Amino acid vis a vis protein eg / MON 10-22-18 / Big name in elevators / 1982 movie inspired by pong / gas brand whose logo has blue oval
Constructor: Alex Eaton-Salners
Relative difficulty: Medium (3:02) (it felt harder, but ... I guess not?)
THEME: PLANETS (45D: Etymological origins of the answers to the five starred clues) — just what it says:
Theme answers:
MERCURIAL (17A: *Capricious)
VENIAL (22A: *Forgivable)
MARTIAL (36A: *Warlike)
JOVIAL (55A: *Jolly)
SATURNINE (61A: *Gloomy)
Word of the Day: MONOMER (39D: Amino acid vis-à-vis a protein, e.g.) —
noun
CHEMISTRY
a molecule that can be bonded to other identical molecules to form a polymer. (google)
• • •
Etymology trivia. OK, I guess. JOVIAL seems a stretch, since that's from Jove, not Jupiter, but since they're the same god ... I'll allow it? Shrug. Biggish corners lent some interest to this Monday puzzle, but it was all a little by-the-book. Also, USENET? I'm sure it still exists in some form, but to just clue it [Online discussion forum] like we're all on it all the time ... is a little weird.
Also weird: VOLGA. I mean, it's not a weird river. It's clearly a prominent river in the continent that is Europe. But I rarely see it in puzzles and honestly know nothing about it except that it's *in Russia*; so off my radar is that river that, faced with -O-G-, my brain was like "... OK ... don't laugh ... but is it CONGO? I Said Don't Laugh!" Weirder: I blanked on Lin-Manuel MIRANDA's last name. Which is like blanking on J.K. ROWLING's last name, honestly. Just stupid. I also blanked on ZOE KAZAN's name last week despite knowing very well what her damn name is. I swear, sometimes I can retrieve the dumbest bulls**t but not stuff that's right in front of me, all the time.
Back to the theme for a sec. The PLANETS are not the "Etymological origins" of these words. The god names are. It's not the same thing. Here, listen to Samantha:
My main hang-ups today were MONOMER (a word I honestly don't know), MPH (I had MPG, which is ridiculous), and VENIAL, which I always want to be VENAL. Wow, turns out they are both words and I never bothered to learn the distinction. I blurred them together in my head to mean "susceptible to bribery, which is forgivable if you, like, pray to God for forgiveness or something." Yikes. Anyway, hope you PLOUGHed through this. See you tomorrow.
Well hello, MONOMER. Long time no see! How are you? I am fine. Tell me.. you don't usually slum around in this neighborhood. What are you doing here in a Monday puzzle? Hmmm, yes, OK, I believe you. And no, I won't tell your wife. *wink*
I found this one fast, since I didn't have the hang-ups you did. Likewise found the revealer to be completely incorrect, but I was more miffed than you were about his including venial: etymology.com says that you have to go all the way back to proto-Indo-European to see the word connected up with sexual desire. The word we have in English based on Venus the goddess (hence planet) is venereal. As I said, I find myself surprised to be more persnickety than Mr. Rex Parker himself in this case.
Typically we think of polymers as long chains of bonded organic molecules that form a plastic or something, but the term can refer to any chain of molecules. A protein is a chain of amino acids, so the amino by itself would be a monomer.
At least this is how I remember it, I dropped o-chem halfway through the semester.
All due respect to Samantha, at least in the case of SATURNINE, and I suspect in others, the astrological influence of the planet is the immediate etymological source.
...Which came from Saturn, the Roman god of the Underworld, who was a dark, broody, and perhaps not entirely benevolent individual. The names of the gods came first and the planets we're named after them. Saturn the planet and "saturnine" the word are siblings - not parent & child. :)
Or - to speak to your point - the gods are the grandparents. So maybe if the puzzle had ysed your clarifier of "immediate" I'd be having less of a nerd fit. :)
@Samantha: I disagree. The etymology of SATURNINE comes from the planet because as the one most distant from the sun, it was assumed to be cold and forbidding. The planet was named Saturn because the Greeks had named it Kronos. While Saturn was a god and Kronos a titan, they both were in charge of agriculture, and that was good enough for the Romans. So, the god Saturn’s disposition had nothing to do with it. Thank you for opening a fun nerd discussion.
Wowzers, did I sleep through Monday and Tuesday? It took me a while to get to 45D and all the while I’m thinking “a lot of these are not Monday words”. Didn’t seem to take a long time to finish, but it sure didn’t feel like a Monday. Not complaining.
