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Relative difficulty: Easy (4:41)
Word of the Day: Treaty of Fort Laramie (9D: One signatory to the Treaty of Fort Laramie) —
The Treaty of Fort Laramie (also called the Sioux Treaty of 1868[b]) was an agreement between the United States and the Oglala, Miniconjou, and Brulé bands of Lakota people, Yanktonai Dakota and Arapaho Nation, following the failure of the first first Fort Laramie treaty, signed in 1851.The treaty was divided into 17 articles. It established the Great Sioux Reservationincluding ownership of the Black Hills, and set aside additional lands as "unceded Indian territory" in areas of South Dakota, Wyoming, and Nebraska, and possibly Montana.[c]. It established that the US Government would hold authority to punish both white settlers who committed crimes against the tribes, and also tribe members who committed crimes, and who were to be delivered to the government. It stipulated that the government would abandon forts along the Bozeman Trail, and included a number of provisions designed to encourage a transition to farming, and move the tribes "closer to the white man's way of life." The treaty protected specified rights of third parties not partaking in the negotiations, and effectively ended Red Cloud's War.It was negotiated by members of the government appointed Indian Peace Commission, and signed between April and November 1868 at and near Fort Laramie in the Wyoming Territory, with the final signatories being Red Cloud himself and others who accompanied him. Animosities over the agreement arose quickly, with neither side fully honoring the terms. Open war again broke out in 1876, and the US Government unilaterally annexed native land protected under the treaty in 1877.The treaty formed the basis of the 1980 Supreme Court case, United States v. Sioux Nation of Indians, in which the court rules that tribal lands covered under the treaty had been taken illegally by the US Government, and the tribe was owed compensation plus interest. As of 2018 this amounted to more than $1 billion. The Sioux have refused the payment, demanding instead the return of their land. (wikipedia)
• • •
[baked by Chroma Bakery, Binghamton, NY]
Loved "MONEY TALKS!" and "LET'S DO THIS!" I know what one-stop shopping is, but I don't think of a ONE-STOP SHOP as a place. I'm clearly wrong about this—I just never hear it in my neck of the woods. "We need to go to the ONE-STOP SHOP!" Errrr...? I actually got every letter of that answer from crosses (not because of difficulty, just ... 'cause that's how it happened), and I honestly thought it was a verb phrase. Something you do when you're in a hurry? Anyway, it's a fine answer, as is CARAMEL CORN. The only snags I had today were YENTA for YENTE (49D: Gossipmonger), DOOM for LOOM (63A: Portend) and XYLUM for XYLEM (25A: Plant tissue). I think I mixed ASYLUM with XANTHAN GUM, and thus XYLUM was born. That vowel issue actually cost me a few seconds, as I couldn't remember if the Chiefs were in the AFC East or AFC WEST (honestly, in non-solving mode, the answer is obvious, but sometimes when you're solving you become very uncertain about Everything You "Know") (11D: The K.C. Chiefs are in it). I laughed out loud at IMHO (57A: Texting preamble) because of all the "controversy" online about the meaning of that "H"...
Chew on that nonsense.
Anyway, Hurray for the high word-count themeless, nature's perfect puzzle type!
Signed, Rex Parker, King of CrossWorld
[Follow Rex Parker on Twitter and Facebook]
Lots to like here – both those big corners are terrific.
ReplyDeleteWith HACTIVISM and STAYCATION putting me in a portmanteau frame of mind, it’s hard not to imagine my own. Sleighcation – snow fun. Praycation – church retreat. Daycation – going to school and being informed that there’s no water so you get to go home and enjoy the day off. Maycation – Memorial Day long weekend (usually a staycation). Graycation – Mom going to Pigeon Forge on a charter bus with a group from her retirement community. And back to STAYCATION – what you hope Aunt Bertie’s overnight visit doesn’t turn into ‘cause she’s an accomplished yaktivist.
Rex- I have to brag that my first entry was TROYES; I’m an English/French fifteenth century pactivist. Ok I’ll stop.
Liked OPEN WIDE crossing TEETH. And the ANATOMY clues for XYLEM and FAT.
AT LONG LAST, LET’S DO THIS. Let’s get married. Let’s clean out the garage. Let’s get a new set of silverware. Let’s invite Aunt Bertie for the weekend.
I had a tough time over in the west ‘cause I had “draw” for TROT and “engage” for ENTAIL. And it wasn’t occurring to me that that one-stop shopping place could be called a ONE STOP SHOP.
IMPRESARIO – have to admit I was aware of the word but didn’t know what it meant. Obviously, it looks more like someone who runs around trying to impress people. Me.
Gotta go prepare for my son’s visit with The Girlfriend. . .
*Buy cool snacks
*Buy fancy fluffy toilet paper and hide all the generic one-ply
*Dust
*Figure out where that odd smell is coming from
*Throw away the People magazines and scatter The Economist here and there (but casually, ya know?).
*Change the tv channel so that if we turn it on, it’s on National Geographic and not Bravo.
*Do a little mental Spanish practice ‘cause she’s bilingual - look up if it’s Me gustan las lenguas or Me gustan las idiomas. I think lengua is actually the tongue in your mouth, and I don’t want to creep her out by announcing that I’m into tongues. Oops. (@Gill? Estudié solamente uno año en la escuela.)
Nothing can turn me into an impresaria faster than meeting a serious girlfriend who speaks Spanish.
Michael Hawkins – loved those big corners and the long downs to boot. Nice job.
Oh, this had so much that I love in a puzzle:
ReplyDelete* A solving progression from WALK at the start, then, through an "Oh!" here and a "Yes!" there, the solve sped to TROT,then to FAST.
* Getting answers out of my wheelhouse (TROYES, REDFIN, HACKTIVISM).
* A passel of divine answers (LETS DO THIS, AT LONG LAST, TAKES OFF, MONEY TALKS, CARAMEL CORN, ONE STOP SHOP).
