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Relative difficulty: Medium (with lots of variation likely)
THEME: ON and ON and ON (52A: How a motormouth talks … or what 20-, 29- and 43-Across literally have in common) — theme answers feature the letter pairing "ON" three times
Theme answers:
- TONY TONI TONÉ (20A: 1990s R&B group with a repetitive-sounding name)
- LONDON, ONTARIO (29A: City midway between Detroit and Toronto)
- MONSOON SEASON (43A: June to September, in India)
Canarium luzonicum, commonly known as elemi, is a tree native to the Philippines, and anoleoresin harvested from it. // Elemi resin is a pale yellow substance, of honey-like consistency. Aromatic elemi oil is steam distilledfrom the resin. It is a fragrant resin with a sharp pine and lemon-like scent. One of the resin components is called amyrin.
Elemi resin is chiefly used commercially in varnishes and lacquers, and certain printing inks. It is used as a herbal medicine to treat bronchitis, catarrh, extreme coughing, mature skin, scars, stress, and wounds. The constituents include phellandrene, limonene, elemol, elemicin, terpineol, carvone, and terpinolene. (wikipedia) (not to be confused with the 1985 John Malkovich film "ELENI" or the 1983 book it's based on)
• • •
ELEMI is pretty horrid, but most of the rest of the fill is pretty good. I thought the pedal was a "WAH WAH" pedal. Just one WAH? Wha? Puzzle played very easy for me, generally. One answer that gave me a little trouble was the one with perhaps the best (in the sense of craziest-sounding) clue—3D: Like sheer fabric or sautéed onions (TRANSLUCENT). Very nice (despite the duped ENT, which is also duped in TENTS and CENT, and which is anagrammed in TEN). Also, RAINS ON crossing MONSOON SEASON—hat tip to that. My only real mistake came at 52D: Choice on a gambling line (OVER). I had ODDS.
That is all.
Easy-medium for me. Smooth grid with a cute theme at just about the right level for a Tues. Major erasure was TRANSlucENT before TRANSPARENT.
ReplyDelete@Rex I always thought it was a WAH-WAH pedal too but Wiki says either is OK.
Put in HOSEA with just the H and not because I know my Old Testament....
A fine Tues. Liked it! Nice one Gary!
Really nice Tuesday. Really good theme answers, but what I really liked was a lot of really nice downs, especially the two 11s: TRANSLUCENT and WRITING DESK. Both were clued quite nicely as well.
ReplyDeleteGiven that everything else is really solid, I'm willing to forgive the admittedly ungainly ELEMI. At least it was fairly crossed. And it's really the only bit of gunk I noticed. Fair exchange for a very good early-week puzzle.
I had NAANS instead of NAILS as things that take a pounding. Oops.
ReplyDeleteYep -- It's a wah wha pedal! My only real hang-up was putting pimentos for pine nuts. I'm guessing our chefs are laughing out loud at me!
ReplyDeleteSolid easy-medium Tuesday for me too.
Nice puzzle, Mr Cee. I counted 21 letter O's in it. If that's not a record, it's got to be close.
ReplyDeleteGoing back to Sunday's puzzle, I found this story in
A Whack on the Side of the Head that might be amusing to a few of you;
“The story goes that William Spooner (the late nineteenth century educator known for transposing the initial sounds of words, e.g., tons of soil for sons of toil, or queer old dean for dear old queen, and from whom we get the term Spoonerism) was at a dinner party in which he happened to knock the salt shaker on the carpet. Without missing a beat, Spooner poured his wine on top of it.”
A neuroscientist would have an interesting time with Mr. Spooner!
Every now and then the puzzle throws us word nerds a bone. Today it is TRANSLUCENT. It has an interesting etymology, and it invites us to recall things we have seen that are so, like "sheer fabric or sautéed onions", or maybe JELLY FISH.
ReplyDeleteCan't tell you how many times I've seen ELEMI in a puzz, so glad to see the Rexulator make it the word of the day. It's a real thing and it has a convenient sequence of letters, so you can be sure it will be appearing again soon in a puzzle near you.
I have now typed my comments twice and both times "The Terrorist" new kitten has tap danced on my keyboard and wiped them out. Once more and I'm outa here. The cutest kitty in the world has the devil in her and I have the wounds to prove it.
