Peddler of religious literature / SAT 5-27-17 / Great Trek figure of 1830s / Notable 1973 defendant / Dickens character with dead lull about her / Spring's cyclic counterpart

Constructor: Damon Gulczynski

Relative difficulty: Easy-Challenging (Easy, except for SW corner, which is not)

THEME: none 

Word of the Day: COLPORTEUR (28D: Peddler of religious literature) —

Colportage is the distribution of publications, books, and religious tracts by carriers called "colporteurs". The term does not necessarily refer to religious book peddling. (wikipedia)

• • •

Sometimes just an answer or two can ruin a whole puzzle for me. And I don't just mean ruin as in "ruin my time." I mean "bring the mood crashing down" or "make me wince in a way that never quite leaves my face." Today's puzzle was mostly excellent, I think. Lots of fresh and lively fill, incl. THROW SHADE and FLEXITARIAN. Fairly polished, wide-ranging. There were some dicey bits, like ETTAS (?) over IATE (??), but in the main, things were pretty ship shape. I am not sure I believe there is such a thing as a FLORIDA TECH (?), but I'll take the puzzle's word for it. Don't mind BOSOMY as a word, I guess, but coulda done without the ogley "centerfold" reference (43D: Like centerfolds, typically). But still, like I say, I was largely digging it. But then: two problems.

Just because a word *technically* exists doesn't mean you should try to pass it off as a legit crossword answer. 999 out of 1000 people are gonna say PRE-NATAL. 1 out of 1000 is going to say ANTENATAL (8D: During pregnancy), and that person is possessed by the ghost of a 19th-century country doctor. Just as you would never say PREBELLUM, you would never say ANTENATAL, no no no. I mean, I'm no doctor, but no. Looks like ANTENATAL might be Australian-speak. That's what google is indicating. But, yeah, I don't live there. So no. You don't take ANTENATAL vitamins, you take prenatal vitamins. You know it, I know it, the Carthaginians knew it. Prenatal. But that was just an eye-roll, frankly, *This* on the other hand, was a hard middle finger:

So much wrong here. First, yes, I *do* enjoy learning new things. But I do Not enjoy inelegantly made grids. This answer is the *only* way into a tight corner. So basically, you get COLP-, and you (if you're like me) go "Huh ... that's the start of no word ever. I must have an error." Then you think, "Wait ... is it MALE BLUE DOT?" Then you dive into the SW and you actually know the pitcher (though aren't sure about ABBOTT v. ABBETT) (39D: Jim ___, one-handed Yankee who pitched a no-hitter in 1993) and you know BOER (44A: Great Trek figure of the 1830s) and you know TERRY, but ... the rest stump you. Oh, you guess NEARER (41D: Like Mars vis-à-vis Jupiter), but ... still stuck. *Two* "?" clues down there? Come on. And that 28-Down, yeah, that still looks like gibberish. I still somehow managed to finish this thing in under 7 minutes, but the last two of those were spent just in that tiny stupid corner.

To end on a word that obscure, that uninferrable, that ... ugh. It sapped all the good vibes. All I was left with was this crappy jerk-word, which I would've been "happy" enough to learn, I guess, if a. it hadn't been such a sore thumb standout compared to the rest of the grid, and b. it hadn't been completely blocking the only entrance to that small corner. Solver experience, not considered. AGAIN: just because a word exists doesn't mean you should pull the trigger. Use some judgment. And for god's sake, don't ruin your otherwise lovely puzzle with obscure clunkers.

Signed, Rex Parker, King of CrossWorld

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