* Smile producing clues (REDEALT, REF, ANATOMY, KRYPTON, TEETH).
* Memory-eliciting moments... STONED sharing the puzzle with CARAMEL CORN, and the cross of TEETH and TAKES OFF fondly reminding me of my grandfather.
* Admirable stacks on the top and bottom.
So much to enjoy that any negatives (were there any?) had to be taken with a grain of SEASALT. Michael, the good work you put into this paid off royally for me -- much gratitude!
I was a student for 19 years. I don't ever recall a teacher bringing in cookies for us. Say what you will people, but Rex/Michael is a big-hearted softie!!
ReplyDeleteHave to agree -- too often these days a difference in opinion becomes the reason to vilify another person. I don't always see eye to eye with Rex but I'm sure he is a good person and this only helps to confirm that thought. :)
DeleteVery similar to Rex.
ReplyDeleteReally liked it and quickly done.
Favorite clueing was for REF and ANATOMY.
ATTLEE was difficult to spell but AFC WEST locked it in.
A fun solve.
Thanks MH
Totally agree - tons of stuff to like here and precious little to kvetch about except that it was over too soon. REPENT crossing STONED tickled the old humerus.
ReplyDeleteBest puzzle in a long time. Really no need to list the fun stuff because it's everywhere!
ReplyDeleteA few other thoughts
Nice homophone cross of sue/Sioux.
First thought for Evangelist's exhortation - Send Money. 'Cause you know Money Talks.
That 1950 film must have a special meaning for Michael Hawkins to use such a long, obscure clue just to get Los.
If you don't know Director Wes Anderson I suggest "The Grand Budapest Hotel." You won't be sorry.
Is it just me, or has SET FEE become an almost-daily annoyance?
ReplyDeleteLovely puzzle, although too easy for a Friday. All the ‘?’ clues were beauty.
Not familiar with the YENTE spelling, and had WENt before WEND and NAw before NAH, making 66A “LATSTOTWIS” until I checked the clue.
@Lewis recited the many things to be admired here and I second his comments. I really enjoyed those stacks.
ReplyDeleteI had CsT before CDT and tried to start IMPRESARIO with an "E". Also not familiar with this usage of 45A "Baked."
Keep 'em comin', Mr. Hawkins.
I'm glad the puzzle write clued CDT properly. My rant: shouldn't what we are on most of the time be called "standard time"? Then we should call what we do in the winter Daylight Squandering Time.
ReplyDeleteVery easy, but a good workout nontheless. Nice fitting crosses made it possible.
ReplyDeleteI live in DC which made the Krypton clue even harder. However, it does seem like we are on a different planet these days. I’m going to the baseball game tonight. Go Krypton-Nats!
ReplyDeleteI enjoyed the puzzle, but it took a while. KENO also rhymes with casino. IVAN is also great. Had FIELD TRIAL and plopped in FUR for animal tissue. It was a very circuitous route to the finish. Thank God for ATLONGLAST, and ONESTOP SHOP or I would still be scratching my head
ReplyDeleteeasy but excellent
ReplyDelete(It's humble.)
ReplyDeleteGreat puzzle, I was in about 20% under average for a Friday, and that's with inexplicably thinking the Chiefs were a baseball team for about 10 minutes.
Now that I'm finished, this puzzle doesn't seem so hard but I had to go all the way down to ANNE McCaffrey to get my first entry. (My first three entries are women's names: ANNE, SUE, IRIS). When I first ran into Ms. McCaffrey's books, in the 80's, I was enthralled, but revisiting them, I've realized her writing isn't all that. But they were groundbreaking at the time.
ReplyDeleteCotton candy is the same length as CARAMEL CORN.
@kitshef, same thought here re: SET FEE.
Having FIELD study in at 28D made having a good time PARs_. PARsing sentences is fun? Sure....
Nice job, Michael Hawkins.
Emphasize the "for you" in the 24D clue ("What has a lot in store FOR YOU"), and the same set of letters gives you a new and workable answer: ONE'S TOP SHOP. Interesting.
ReplyDeleteI also like PSY in the neighborhood of XYLEM.
And the slapstick INELEGANCE of placing the let's-get-started LET'S DO THIS at the end of the puzzle.
Fun puzzle for a Friday - meaning I finished and relatively quickly. I had an "aha" moment when I realized that KRYP probably was not a neighborhood in DC and referenced the comics. Did not know TROYES or ATTLEE and CARAMELCORN was not what I think of eating at a fair or ball park. Silly since I grew up in a world of Crackerjack - caramel corn with peanuts and a "toy prize!" in a box.
ReplyDeleteSomeone wrote yesterday that people were not saying that they learned new things from the puzzles. I learn new things from the puzzles and especially this blog almost every day.
@TwoPonies Yes! Send $$$ 'cuz I need a new jet! god doesn't want me to fly with the rabble.
Happy weekend everyone
What does the design on those cookies mean?
ReplyDeleteAnother technical DNF. The NE proved the biggest challenge. I had roastEdCORN which I couldn’t let go. It made me distrust DECK & AFCWEST. The cure? Give up and Google British PMs! ATTdEE suddenly made sense as ATTLEE.
ReplyDeleteSE & NW were first to fall. I really liked all of the long entries. I’m amazed I saw KRYPTON from only the N because Gotham didn’t fit.
Some of my MANY write-overs:
egAd > ISAY
fact > IDOL
dRag > TROT
FIELDstudy > FIELDTRIAL
coOkED > STONED
ERIc > ERIk > ERIE (aha!)
jaws > trex > CROC (more aha!)
roastEdCORN > kettleCORN > CARAMELCORN
I really enjoyed this puzzle! Thanks!!
WOE is a "Latte Machine" (26 D) ? You mean an espresso machine that can make lattes, right? Making the clueing even worse, no self-respecting Italian ever ordered a latte after 11AM, so "Cafe" would have been marginally better than "restaurant"
DeleteAs an ex-barista I can attest to same. It's an espresso machine, amico Michele.
