.png)
Old Toyota sports car / THU 6-18-15 / Salinger dedicatee / Uncle on Fresh Prince of Bel-Air / Third-largest city of Roman Empire / German electrical pioneer / Mentaiko at sushi bar / Carrier to Seoul
Thursday, June 18, 2015
Constructor: Jason Flinn
Relative difficulty: Medium
THEME: -onym — familiar phrases have "-ONYM" added to their ends and then are reclued accordingly.
Theme answers:
- 17A: The Olympics or Andes Mints (MOUNTAIN TOPONYMS) ["mountain top" + -onym]
- 23A: White and lighted (BLACK ANTONYMS) ["black ant" + -onyms]
- 39A: Deadly or human (MORTAL SYNONYM) ["mortal sin" + -onym] — this one is the only one that involves a spelling change to the base phrase ("sin" to "SYN"); not a problem—they all still work perfectly, sound-wise.
- 51A: Wall Street and Madison Avenue (NEW YORK METONYMS) ("New York Met" + -onyms)
Alek Wek (born 16 April 1977) is a South Sudanese British model and designer who began her fashion career at the age of 18 in 1995. As the first black model whose looks did not conform to Caucasian aesthetics, she has been hailed for her influence on the perception of beauty in the fashion industry. She is from the Dinka ethnic group in South Sudan, but fled to Britain in 1991 to escape the civil war in Sudan. She currently lives in Brooklyn, New York. (wikipedia)
• • •
Had remarkable trouble getting going in the NW. Bygone Toyota was not coming to me at all, and SAMI was not at all obvious from 1D: Arctic residents, and even when I got -MI I wrote in SUMI (?), and I had IN ON before UP ON at 2D: Acquainted with, and I had no shot at ANTIOCH (5D: Third-largest city of the Roman Empire) until I came at it from the other end, so lots of sputtering up there to start. But once I got going, progress was pretty regular, and there were no major sticking points. Didn't get the HENS clue at first (7D: Roosters … or not roosters?), but do now (first "Roosters" = "Ones who roost"). Had NICE instead of NEAT (41D: "Ooooh!"), ODIUM instead of ODEUM (54A: Theater) (very different words), and RECUTS instead of REDYES (40D: Changes the locks again?). All in all, untroublesome and non-STICKY (22D: Awkward).
[Follow Rex Parker on Facebook and Twitter]
Save And Share :
155 comments:
Tough here to the point of a DNF. SYNONYM and ANTONYM came easily enough, and I saw the BLACK ANT. But the other two were hard - toponym and metonym being new to me. If I had known NALA and SUPRA I could have finished. Handicap: My (International) NYT had a 15 x 16 grid with the remains of yesterday's puzzle below TAOS, BLOT, and NOTTE.
Is the path to the hives the APIAN Way?
I love the sound of RANT RACK. Every entry hall needs one to put away your anger when coming home.
I learned about the SAMI people as a tourist in Norway. They are the ones we studied in elementary school as Lapps (who lived in Lapland). It turns out the word "lapp" means "rags" in their language. So Lapps means "people who live in rags, poor people." That's why it's offensive, about on the same level as "nigger." The SAMI are recently getting some rights in Norway. They have their own television station, can study their native language in schools, etc. A percentage of SAMI still herd reindeer just as their indigenous ancesters did.
Okay, I looked it up. A toponym is a place name derived from a geographical feature and a metonym is a word, name, or expression used as a substitute for something to which it is closely associated (like "Washington" for the federal government).
So this theme works on several levels -- NEAT!
I like that TOPONYM is on top, that there is SPACE in the middle, that TINE crosses POKER, and that to counter NYET, we have a REDYES. There is a low (but not super low) double letter count and half of them are double O's, which reside in two columns. Loved the clue for SHOE, and the word AMPULE.
The south was more of a struggle than the north, due in part to tricky cluing and in part to my ignorance, but it was a good workout, keeping my brain fit for yet another day. Great one, Jason!
🌕🌕 (2 mOOns)
I first thought - NEAT - this puzzle will teach me new forms of real words that end in ONYM. Alas they are fake words. The idea is a good one just wished they were real. Like the puzzles that teach us a group of ferrets is known as a business of ferrets.
Progress was slowed as I typed in (still pissed about not getting the daily paper any more and then having a totally unsatisfactory experience with NYT customer I will just read from a script and pretend to offer service…) beaker for AMPULE. IMHO a beaker is more likely to hold a solution than an AMPULE but I was the kid who with his A paper in hand argued about the one thing marked off.
Like Rex I could not recall SUPRA. I owned Celica and friends had a MRT but that did not help.
Thanks @glimmerglass for the Lapp/SAMI information.
Wait… according to @lewis they are real words. Oh Happy Day
Factoid: The SHOE brand Teva is mispronounced by many; it is pronounced "TEH va", not "TEE va".
Quotoid: "SPACE is the breath of art." -- Frank Lloyd Wright
Mountain top: Mount Olypus; mint logo
Mortal Syn: making a human dead
New York met: metropolitan places in NY (a stretch, I realize)
Can someone please explain the hidden double meaning behind Black Ant, besides the obvious?
Too tough for me..had to google a lot and still dnf..had to come here. Did not like the puzzle except for the rack of ribs..yummmmm
I LOVED this puzzle. You can tell by the high praise I heaped upon it: "Fill actually isn't terrible." "I found this all decidedly acceptable." If I could transmit a golf clap across the internets I would do so.
I was there in 1980 when the men's US Hockey team defeated the USSR in the Olympics. It was not a terrible game. The team played passably.
One more thing--a few weeks ago there was a puzzle (I'm too lazy to look it up) where the themes were inconsistent in print but worked beautifully when sounded out. I heaped cow dung upon that puzzle for the inconsistency. Today: "this one is the only one that involves a spelling change to the base phrase ("sin" to "SYN"); not a problem—they all still work perfectly, sound-wise."
If "consistency is the hobgoblin of little minds," my brain is huge. Oh, the quote is "foolish consistency?!" Never mind.
This is one beautiful, tight, multi-layered theme! Like @Rex, I didn't see the last level until I'd finished and put the paper down. That's when I logged on here and the solution came up, bang! it jumped right out at me. Well done, Jason, well done!
The downs were really nice ... fresh .... loved LOOPHOLE. And the cluing was clever, better than average.
Nice Thursday, not a rebus, but with a marvelous twist just the same. Loved it!
@chefbea, yes to yummmmm. Since I dared to go back into Brazilian Jiu Jitsu and I no longer trust the cartilage in my own rack of ribs, I have visions of tasty rib racks separating.
I also can't look at AEROSMITH without thinking about the Rocikin' Roller Coaster at Disney World.
@lewis, thanks for your fact checking. I knew TOPONYM from my sons middle school year when they had earth sciences and he had to build a topographical model, with trails and mile markers. I didnt know METONYM.
NEAT NINTENDO SMUT
PHIL INSTILLS STICKY POKER
MINES SPACE IN A SENSE
What a neat theme! The one objection I had was that MORTAL SYN did not fit in with the other three. Jason Finn could have opted to find one more phrase in which the -ONYM prefix follows either the pattern of the other three, or the MORTAL SYN outlier. Either way would have made the theme a little more logical. My small mind needs a hobgoblin.
