it took a few crosses to assure ASGARD.
I assume the 30A clue means AÑO, in which case the clue seems to me better written as "Period, with a tilde." Should have a comma, and why the question mark?
Right, easy. I couldn't believe it is a Thursday. Why no Thanksgiving theme? Don't understand 23A--Pranks=TPS??
ReplyDeleteHappy Thanksgiving everyone. Thanks again @Rex.
Mehthane--obnoxious gas caused by inferior crosswords
ReplyDelete@ Sparky - TPS - Toilet papers. the reference is to TPing a house as a prank. I assume you either did not grow up in the US or led a very protected life while in middle school.
ReplyDeleteI'll bet every other professor in your department knows what the Forsyte Saga is.
ReplyDeleteHappy Thanksgiving to all!
ReplyDelete@ACME - "La-di-dah name for convenience store operated by former ballerina? - MART FONTEYN."
The thing that makes the NOGO theme mildly interesting is that all the theme answers are clued as if they DID include the GO. You have to figure out that it's missing for the answers to make sense with the clues. That's what makes FORTHEGOLD acceptable.
ReplyDeleteA snoozefest saved by the write up and comments. I was really hoping for a challenge since I have a lot of spare time today. No company and dinner for two.
ReplyDeleteThanks to all of you. I consider every one of you a friend.
Count me as somewhat of an outlier on this one; thought the theme and tenor of the puzzle made it a paradigm of gentility and perfectly enjoyable in its fashion.
ReplyDeleteWhere it comes up short is in its absence of any of the tension or extreme cleverness needed for a stand out Thursday puzzle and, thus, it seems better suited as an early-weeker.
The fill did have some wonderful, imaginative bits, just look at the four down 8's of SHANGHAI, HOOSEGOW, WHOSNEXT and OLDSCORE as exhibit number one.
Finally, and thankfully, Sharon used an up-to-date, (if still too tame), clue for SEXT, which had been clued in one past Times puzzle as "Noon service, to ecclesiastics". (Give me a stick and I'll beat that one to a pulp!)
Good effort, Sharon. Keep at it.
I am thankful for the nod (albeit clumsy) to the tilde that so often gets ignored in crossworld.
ReplyDeleteI am thankful to be so far removed from mob violence that OMERTA/ESTA was a guess (without puzzles, all six letters would have been a mystery, but now I almost remember it. I suppose I am thankful for that, too, though I am not sure).
I am thankful for the TESORO that keeps me in a comfortable home with food to eat, however meager it might seem to some.
I am thankful I have never had to spend time in the HOOSEGOW.
As others have said, I am thankful for this community where I can geek out on the puzzle without getting blank looks and slow head shakes.
ACME: it's weak, but I came up with JOHNNY B ODE. Or maybe JOHNNY BODE. Actually, now that I look at it in writing, forget I said anything.
AL TENDING? maybe that's a little better, though I can't think of any particularly famous ALs offhand.
BBLE BBLE.
oh, there is Al Gore. I guess I tend to block him out because it brings up bad memories of an election stolen by judicial decree.
ReplyDeleteI thought he'd be an excellent choice, given the potential double meaning of his name, but now I can't really come up with a clever way to clue it.
Maybe Will made the puzzle easy on purpose, because of Thanksgiving?
ReplyDeleteI've heard "NEXT!" in waiting rooms, but never "WHO'S NEXT?".
I avoided tEXT since the clue had a ?. Similarly, I avoided Laird since that's essentially the same word as the word Lord in the clue itself.
POTHOOK and its "S-shape" clue made me smile. About ten years ago, I read Patrick White The Vivisector. From early in the book, the first day of grade school:
Miss Adams told her class she was going to start them on pothooks .... Some of the kids could hardly hold the pencil ... Miss Adams encouraged them to join the pothooks by imagining they were making a little hooped fence. Hurtle was so shocked by her old pothooks he couldn't make anything at all.