DeleteBtw, as much as I think some of Rex's commentary is inane, I stand in awe that he could finish this in under 5 minutes. So many answers have to be correct immediately, and I have no idea how one keeps a clear head when you're feeling the time pressure.
ReplyDeleteBest puzzle in eons. Very elegant. Few proper names. This constructor is A One.
ReplyDeletestroll in rubber shoes, CROC WALK 18-21A
ReplyDeletehigh time, STONER PARTY 45-48A
MONEYTALKS SUE cross
meant STONED
DeleteI was forced to do this puzzle on the computer last night as I couldn't get it to print. That lead to a snail pace on what is really a very easy solve.
ReplyDeleteTROYES was the only entry which was both an unknown and something who's spelling I couldn't easily infer.
The long entry clues we're vague enough that I had to start with CROC supported by DECK. I miscounted the 12D spaces and briefly tried to work with CARAMELAPPLE. Funny how those PS weren't getting me anywhere.
WRIER looks wrong. I can tell a YENTE clue from a YENTL one. DRAW was such a misdirect for 22As clue that I even filled it in wrong again this morning when I filled in the paper version as a reference.
Even knowing the answers it took me 6:21 to fill in the puzzle. So much for my speed solving career.
There were some gimmes here but this required some thought and attention, and provided many rewards -- such as KRYPTON for "DC area?" Very enjoyable, and medium-challenging but highly gettable. And of course Rex called it "easy." Sigh.
ReplyDeleteI'm in the 45% -- always thought the H meant humble.
This puzzle was pretty straightforward and fun. I originally put KENO in for RENO, and then when I completed the puzzle with an error, was absolutely convinced that XYLEM and LATTE were wrong. After spending an inordinate amount of time coming up with every possible word that might replace LATTE, I looked west at "tkoyes" and realized my error.
ReplyDeleteI only know of Troyes from the excellent board game of the same name.
ReplyDeleteNot a bad Friday puzzle. But some questionable stuff in it. The aforementioned "latte machine." They have those in airport lounges or office cafeterias, not in restaurants or cafés, at least not any that I've frequented.
ReplyDeleteRex, a lot of us read Chrétien de Troyes in freshman year.
Did the less famous AMOS (at least among schoolkids) make you think of cookies, Rex? And what is that red stuff on their faces? Blood? Spitballs?
A few "hunh?" moments today. Who asks for "caramel corn" at a baseball game? We usually say "gimme that insanely overpriced cracker jack."
DC area. Krypton is a planet, right? Or was? I've never heard of Mars or even Earth described as an "area." I was thinking "Gotham" but it didn't fit. I have never been a comic book reader but recently I discovered that DC originally stood for "Detective Comics" which makes the name DC COMICS a redundancy.
I had INEPTITUDE before the much better INELEGANCE.
My dentist never says OPEN WIDE. In fact, he usually chastizes me for opening too wide. I half-expected the answer to be PAY ME NOW. Their SET FEEs lately have been astronomical. Maybe we need a DC COMIC about a DENTIST with supernatural powers or perhaps one who rescues us from having to pay their soaring bills.
Anyone else a fan of the god-awful Burt Reynolds Cole Porter movie "AT LONG LAST Love"?
I'm thinking everyone should do some version of that Twitter Survey. Maybe there's a business opportunity there somehow - Find out of all your friends & followers are idiots. Ask them if the H in IMHO mean Humble or Honest. If over 10% of your respond Honest, you need new friends and followers because they're idiots. Maybe you should take a good look at yourself if the people who follow you are that stupid. To make this a business you have to have a multitude of those questions, but that's easily done.
ReplyDelete@Z from yesterday - I looked at your Ultimate videos - I don't get how scoring works. With the volume off, it just seems that one player with the disc in hand randomly starts screaming We Won! We Won! and jumps up and down. Is that it?
I'll chime in with the throng, loved it. Especially the stacks, great construction job. And KRYPTON clue was classic. Too easy for a Friday, but so elegant that I didn't care.
ReplyDeleteOur constructor must be Raiders fan. He says over in XWordInfo that he originally clued 11D (AFCWEST) as "Long division" because Raider star Howie Long played in that division - but Will changed it. Howie has been retired for 25 years, and his son Chris is the Long currently well-known in the NFCEAST (part of the Super Bowl champion Eagles, and in the news for his incredibly huge charity donations). Another son, Kyle, plays for the Bears in the NFC North. That clue would have been one heck of a misdirect.
"ATLONGLAST" marked the beginning of the end of for Senator Joe McCarthy. The attorney who spoke those words (Joseph Welch) played the judge in Hitchcock's "Anatomy of a Murder" a few years later. Go figure.
@Loren - We're laughing still at your prep for son's girlfriend. Been there done that - so true.
Is there an authority to say what H means? If not it makes absolutely no difference.
ReplyDeleteNice to find out that "stagnation" and "staycation" intersect in such a meaningful way. Puzzle was not quite layups, more like ten foot jumpers. Fun to see stuff go in.
ReplyDeleteHey@LMS, mi amiga--"las lenguas" is just fine. It's actually "los idiomas" (one of those exceptions) and "un ano" (can't do the tilde thing, everyone feel free to snicker). I applaud your willingness to try another language. We're off to France next week, where I will employ my best version of frampanol, which also needs a tilde, but still not there, helas.
IMHO=In My Humble Opinion, and that's that.
Fastest ever Friday. Loved the Krypton clue. Felt like some of the clues, i.e. for "set fee," were just "do you crossword" types. Also was not familiar at all with yente but party was easy with one cross.
ReplyDelete@LMS: It's los idiomas. The -oma ending indicates Greek-origin words, which are masculine. Also note el problema, el mapa, el dia, la mano.