For instance:
MEDIA HYPONYMS ["Television and billboards"]
COUNTER PSEUDONYM [good luck writing a clue for this one]
BARTLETT PARONYM [or this one] -- these fit MORTAL SYN.
or:
FAMILY CRYPTONYM ["Flock or brood"]-- fits all the others.
At xwordinfo Jason explains that he tried a few others including QUEEN ANONYM but "anonym" was deemed too obscure. Too obscure? Here in Trolldom it is the most common word of all.
Other than that the theme worked very well for me. I also liked NEW YORK MET(ONYM) crossing NY ET, an alien in the Big Apple. Best clue of the day: Last place? Even after getting SHOE from the crosses it took me a few seconds to get it. SPOONS next to LOOPHOLE felt weird to me, but that's just me. Loved ANTIOCH, and the small town not far from Orvieto: LIETO.
What the heck is BREAM? I come from Europe but I never carped like that. I only know this BREAM.
Cheers!
What a great puzzle! Just like @Rex I had a mega (make that a PETA) aha moment towards the end with NEWYORKMETONYMNS and "got" the theme entirely.
Anyhow - what Rex said, without the little negatives.
Was ESME an ESNE?
Mountain top: Mount Olympus; mint logo
Mortal Syn: making a human dead
New York met: metropolitan places in NY (a stretch, I realize)
Can someone please explain the hidden double meaning behind Black Ant?
@aliasz
Frivolous lawsuit?
@Alias Z--It is clear why you aren't a constructor. What is "Media Hyps?" Don't quit your day job.
I evidently was living under a rock the day they (anyone at all) were teaching about the SAMI. Never heard of them. Lapplanders, yes. SAMI, no. And as an American-centric ignoramus, the only "Arctic Peoples" I'm aware of live either in Alaska or Canada. So, SAMI was a problem is what I'm saying.
I know ANTONYM and SYNONYM, but not TOPONYM or METONYM. So, along with SAMI and BREAM, there are four words that, just an hour ago, I did not know existed. So chalk up yet a few more to "words I know almost exclusively from xword puzzles."
Because of the aforementioned TOPONYM and METONYM, this puzzle was much more challenging than usual. Throw in a few proper names I've never heard of (ALEK, STYRON, and ERICH) and you have a real doozy here.
I did like the use of "last" in the clue for SHOE. I've never used a last and quite honestly, I don't know how I know about it (xword puzzles?), but the ? tipped me off that it was not a Greek letter, but something more remote...like, you know, SHOE.
I definitely liked the theme...I wasn't happy about doing it...but I'm okay with it.
And @nickthefin comes back with nonsense to match @AliasZ's. The clue would be something like "Abacus" for COUNTER PSEUDONYM.
please explain last place? shoe
@Steve, from Wiki: "A last is a mechanical form that has a shape similar to that of a human foot. It is used by shoemakers and cordwainers in the manufacture and repair of shoes. Lasts typically come in pairs and have been made from various materials, including hardwoods, cast iron, and high-density plastics.[1]"
A delightfully lovely puzzle. Congrats, Mr. Flinn!
thanks Steve
@Steve, a last is part of your shoe.
And I would be wrong! Thanks. anon. 9:01.
@joho, a last is most definitely NOT part of your shoe.
I saw that ... tough to walk around with a last in your shoe. :)
@Haiku Nerd, you are one sick bastard.
Very clever theme well-executed. As they are for some others here, TOPONYM and METONYM are new to me. So is something called a last.
Favorite comments so far:
-- @Lewis...RED YES...very good!
-- @Haiku Nerd...filthy, but funniest one yet.
I had the same responses in the NW quad as Rex. Thanks, @Glimmerglass, for your SAMI history lesson. Once PIUS went in, I finally remembered the SUPRA. Like @dk, my old Celica didn't trigger the memory. Great car, though. Someone ran a red light and totaled it, but I walked away unharmed (and seriously freaked out by the experience).
APIAN is so timely, as I spent last evening reading the "New York" magazine cover story, "The Anxiety of Bees" by David Wallace-Wells. This is really important stuff for all of us. I've been hearing about honey bee colony collapse from beekeepers at farmers markets for several years, but this article updates the problem, which has reached critical mass.
AMPULE, don't you just like the sound of the word? AMPULE.
NEAT theme, IMO. Thanks, JF and WS.
BLACK ANTONYMS like opposite of white and lighted......
It's not about the clues. It's not about the answers. It's about your Look. Frankly, I am often appalled by the Look of a great many people on this blog. I consider it my sacred mission in life to improve you all. Now you may think you don't WANT your Look improved, but you would be wrong. You DO want your Look improved, especially when it's done by someone with the right credentials, -- an acknowledged glamour puss like me. And I'm not going to beat around the bush, either. I'm going to name names. Just see if I don't.
@Mohair Sam: Mohair is not a NOW fabric, Sam. Mohair is a very THEN fabric. Vintage, even. THEN fabrics are not glamorous, Sam. They are decidedly UNglamorous. Lose the mohair, Sam.
@Hartley 70: You can put some fancy doodads on a Birkenstock, honey, but that doesn't make it a SHOE. Lose the Birkenstocks, sweetie pie.
@Nancy: Where to even begin? The nails thing, first. Women who do their own nails are NOT glamorous. Nails have to be DONE. By experts. Why else would they truck in all those poor exploited Asian nail salon workers? They're here, and if you take advantage, it will do wonders for your Look. (The whole abominable sneakers thing we'll get to another day.)
@Aketi: Tiny women heaving big, burly men across the room are NOT glamorous women. Nor is sweaty an appealing Look. I'll assume you at least don't wear Spandex. because, if you do, there really isn't anything more to say.
@Alias Z and @Z: Z is not a glamorous letter, guys. YSL are glamorous letters. Lose your respective Zs. It will do wonders for your Look.
Well, that's all for today. But I'll be back again soon, I promise. Bet you can't hardly wait.
@nickthefin - white and light are antonyms of BLACK, so BLACK ANT becomes BLACK ANTONYMS. The Olympics and Andes Mints are TOPONYMs of MOUNTAIN TOPs, so MOUNTAIN TOP becomes MOUNTAIN TOPONYM. Note, too, that "and" or "or" in the clue lets you know when you need a POC.
I hate coming here to discover the last twist that takes a puzzle from meh to cool. It's much better to figure it out on Kane's own, but I spent zero time pondering. Damn.
@John Child - your last two lines are great.
@Lewis - love RED EYES too.
@glamour nazi: a bit of time on your hands, eh?
Loved the puzzle especially MORTAL SYNONYM. Pressed for time. Thanks JF.
@glamour nazi - "glamour" is transient, vainglorious desire. A mere moment of fleeting regard for surface nothings. "Z" is a classic beauty. A beauty with depth that lasts beyond the momentary cares of Man, a beauty of meaning and purpose, a beauty that brooks no faddish "glamour."
Thus Spake Zarathustra.
@Z, I think you mean "A beauty that BREAMs no faddish glamour.
@Lewis - REDYES/NYET antonyms - priceless!
@ALiasZ - What Katy Perry did to Good Hair Day.
(Yea, I know, but it's the first hit when I google "famous countersuits"). If SYN can equal sin, then PSEUD can equal sued.
As a word geek, I love the theme. I thought it was a bit too narrow for general consumption, kind of like an inside joke, but a crossword is all about words, so, yea...