Tricky little Monday in my cabin. MONOMER is an if Shortz says so kinda answer, but crosses tell me what else could it be? Lots of fun stuff in this. So, yeah constructor!
I'm in the desert much of the year, so I know the night sky and it's pretty predictable, except for those pesky PLANETS. Somebody finally came up with helio-centrism and space exploration science and stuff. Mystery explained.
For many years, I taught the play version of The Diary of Anne Frank to teenagers. A stage direction describes Anne as being MERCURIAL in her emotions and that was the first time I had ever seen that adjective.
APU is a problematic character, no question. Familiar with Shakespeare's Problem Plays: Measure for Measure or The Merchant of Venice or Othello, for example? Racial and cultural stereotypes are a real thing. I had nothing to do with any of that, so let's embrace diversity. Anybody else have a better idea?
Tom Jones is a music icon. His voice filled up the audio feed. I can't believe I'm going there, but that terrific song is entitled "IT'S Not Unusual." Tilde people, feel free to chime in. Apostrophes matter.
Proteins are just natural plastics. Including your skin. There aren’t two definitions for polymer. @Rex and all, if you think JOVIAL doesn’t share a word origin with a planet, you’re going to have to set all those astronomers and science writers straight about using the word “Jovian” to refer to things like Jupiter’s atmosphere. Even if Jove and Jupiter are not the same word, when it comes to the planet they are both in the mix. I agree about the “origin” vs “cousin” nit, though. Easy puzzle, almost a speed record, FWIW.
Thought Rex would for sure tear into that poor theme answer, which was a bit of a downer on an otherwise pretty good (Tuesday difficulty) puzzle.
PS: Know what's way harder than a Monday NYT puzzle? Finding all the rusty imported bumpers or blinking traffic lights or corners of a yield sign or off duty taxi cabs in the dang A.P. Captcha Test we have to pass lately.
A protein is NOT a polymer. Polymers have repeating units - exact repeats. Proteins are repeats of the different aminio acids. In fact, there is a substance called polylysine which is a polymer of the amino acid lysine, but no biologist would ever call polylysine a protein.
YAKs are not Tibetan animals. That's a specieist construct imposed on an animal that was not bothering anyone in its native habitat. The preferred locution is an organism found in the region now known as Tibet by speakers of English.
The Tibetan name for their land, Bod བོད་, means "Tibet" or "Tibetan Plateau", although it originally meant the central region[citation needed] around Lhasa, now known in Tibetan as Ü. The Standard Tibetan pronunciation of Bod, [pʰøʔ˨˧˨], is transcribed Bhö in Tournadre Phonetic Transcription, Bö in the THL Simplified Phonetic Transcription and Poi in Tibetan pinyin. [Wikipedia]
While *technically* correct, no one really refers to an amino acid as a MONOMER of a protein. Generally speaking, we refer to something as proteins themselves as monomers if they are a single part of a larger complex. For instance a receptor may be comprised of many subunits and we would singly repeated subunits as monomers, two of the same subunits dimers, etc, etc. We usually refer to amino acids, well, as amino acids.
In re: Volga. My beginning piano book had a song entitled "Song of the Volga Boatmen." A Monday puzzle with a little bounce to it is always appreciated. As is Lin-Manuel. (Including Pluto would be provocative, kitshef!)
My Own Private Natick: Lived sixty years without noticing a pupu platter on a menu—or knowing the name of a common Internet activity. Go figure. (Sussed it out running the alphabet and using common sense...and the phone app.)
The Jove / Jupiter thing is simply due to adding the attribute "father" to the name Jove (remember that the v is a u, they're the same letter in Latin). Jou-piter = God the father = exact analog to Deus Pater, the Christian name for God the father.
Wonderful fun puzzle. This is what I wish more Mondays were like. I love word etymology so this felt like it was made-to-order. It's great to have to think every once in a while to finish a Monday. I hope the commenter at 12:18 a.m. is wrong but I fear not. There must be more pleasant examples for Venus. I misunderstood "Clink on the drink" so was thinking about toasts. A common menu item in British pubs is Ploughman's Lunch. They love to laugh when a Yank asks what is in the "pluffman's lunch". Looking back at my completed grid, 60A made me wonder if it was an Apple shopping center? Ha!
A bit tough for a Monday -- at least it felt spurty (that is, answers would come in spurts. If spurty isn't a word, it should be.). I was thinking Gods more than planets, but whatever. And I do get the complaints about the etymology issue, but it didn't bother me. This was a fun spurty Monday for me.