ReplyDeleteThe H stands for humble. I rely on the authority of Patrick Crispen, who originated "how to surf these newfangled internets" e-mails in the early days: http://webreference.com/roadmap/map07.html. I was there. I adopted the phrase circa 1996 and stopped using it circa 1998 when it became a tired cliche.
ReplyDeleteHand up for another loving puzzle. First time in a long time I didn't want it to end.
ReplyDeleteI don't understand the kerfuffle over the LATTE machine being a restaurant fixture. It seems that lots of people like their LATTE's after dinner. I know my girlfriend gets upset if the restaurant we're eating in only has that black tar Folgers. (Hi @Nancy)....
I don't think anything really held me up. KRYPTON as clued was great. That word alone gave me that entire NW. Getting CROC at 18A gave me all of the NE. YES at 37 gave me TROYES and that's how she blew.....
Oh, I did like the clue for ANATOMY 42D. Except it's really Gray's ANATOMY, no?
Put me in the Humble category.
Love the cookies, @Rex. I was the Art Teacher at The American School of Madrid for a year. I didn't have teaching creds but I had my art degree and they were desperate. Since it wasn't in the schools budget we had to make do with practically nothing. MONEY TALKS for sure and AT LONG LAST the new budget consisted of adding a new classroom with a new teacher. I got axed. My students were so sweet, though. They brought me cookies and one red rose. Some of the artwork we did still hangs in the halls of ASM. My eyes are always OPEN WIDE when I go back for a visit.
@Loren....I LOVE when I hear word for word translations. But I'm polite and don't say anything in public. So between you and me...It's UN ANO. Feel free to add the tilde.
Here are two of my favorites:
HELP WANTED/ BUSCA EMPLEO. In Spanish you're actually telling the person to go look for a job...!
DRIVER WANTED/ Se Necesita Delivery Guy....!
@Two Ponies....Luis Bunuel films seem to be all about poverty and despair. Los Olvidados is one of lots of despair...
Gray is OK. Henry Gray wrote an anatomy textbook. Gray area-ANATOMY.
DeleteFairly good time spoiled by three road bumps. Reluctantly settled on HACKTIVISM (a bit of INELEGANCE) even though a VAT holds a volume, not an area. Also never heard of a stoner referred to as baked, and a dimly remembered French lesson about the Iliad kept wanting TROYEN, but I finally guessed the correct city. Highpoint was writing in IMPRESARIO, FIELDTRIAL, SEASALT, ATLONGLAST from just one cross each.
ReplyDeleteI always write and read it as humble but if others use IMHO as In My Honest Opinion I suppose that’s their business, IMHO.
ReplyDeleteI agree an unusually easy Friday but a good one and I liked it. Thank you Rex, for the history lesson on the Sioux/Laramie treaty, quite informative. I always have mixed feelings about such events in the timeline of our country’s beginnings and their effect on people whose way of life was swallowed up in the pursuit of progress. It continues even today and we call it eminent domain. As for me, I would have chosen HACKTIVISM as word of the day. Very apropos in the current political climate. It’s the world we live in.
ReplyDeleteLoved the clue for 42D, grey area/ANATOMY. A fun puzzle, a great cup of McCafé coffee, and my first spotting of a Rose breasted grosbeak at the feeder this morning. A pretty nice way to start the weekend.
gray area. Grey is the TV show.
DeleteFeel good about finishing this. It was tough. One question: Isn't it YENTA, not YENTE?
ReplyDeleteThis Puzzle almost Ko'd me.
ReplyDeleteInitially had Kstreet (off of the K in HACK) instead of Krypton at 4D and kENO instead of RENO at 27A.
@TubaDon, “Wake and Bake” is a classic stoner morning routine.
ReplyDeleteTribute in part to a commercial the gray generation will surely remember: https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=bB7j3sUWohE
Fast and enjoyable, especially for a Friday but dnf because I had keno for 27A and cst for 40A.
ReplyDelete@Quasimojo - I'm actually a big fan of At Long Last Love - I thought I was the only one.
ReplyDeleteGlad to hear it, @kitshef. Guilty pleasure for a rainy Sunday.
ReplyDelete@Mohair Sam, that was Otto Preminger, not Hitch. :)
The kind of puzzle for which the word "crunchy" was invented. A real exercise in wordplay and clever cluing, with no PPP anywhere in sight. I loved this puzzle, worked really hard at it, and can't imagine how Rex called it easy. Loved the portmanteaus HACKTIVISM and STAYCATION; loved ONE STOP SHOP. I'm not entirely sure all the clues were kosher, however: All parts of the country are "usually on" standard time, not daylight time; "Mere rhetoric is not enough" is pretty vague and inaccurate for MONEY TALKS (I thought the answer would be DO SOMETHING!); and REDEALT really should be "Gave a second hand." But I can't complain too much -- all the misleading clues just made me have to work harder and think more outside the box. Terrific puzzle.
ReplyDeleteI lived in KC from 1995-2000. If you're ever lucky enough to attend a Chiefs or Royals game in person, go to the huge parking lot that services both Arrowhead and Kaufman stadia. You will notice two things. First, they are in perfect alignment and are exactly the same width. Second, you will see a pair rails set into the lot's pavement. They are there because the original design called for a moveable roof to be constructed that would roll to cover either stadium. Alas, lack of funding resulted in it never being built, But what a great concept.
ReplyDeleteA far as the puzzle goes, my first answer for the apt optometrist name was "Cici." I was really rooting for it, but like the roof, it wasn't meant to be.
I don’t get liking this puzzle. It was WAY too easy and it was dull as ditchwater. I suspect that if Rex didn’t know and like the constructor, he’d have torn it to shreds...
ReplyDeletedull as ditchwater, as I find on our beloved interweb, is the original saying, and got converted to dull as dishwater, probably due to similar speech sound.
DeleteIMHO it's "humble". I've been around the Internet since before there was any http. Humble then, humble now.