Gobsmacked taht Rex didn't stomp all over this one for not just the sin/SYN thing, but for one being singular while the others are plural. A bit sloppy, no?
DNFd with ODEon, the inexcusable SMoT, and ESnE.
A fun Thursday - thanks Mr. Flinn!
Gush alert: I loved this puzzle! Entering the grid via ST LO and making my way down the East side, I found myself at a total loss with a bunch of something-ONYMs. Creeping Westward along the bottom tier I eventually saw NEW YORK METONYMS. So clever! That helped me put in MOUNTAINTOP right away, but it still took me a while to get MORTAL SYN and BLACK ANT. I especially loved MORTAL as meaning both deadly and human. Thought the whole thing was genius.
METONYMy was all the rage when I was in grad school. Too bad I could never remember what it meant.
@glamour nazi - I'm a dorky Midwesterner, currently wearing a German national soccer team shirt (#11, Klose), ill-fitting denim crop pants, and flip-flops. Can you help?
@AliasZ: Thanks for the additional nyms.
We all agree. Great puz.
Marvelous puzzle!
One write-over, 40 D, wherein I abandoned my usual caution and started entering RE-KEYS before seeing that it was RE-DYES.
Forgive me, I know the last thing this blog needs is another dead horse to be beaten, but I am not convinced that 22 A, "Last place?" for SHOE is correct. I believe we have established that a "last" is used in making or repairing a shoe, and is in no sense a part of a shoe. Hence the clue/answer pair can only make sense in the same way that "Head place?" could clue HAT, i.e., that the answer is something that could be placed in or on the first word of the clue. That's quite a stretch.
I rather liked the "glamour Nazi" post. Maybe not enough to see a second installment, but I liked it. GN is obviously a Brit, thanks to the "ou" in glamour.
I was intrigued by the theory that Lapp and Lapland had their origin in "their" word for rag. "Their" apparently being Swedish, not Norse, though most Sami live in Norway. Wikipedia doesn't think so, nor do I, because the name goes back too many centuries *and* appears to be of Sami or Finnish origin (the two languages are related). But every country has persecuted or discriminated against the Sami, for the usual reason that they are *different* from the Norse, the Swedes, the Finns, or the Russians.
As is often the case, I was stymied at the top, but found a foothold at the bottom, thanks to ATHENIANS and the obvious NEWYORK. I confidently wrote in "skies" and "spark" where SPACE and SPUNK belong. I ended at the beginning, with SUPRA, a sports car I never heard of. Got that entirely on crosses.
My theory is that Mr Flinn came up with MOUNTAINTOPONYM and felt he had to carry the theme further. I don't feel the other themers *work* quite as well. So I would praise it a little less than OFL did today.
@tita: yet another person who doesn't seem to get how this puzzle works. The answer "COUNTER PSEUDONYM," in its entirety, needs to make sense from the clue. So the clue needs to give a pseudonym for "counter," (like "abacus" or maybe "Casio") not a clue for the resulting pun "countersued."
You people are thick.
Is it a world's record -- acquiring an imitator in 32 minutes flat? @Z: The 10:14 post was not from me. I take my glamour MUCH too seriously to indulge in wordplay about it.
@Carola -- Oh, honey, can we talk?
OOPS! I think I just blew it!
@Bob Kerfuffle: Nice point. Was your last sentence supposed to be a pun? (Last, quite a stretch?) I certainly hope so.
I loved the puzzle, finished it without help, but I STILL don't get how "white and lighted" is a BLACK ANT. Yeah, I get BLACKANTONYMS, but just as MOUNTAINTOP stands alone for Olympus and Andes Mints, BLACK ANT should work by itself for its clue. What am I missing?
I had dark angel before IMNO angel, but got STRYON early, even though I didn't know what he'd written; vaguely I'm thinking he wrote "Sophie's Choice" but that's probably a different Stryon, I'll check later. Loved knowing ANTIOCH and ATHENIAN (probably surpised the hell out those brain cells!) and appreciate the lesson on Sami vs. Lapp. That's sort of like Anasazi, which means "enemy of my people" in Navajo and thus isn't appreciated by the Pueblo people who are the descendents of the Old Ones.
Welcome @glamour nazi. Always good to get new blood, but it's possibke you have your work cut out for you hear.
I missed the whole 'real phrase plus onym' thing. And I, too, don't get BLACK ANT as having any relation to the clue or the answer -- but i guess that's OK.
My main problem was thinking that Horton had heard A HOO, thus ruling out the obvious ATHENIANS, and not knowing that there were 10 to the fifteenth of those animal rights people. Also, wanting ODEon, because of the movie chain (at least, in the UK). And thinking all literary orphans were in Dickens. And that Toyoto made the caPRi.
Somehow, it all worked out in the end.
Isn't there an adage about shoemakers' having a STICKY relationship with their LASTs?
@Malsdemare said "it's possibke you have your work cut out for you hear." Ignoring the typo, do you think they meant "...cut out for you, hear!" I sort of doubt it.
@Malsdemare -- My take is, the first themer is meant to be read as MOUNTAIN TOPONYM. If you read it that way, BLACK ANTONYMS makes sense. The fact that the first one could also be read as MOUNTAIN[TOP] TOPONYM is, to me at least, a coincidence, as none of the other themers can be read that way.
Very funny!
@Anonymous, 10:34 -- Sadly, no, no pun intended. My best lines are unintentional!
And as often happens, after I had my rant out of my system, I reconsidered a bit. My argument concerning the word "last" was based on the traditional shoemaker's last, a somewhat large and awkward tool, In that usage, the show would always come to the last. But there is also the smaller last inserted into the shoe to stretch it or maintain its shape, in which case the last comes to the shoe, and, as I shoulda known, The Puzzle Is Correct. Mea culpa.
@jberg - The last time this subject came up, I was exposed to, but didn't really learn, the word Ultracrepidarianism.
@Carola, get rid of the flipflops and jump into some Birkenstocks and you'll be au courant! Pay no attention to that arriviste.
@glamour nazi, first dump the "nazi" moniker. There's nothing glamourous about those nasty old has-beens. Yawn. I didn't bother telling grammar nazi this because the original GN might actually have been hiding in Argentina where there's less emphasis on glamour and much more on discipline. I am incredibly impressed with your memory and attention to fashion detail so you are either Andre Leon Talley, Carson Kressley, or a woman. Hmmm. @Gill and @Tita are suspiciously absent from your critique. BTW I'm still laughing. Great one! Don't forget that "Z" hanger-on @AliasZ!
As to the puzzle, my time was great and I had absolutely no idea what was going on. I mean I knew to add "onym", but other than MORTALSYNOMYNS, I just didn't get it. And even now that I'm here and I get it, I still don't really GET it, if ya know what I mean (mouth half open chomping on gum). Still my time was good so what the heck!
@Ludy, where were you yesterday? I was talking to you. It's no fun if you don't listen.
Easy-medium once I figured out there wasn't a rebus. Did not know that the SAMI people are the Lapps in English so went rebus hunting. It didn't help that my first thought for 6d was brown bag.
That said, it was only after I'd finished that I caught what was going on. So, pretty clever, liked it a lot!
@Tita - 2 are singular and 2 are plural and they alternate. And my take from Jason's comments at Xwordinfo is that the plural goes with the base phrase. So, BLACK ANTS and NEW YORK METS.