ReplyDeleteAnyhoo, @wreck - I didn't laugh out loud, but I did chortle out loud. I abhor pimentos and can't imagine them in a lovely Pesto.
Was sailing along rather smoothly until I came to my last unfilled area of the AIDAN/HOSEA/VITAE crossing. Spelled AIDAN with an E, had HOSEA in out and in again. That spot took me longer that the whole puzzle. Other than that, I enjoyed this one.
Pretty entertaining. I have only one issue with this puzzle: It's a WAH WAH pedal, not a WAH pedal. Ask any guitarist. I have played in a lot of bands and I never once heard it referred to as a WAH pedal.
ReplyDeleteLeapin' Lizards! Two long downs and I got them right away. Few and far between. How many times have I heard Jacques Pepin say (and I am sure Chefwen also) sauté the onions until they are translucent, unfortunately I can't spell and my spelling did not fit so I put transparent instead.
ReplyDeleteI had the Ontario and I knew it was wa? whether an 'h' or an 'a'. So I had wr and voila, writing desk.
A little problem in the SW section but I am going swimmingly along and I am only left with _rapts and _ares to cross the resin clue. Ponder, Ponder, Ponder and then my eureka moment. So that is how you spell translucent. The Pondon Ontario did not bother me because who knows the name of any town in Canada.
Really liked the puzzle for a Tuesday (as Rex would say). Of course it was a little embarrassing singing the Star Spangled Banner over and over again in a hotel coffee shop in Bangkok until I came up with the brave ending. I guess Thai waitresses aren't used to shaky, old tenors holding onto that last note...'home of the brave..'
One of my favorite Tuesday's in a long time. Only write-over was wanting to gOAd someone in a friendly persuasion.
ReplyDeleteGOYA...preferred his "Caprichos" over his frescoes. URIS...preferred his "Trinity" over "Topaz". Do YUKON potatoes come from Alaska?
@wreck: Well, nowadaze you can pretty much make pesto with anything you like as long as it has some olive oil in it. Instead of basil you can use cilantro and then add some of @chefbea's beets!
@paulsfo from Sunday. A belated thank you for your instructions on how to get my comments to show up in my e-mail. I tried it... [sigh] it doesn't work!
This puzzle was so adorable I want to pinch its cheeks.
ReplyDeleteQuery:
Why is ELEMI worse than ANTES? Isn't ANTE(S) the crosswordese of all crosswordese?
Interestingly no one ever seems to complain.
Antes would be more imaginatively clued as "Before, in Barcelona".
DeleteThis was a quick little bit of fluff. I liked the theme even though the TONY and LONDON answers were completely new to me. I call it fluff because I found myself filling in the grid without looking at the clues and I don't recall that happening before even on a Tuesday. It all came together nicely and only transparent/TRANSLUCENT slowed me for the blink of an eye.
ReplyDeleteHand up for parent/LUCENT mistake. And I've read the words Cirriculum VITAE about 1,000 times and still misspelled them thanks to AIDeN QUINN (hi @chefwen). But good old HOSEA bailed me out.
ReplyDeleteLived in Syracuse for years with friends in Detroit who we visited regularly - hence LONDON, ONTARIO a gimme. TONYTONITONE had to fill, but rang an old bell as we completed it.
Fun easy/medium Tuesday for us. Thanks Gary Cee.
Interesting question, Questinia. Perhaps puzzlers are more likely also to be card players, and therefore to actually hear and use "antes" now and then?
ReplyDeleteTony! Toni! Tone! reminds me of a season when I was living in New York and every day passed a wall plastered with posters for an upcoming (then current...then long past) appearance. I recall trying to find a way to say the band's name out loud in a way that both justified the exclamation points and provided some variation - one might usefully make an acting exercise out of such a thing...
It should have been "When doubled, a guitar pedal" because no guitar player I know calls it a way pedal.
ReplyDeleteI finished this one faster than yesterday, which should make this as "easy" for me.
Oops, darned autocorrect "wah" not way...
ReplyDeletei had the same experience as @Hartley70...i was looking at the grid and guessing the answers - then looking at the clues-don't know what possessed me to do that....maybe it will become my monday/tuesday thang....
ReplyDeleteone of the first puzzle answers i learned was ELEMI...haven't seen it in a while...