ReplyDeleteThe puzzle looked depressing at first with the triple long answer blocks and the impossible to grok answers that fit in them. But once I got toehold i was off to the races, and it turned out to be very Easy for a Friday. My only true writeover was YENTE -- I had Yenta at first.d
As usual, an excellent and amusing early post from @LMS.
Oh, I meant to add that when I was 19, a long time ago indeed, lattes were not common in Italy. But espresso was a daily ritual, and many places just served a straight shot, with no need for the milk-steaming equipment. Most places did have the ability to steam milk, but what they made most often was a cappuccino and seldom a latte.
ReplyDeleteFWIW, @Quasi and @kitshef -- I didn't like "At Long Last Love." Any more than I liked "Night and Day". When will there be a really good Cole Porter flick? The world is clamoring for one. Or at least I am.
ReplyDeleteMy vote would be for "humble", too, except when a certain orange-haired person uses it. But then, come to think of it, it can't mean "honest" either. Maybe "hyperbolic"?
@Teedmn -- I love the thought of PARsing as "having a good time."
@GILL -- My computer doesn't make tildes. But that's OK, because my tongue doesn't make Spanish either. I love all the Spanish in-jokes that go on on this blog, even though I don't understand a word of them.
High-water mark: SIOUX/SUE crossin. (yo, @Two Ponies)
ReplyDeleteGreat NW 10-stack to open up the puz. Played hard-to-get, at my house.
Don't recall that this puz was all that easy. More of a M&Aedium.
Staff weeject pick: REF. On account of its cryptic clue: {Not a team player}. Sorta a double-not, actually?
Thanx for the fun, Mr. Hawkins. Get that U-count up, and U'd be one potent contender!
Masked & AnonymoUs
**gruntz**
Hey All !
ReplyDeleteHow about, In My Hysterical Opinion. :-)
Those who haven't heard of Baked as STONED need to watch more movies. Remember Half-Baked?
Liked the puz, had my famous one-letter DNF, dECS. What in tarhooties is a TEC? Oh, wait, it's deTECtive. Ah. Phooey! A bit of a wacky grid design for a themeless. WRIER needs to be WRYER. Just sayin'. Lots of F's, 6 of 'em! The F is the equivalent consonant to @M&A's U. No respect.
Had the kENO in until TkOYES sounded wrong. Where's the BULLSHIT WALKS to go with MONEY TALKS? :-) Is a mans hand waves HIS HIS? Grabbing the waffle as soon as it pops up? FAST EGGO.
Har.
InMyHystericalOpinion, I SAY
RooMonster
DarrinV
Ah yes, SEA SALT, for gourmet poseurs who aren't getting enough toxic heavy metals in their diet. Hoy días you can get boutique SEA SALT from specific locations, say the Bay of Bengal or the Gulf of Tonkin. Yeah, right. I'll stay with "When it rains, it pours" Morton SALT, thank you.
ReplyDeleteOkay, here's the ANATOMY of putting a tilde in your ano. Right after "a", type an ampersand, &, and then the "n", and then, ta-da, "tilde". Follow that with a semicolon, ;, and finish with the "o". No spaces between any of this string. Go ahead, try it. It's like magic. You're welcome.
My ethnobotanist twin brother Anoa Blob, who is an expert in such matters, maintains that "Baked" is a couple of notches higher than STONED.
The 45% who think the H is “humble” are those who are not ignorant lemmings. The H is humble. It was always humble. “In my humble opinion” is an old phrase. That’s what gave birth to IMNSHO as the alternative. “Not so honest?” No. Obviously not.
ReplyDeleteChances are, like all language foibles, someone who didn’t read much didn’t know the old, once common phrase and made an assumption, then it spread. Just like people now believe that “decimate” is synonymous with “devastate.” And “access” is now a verb, when once you didn’t “access” anything... you “gained access.” Language doesn’t evolve, it deteriorates. All it takes is enough people to believe the wrong thing and it becomes correct. And when people have bought into a false belief, they will die to defend it rather than learn. Learning is icky.
And people wonder how we ended up in this political mess. Ha.
I've never heard of one-stop shopping as a verb phrase, but "your one-stop shop for all your [cooking/sporting/gaming/etc] needs" is, in my experience, a fairly run-of-the-mill advertising phrase.
ReplyDelete@Nancy, I'm reaching my limit of comments today but I did want to point out that there's a 2004 musical bio of Cole Porter called "De-Lovely" starring Kevin Kline. Not my cuppa. As for the Bogdanovich one, I liked it precisely because it was so off-base. Porter's life story would make a great mini-series.
ReplyDelete@Nancy; the answer to 40a is CDT, short for Central Daylight Time, which only the central part of the country is on most of the year.
ReplyDeleteSo many little missteps -- FIELD study leading inelegantly to uNELEGANCE, LET'S GO To It!, mAKES Out, STewED before STONED ... they all got sorted, though. And I was glad to see EGGO clued correctly as "Breakfast item" rather than "food." (cf. Michael Pollan on 'food-like substances.')
ReplyDelete@Nancy, you are wonderful person, very erudite and a constructor of fine anagrams, so I am trying not to sound snarky -- but your attention must have slipped. DST (and hence CDT) has been getting longer and longer -- currently it goes from the second Sunday in March to the first Sunday in October, almost 8 months.
IMHO the H stands for Humpty Dumpty, who famously declared that when he used a word it meant exactly what he said it meant, no more and no less.
@Anon 12:12
ReplyDeleteI think that what @Nancy was saying is that since the US is on Daylight savings time for over eight of twelve months, that should be the standard. Central had nothing to do with it.
@Lewis, thank you for the lovely appreciation of the puzzle.
ReplyDelete@Loren, I loved your take on IMPRESARIO = impress-ario. So, I can casually let drop that I learned the word from reading Kafka (A Report for an Academy. Highly recommend.)