I read that paragraph over and over and over again. I had absolutely no clue what I was reading. Pothooks? POTHOOKS? I had a peculiar I-know-what-pothooks-are-thank-you-Mr-White feeling, but I concluded this was some utterly bizarre Australian slang or something, and kept reading. And just to rub it in, soon came:
[Miss Adams:] 'You were supposed to form pothooks.' [Hurtle:] 'Pothooks! I can write!'
Of course, I did not do the obvious intelligent thing.
So it wasn't until a year later when looking through a dictionary--American, naturally--and checking out a word or two near my target, I learned a basic truth. "Pothook" also means the S-shape in writing itself, especially when done by children. All my life, I had thought they were "esses".
In fact, there's even an idiom "pothooks and hangers" meaning children's writing.
I could have dealt with a tougher puzzle, the bird's in the oven and I have some time....
ReplyDeleteI love the shape of scarabs, use them, carved out of semi-precious stones, in my jewelry.
I had a little bit of a hard time in the SE, because I put "lays" at 66A.
There was a new version of the Forsythe Saga a couple of years ago, very beautiful. Irene was pronounced Ireenee.
Happy Thanksgiving, everyone!
Agree that the fill is better than the theme. Thankful not to be doing the cooking today.
ReplyDeleteLET MY PEOPLE ("We're available to rent!")
MERRY, ROUND (Descriptors for Santa)
ASK ALICE (How to find out about Ralph Kramden)
MR. MAO (Near-sighted Chinese leader)
Hmm this isn't that easy...
Also appreciated SHANGHAI, HOOSEGOW, WHOS NEXT and OLD SCORE. And SCARAB, BEDREST, GIRLIE, and POTHOOK.
ReplyDeleteGot the theme at 17A and slid right through.
Giving thanks for all of you and for Rex and the blog. I discovered the blog while attending summer graduate school at Creighton U. The dorm received exactly 6 NYT each day and they were quickly taken. This little old lady would set my alarm for 5, scoot down the hall in my jammies and snag a paper. Then I'd go back to bed. Read the paper and did the puzzle while having breakfast. One day I was totally bamboozled by a clue and fired up the search engine. I came across Rex Parker and I was hooked. At home I did the syndicated puzzle, so I was very grateful when, about a year ago, my husband gave me a NYT puzzle subscription for my birthday and have been delighted to participate in real time ever since. We are truly blessed.
I could on and on about the puzzle, but I've been under the weather, so I need to in the other room and dig out my meds. :-)
ReplyDeleteHope Rex and the Rexville family have Happy Thanksgivings!
the any and the ectasy -- love the one you're with?
ReplyDeleteetrip -- a journey in cyberspace?
bond rums -- join liquor?
to considered harmful - infinitive banned?
The last one is an attempt at some nerd humor. Google gets the joke.
I hope everyone has something to be thankful for today besides crossword puzzles.
A very minor puzzle. And a very minor point - The Forsyte Saga was redone by the BBC with Damian Lewis, formerly of Band of Brothers, and who is currently in Homeland on Showtime. It was shown on Masterpiece Theater in 2003.
ReplyDeleteOff to give thanks for a gorgeous day weatherwise, and for the fact that someone else is cooking!
I thought Irene from the Forsytes was the saving grace of this puzzle. At least it brought to mind one of the best mini-series in television history and a massive novel that is hard to put down. I hadn't thought about The Forsyte Sage in a long time but I may did it out and re-read it now.
ReplyDeleteOlla. My
ReplyDeletenogo contribution.
Probably, sans cold, I'd agree easy.
Hope it is as beautiful and happy for all as it is in Southwestern CT this day.
Didn't mind the puzzle as much as others, although it was very easy for a Thursday, and, like @mac, I was expecting more after getting the bird in the oven. Thought at first the theme was going to be "one for the money, two for the show, three to get ready, etc." Now, one of you clever constructors, "GO! GO! GO!" Happy Thanksgiving all.