@rex - good catch on ENT dupes.
ReplyDeleteTo add to the theme, there are six ONs in the down answers.
Solid Tuesday, fun theme. I hadn't heard of 20 across, but everything fell easily, yet there was just enough crunch to keep things interesting.
Factoid: The LONDON, ONTARIO, Rib-Fest, is the second largest barbecue rib festival in North America.
Quotoid: "I've developed into quite a SWAN. I'm one of those people that will probably look better and better as I get older until I drop dead of beauty." -- Rufus Wainwright
Good puzzle and hand up for transparent before translucent.
ReplyDeleteLove pesto!! And never realized my sautéed onions and my nighty had something in common!!!
I work with guitarists all the time. It's more often called a "WAH" pedal where I'm from. It is, admittedly, an abbreviated version of WAH-WAH, but most of the time when you have call for that kind of sound, just one WAH gets the point across. (Usually, when you have need for that kind of a sound you won't even need to say anything at all, a good guitarist will dial it up without anyone having to say it at all...wah-wah guitar is called for by very specific kinds of music.) Sometimes you can just say "wocka-wocka" and they know what you mean.
ReplyDelete"Can you put wah-wah on this song?" said no bluegrass musician ever.
Speaking of "usual," this was a usual Tuesday. Seems lately Tuesdays have been rather, well, ORNERY. This one not so much.
Me, too for TRANSparENT before the lovely TRANSLUCENT.
ReplyDeleteFun smash up of CENT/MONEY/ANTES in the SE corner.
A lot of staring going on with "Catch sight of" for ESPY and "Looked at" for EYED.
Loved WHYNOT.
Fresh and original theme which couldn't have been easy to pull off ... you've done it again, Gary Cee!
Ditto TRANSparent/LUCENT. And I was missing the other WAH. That said, this was a fun Tuesday.
ReplyDeleteThis comment has been removed by the author.
ReplyDeleteHow about some nonsense prose?
ReplyDeleteIt is a foregone conclusion that a monotonous construction like this one is a non-confrontational method for one-on-one conditioning of honey-onion bonbons with consonant pronouns, and in no way condones the conspicuous consumption of tons upon tons of such bonbons.
The ozone concentration on Montana mountain tops is a conflation of, and cross-contamination among, the non-contagion of mononucleosis molecules and Bon-Ton coupons. The only bone of contention is that pontoon flotation devices shouldn't monopolize month-by-month donations. It's all about money, monee, moni.
I could've gone ON AND ON AND ON longer but I want to leave a few stones on stones and I don't want anyone to think I've gone bononas as is my wont.
[Mini-quiz: how many ON's above?]
I count 8 ons in AliasZ's post.
DeleteThat was supposed to say 82.
DeleteWhirred Whacks@12:31AM said- " I counted 21 letter O's in it. If that's not a record, it's got to be close."
ReplyDeleteNot even in the top ten.
Steve Riley's puzzle on Tuesday, 6/19/12 had the letter "O" as its only vowel and gave us a puzzle with 69 letter "O(s)".
Ooh - a post puzzle puzzler - you better be careful @Alias Z.
ReplyDeleteLONDON ONTARIO is the exact midpoint between Detroit and Toronto. It is also where the 401 and 402 converge. The Google says that going NNE to Port Huron/Sarnia and then taking the 402 is the same distance as crossing the Ambassador Bridge and taking the 401 the whole way. I still find this hard to believe. The 401 from Windsor to LONDON ONTARIO is a scary stretch of road. Not much median. Not much shoulder. Heavy truck traffic. And everyone ignoring the 100 KPH speed limit (if you're doing 120 you're being passed). At any rate, a real gimme here.
As for @Questina's ANTES question - it is in the ether. I don't play poker, but have known what an ANTE is since watching the Odd Couple on TV as a kid. ELEMI, on the other hand, is rarely seen in the wild.
Now, about onion lingerie...
Fun Tuesday puzzle. Great that Star Spangled Banner got a shout out the day after it's 200th birthday! Thanks Messrs. Cee and Shortz.
ReplyDeleteI had TONY TONI TONe instead of TONÉ. Does that count as a DNF?