@The Grammar Nazi, thanks for the etymological note. I'm learning Italian and had wondered about "il problema" and "la mano."
Yep, easy. Only writeover was the common kENO to RENO. Oh, wait, I also had FIELD study before FIELD TRIAL, but the STONED PARTY REF fixed that quickly.
ReplyDeleteIs anyone else wondering about the people who think the H is for “honest?” Are they saying their other opinions are dishonest? My guess is they are the same kind of people who pronounce GIF like the peanut butter (No, I don’t care what the coiner of the acronym thinks. He Is Wrong).
@Larry - LOL (not “lots of love” BTW). You score one point by catching a pass in the end zone. Game is to 15, win by 2, but with a cap at some point. In that particular clip, whichever team scored would win the game and very likely qualify for the national tournament. But, yeah, “I caught it we win!!!!”
@Jberg
ReplyDeleteI was typing as you were posting. Obviously, I interpreted @Nancy's post differently. Am I giving her too much credit? ;-)
Whenever it's breakfast and it's 4 letters it's gonna be EGGO.
ReplyDeleteCount on it. Embrace it. Welcome it into your heart.
@Anoa Bob - I don't know what platform you are on, but your method did not work for me.
ReplyDeleteIn Windows using a standard keyboard, I get an ñ by holding down the alt key while typing 164.
Holding down the alt key while keying in random three digit numbers gets a lot of special characters like ▐, ╝, Ü, and τ.
@Anoa Bob:
ReplyDeletea&n. Ta da!
I used to be able to do this on my school-supplied Mac, but my cut-rate PC makes it much harder. Any other good suggestions out there? How about other diacritical marks? Upside down question marks/exclamation points? FWIW, I used to point out that an upside down question mark in Spanish always introduces a question, its use is fitting and proper, and is therefore right side up.
Nah, the kids didn't buy it either.
ON a Mac, holding down the Option (Alt) key and typing 1 -0 results in:
ReplyDelete¡ ™ £ ¢ ∞ § ¶ • ª º
Also, my Mac has an American Flag in the menu bar to the left of the Date/Time. When you click on it, you can change it to Spanish.
ReplyDeleteThen when you hit the ; key you get ñ.
@JC66 -- You are giving me too much credit, but thank you. Unfortunately, @jberg is right. Just as I hit "Send" on my 11:01 post, I was thinking: Daylight Saving Time keeps starting earlier and earlier and ending later and later than it ever used to. I wonder if the ratio is still what it used to be? Evidently it's not. Next time I'll remember to Do The Math. It's not so much that I was still on Standard Time; it's that I was still on 1957 time. Mea culpa, and thanks for the correction.
ReplyDelete@Quasi - Yeah, yeah - OK. Preminger it was. Head slap here. I was mixing directors with "Dial M For Murder".
ReplyDeleteThose cookies are awesome!
ReplyDeleteTesting:
ReplyDeleteaño
@Kimberly 11:56
ReplyDeleteit's a dilemna, isn't it?
lol
Surgery rehab week #3 and I'm still a bit off. Sat down to do the puzzle last thing before bed and I struggled. Been there before with the staring and flailing and erasing. Perhaps, I was STONED. Anyway, clean fill fairly clued, so it's on me.
ReplyDeleteCan an opinion be dishonest? An opinion can be inaccurate, but by definition it is honest, or then it's just a lie. What would we do without Twitter? Making an effort to find out.
I can remember when PARTY was a noun, exclusively. Strange time, those 70s.
@LMS, I saw that avatar on my iPhone screen and thought Loren's changed her hair color since I last saw her. Adorable! Enjoy her while she is still enjoyable.
ReplyDeleteI cannot tell a lie. I am "@tildeless until now". AND @ANOA BOB'S METHOD WORKED!!!!!!! (I didn't want to waste going over the blog limit for an abject failure, but don't mind doing so for a rousing success.) How do people know these things???? Why a &? Why a ;? Nevertheless I'll make an analog note of this remarkable tilde-making trick and store it right next to @Teedmn's instructions on embedding a link on the blog. Thank you, @Anoa Bob!
ReplyDeleteAs long as I'm here (again), I just want to say that I love your 11:56 comment, @Kimberley!
I feel like I've heard (radio?) adverts in my (distant) neck of the woods claiming some shop to be your "greatest, one stop shop"...
ReplyDeleteEnjoyed the puzz. Enjoy all the comments daily. Really enjoyed the word play. But...there’s always a but... Could one of you please explain why 5D “Private eyes” is TECS? Got KRYPTON right off but not TECS.
ReplyDeleteI couldn't get a foothold in the top half but SW corner filled pretty easily, worked my way across the bottom half, then steadily filled up, ending in the NW. TROYES a gimme for me too: erstwhile medievalists rule! But because of that slow start, it took me 15 minutes. MAKESOUT for TAKESOFF slowed me down for a while. But mainly I'm commenting here to say that I was on the pre-WWW internet back in the days of 7-inch floppy disks, on the old alt. discussion boards (I remember when the first GIF images appeared--all text until then). And there was never any question but that the H in IMHO was for "humble." So there, 55%. Latecomers, pfeh.
ReplyDeleteOh, and @CDilly52: TEC is supposedly slang for a shamus. Don't think I've ever seen it outside of a crossword puzzle though. Decidedly crosswordese and worthy of mention as one of the few hackneyed bits in this otherwise very fresh puzzle. Nice work Mr. Hawkins!
ReplyDelete@CDilly52 - I'm only answering your question on the assumption that you have nothing to do with people all of a sudden thinking that saying "Dilly Dilly" isn't both nonsensical and annoying. If you promulgated this nonsense, please die.
ReplyDeleteTEC is alleged to be olde-timey slang for a deTECtive.
@CDilly52 - TEC is an accepted short form of detective. Rarely used these days, but standard crosswordese.