ReplyDeleteOK OK -
ReplyDeleteLAST TAN IN PARIS - Speaker Boehner's European objective
JUST OGLE IT - how to locate internet porn
E -- Identiy crisis.
ReplyDelete@retired_chemist
ReplyDeleteJUST OGLE IT - Michelle Bachmann's porn site warning.
accidentally kill oneself with excess pills: OD AND PLENTY
ReplyDeleteOh, remembered some more ALs, which opens up other avenues to cluing AL TENDING. Still haven't come up with any clues that aren't mediocre.
Gore treatment?
Green management?
Handling Sharpton?
that's all I got.
At least the phrases were consistent: [go] <preposition> THE <noun>, with no preposition repeated. Still a rather pedestrian theme for Thanksgiving Thursday. Maybe Will is setting us up for a theme with entries like "against thaw" for Christmas Day?
ReplyDeleteWhich reminds me: any alternatives along the lines of "Mr. Mao" that drop the GO across a word boundary? The only example I can come up with is rather a DOWNER.
Apropos the tilde-less 30A:ANO, the clue for 64A could have gone for ESTÁ, crossing 43D:OMERTÀ in an accented A but with a different accent!
AÑO, ESTA, and 46D:TESORO make a trifecta of Spanish entries — four, in fact, if you know that 10A:HOOSEGOW comes from Spanish juzgado.
Happy T-day,
—NDE
@NDE
ReplyDeleteESTÁ means "He is." ESTA means "This." I didn't know the mob used the accent, but, in this case, the cross does not work with the accent as clued.
@Juan: Sí, yo sé que en español ESTÁ significa "he [she, it, etc.] is" y no significa "this". But the entry 64A:ESTA could have been clued for ESTÁ, in keeping with the usual crossword convention of ignoring accents.
ReplyDeleteI did, however, give the wrong direction for HOOSEGOW, which of course is at 10-Down, not Across.
NDE
GREEN goBLIN? BINgo PARLOR? LEAKY SPIgoT?
ReplyDeleteIn fairness to the constructor, I'd like to say I had a GOood time solving her puz today. People were just lookin' for an ornerier gimmick in their ThursPuz, I reckon. Something with some giblets in it, maybe.
Fave fill: HOOSEGOW and SHANGHAI. ASGARD is cool, too, but I'da spelled it a bit different. (As in: what you need to wear, if you're gonna publish yer crosswords in the NYT.)
Fave clues: "It may be assumed" and "Wasted". Clue for SORE mystified me a bit; was it just an arbitrary example of something that might make one feel "sore" at someone else?
Happy Thanksgiving, all you Arlenes and Igors.
Midday report of relative difficulty (see my 8/1/2009 post for an explanation of my method):
ReplyDeleteAll solvers (median solve time, average for day of week, ratio, percentile, rating)
Thu 13:21, 19:01, 0.70, 6%, Easy
Top 100 solvers
Thu 6:58, 9:17, 0.75, 13%, Easy
Apparently, Will didn't want to distract us for long today from eating and watching parades and football.
Happy Thanksgiving to all.
Speaking of football, GO PACK!
ReplyDeletePretty sure puzzles are easier on the major holidays...it's no doubt part of whatever the master marketing plan is....
ReplyDeleteA really hard puzzle on a day when lots of newbies pick up the puzzle would just drive them away, which doesn't really help any of us... It also is sort of a "greatest good for the greatest number" thing, I'm guessing. Everyone likes a successful solve on a holiday.
@retired_chemist. Grew up in Brooklyn. I'm so old we didn't have middle school or junior high. Grade school, High School, College (if you were lucky). Fortunately, we did have toilet paper. For Halloween we used to chalk people's coats or smack each other with socks filled with flour. Primitive little beasties.
ReplyDeleteI had a yummy Thanksgiving dinner with a friend at a restaurant named Bubby's Pie Company. Now I may take a little nap.