ReplyDeleteUnlike some, I've never seen ELEMI before, so that was educational. I did know LONDON ONTARIO though; you heard about it more often in Wisconsin than here in Boston, for some reason. Or maybe it was not the location but the time -- before the Interstate system was completed through Ohio, it took a really long time to get past Cleveland, so going through Ontario between Niagara Falls and Detroit was a viable option.
Not really a criticism, just a point of reflection: How many ingredients of pesto do PINE NUTS constitute? I should have said one (along with olive oil, basil leaves, parmesan, romano, garlic, and parsley). But I guess you could argue that each nut (and each basil leaf? Each granule of parmesan?) is an individual ingredient. Pluralizing the clue no doubt involved hours of debate in World Crossword Headquarters!
I remember Archie Bunker made a big mistake at work and shipped a large order to London England rather than London Ontario. "Whoever heard of London Canada?"
ReplyDeleteI had TRANSparent first (3D), so invented the town POND-ON-ONTARIO - before retreating to the more likely LONDON and TRANSLUCENT.
ReplyDeleteI also gambled on MYOPIA (42A) before checking out the crosses, figuring it had some great letters - but, alas, quickly realized the error of my ways, with RETINA.
I could go ON and ON and ON with this . . .
@Jberg - Still viable from anywhere in Michigan, as well as anywhere in Wisconsin where going North around Lake Michigan (or taking the Ferry to Ludington) rather than South makes sense . The only issue is that the border crossings near Niagra Falls are both always especially slow. US2 from the Mackinac Bridge to Menominee is a spectacular drive three out of the four seasons. It's probably spectacular in winter, too - if you love snow.
ReplyDeleteA Tuesday treat, with especially pleasurable Downs. I enjoyed the reveal, not having been able to figure out what the constructor was going ON about in the first three theme answers.
ReplyDelete@joho - re: ESPY and EYED - for which we need a RETINA.
Easy Tuesday for me. I have heard of LONDON ONTARIO, but had to get the TONY group from crosses. Liked TRANSLUCENT and WRITING DESK (I have my grandma's) and PINE NUTS. All in all a good puzzle.
ReplyDelete@Carola ... indeed!
ReplyDelete@AliasZ: Whaaaat? Or should I say, WAH? I need more coffee...
ReplyDeleteI've mentioned this site before, but it's been a while:
Damn You Auto Correct
I need to go back to do @ACME's puzzle from yesterday!
I liked the theme today, it was different & fun.
Hey All!
ReplyDeleteMy EYEs are going all googily at all the ONs in this here puz! Fun solve, went pretty quick. A coupla writeovers: ell for AOK, (was thinking of the thumb and finger on the forehead thing!), and eVEn for OVER (thinking roulette...)
@Anonymous @8:53, I made a puz a while back with just the O as the only vowel (never sent it in anywhere, though) and ended up with 65 O's. Still shy of the record I see!
PINENUTS again! Maybe the chefs can tell me, are they that good and popular? If so, I need to try some!
The WAH/HOSEA/VITAE area was interesting. Didn't fall for the TRANSparENT trap, as has the C in LACES.
ISEE you EYED my TACOs, WHYNOT SECONDS? Be BRAVE, return PRONTO to the buffet! Let out an OINK, PIK your favs, like RAISINS and PINENUTS, and don't let any OVER ORNERY OPEDS COAX you away!
(Now I'm hungry!!)
RooMonster
DarrinV
For all the "nobody says 'wah pedal' " comments:
ReplyDeleteGuitar World disagrees. So do some pedal manufacturers, like Boss, Rocktron and Morley.
When I had my short-lived guitar obsession back in college, I heard both wah and wah-wah used. Perhaps there are regional patterns. Regardless, a singular wah seems to be quite common.
I liked this, thought it was pretty original, especially for a Tuesday, which usually gets little love.
ReplyDeleteI could see that the "O"s were probably the common feature of the theme clues, so the surprise of it being "ON"s was a lovely.
Love the TRANSLUCENT clue, I got it immediately. I seem to always take onions past that point into the carmelized phase.
Liked the WRITING DESK being clued as a Secretary. We always called our desk-with-bookcase-atop a secretary, but thought it was not a commonly used term.
LONDON, ONTARIO - driven through it more times than I can count, on our way to Toronto or New York. Back in the olden days it was a good place to get Tim Horton's donuts, before they came to Michigan.