ReplyDeleteMy favorite misdirection was 31 Across “Stunners” - I guessed upSEtS before TASERS. Maybe some dregs of March Madness still in my brain.
ReplyDelete@Z when I clicked on your second link yesterday I got a Dorktown podcast analyzing the career of Adam Dunn. It was actually pretty interesting. On the second try I got the UCSD women’s ultimate video. Good stuff. I played a lot of pickup ultimate in college in the late 70’s when it was still called Ultimate Frisbee.
Oh, and fellow medievalist Rex: I was tickled to find that our way to a great--and tiny--little restaurant a few blocks from Gare de Lyon in Paris took us along a Rue Chretien de Troyes. Parallels Rue Roland Barthes, charmingly enough.
ReplyDelete@Gareth Bain - Adverts? I’m guessing you say “advertisement” with an “is” not an “eyes” too. I wonder which way that vowel has moved.
ReplyDelete@CDilly52 - Explain TECS? Not a clue. It is some long dead slang for private detective that appears now only in puzzles because it has useful letters. It’s just one of those things like Brian Eno’s oeuvre, ern, erne, and tern, Olaf or Olav and Leo RRN that makes veteran solvers look like troves of arcane knowledge but are really just our own little esey language.
re: keyboard characters - Most (I think) computers have some sort of keyboard mapping app. Find it and it will tell you how to do diacritics on your particular system. Or try using Uncle Google, typing in your system (e.g. Windows 10 or OSX or iOS) and either “diacritic” or “shortcut.” My iPad does it best, I just hold down a key and various options appear for me to select from. so i can do c or ç or č or ć or C or Ç or Č or Ć very easily. Same with ¡ and ¿.
@Thomas808 - Huh. That’s weird. I’m guessing the Dunn podcast portrayed him as a harbinger of our current home run or strike out era. I’m glad you enjoyed the UCSD video/article. I’m even gladder that a team committed to executing the fundamentals is making it to Nationals.
ReplyDeleteHonest - When I wrote my reply to @CDilly52 no one’s answer had appeared, yet.
@Z Nobody likes a showoff, you know.
ReplyDelete@pabloinnh - I’m hoping to be long remembered for iPad keyboard skills. So thërę‽*
ReplyDelete*When does one ever use “ę?” Also, I still have to copy and paste the interrobang‽
Mañana cariño, soy una piña de España.
ReplyDeleteEasy peasy lemony squeezy.
Google is your friend.
My wife is getting jealous of all the time I spend reading these comments a couple of times a day. I wonder if there’s a support group for her, or for me?
ReplyDeleteWonderful puzzle, but the comments caused an earworm...My tilde, she take DE money, and run Venezuela...
ReplyDelete@Z 3:19: most commonly seen in Polish, like proszę (please).
ReplyDelete@OISK (4:22) - That was really awful.
ReplyDeleteThis week's relative difficulty ratings. See my 1/2/2018 post for an explanation of my method. In a nutshell, the higher the ratio & percentage, the higher my solve time was relative to my norm for that day of the week. Your results may vary.
ReplyDelete(Day, Solve time, 26-wk Median, Ratio, %, Rating)
Mon 5:27 4:30 1.21 87.7% Challenging
Tue 6:39 5:37 1.18 81.8% Challenging
Wed 8:07 6:07 1.33 89.6% Challenging
Thu 10:24 10:01 1.04 59.5% Medium
Fri 12:48 13:01 0.98 47.1% Medium
I'm in the humble camp. I think it might be safe to translate Rex's use of "weak patch" and such in his reviews as "stuff I didn't know right off the bat". I'm a history fan, but surely ATTLEE is not out of bounds in a crossword? REDFIN isn't something I knew, but was very gettable. And what's wrong with CDT? Abbreviations aren't generally pretty, but I don't mind them as long as the puzzle isn't inundated with them. I guess Rex feels that he has to criticize something. Anyways, I was happy that today's review had a very positive tenor because I really enjoyed this one.
My silly mistake of the week: I misread the clue for 1A as "Subversive user of computers ..." and ended up with HACKTIVIST and did a confirmation Google of tONEY TALKS thinking it must be some blog or TED Talk clone that uses that phrase as a motto (or something?). That brain cramp probably cost me a minute of solve time. Doh!
Very late to the party here, I know. Mrs. 'mericans and I completed this last night, but before @Rex posted, and then spent a good part of the morning catching up on the Kilauea volcano news. Visiting my brother here in Kilauea, but that's the one on Kauai, not the Big Island.
ReplyDeleteAs for the puzzle, we agree with the majority of commentators who found it excellent. It was a relay between us, with Mrs. 'mericans getting the long "i" words (IMPRESARIO and INELEGANCE), and me getting the treaty answers (TROYES and SIOUX) and biologicals (XYLEM, FAT and FIELD TRIAL).
Took us 1/3 of our total time (over an hour) to complete the NW, however, as I kept expecting 4D to be a neighborhood or street in the District of Columbia, not a planet in DC Comics. Good misdirect, but given that KRYTON is a planet, that ststretches the meaning of "area" to breaking point, IMHO.
Among the other notable juxtapositions is OPEN WIDE just above YES!
Ah, the joys of mistranslation. Back in the late 1990s, when translation software was in its infancy, I passed a long text on fisheries policy through some French-English translation software. One of the headings was "[La] pêche de loisir", which should have been translated as "recreational fishing". Instead, it gave me "peaches of leisure"! That is such a voluptuous phrase, n'est pas?
@Kimberly 11:56 AM -- Great comment. Just be warned that you may receive a blast from some of the regular commentators here who see only progress in language, and refuse to acknowledge the possibility of devolution. Suggest your retort be: "So SUE me!"
Of course the H is for humble and I’ll bet a significant number of the 45% who got it right took a lucky guess. It was 50/50 after all. Just don’t go hating on these people. Count your blessings.
ReplyDelete@OISK - So So Bad. Loved it.