I went with hOmONYM for TOPONYM, giving me the mysterious SmOONS as a kind of cuddling I haven't tried, and the perfectly credible IRH for a train name. Elsewhere, I corrected ODIon to ODIUn, for SMUT's sake, but didn't recognize ESnE as wrong. john and PaUl before PIUS. knOw before UPON. osLO before STLO. But mostly I had whiteness until I got lucky with AEROSMITH and NINTENDO emerged as Hail Mary's. BREAM is a new one. ALEK? Antlers have TINEs?
Tough puz. Unsolvable, but I can't object to any faithless clues. TOPONYM and METONYM are in the dictionary, so ... you beat me fair and square, Jason Flinn.
BTW, the SAMI feature in the Stieg Larsson books. That's where they crossed my path.
Loved this xword. Only problem: "Olympics" is not a MOUNTAIN TOPONYM because the Olympic Games were apparently named after the town of Olympia, and not Mt Olympus (which is in a different part of Greece). Who knew?
@smalltowndoc, "The Olympics" comprise a mountain range in Washington State. Puzzle correct, again.
Great theme in spite of its inconsistencies. Liked learning about TOPONYMs and METONYMS.
Didn't see the added layer of word play until I had completed the puzzle and then liked it even more.
Found the south a brutal solve, however, and suffered mightily to get NEW YORK thanks to SPARE RIB, STYRON, REDYES, and PETA, all of which had me stumped for quite a while.
@Anon 11:49: That doesn't make sense. "The Olympics" is not a MOUNTAIN TOPONYM of "The Olympics".
I finished this puzzle easily, but like many here, didn't really "get" it. Especially 51A, where the answer really should be NEW YORK STREETONYMS. But maybe I wasn't paying enough attention today. I was too busy creating a cover and then, inadvertently, blowing it. (Although, as Freud says: There really are no accidents.)
dk, why not print the puzzle pdf or Across Lite file?
@smalltowndoc: Let's try again. A toponym is "a place name, especially one derived from a topographical feature." If I say "I'm going to The Olympics" this weekend, I am using "The Olympics" as a name of an area which is derived from the Olympic mountain range. It is a toponym having to do with mountains, so it is a MOUNTAIN TOPONYM. This isn't rocket science.
Hey All !
Well, I feel like an outlier here. Didn't like this puz as I was solving, but after reading Rex and all y'all, I can appreciate what Jason made. I just could not seem to get anywhere with this puz. Calling this challenging! Didn't know of other -ONYMS, apparently there are quite a few, but definitely never heard of TOPONYM or METONYM. After staring at white space for way too long, started to use old faithful Goog. Had to look up "Love Story" Segal, "Buona ___", Model Wek, Mariners owners, and "Lie Down" author. Sheesh! Some misdirectional clues that seemed a bit too far, 2D, Aquainted with=UPON?, 22D, Awkward=STICKY?, "refreshes naturally"=SALEM? That last one a big stretch, who remembers SALEM cigarette ads? (At least I think that was the reference.)
But like I said, appreciate the multi-layer themeness of it all. I guess I just had on off day. Did know SUPRA though!
SPACE SPUNK
RooMonster
DarrinV
Everybody's said everything! I generally don't even join you guys til Thursday, but there's no reason to today. Maybe to say hello to our new Nazi. And reassure our Z's that they're o. k. Sir Hillary pretty much clears up the BLACK ANTONYMS confusion. I know outright down and dirty porn can be banned, but isn't SMUT considered less objectionable? I personally wouldn't ban anything, but I also support the idea of parents being able to pre-censor stuff their kids might come across (that's the school-teacher in me) I didn't know ALEK.
@Carola, I'm no style SUPRA GEEK, but I'd suggest changing tee-shirts to Zinedine Zidane, who is infinitely more stylish than Klose, as I'm sure both @Z and @Glamour Nazi would agree.
Ha - this is great!!
@Smalltown - the multi-level theme requires parsing the answers two different ways.
One meaning really has nothing to do with the other meaning.
MOUNTAINTOP is a thing.
And, the Andes and the Olympics are TOPONYMs for MOUNTAINs. (Just like
Therefore, they are MOUNTAIN TOPONYMs
MORTAL SYN sounds like a thing.
-Deadly is a SYNONYM for MORTAL.
-Human is a SYNONYM for MORTAL.
--Therefore, they are MORTAL SYNONYMS.
NEW YORK MET is a thing.
-NEW YORK METONYMS are things:
"a figure of speech in which a thing or concept is called not by its own name but rather by the name of something associated in meaning with that thing or concept.
For instance, "Hollywood" is used as a metonym for the U.S. film industry "
Actually, the MOUNTAIN one is a bit more involved - to clue it as simply Andes or Olympics would have been more correct too - those mountain ranges, in fact, any place name, is in fact, a TOPONYM - I think that Andes Candies and Olympic Games are actually epotoponyms.
You're welcome.
I'm biased towards linguistics jokes, but I loved this theme---would never have expected such a nerdy set of answers, but the extra effort to make them extend from common phrases was super-clever and made the whole thing feel fresh. Realized the extra level of theme in between MOUNTAIN TOPONYM and BLACK ANTONYMS, so ever answer after that felt like an individual puzzle or riddle to figure out, was tons of fun. Even then, I couldn't remember how exactly METONYMs worked, but it all came together.
Hats off to the constructor.
@Hartley, I was busy harvesting the first veggies of the year from the garden (yay!) and then pondering the fate of humanity if we continue to lose our honeybee pollinator friends (boo hoo!).
Clairvoyant, huh? I'm still in the dark... Throw me another bone.
If I may, @Carola, I'd like to join you in the gushing department. This has to be the best Thrusday this year.
Nothing bothered me...NAAN spelled correctly, SAMI whom I learned about from reading National Geographic, ALEK Wek who is quite possibly the most gorgeous model alive and PETA not being clued as the anti Sea World group.
Good fun, Jason.
Several years ago, we had an anony who used to do a monthly recap of some of the zingers posted on the blog. It was hilarious and everyone looked forward to it. He/she dropped out but I'm wondering if @glamour nazi isn't the same person popping in again...!
Horrors - left one out!!
BLACKANT is a thing.
White and lighted are ANTONYMS for BLACK.
It's not BLACK ANT ANTONYMS.
OK - I'll stop now - I swear...
Horrors - left one out!!
BLACKANT is a thing.
White and lighted are ANTONYMS for BLACK.
It's not BLACK ANT ANTONYMS.
OK - I'll stop now - I swear...
The more I investigate the word "toponym" the less sense it makes. As far as I can tell, it basically means "a place named something." I am beginning to see why nobody has ever heard of this word.
@Nancy - If it's any reassurance, this "outfit" isn't for public comsumption - other than for the bumblebees when I was out weeding my garden. Still, it's true about the dorkiness: the height of glamour in my closet is my array of twinsets.
@Hartley70 - Thank you for the validation :) About Birkenstocks - I've been reading that there are now some lined with fur...now that sounds like the bomb.
@Lewis - I forgot to say before - I loved all those extra grid treats you spotted!
Liked the puzz a lot. My only nit is now I gotta learn Italian?!?
My best clue I could come up with was "Gibson acoustic guitar." Answer: RETRONYM CHIC.
@Casco Kid - LOL! I remember that moment. Definitely not Klose style!
Learned a pailful of stuff today, which is good. Not real good for my solve time, along the way, tho.