@Z - Black Keys were great. We have a senior looking at K now, so far it is the top of her list.
Well, well. I had VISION before RETINA. Probably because I was getting some double VISION. @Arlene, maybe work up different comments for different blogs? Plenty material for the writerly mind.
ReplyDeleteGlad Rex made the wah wah comment. There is no such thing as a wah pedal. It is a wah wah pedal. Terrible cluing on that. Easiest Tues. for me in a long time.
ReplyDeleteI never heard of the Tonys but put that in without any trouble. I have heard of LONDON ONTARIO, but I somehow read "Oh, what the heck?" as expressing frustration, so I put WHY NOw for 9D. That plus TRANSparENT gave me pONDONwARIO, which I thought might be one of those hyphenated Haye-on-Wye or Hastings-upon-Hudson, Stratford-upon-Avon type of places -- "Pond-on-Wario." ERaPTS didn't look too good for throwing a tantrum, though, so it all got repaired eventually.
ReplyDeleteMaybe Pond-on-Wario is a fashion center that specializes in onion lingerie.
Clever and original*.
ReplyDelete(*My use of "original" means I don't remember seeing this particular wordplay before. Someone with an encyclopedic knowledge of all puzzles may cite an earlier use - but I still liked it.)
@RooMonster - pine nuts are very good. I Brown them in a frying pan ...not til translucent, just until they start to brown and put them on veggies - broccoli, beans, zucchini.
ReplyDeleteWhat's not to love? @LEWIS leads off Monday, now @GIL is front and [almost] CENTer today! Perhaps we can have a grid that features ALIAS and ANONYMOUS; of course, those entries wouldn't be symmetric, but then they aren't evenly matched in the blog, either. The theme do rather point a finger @me, I know [and apologize]. Sometimes we get LEAP, occasionally we get a FINGER [or a PHALANX], but unlikely you'd ever get ELEMI.
ReplyDelete@Questia, occasionally, the uncles complain about the ANTES.
Exactly which cheeks were you pinching?
@JTHurst, loved that your 'shaky old tenor' acronyms to SOT; would be better in a Bangkok bar, maybe?
@LEWIS, odd about your quotoid. I myself was thinking of Loudon Wainwriot @29A, as well as LONDON ON RADIO, kind of as a tie-in with TEN Downing St.
BONObOs, no BONONOs
GOTTI admit this puzz had me puzzled in spots. PINENUTS, PeenNUTS! EYED say heels can take a pounding, if they're high enough, and Velcro isn't a good substitute for LACE on a TEDDY. Did, however, enjoy the musical allusions:
ROUE, ROUE,ROUE your boat -and-
RYE whiskey, RYE whiskey, RYE whiskey I cry
If I don't get RYE whiskey I surely will DIE.
GOYA now and sin no more.
High Point in NC was crossing The CENT of MONEY; Eastwood would like that, too.
EAGER for the next refreshing Cee Breeze.
Like @Questina, I wanted to pinch its plump cheeks.
ReplyDeleteI needed the theme to get the R&B group. Usually the theme is irrelevant.
I just read that the de facto headquarters of ISIS in Syria is the town of Raqqa. Let's hope it never appears in the puzzle.
ReplyDeleteVery nice Tuesday!
ReplyDeleteI also noticed the money/cent/antes pile-up, @joho. Just one hick-up: presto instead of pronto.
Don't mess with my pesto! Like it best with both parmesan and pecorino.
@jberg noted that ROUÉ crossed TONÉ. Both E's had that little Froggy mark over them. That's pretty clever in my book. Good going, GCee.
ReplyDelete@Maruschka, are you out there? I found you a Mots d'Heure source. As you can see, its possible to spend from $7.77 to almost $80 to replace.
ReplyDeleteIn places, VAT oui find is a high taques on the faux-French accent:
Un petit d'un petit*
S'etonne aux Halles
but I still enjoy the footnotes the most.
* The inevitable result of a child marriage.
Good luck with your replacement! Just remember, 'double entente' will get you two ANTES!
This comment has been removed by the author.
ReplyDeleteI agree with @Z re ANTES being in the ether. It's riverboat Americana describing how we stereotypically interact in this culture. Coming to this country was an ANTE to begin with.