Maybe I have misunderstood the meaning of etymology all my life but there’s no connection between these words and the planets except that they share common sources from Roman mythology (except perhaps Venial). But to say “saturnine” or “jovial” comes from the names of a planet or from the astrology tied to said planets is absurd. Or am I misreading the theme?
I would have had a better time except I too got Manuela wrong. I plopped in Miranda. Still haven’t seen nor heard “Hamilton.” I also had OKAY instead of On It which screwed me up big time. In fact my time today was the longest ever for a Monday. Loved the clue for BRIG.
Wow, MONomer on a MONday, guess that's the connection. I thought the planetary words read like a vocabulary list you study for the SAT's. A little flinty for a Monday, but interesting fun.
To those who commented about the revealer, the construction says that the puzzle as originally submitted had two revealers, the second one being ROMAN GODS, but Shortz made him delete that entry because it resulted in bad fill.
I don't think it's been mentioned here. Did you notice that the planets are named(going down the grid) inthe same order as they fill the galaxy (moving away from the sun).
I see this is going to be an interesting day on the blog. The science crowd is up early and active. The difference between an amino acid and a protein has always been such a riveting topic. I hope it get resolved today. So far @threeofclubs gets my vote for funniest post. Specieist construct! Those yaks sure are lucky to have you to defend them against such wickedness.
PLANETS and not Gods? Didn't the Roman's name the Gods first and then the planets? I'm confused. I want to see VENUTIAN and PLUTONIC somewhere today. I'm with @Suzie Q. I love me a meaty Monday. Had lots of pauses beginning with Pupu. I suppose it's a Hawaiian dish. They seem to have lots of P things. MONOMER is new to me and I promise you I will never use that word in everyday speak. Ever. I want someone to get all MERCURIAL and clue OTIS with Bette Midler. "Miss OTIS regret" is so much more fun than an elevator.
I'm with those who find the revealer to be just flat incorrect. TOO bad, because it could have easily been rewritten and the puzzle would be fine. I'm usually unmoved by @Rex's snipes at Will Shortz, but today's revealer seems like slipshod editing, particularly in light of @pmdm's comment regarding the deletion of ROMANGODS. Otherwise this was a good Monday puzzle. Clean fill, beautiful open corners, and a good mix of relatively contemporary and relatively not-so-much.
not sure about home base. as a little leaguer, we were always corrected and learned first base, second base, third base, and home plate. some things are right but wrong. know what i mean?
i'm going to my home. right. I'm going to home. wrong
the planets in order and their etymology. proteins. hey nyt - it doesn't get much better than this.
Not a Monday puzzle. 25/76 PPP, isolated corners, and tough vocabulary. This felt much more Wednesdayish to me. I don’t know about you, but doubling up on the gas brand logo clues is too cute. Bad enough that they’re product names (the second P in PPP), but I don’t particularly want to waste brain cells thinking about their branding.
Hand up for thinking the reveal is wrong. MARTIAL and MERCURIAL are related to the supposed characteristics of the Gods. The OED suggests that SATURNINE and JOVIAL are related to the supposed influence of those planets, so the reveal is defensible in those two cases. But VENIAL? Not related to Venus the goddess or planet at all. Oops.
I wanted something about Galileo as a revealer, since these are a complete set of the planets known to him, often referred to as Galilean. But maybe it's just the non-dwarf planets that have adjectives with the same ancestors. At least, I can't think of any words based on Neptune or Uranus (I mean serious ones -- I know all the puns you can make with planet 7).
@Larry Gilstrap, you must have loved the clue for 5D, then! Punctuation aside, I think this puzzle goes over its quota for E- words.
If you've been to Boston, you must have noticed the big billboard with the 33A logo flashing high above Kenmore Square. There's a debate going on whether it should be protected as a landmark or removed as an eyesore. It's less popular than it used to be.
No spoilers, but there's a word that appears in both the crossword and the mini, with very similar clues, today. Seems like the editor should have changed that -- you'd just have to switch the mini with tomorrow.
I haven't had that captcha puzzle lately. Wish me luck!
Hey All ! By JOVE, I got my famous one-letter DNF today. YELP! Happened at ONoROUS/MoRCURIAL. Sure, should've figured it out with the PLANETS/ROMAN GODS theme, but the ole brain excepted ONoROUS as correct, and I never looked back. Talk about being ONEROUS. Who decided it should be an E?