ReplyDelete@kitshef - My Polish is very limited; “Twoja matka nosi buty wojskowe,” the only phrase my college buddy would teach us in his parents’ native tongue.
@sanfranman59 - I think ATTLEE is “weak” because we see him and his crossfriendly letters far more often than Churchill. At least, that’s how I interpreted Rex.
@‘mericans - I can’t help but think of this quote: The children now love luxury; they have bad manners, contempt for authority; they show disrespect for elders and love chatter in place of exercise. Children are now tyrants, not the servants of their households. They no longer rise when elders enter the room. They contradict their parents, chatter before company, gobble up dainties at the table, cross their legs, and tyrannize their teachers. Or this song.
OT Z is outta here.
p.s.
ReplyDeleteM&A feels kinda dumb, bein the only one to ask about this, but …
Howcum @RP's smiley face cookies all have that extra reddish shape passin thru their right eyes?
Were they discounted cookies, due to a raspberry tart explosion? Or ...
Watchmen comic book reference, maybe? [M&A knows a lot more about Carl Barks comics than Watchmen comics.]
M&Also
@sanfranman. (5:39) I'm sorry for your loss.
ReplyDelete@Anon 6:28 ... aw ... you're so sweet. What loss? The minute, you mean? Not really a problem. I've moved on. But thanks.
ReplyDeleteGreat comments about language, @Kimberly. (11:56) The verb-noun, noun-verb metamorphoses are an abomination.
ReplyDeleteREPENT! language sinners.
Easy-medium for me.
ReplyDeleteYes for YENTa and kENO, plus FIELD Tests....and @M&A, yes, a great NW 10-stack.
Also, yes for Humble.
Liked it.
Do those who think IMHO stands for in my honest opinion think TBH stands for to be humble?
ReplyDeleteThe IMHO "controversy" must have been ignited by today's XKCD comic (https://xkcd.com/1989/). As usual for XKCD, note the mouse-over text, and optionally go to Explain XKCD for further commentary etc. (explainxkcd.com/1989).
ReplyDeleteSince no one has asked, I seem to be the only one who doesn't understand how the answer to "eats" is "has". Can anyone help me?
ReplyDeleteAs in "has for dinner." Yes, it's a bit oblique, but I've seen it before.
ReplyDeleteEasy my eye. I finished but had many stumbling blocks. I had FIELDstudy then FIELDtests before FIELDTRIAL. I had Cottoncandy before CARAMELCORN Down before DECK and VAn before VAT. The crossing of SIOUX and XYLEM was devious but the light finally clicked. Good puzzle. Not easy for me but a satisfying solve even without a theme.
ReplyDeleteADD INELEGANCE
ReplyDeleteANNE is STONED at a PARTY and, YES,
says, “LETSDOTHIS, I’m not FAT, you see?”
When ATLONGLAST ANNE TAKESOFF her dress
ISAY, “It FELT like more ANATOMY.”
--- WES TROYES
Well, not THAT easy; maybe easy-medium. Hand up for kENO--but all I had to do was put a curved roof on the K and voila!: R, so no actual writeover there--also hand up for Tests in the FIELD before the TRIAL. That one: writeover. Oh, and the YENTa/YENTE thing. Never happened upon that alternate spelling before.
ReplyDeleteAnd one more: the RTZ (random time zone). A definite minus, especially if you're going to pick nits and call daylight time the majority. Sorry, but IMH[umble]O the word "usually" leads to the DEFAULT time, which is Standard. That word does NOT belong in a clue for CDT. We're just lucky that REsFIN makes way less sense than REDFIN.
Mr. H. is getting very cute with his clues, as befits the Friday slot, but parsing HIS with "Some hand waves" is just silly.
Despite the above bits of INELEGANCE this grid is loaded with goodies. Never heard of HACKTIVISM but now that I see it written it makes perfect sense with the clue. Last entry I made was the V. Don'tcha just love the NW?
The stunning ANATOMY of ANNE Hathaway earns another DOD sash today. Now I must TAKEOFF for my 21-across. LETSDOTHIS! Birdie.
I also had parsley before SEASALT. There were lots of misdirects to trip you up like that.
ReplyDeleteYeah. And kENO before RENO of course...
ReplyDeleteSparkling puzzle in the easy/medium category, IM(humble)O. First entry was WALK. which totally gave away the NE. Second entry was NANTES for the French city, which totally screwed me up, but was eventually fixed because crosses.
ReplyDeleteThe rest was just lovely with only REDFIN having to rely on the crosses.
I see my post yesterday did not appear, and I swear that nothing I typed was objectionable. Honest! Humble!
Great stacks, excellent cluing, almost no INELEGANCE.
Two write-overs in popular spots with DsT and YENTa. Otherwise no probs, but didn’t get through it real FAST. Still looking sideways at WRIER after all the recent drily talk. Did we have to stretch so far for LOS?
ReplyDeleteI’m sure there are plenty of ANNEs and SUEs. Pick your own today.
Pretty nice puz. LETSDOTHIS more often.
more ANATOMY = more than that to me
ReplyDeleteYES, relatively easy, with a couple of nice stacks NW and SE.
ReplyDeleteHACKTIVISM and STAYCATION were vaguely familiar.
Outliers were TROYES, XYLEM, REDFIN.
Knew ATTLEE but forgot that it was two T's. Then there was CsT before CDT.
Good one. FILE it.
@BS2-- The translation is helpful. Thanks.
ReplyDeleteWow - an actual crossword puzzle based on WORDS. And with a bit of a kick. Loved it. Took me a while - in between other "chores." This was NOT a chore - yeah puzzle!
ReplyDeleteDiana, Lady-in-Waiting for more like this one
After slaving away at this puzzle for hours I'm going on a constitutuonal !
ReplyDeleteNo one ever explained the cookie image! Technical DNF for me on kENO.
ReplyDelete