ReplyDeleteEels and ELEMI are not in the ether.
Although I wonder about eel. I think eel really tries to wriggle and sniggle in there. We mustn't let it. I nominate @ Ellen S to stand guard.
@ legere-de-leapy, all of 'em in a perfumed cONtagiON of ONeness.
@8:10a.m. post
ReplyDeleteInterestingly, I counted 81 contiguous ONs 'above'. How did you manage that??
No rondo, Monteverdi canon or carillon at noon today?
@Quelle-fille, well if that don't put a capon it! All of 'em, if simultaneous, demands an advanced degree of manuel dexterity, but no-one ever described your legendary leger-de-main as 'quondam'.
@MeloniousF, hee hee at the little Froggy mark!
Calzone for dinner tonight, with Pete Mondrian, but pleez, no more G Cee, okay? In med-speak, that stands for G--orrhea!!
Extremely easy. 8 minutes. Spelled Aidan as aiden.
ReplyDeleteLong crosses were easy from the downs.
Elemi stumped me the last time but remembered it.
Thanks G C
OOO (3 mOOOre Os)
ReplyDeleteNice puzzle needed another WAH to be very nice. Good shout out to the now 200 year old Star Spangled
Questina:
ReplyDeleteANTE(S) is an actual word that the vast majority of people will have heard of if not used in their lives, whether or not they actually play cards.
ELEMI is, to most people, a random-looking vowel/consonant/vowel/consonant/vowel progression. It's a fine word to know, but it's desperate, as fill goes (esp. for an easy puzzle). I guarantee you no one ever put ELEMI in a puzzle proudly. It's always a crutch. You'd always do better if you could.
RP
"Rote Central" aka crossword easy
ReplyDeleteALAI OAR(S) EARLE INS ENT BIO WAH EYE(D) INT RYE RIP GMA ISEE SKY(S) RAM ACE ESPY TACO DRAW CENT ANTE(S) SNO IRK
seriously - anything but "crip" for a Monday is over praising this full of zzzzz puzzle. Easiest puzzle in months, theme so so so
Stupendous theme idea! Very very original. 4 stars.
ReplyDeleteReal fun to go ONe-ON-ONe with.
ONly microscopic amounts of cONfrONtatiONal material. ONly bONe of cONtentiON was ELEMI. hONorable mentiON to ?ESPA/?ITAE, but the missin V was pretty much ONe of them foregoNe cONclusiONs.
I'm gonna quit now, before autocorrect's brain (or mine) explodes.
M&A
p.s.
fave weeject: WAH. Bah. (Sorry, Gary C... cONditiOned respONse).
**gruntz**
I once shot a man in WAWA ONTARIO just to watch him die
ReplyDeleteOh @Rex, wrong again. Why, oh why, do you insist on perpetrating your 20th century sensibility on us? ELEMI is a necessary raw ingredient, hence a common word, in my world. I, and the six or seven other people in the world who do what I do, use the product regularly. Further, when we send air-mail to one another seeking alternate suppliers, we use the term specifically. We have to use air-mail because we're all essentially hermits, dedicated to replicating 15th century Japanese lacquerware. No email/Alibaba for us. Finally, we've never used the word ANTE in any of our discussions.
ReplyDelete@Johnny C - I once shot a woman in a WAWAs in the Poconos just to get her to stop texting and pay her damned bill.
ReplyDeletep.p.s.s.
ReplyDeleteThat should be forgONe. (Autocorrect fought me to a draw, on that word.)
M&A
"cONstructiON while clearly ON somethin"
foregONe.
ReplyDeleterat fudge.
M&A
I had a wahwah pedal, an original one. it was given to me because it had stopped working. I took it apart and found its little bulb had burned out. It was an easy replacement once I found a source. The guy who gave it to me was unhappy I fixed it so easily. I used to call it my Baba wawa pedal.
ReplyDelete@Roo Monster: PINENUTS, Take broccoli florets and chunks of apple and mix them together in a bowl. In another bowl mix mayonnaise, apple cider vinegar and sugar. Pour this over the broccoli and apples. Dump a bunch of pine nuts on top or mix in thoroughly. Chill before serving. This is a family favorite alternative to spring greens salad.You could add some raisins or other dried fruit if you wanted but we never do.