SE had me stuck for a bit with monSoON for EROSION. Had YAK, but with monSoON, gave me YM to start 42A. Knew something was amiss, so took out YAK instead of the actual wrong answer. Argh. PARR not helping, either. But when I finally BOOTed out monSoON, was able to finish. Thought IM ALL ON IT! Then, the Almost There! message. Talk about a POOR BOAST.
Agree with the INE ending of 61A off putting, since the other 4 are IALs. Interesting how a peaceful thing, WORSHIP, can become a non-peaceful thing by changing one letter, WARSHIP.
Rex didn't kvetch about longer Across non-themers than two of the actual themers. That usually sets him on an OPTIMAl rage.
Did like puz overall. But didn't PLOUGH through it in 3 minutes like Rex. Holy cow, my first pass through was longer than that!
I think I spoke too soon and without the breadth of knowledge of my colleagues here. Saturn was the guy who ate his children, right? Hardly gloomy then. My bad.
I was disappointed that 46A was WORSHIP instead of WARSHIP.
WARSHIPs are pretty cool. I served on a warship that could go under the North Pole, blow up the world, and make donuts. I hated every minute of it. WORSHIP, on the other hand, always seemed to me like a softheaded word. It implies superstition instead of spirituality, at to my ear. I went to twelve years of Catholic school and I hated every minute of that too.
Happiness is never having to worry about whether an adjective is based on a god or a PLANET.
If they hadn't both come in so readily, I, too, would have complained along with @Z about having two gas brands in one puzzle. Not to mention the stupid Kia.
@Odd Sock (9:04) wins my vote for the funniest comment so far today.
CHRISTIAN THEOLOGY adjective: venial denoting a sin that is not regarded as depriving the soul of divine grace. (of a fault or offense) slight and pardonable.
Origin Middle English: via Old French from late Latin venialis, from venia ‘forgiveness.’
Immediately latched onto the MERCURIAL+MERCI twosome as a themer set. That mercurial idea was eventually pu-pu-ed, of course.
staff weeject pick: ETS. Seems almost theme-related, so it gets the necessary extra(-terrestrial) points to win its category. At xwordinfo.chen, constructioneer mentions that originally he had a double puzrevealer of PLANET & ROMANGOD. But the puzfill surroundin all that revealin was too raised-by-wolves to pass NYT muster. So, blame the Crossword Gods, maybe.
As @RP already pointed out, lotsa nice 7-stacks. With MONOMER/IMALL providin a primo splash of desperation.
Enjoyed this MonPuz, with its know-yer-gasoline-logos sub-theme. Thanx, Mr. E-S.
Masked & Anonymo6Us
p.s. See y'all in about a week, after our return from one of the outer planetoids.
Well, there IS the word Venusian (I was thinking of Venutian, but was wrong). But it probably wouldn't work as it simply means relating to the planet Venus.
Quirks and miss-hits aside, this was just fun. I skipped along, took my time to admire the scenery, to smell the roses. I understand the quibble about planets versus gods, but frankly, I don't care. I just like the words and their relationship to planets and gods. So there.
Did anyone wander put into the cold early this am to view the meteor shower? Not I, of course; 28 degrees here at 2 am. But I thought about it. Does that count?
Nothing UGLI or ONEROUS about this puzzle. Fun etymological visit to Roman gods and distant PLANETS. And don’t forget the ETS hiding over Jupiter.
VENIAL inquiries. When you’re shopping at the I-MALL, would you rather buy an E-CIG or a B-RIG? And if you’re later dissatisfied with your purchase, would your complaint be a U-NIT or an O-NIT?
I loved the puzzle, partly because I love Holst's The Planets and partly just because of all that neat vocabulary clustered together. I got the theme after MERCURIAL and VENIAL ("Wow, 'venial' comes from Venus?!" Well, I guess not, too bad!). I liked WORSHIP along with all of the gods references. Also liked the Shakespearian MIRANDA and ARIEL from The Tempest
Looking back over the grid, with E-TADE and E-CIG, I read I-MALL and wondered how I'd missed that to-me-unknown Internet shopping option.
@SJ Austin, re: the captcha - with a "blue name," are you sure you need to deal with it? I find I can completely ignore it. I don't even check the "I'm not a robot" box.