Hm, there's "asking out" → "a ski nut", which works nicely as far as the wordplay goes but is still a bit shorter than one would like for a theme entry.
ReplyDeleteNDE
Twas a good day, but long and tiring, with three hours on the road, too much to eat and drink, and four kids under the age of three, so please, proposers or anyone, how am I to understand -
ReplyDeleteto considered harmful - infinitive banned? from r.alphbunker
and, Olla from JOHN V?
I.e., where does the GO go?
This week's relative difficulty ratings. See my 8/1/2009 post for an explanation. In a nutshell, the higher the ratio, the higher this week's median solve time is relative to the average for the corresponding day of the week.
ReplyDeleteAll solvers (this week's median solve time, average for day of week, ratio, percentile, rating)
Mon 7:35, 6:51, 1.11, 90%, Challenging
Tue 9:51, 8:52, 1.11, 81%, Challenging
Wed 9:43, 11:48, 0.82, 14%, Easy
Thu 13:23, 19:01, 0.70, 6%, Easy (8th lowest median solve time of 128 Thursdays)
Top 100 solvers
Mon 4:15, 3:40, 1.16, 94%, Challenging (8th highest median solve time of 126 Mondays)
Tue 5:07, 4:34, 1.12, 83%, Challenging
Wed 5:13, 5:50, 0.89, 26%, Easy-Medium
Thu 6:55, 9:17, 0.74, 13%, Easy
Rex, thanks for fixing the syndicated "button"-makes my day iced. Amazing how little things matter!
ReplyDeleteBeing in syndie land can be interesting, reading about everyone roasting turkey while I'm trying to use up the Christmas roast! We truly live in different times.
Enjoyed today's puzzle, but also fell into the "eureka" trap.
Sorry , meant to say made my day nicer-tho the other wording has interesting overtones.
ReplyDelete(GO)BYTHEBOOK IS WHAT I did for my entire career. (GO)WITHTHEFLOW is my plan to ensure a long, happy retirement although I still occasionally (GO)FORTHEGOLD when the objective seems worthwhile. And (GO)TOTHEDOGS pretty much sums up where I'm at, literally, since when it comes to taking in animals I'm inclined to (GO)OVERTHETOP. (That may be why my love-life has been a NOGO lately.)
ReplyDeleteSpacecraft here.
ReplyDeleteMother ose: maternal sweetness
Altender: SOMEbody has to watch that Sharpton dude!
Ng Show: Evelyn's new poker tutorial.
Flash rdon: Behave yourself, Rickles!
Odlly Miss Molly: I don't know why she's not married, either.
Frustrated by yet another EKE, our solver "go"es OVERTHETOP, puts on his GSUIT and TPS the constructor's AREA. But it's a NOGO; this OUTLAW gets busted and sent to the HOOSEGOW (rode him outa town on a RAIL, they did!).
pringleg: the weak gravity force that allows those chips to nestle perfectly.
I liked this well enough--it just wasn't a Thursday. NOT the constructor's fault. I thought it was a nice idea, well-executed. So, pphbbbt to all you cranky pants! It had some fun fill. Plus, it got the blog going!
ReplyDelete@Bob Kerfuffle: I believe that @r.alphbunker meant just "to GO considered harmful" I stared at that long and hard meself. What John V meant, I dunno.
ITO PIECES: remnants of an emperor..., though that wouldn't really fit the theme, as the clue would have to be for the phrase WITH the "go." ah well. never mind.
Thanks, all, especially RP of course, for the blog. And happy almost New Year here in syndi-land!
@Bob Kerfuffle and
ReplyDelete@Red Valerian:
As @r.ralphbunker already suggested, do a browser search on "go to considered harmful". Do the research; then comment.
------
The puzzle triggered one of my pet peeves: forming an English plural of a strictly foreign term. SRIS is at the top of that list for sheer overuse and utter lack of couth. Constructors who use such words are no longer accepted at gatherings of the illuminatuses.