Oh, yeah, the puzzle. I liked it fine. ELEMI nearly defeated me but MONSOON SEASON saved the day. I've seen LONDON ONTARIO on the map but never went there. I used to drive from Morgantown to Hamilton to visit. @Z, from the way Canadians drive, I've always assumed the posted limits referred to a minimum speed.
I had Olin before WHYNOT gave me HORNE. Living near Atlanta, I have to wonder if the directors one of our most famous hospitals would be called an EMoRY board. Hand up for parent before LUCENT.
@AnyONe who cares
ReplyDeleteLME is a 4gONe initialism for:
Large Marine Ecosystem
Liquid Malt Extract
Last Man on Earth (movie)
Liquid Motion in a Rotating Tank Experiment
Liquid Management Experiment
Lepidoptera of Middle East
Licensed Master Esthetician - for those into Derma
Legion Medal of Excellence (The Royal Canadian Legion)- in honour of our neighbours in LONDON, ONTARIO
and many, many more... including
Leaky-Mode Excitation, my persONAL favorite.
@Numinus..thanks for the recipe!!
ReplyDeleteMidday report of relative difficulty (see my 8/1/2009 post for an explanation of my method and my 10/15/2012 post for an explanation of a tweak to my method):
ReplyDeleteAll solvers (median solve time, average for day of week, ratio, percentile, rating)
Tue 7:08, 7:50, 0.91, 23%, Easy-Medium
Top 100 solvers
Tue 4:54, 5:21, 0.92, 16%, Easy
@Questinia. Yours was a penny-ante complaint, not a penny-ELEMI complaint. That's why ante(s) is fine.
ReplyDelete@Numinous - "from the way Canadians drive, I've always assumed the posted limits referred to a minimum speed." I hadn't considered that possibility - makes perfect sense, now.
ReplyDeleteNot an easy Tuesday for me, since I never heard of Tonytonietc, didn't recall that there is an Aidan Quinn, and never heard of a "Wah" for anything other than a trumpet. Still, very clever and amusing, and I finished it. I didn't get to comment on last weekend's puzzles, but really enjoyed and completed all of them.
ReplyDeleteYes, 82 in the post, but 81 'above'.
ReplyDeleteCan't speak to the intent, maybe I was just looking for a trick question.
;)
I enjoyed this puzzle at the Bay Area Crossword Tournament last weekend (enjoyed ACME's Monday puzzle too, with "DRECK" being my favorite fill word).
ReplyDeleteBad joke:
Did you know there's a support group for people who can't stop talking?
It's called On And On Anon.
ROLF @ Zoltania! So far that line's the best thing about today's puzzle. Too many ONs for me--including stray ones with YUKON and RAINSON.
ReplyDeleteOFL says 20a was popular at one time: what day was that? I certainly never heard of them. This entry went in all ON crosses. That plus ELEMI so early in the week made for an easy-medium rating.
Can we melt the SNO already? Between cones and cats, we're getting a blizzard over here.
Withal, though, there's lots to like. Any grid containing the lovely EROICA can't be all bad. I'll go with--whaddya know, a Cee!
2435: one "NO." too many.
Didn't catch on to the on-thing until the revealer, but then I've never heard of TONY......, so it took that revealer to change my PResTO to PRONTO. Only Quinn I know of is Anthony, so AIDAN had to come from crosses, but other than that, and briefly wondering what onions and fabric had in common, this was smooth sailing, and fun!
ReplyDelete605 Augh!!
Didn't catch on to the on-thing until the revealer, but then I've never heard of TONY......, so it took that revealer to change my PResTO to PRONTO. Only Quinn I know of is Anthony, so AIDAN had to come from crosses, but other than that, and briefly wondering what onions and fabric had in common, this was smooth sailing, and fun!
ReplyDelete605 Augh!!
After I committed the TRANSparENT mistake I was looking at it thinking that in today's culture of LGBT acceptance (more or less) that's a word just begging for an updated clue along the lines of "Non-traditional family head" - probably not in the NYT puz, though.
ReplyDelete133 - maybe good enough?
I blew through this one as fast as I've ever finished a NYT puzzle. Just one of those days. Lotsa O's and pretty good fill, in my opinion.
ReplyDelete260 so close
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