TOPONYM and METONYMS were, like, ETPHONHOMONYMS, to m&e. Alien. SAMI? STYRON? PETAbyte? har. NOTTE ina mya vocaba. BREAM? ALEK Wek? Shoot, am I ever outta touch, on yer models and carp and anti-fur bytes.
Filled in SHOE off the "last" clue, with no problemo, tho. Was happy as a clamonym. Probably cuz I remembered the saying "a cobbler should stick to his last" from an old Uncle Scrooge comic book (the font of most of young M&A's knowledge), but never having no precise idea of what a "last" was.
Theme was really supra-peta-inspired, especially if U are smarter than m&e, on yer onyms. Only thing that ate at my sense of desperation and fair play just a bit: ain't SYN kinda an oulawer, synce it's misspelled in MORTAL SYN? (yo, @AliasZ) And synce TOP, ANT and MET are all spelled perfect? Not that I mark off much, for that sorta thing. Still gets a fleshy thUmbUp. But, synce yer gonna be desperate...
{S.M.A.R.T. and S.A.G.E. ??} *
M&A
* WISEACRONYMS.
Nothing to do with the puzzle, but...@Casco, agreed-times-a-googolplex. Zizou is my all-time favorite player and the best midfielder I have ever seen. If asked to pick the greatest goal of all time, I choose the one he scored in the 2002 Champions League final.
-- Volley of a ball falling out of the sky.
-- With his weaker foot (left).
-- From the edge of the penalty area.
-- Top-left corner placement, impossible to save.
-- Game-winner in the final of the biggest club competition on the planet.
Had it not been for his stupid headbutt in the 2006 World Cup final (for which he is rightly excoriated) my firms beliefs are that France would have won that game and that Zidane would be mentioned with Pele and Maradona as arguably the greatest player ever.
Sorry, been a while since I let myself GEEK out on this blog. I'll keep such randomness to a minimum going forward. :)
Was feeling pretty cranky about the puzzle, which played medium++ for me, until coming to the comments to learn toponym/metonym etc are real words. Nice! Still, why Khrushchev sted Putin for 48D? There's already plenty of musty fill to preserve that '50s vibe the NYT xword seems to love.
p.s.
... { Ringo and Starr??} = BEATLESEPONYMS. (E.P. is short for Extended Play record, back then, you see.)
Too desperate, if U have to explain it? Thought so.
M&A
"Too Desperate for the Before Noon Comments Section"
@Topo Nym - Andes Mints are named for the Andes Mountains. The Olympics are named for Mt. Olympus, the mountain of the Gods. It's the whole "taking the name of a place/topographic feature for somethings name" thing that makes these TOPONYMs. So "Oreo" is not a TOPONYM. METONYMS are different. If we see "Wall Street" in a headline we know it is referencing the stack market, not a street in NYC. When I say "Lansing is a bunch of idiots" you know I'm referring to a certain Governor, Legislature, and Court, not the fine citizens living in Lansing.
Make sense now?
@Glamour Nazi - I think you let out your real identity but it seems no one noticed.
Now, who the hell is "Kane" and why does autocorrect think I know him?
@Z,
Agreed. But it seems that words like "champagne" or "cheddar" are also called toponyms, at least according to some references. So it seems to go both ways. And every place name comes from something, so it seems every place name is a toponym, almost by defnition.
Thank you for this timely info. I will be in Norway next month and might have inadvertently used an offensive term.
Ever see one of those cars that can convert into an airplane? Or into a power boat. They never make it beyond the novelty stage because they turn out to be neither good automobiles nor good boats or planes. Today's theme strikes me as having the same issue. It sorta works on two levels as many have pointed out. But for me, not well on either.
MOUNTAIN TOP: "Olympics" & "Andes" are names of mountain ranges, not names of mountain tops, right?
MOUNTAIN TOPONYM: "Olympics" & "Andes" are mountain names, not names derived from topographical features. "The Smokies" or "The Rockies" would be examples of mountain toponyms, right?
One more. NEW YORK MET: That would be a ball player for the New York Mets team or a short version for the Metropolitan Museum of Art. Not sure how "Wall Street" & "Madison Avenue" even relate to that.
NEW YORK METONYMS: If a metonym is a name for something that is derived from a quality or attribute closely associated with that thing---The "Oval Office" for the President or Executive Branch, for example---then neither "Wall Street" nor "Madison Ave." work in that regard, do they? Maybe for the stock market or for big advertisement, but not for New York.
Were I not to point out the above, I would risk having my Platinum Level membership in the International Guild of Word Nerds reduce to Faux Pewter Level.
@ Anoa Bob: OH MY FUCKING GOD!
@Anoa Bob: YOU HAVE GOT TO BE FUCKING KIDDING ME WITH THIS SHIT!
@Anoa Bob: UUUUUUUUUGGGGGGGGGGHHHHHHHHHHHH!!!!!!!!!
@LudyJynn, I don't mean to be enigmatic, but when I see your name on the posts I also see a capital P and a capital H. It's part of my "gift", if you want to call it that. You don't perhaps live in a penthouse, do you? LOL!
@Anoa Bob: I think what Anon is trying to say is: See Tita@ 12:26 and 12:31 (very nice/concise explanation @Tita!) before you post something so ignorant that it embarrasses you and everyone who reads what you wrote. You clearly have no idea how this crossword worked. The guild kicked you out long ago.
@Z (1:25)-- Bingo! It just goes to show that no one here is reading very carefully. Thanks for being the exception to the rule.
p.p.s.s.
Primo Spinoff Theme Idea Dept.
One seed word: TopoGigionym.
M&A
"Your Post-Noon Solid Gold Source"
**gruntz**
@Hartley, very PHunny! Enough about me; is it a UVM or JHU connection? Or something else my pea brain is missing? Do tell.
A TOPONYM is *any* place name. It does NOT have to be derived from a feature of the place. Grand Tetons, New England, Mill River, Intercourse, Jamestown, France.
It is *just* the name of a place.
@PN - TOPONYM is different than toponymy. Why? Not the foggiest so "English."
I agree with Anoa Bob re NEW YORK METONYMS. If "Hollywood" is a metonym for the film industry, and "Washington" is a metonym for the federal government, neither "Wall Street" nor "Madison Avenue" are metonyms for New York. "Big Apple" would be appropriate. If I said, I'm going to the Big Apple, people would take that to mean New York. Wall Street is a metonym for the stock market. Madison Avenue might be a metonym for the advertising industry. They are not New York Metonyms.
Overall, I think the idea for this puzzle was clever but the execution left something to be desired. And for a Thursday, it was too hard.
@BMA: OH MY FUCKING GOD YOU PEOPLE ARE IDIOTS! MAKE IT STOP!
This is hilarious!
None of us are getting this quite right...
@BMA - you're right...
51A is a fail... Both the examples, while I suppose could stretch the meaning of metonomy, (they do evoke NY), but, Wall Street is much more correct as a metonym for the stock market, and Madison Avenue for the ad business.
And because enough has not yet been said about toponomy...
Per Merriam-Webster: its definition is,
noun top·o·nym \ˈtä-pə-ˌnim, ˈtō-\
Definition of TOPONYM
: place-name
To the haters - this is a community of word-nerds - what do you expect but tons of gushing over a meta-wordplay puzzle?!!!!!!!!
@Glamour N - If not a Brit perhaps a Canadian?
