Latin diphthongs / THU 7-9-15 / Nabors title role of 1960s TV / South Pacific island nation that's only 8.1 square miles / French narrative poem

Constructor: John Guzzetta

Relative difficulty: Medium-Challenging

THEME: RIGHT ON CUE (61A: Prompt ... or a hint to entering five answers in this puzzle) — five theme answers start as Downs but then veer right (i.e. Across) at the letter "Q" (neat trick: the "Q" word formed by the Across is clued separately):

Theme answers:

• ILLEQUIPPED (1D: Not ready) / 24A: Produced laugh lines?
• SUMMERSQUASH (5D: Crookneck, e.g.) / 38A: Put down
• GIANTSQUID (10D: Army terror?) / 33A: Pounds
• PEPSQUAD (50D: School spirit raiser) / 67A: Leg muscle, informally
• ANYREQUESTS? (48D: D.J.'s invitation) / 68A: Challenges for knights

Word of the Day:  LORDE (11D: 2013 Grammy winner for "Royals") —

Ella Marija Lani Yelich-O'Connor (born 7 November 1996), known by her stage name Lorde, is a New Zealand singer and songwriter. Born in Takapuna and raised in Devonport, Auckland, she became interested in performing as a child. In her early teens, she signed with Universal Music Group and was later paired with the songwriter and record producer Joel Little, who co-wrote and produced most of Lorde's works. Her first major release, The Love Club EP, was commercially released in March 2013. The EP reached number two on the national record charts of Australia and New Zealand.
In mid-2013, Lorde released her debut single "Royals". It became an international crossover hit and made Lorde the youngest solo artist to achieve a US number-one single on the Billboard Hot 100 since 1987. Later that year, she released her debut studio album, Pure Heroine. The record topped the charts of Australia and New Zealand and reached number three on the US Billboard 200. Its following singles include "Tennis Court", "Team", "No Better" and "Glory and Gore". In 2014, Lorde released "Yellow Flicker Beat" as a single from the soundtrack for The Hunger Games: Mockingjay – Part 1. // Lorde's music consists of the subgenres of electronica, pop and rock, including dream pop and indie-electro. In 2013, she was named among Time‍ '​s most influential teenagers in the world, and in the following year, she was in the Forbes‍ '​s "30 Under 30" list. (wikipedia)

• • •

I'll start by saying I think the theme is clever and well-executed. Revealer is a solid phrase, and the theme is based on solid wordplay. The fact that the Across parts of the theme answers are all stand-alone answers, and are clued as such, is a nice added touch. Puzzle would be considerably less interesting if those Across parts were just clued with a "-" or something. So, good. But the problem, once again (Once. Again.) comes when we get down to everything that Isn't part of the theme. The fill. She is NOISOME. Not always, for sure. NOISOME, for instance, great. Actually, let me rephrase the issue. The fill is not overwhelmingly bad. It's creaky and unpleasant in perhaps too many places, but despite your LAIs and your EPHs and your INEs and your INYOUs and a lot of other less ugly but awfully common short stuff, it stays just this side of acceptable. Until it doesn't. Until the bottom drops out. Until the worst 3-letter answer I've ever seen, the worst 3-letter answer in the history of crosswords—worse than any Random Roman Numeral or plural suffix or anything. I challenge you—sincerely challenge you—to find a three-letter answer worse than OES (58A: Latin diphthongs).


You do not get to pluralize a diphthong. In this case, the diphthong is not two discrete letters. It's "Œ" (fittingly, today, made (on my Mac) by typing [Option-Q]). You can break it into two letters—it's certainly represented that way in writing at times—but you can't break it into two letters and then *pluralize* it. That's nonsense. I mean, nonsense. AES? Would that be an acceptable (non-Adlai Stevenson-related) answer? Jesus Mary and Joseph, I do Not understand how you don't tear out As Much As You Have To in order to refill the grid without OES. That answer is shameful. All the goodwill this puzzle built up with its cute little theme—right out the window. I will remember the atrocity that is OES and nothing else.


I got the theme quickly today. Here:

I guess at that point I didn't know that the pivot point would always be "Q," but I knew pivoting was the point and the point was pivoting. I had real trouble with SUMMER SQUASH, as "Crookneck" is totally meaningless to me. Also EPH. was NEH. and ETH. (?) for a while, and the trying-too-hard (TTH) clue on TAYLOR, predictably, threw me (9D: Swift, in music). Phrasing there is too forced not to have a "?" on the end of the clue. Later on, I wanted PEP RALLY and even PEP DANCE (?) before PEP SQUAD. ANY REQUESTS is a question, not an "invitation," so yuck to the cluing there too. See also "vehicle" as a clue for IRA. Why are you spending all this time trying desperately to cutesy-up the clues instead of spending it Getting Rid Of OES!? Gah. There is only one acceptable "O.E."—the common New Zealand term for "overseas experience." It's a longish period spent abroad, traveling and working, typically in one's 20s, traditionally in London. But even that term you'd be hard-pressed to pluralize. I mean, really. There's a reason OES hasn't been in the NYT since 1994 (!?). And even then it was clued, mysteriously, as [Whirlwinds]. I'm not sure the cruciverb database even has that right. [...does some googling...] OMG, there seems to be a definition of OE as follows: "a whirlwind near the Faeroe Islands." That Is One Specific Whirlwind.* I beg you to forget OES or anything I have told you about all the various OES. It's been dead and buried as an NYT answer for 21 years. Here's to 21 more.

Signed, Rex Parker, King of CrossWorld

*speaking of wind, "A"-less EOLIAN is pretty ugly too (65A: Wind-borne). Like OES, only 1 NYT appearance in the entire cruciverb database (2002).

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