Those of you who think 51a is a fail need to read Jason's comment at Xwordinfo...and I quote "there are a lot of METONYMS IN (my caps) New York City" not for New York City. Wall Street and Madison Ave. are METONYMS for the Stock Exchange and the ad biz that are in NYC.
Eat more chicken, the Col. is back!
@loving this conversation: you, too, are a moron. @KFC, AMEN.
They are NOT metonyms FOR New York, idiots. They are metonyms IN New York. Period.
@Ludes, it's not an academic exercise. I truly am gifted. But as someone else here advised you, be patient. I'm hearing voices that all will be revealed and promises kept very soon. We'll say no more about it.
Analogy: The Statue of Liberty is a New York landmark. It is a landmark IN New York. It is not a landmark that IS New York. Now, see if you can find a fucking way to apply this to Wall Street and metonyms. God you people are fucking thick.
@Z
This is what I was trying to say before. One definition of TOPONYM is a word derived from a geographical place or region. So, Andes Mints works as a MOUNTAIN TOPONYM because its name is derived from a mountain (range), the Andes (actually, it was originally called Andy's candies and the spelling later changed to match the Andes Mountains). But, and this is a BIG but, The Olympics (I.e, The Olympic Games are NOT named after Mt Olympus or any other mountain. They are named after the ancient town of Olympia, Greece, which is no even close to where Mt Olympus is located.
Oh JESUS FUCKING CHRIST @smalltowndoc. The Olympics. A mountain range. In Washington State. Named for a fucking mountain in Greece. Mt. Olympus. The clue has NOTHING TO DO with the fucking Olympic games. You people are fucking KILLING me.
"But the English captain John Meares, seeing them [the Olympic mountain range] in 1788, thought them beautiful enough for the gods to dwell there, and named the highest point "Mount Olympus" after the mountain in Greece."
What is so fucking difficult about this?!
Traveling all day, so late to the dance, but just want to add to those heaping praise on this puzz. I thought it was absolutely terrific. Wonderful mental workout. Unfortunately I screwed up the last square and ended up with NOTTi/ ESMi. Not familiar with either of those, so that's the way it goes. Congratulations and thank you, Jason. (I did a quick review of the Rexter's review and scanned a few key posts. Did OFL miss the subtle complexity of the theme answers?)
Opposite solve to @rex. Easy NW and was breezing along thinking 'too easy for a Thursday', until I hit a wall at STYRON/EYRE/PADRE. Also, posited the double-theme on 17A, so (unfortunately for me) did not get the subsequent 'aha'.
Almost a DNF because I gave up to soon running the alphabet on the STYRON/EYRE cross. But after a break, came back and eventually got there.
Will reveal my horrible ignorance here by saying I can never remember if jane EYRE is a book or an author.
@Glamour nazi, gotta say your post amused me, and reminded me of some of Toria Sheffield's huffpost work.
Oh, and puzzle made me think of red BREeM and his band of some esteem.
"The Olympic games" is not a fucking place. It is a toponym nothing. Forget about the fucking Olympic games already.
Thanks, Jason Flinn, for the great, layered Thursday puzzle.
For once, I got both parts of the theme before coming here. I do not take this as a sign of any solving epiphany I might have had, just a one in a PETA miraculous aha.
@glamour nazi, like @Z, caught your slip but if no one else is going to tell, your secret is safe with me. (Confession, I am lounging in spandex sport shorts and the mustard hued tank I'm wearing is not the color of the AÑO, I know).
My solving of this puzzle mirrored @Carola's up until she got MOUNTAIN TOP - I took a bit longer and was shaky enough on the concept that when I finished with my second, AcrossLite solution, I didn't think BLACKANTONYMS would pass muster but hey!
SAMI should have been a gimme but I had to see the MI first because my brain was stuck in this hemisphere also. We hiked the Kungsleden, the King's trail, in Sweden, 100 miles north of the Arctic Circle, (a 17 hour train ride from Stockholm) and saw lots of evidence of the SAMI people but had few actual encounters. The weather was very cold that year and the reindeer hadn't come down off the mountain yet so the owners hadn't come out for the summer season to do their annual round up yet. We were told that all of the reindeer we saw were owned by someone, no "wild" ones.
And some years later, a SAMI guide took us ice fishing in Sweden. He drilled the hole and laid reindeer skins down on the snow. You lay on the skin and covered your head with another skin to block the glare of the sun and jigged with a little jiggle stick for these small red herring or anchovy-like fish. We only caught two, not a meal's worth, for sure.
@dk, I only get the on-line version of the NY Times, so when I first subscribed to the puzzle and left Syndiland, I got the AcrossLite app on my iPad and solved that way but never acclimated to not solving on paper. So I started printing it out (the 'empty grid' version) and I'm much happier. I type in my answers into the AcrossLite after the paper solve in order to check my work. So that's my advice to you, FWIW.
@smalltowndoc - Going out on a limb here, but I think both the Olympics and Olympia are TOPONYMS for Mt. Olympus. Did a little research (here and Wikipedia) and it seems Olympia came into being specifically to host the Olympics. If the games had been held elsewhere that place would have ended up named "Olympia." I'm not certain, but it seems a reasonable conclusion from what I read.
@anonyfuck - Use "fuck" once a decade and it gives power and emphasis to your message. Use it repeatedly on a xword blog while denigrating others and it suggests limited intelligence and vocabulary. I'm guessing that wasn't your intent. BTW - I don't think the clue is referencing the western US but it is a fair interpretation.
@Z: If you stupid fucking people would stop being so fucking dense about this fucking puzzle then I wouldn't have to fucking offend your sensibilities so fucking much. At least fucking intelligent enough to understand this fucking puzzle, unlike the fucking people who keep complaining about things they clearly don't fucking understand. If one more fucking asshole on this fucking board talks about how "Wall Street" is not a toponym of New York or "The Olympics (mother-fucking games or mother-fucking mountains)" isn't a metonym, I am going to poke my fucking eyeballs out with a fork.
@kitshef -- Many thanks for your praise. Now off to check out Toria Sheffield, of whom I've never heard.
@Teedman -- Many thanks for your discretion!
Or that motherfucking "Black Ants" doesn't make sense for the clue "white and lighted." One. More. Fucking. Time.
Hey guys, should we stop now? I dunno - it's so easy to egg on this particular troll...let's do it some more, eh?
At least just until s/he actually follows through on that threat - with no EYEBALLS (hey - that was an answer twice in the past week - you see what s/he's doing??)
@anonymous
Hahahahahahahahahahahah
White and lighted are both antonyms of black
Really, Steve?! They are?! You, sir, are a motherfucking genius!
Awful. Constructor's conceit. DNF. No joy. At all.
First of all, I promise you I am not the troll, and I did read every word of this blog VERY carefully. I know it's late, but I sure hope someone is still out there. Sir Hillary DIDN'T clear up the black ant problem, and while Tita's attempt was specific, even she didn't help me see how white and lighted yields black ant! Human and Deadly ARE synonyms for MORTAL. How are white and lighted antonyms for black ant? They're not. It's a deep, deep flaw to me. As for Sir Hillary's explanation, it's not true that only MOUNTAINTOPONYM can be read as a phrase without the "ONYM." So can NEWYORKMETONYMS (New York Mets Metonym) and MORTALSYNONYM (Mortal Sin Synonym.) So I'm still wondering how "black ant" is the answer for the clue. I get that white and lighted are antonyms of black, obviously, but I do not, do not, do not get how the answer to the clue is BLACK ANT. Please, is there anyone out there who can help me pound this into my apparently very, very thick skull?????
That's it @600. You've done it. I am now fucking blind and my eyeball goo is dripping all over my keyboard, making a huge fucking mess. Next I'm going to chop off my motherfucking balls because I don't want to reproduce in a world that produces suck motherfucking imbeciles.
I have not laughed so hard in a long time. Thank you EVERYONE for your funny, educational, serious/tongue-in-cheek posts. Is this a great blog, or what?
@600, re-read @Tita's explanation. There are two parts to the theme. There's the literal part, that Deadly or Human are SYNONYMs of MORTAL, and the second part which is that the phrase MORTAL SIN is a thing, onto which is added ONYM (and in this case, the outlier, the spelling changes to SYN) to make the first part.
So NEW YORK MET_____S is a thing and the two streets are NEW YORK METONYMS, the literal answer to the clue.
This holds true in the other two: BLACK ANT____S is the thing, and BLACK ANTONYMS is the literal answer to the clue.
MOUNTAIN TOP is a thing and MOUNTAIN TOPONYM is the literal answer to 17A.
Let's see if this passed the spam filter.
I found a useful website with many different nym words. Had no idea there were so many different ones. I think capitalonym is my favorite, words that change meaning when capitalized like polish and Polish. Or auto-antonyms which are words that are the opposite of themselves, like overlook (which can mean watching carefully or completely missing something). Going to try to work a few into conversation this coming week.
http://www.fun-with-words.com/nym_words.html
@glamour nazi - Even if I don't know how to dress, you can add me to those who know how to seal their lips :)
Don't understand this "change to the base phrase", sin to syn. The adjective deadly is a synonym for mortal, as in a deadly blow. The noun human is a synonym for a mortal, one fated to die. No sin at all.
"Pussy" could be the clue for CATHETERONYM, since it can also be pronounced differently to mean "full of pus". Like Anonymous's eyeball goo.
First of all, I think I read these comments two or three times. (No time to chime in.)
1. Could someone explain how yesterday's theme worked and use the F word a gazillion times, please? Just kidding! Add me to the elite list who caught on with no trouble and understood.
2. @Z. @Teedmn, @Carola – do you mean to intimate that this Glamour Nazi is someone we're intimate here with in Rexworld? I'm panicked that I cannot figure it out but relieved that s/he can't see through my screen.
3. Loved learning about the other NYM words.
I've read and reread the posts and for the life of me cannot see that someone already pointed out the first thing I noticed: OHM, an eponym if there ever was one. Kinda like the icing on the cake.
You know, somewhere in the back of my mind I knew there were a bunch of NYM words, but maybe because of eponym and its mysterious usage, I think I've carefully avoided learning a lot of these. Heteronym is one I've recently had to master to maintain my #1 in WV spot in QuizUp grammar. (Quite the accomplishment, right? Hey – it's fun beating the #1s from other states who probably snort when they see my state.) Anyway…. I like me a good heteronym, as in He wound the bandage around the wound.
So I'm glad Jason built this puzzle o subject us to such an interesting, imho, subject. I had never heard of METONYM or TOPONYM, but how cool that he not only used these terms, but word-played'em to make things like …NEW YORK MET and ….BLACK ANT? That must have been really, really hard. I've tried for a while to wind my thoughts around just how to pull a trick like this off, but all I get is a bunch of empty whoosh wind up there in brainland.
That southwest almost did me in, but I was so close I dug my heels in, finally saw STYRON and ATHENIANS and was able to close it.
@ John Child –RANT RACK stood out to me, too, but in an antler kind of way. Wonder if deer have tempers. Who know what an angry buck does to does, huh?
Jason – I was pleased you were able to present us with such a linguistic present.
I hate to admit it, but (fucking) anonymous has a good point. If the clue is referring to the Olympics Mountain range in Washington, it is, indeed, a legitimate MOUNTAIN TOPONYM, the name of the range having been derived from Mt. Olympus.
I just wish I could come up with some other comment to push Anonymous totally over the edge. It's my new hobby.
Am here to testify what this great spell caster done for me. i never believe in spell casting, until when i was was tempted to try it. i and my husband have been having a lot of problem living together, he will always not make me happy because he have fallen in love with another lady outside our relationship, i tried my best to make sure that my husband leave this woman but the more i talk to him the more he makes me fell sad, so my marriage is now leading to divorce because he no longer gives me attention. so with all this pain and agony, i decided to contact this spell caster to see if things can work out between me and my husband again. this spell caster who was a woman told me that my husband is really under a great spell that he have been charm by some magic, so she told me that she was going to make all things normal back. she did the spell on my husband and after 5 days my husband changed completely he even apologize with the way he treated me that he was not him self, i really thank this woman her name is Dr Aluta she have bring back my husband back to me i want you all to contact her who are having any problem related to marriage issue and relationship problem she will solve it for you. her email is traditionalspellhospital@gmail.com she is a woman and she is great. wish you good time.
Am here to testify what this great spell caster done for me. i never believe in spell casting, until when i was was tempted to try it. i and my husband have been having a lot of problem living together, he will always not make me happy because he have fallen in love with another lady outside our relationship, i tried my best to make sure that my husband leave this woman but the more i talk to him the more he makes me fell sad, so my marriage is now leading to divorce because he no longer gives me attention. so with all this pain and agony, i decided to contact this spell caster to see if things can work out between me and my husband again. this spell caster who was a woman told me that my husband is really under a great spell that he have been charm by some magic, so she told me that she was going to make all things normal back. she did the spell on my husband and after 5 days my husband changed completely he even apologize with the way he treated me that he was not him self, i really thank this woman her name is Dr Aluta she have bring back my husband back to me i want you all to contact her who are having any problem related to marriage issue and relationship problem she will solve it for you. her email is traditionalspellhospital@gmail.com she is a woman and she is great. wish you good time.
Am here to testify what this great spell caster done for me. i never believe in spell casting, until when i was was tempted to try it. i and my husband have been having a lot of problem living together, he will always not make me happy because he have fallen in love with another lady outside our relationship, i tried my best to make sure that my husband leave this woman but the more i talk to him the more he makes me fell sad, so my marriage is now leading to divorce because he no longer gives me attention. so with all this pain and agony, i decided to contact this spell caster to see if things can work out between me and my husband again. this spell caster who was a woman told me that my husband is really under a great spell that he have been charm by some magic, so she told me that she was going to make all things normal back. she did the spell on my husband and after 5 days my husband changed completely he even apologize with the way he treated me that he was not him self, i really thank this woman her name is Dr Aluta she have bring back my husband back to me i want you all to contact her who are having any problem related to marriage issue and relationship problem she will solve it for you. her email is traditionalspellhospital@gmail.com she is a woman and she is great. wish you good time.
Am here to testify what this great spell caster done for me. i never believe in spell casting, until when i was was tempted to try it. i and my husband have been having a lot of problem living together, he will always not make me happy because he have fallen in love with another lady outside our relationship, i tried my best to make sure that my husband leave this woman but the more i talk to him the more he makes me fell sad, so my marriage is now leading to divorce because he no longer gives me attention. so with all this pain and agony, i decided to contact this spell caster to see if things can work out between me and my husband again. this spell caster who was a woman told me that my husband is really under a great spell that he have been charm by some magic, so she told me that she was going to make all things normal back. she did the spell on my husband and after 5 days my husband changed completely he even apologize with the way he treated me that he was not him self, i really thank this woman her name is Dr Aluta she have bring back my husband back to me i want you all to contact her who are having any problem related to marriage issue and relationship problem she will solve it for you. her email is traditionalspellhospital@gmail.com she is a woman and she is great. wish you good time.
Am here to testify what this great spell caster done for me. i never believe in spell casting, until when i was was tempted to try it. i and my husband have been having a lot of problem living together, he will always not make me happy because he have fallen in love with another lady outside our relationship, i tried my best to make sure that my husband leave this woman but the more i talk to him the more he makes me fell sad, so my marriage is now leading to divorce because he no longer gives me attention. so with all this pain and agony, i decided to contact this spell caster to see if things can work out between me and my husband again. this spell caster who was a woman told me that my husband is really under a great spell that he have been charm by some magic, so she told me that she was going to make all things normal back. she did the spell on my husband and after 5 days my husband changed completely he even apologize with the way he treated me that he was not him self, i really thank this woman her name is Dr Aluta she have bring back my husband back to me i want you all to contact her who are having any problem related to marriage issue and relationship problem she will solve it for you. her email is traditionalspellhospital@gmail.com she is a woman and she is great. wish you good time.
Would someone PLEASE put a hitman on Kate Mark. Maybe cement shoes or quicksand or a failed parachute.
Other than having to look up Alek Wek, this was Easy/Medium in my book. I started at the bottom and worked upward. The last to fall was the NE corner because of Wek. Caught on pretty quick on the nyms so that was a big boost. Thanks J.F. for a nifty puzzle.
@leftcoastAM - Didn't mean to offend you with the "sexploits" mention. It was more a putdown to the infallible Rex P. I apologized sooner than this but the comment didn't print that day.
I enjoy ALL the comments from the Syndies and wish there were more.
Ron Diego, La Mesa, CA (Where the residents don't sweat because of the drought, lack of rain).
Some bothersome side issues to clear away first:
--> Can somebody please wake up the syndication link-person? We've been stuck on last Saturday for five days now.
--> Could we ask the multi-posting "anoNYMous" to please clean up his act? Any more F-bombs and we'll be declared a disaster area.
--> And yes, I agree re @Kate. It's bad enough we have to endure this crap without having to wade through it in triplicate.
And now, please, the actual puzzle? I thought the theme clever, as all the -NYMs are legit, though TOPONYM and METONYM are much less familiar. Didn't have a lot of trouble with it, difficulty-wise; in fact, for a Thursday I might call it easy-medium. Didn't know who owns the Mariners, but with three N's? No problem. A bit fuzzy on some authorships, I thought maybe 37d might be Danielle STEELE; the title sounds like her stuff. Took a little while to aha! our old friend Jane EYRE and the man on (more properly IN) a mission. I mean, did the Eagles see some old dude standing on the roof? Nah.
Fill was...interesting. Let's say, B+.
Yes, yes, yes, yes ! Agree wholeheartedly with Spacecraft's second line. At first I thought it was only me. If nothing else, let's blame it on Kate Mark and her ilk.
Ron Diego, Personal Judge, Jury & Executioner to Kate Mark
Rex is on vacation in realtime. I'll try to remind guest blogger Gaffney to update the syndy link.
PIUS MEANY
IMNO PADRE, but if PHIL does POKER on a whim
and not LIETO me, I can’t pin a MORTALSYNONYM.
--- ERICH BREAM
The secret of NYM. I knew there were NYMs, but couldn’t hone in UPON them. First one to fall was BLACKANTONYM, then light bulb city. And write-overs really slowed me. SAnka did not refresh. Like @dk, wanted beaker for AMPULE, yikes! And misguidedly posted rAILS . siT for EAT What a mess.
SPUNK was a local band here in the 1970s, the members were acquaintances of mine. Good times.
I RANTRACK in high school. Until I couldn’t stand the puking after every race. Concentrated on baseball after that nonsense.
ALEK Wek, fairly obscure yeah baby. At least for me.
Oh those early days of AEROSMITH, that INSTILLS memories of many a good time.
Wish I still had my original STICKY Fingers album – with the zipper. Might have to get the semi-recent re-issue.
This puz had me all twisted and turned for the longest time. Between the time involved and the spilled ink, difficult, but not impossible for me. As they should be.
A first: I finished without googling, but then I had to google to understand nat geo. I still don't see why it's a commercial lead-in?
Thursday struggles here, but figuring out the ONYN bit helped a lot. But since I sIft, rather than MINE for data, it took forever to discover MONSOON and work out the SE, which fell once I got enough crosses for NINTENDO. Still DNF because I can never remember the subway line, IR?. This time I chose E because eOPONYN seemed familiar. Ha! Spelling gremlin strikes again. Repeat after me "eponym".
@leftcoastTam: finding more and more reason to just skip the real time folks. It is becoming nasty out there. Mostly MIINE their comments for the likes of @M&A, LEWIS, Z, OLDTIMER and a few other long time posters, and then skip,to today.
@Ron Diego. I wish you would use that name as your sign-in. I've taken to skipping the anonymice, and would hate to lose you in the debris.
IMNO puzzle master, but I found this one NEAT and doable via helpful crosses and a SUPRA theme.
@DMG: I like your way of dealing with realtimers' vs. syndilanders' posts. I've been scrolling more selectively through the realtimers' repartee and sniping, but still get bogged down from time to time.
I agree about some of the real timers getting "out there". Though I enjoy some of the banter. I wonder who @GLAMOUR NAZI is?
Puzzle was pretty entertaining. Learned some new words. Didn't like BLACK ANT though. I understand the concept, but would have preferred red ant. Just sayin!
@Ron Diego- I always read the bottom of the anonymous in syndiland. I don't want to miss your funny send offs! But it really is easier to to use your name as your sign in, @DMG and @Spacecraft. Hey, if I can do it....:)
@DMG: Among others, I usually read Rex Porker for his unapologetic snark. Also, as Cathy implies, @glamour nazi, a fresh,new poster, may have some potential.
Maybe you know, Loren, what the doe said as she stumbled out of the woods. "That's the last time I'll do THAT for two bucks."
It is interesting how there could be such varying reaction to this puzzle. I found it execrable and the "nyms" themepiece to be both clunky and unmanageable. The fill throughout was atrocious and deciding to turn the page on this one asap. Great usages, however, included ATHENIANS and INSTILLS, with hats off to AMPULE and MONSOON. Relegated to the ashbin of crossword history are SMOKEY for "safety icon" (lame-o) and INASENSE for "from one perspective." Overall grade: D+
I keep seeing comments about the syndication link. Can someone explain to me what that is? Thanks.
@Zachary Sullivan - Where are you getting the puzzle? You are about 4 months behind real time and 3 months behind Syndy Time. To answer your question, at the top of the blog are several links. The "Syndicated Puzzle" link takes you to the blog post from five weeks prior (M-S) or one week prior (Sun.). Many papers run the NYTX in syndication, appearing 5 weeks later M-S and one week later for the Sunday puzzle. Just a note of caution, that link has to be updated manually, so whenever Rex has a substitute blogger it can get wonky.
wouw.. i love this blog ^^
Post a Comment