I looked a little more. Using the family tree metaphor: Saturn the god begat Saturn the planet begat SATURNINE the characteristic; Jupiter the god begat Jupiter the planet begat JOVIAL the characteristic; Mars the god begat Mars the planet and MARTIAL the characteristic; Mercury the god begat Mercury he planet and MERCURIAL the characteristic; Proto-IndoEuropean “wen” begat Venus the goddess that begat Venus the planet, and “wen” begat VENIAL the characteristic. This makes Venus the planet the nephew or niece of VENIAL. Or maybe more like third cousin twice removed.
@quasi-Saturn was indeed the child eater. If you want to see what that looked like, one of Goya's most famous "black" paintings is "Saturn Devouring His Children". Does not pass the breakfast or lunch test.
@jberg-Best description of the gas sign beyond left field in Fenway was offered by a player sitting in the dugout, watching a long home run heading over the wall in that direction, and saying "See it go.".
The word *venal* may share some sort of common root with Venus, since Venus always implies sexual intercourse, and venality suggests prostitution--but even here I'm not sure the link is direct. Venereal derives from Venus. But the word in the puzzle, *venial* I think has a different root not etymologically related to Venus (or to venal, for that matter), as others have noted above. Perhaps there is some common root, but I don't think so.
But I thought this was a good puzzle, especially for a Monday. Thanks to pmdm (8:49) for pointing out that the planets are in order, which I had not noticed.
Hey, an AES puzzle that didn't twist my brain. I like it, and got the theme around the time I got to MARTIAL.
I like seeing MERCURIAL with MERCI right after it. I like I,MALL (60A) a la I,Robot and I,Claudius.
Seeing PLOUGH makes me think of the Jethro Tull song, Heavy Horses:
Heavy horses, move the land under me Behind the plough gliding, slipping and sliding free And now you're down to the few and there's no work to do The tractor is on its way
So all the other PLANETS get cool names from mythology but our little pale blue dot gets....Earth? As in synonymous with....dirt? Don't seem right.
For an upgrade to something a little spiffier, I nominate Circe, goddess of pharmacy whose knowledge of herbs and potions allowed her to change SAILORS into swine. Kind of earthy, right?
A minitheme was missed, what with SAILORS ENCASED in a BRIG already in place, and a simple O to A switch available to make 46A WARSHIP. Or maybe change 39D MONOMER into MAN O WAR.
Anthropologists have observed various peoples who actually do eat MUD PIES. The practice is called---you may want to add this to your word list---GEOPHAGY.
Started this at 4:30am, waiting for an UBER which didn’t make his appointed pickup. The idea was to UBER back and forth to a hospital 40 miles away for a minor surgery on my ear. I had to invoke plan B, which was to drive up to the hospital, UBER back, and then to UBER up tomorrow and drive back. I was about half done when I returned home from the surgery. I liked the puzzle, but was a bit slow, maybe from the anaesthesia, an excuse I’d like to use more ofter.
@JC66 - Crossword Butler on Twitter reminded me that today was New Yorker Monday. Chewy. I liked it despite it’s highish PPP (21/68 - 2 PPP answers shy of going over the line). No Spoilers here (wouldn’t want a moderator to nix my comment) but 38D/57A was a coin flip here. I had to look up 57A to confirm post solve.
(to perp): "You have the right to remain silent. Anything you say can and will be used against you in the lyrics of the upcoming new Broadway musical by Lin-Manuel Miranda.
"Your character may be killed off during the action of the play or cut from the show in its entirety, at Mr. Miranda's discretion. Mr. Miranda reserves the right to use anything you say in future artistic undertakings as he sees fit, without your explicit permission.
"You have the right to a choreographer. If Mr. Miranda's choreographer is unacceptable, Debbie Allen is prepared to provide her services gratis, as she needs a job after being dumped from all of those awards shows.
"Do you understand everything I have said to you?"
Yeah those 38D type clues always get me, too, but fortunately I knew 57A.
And thanks for the Twitter suggestion, but who knows if I'd remember to look at that, either. ;-). I still have CrosswordButlerMac in my Finder, but it's no longer operational.
I know I could look it up, but if you've got expertise I'd prefer it to goggle. Is Geophagy a subset of pica? Is it related but different? Not related at all? T.I.A.
Anon @5:52, if I recall correctly, pica is considered an abnormal behavior of an individual, often in an infant or child, while geophagy is a cultural thing, practiced by many in a group, especially, yup, during periods when food is scarce. It usually follows standardized procedures of how to prepare, store and consume the earth, typically clay, a kind of recipe, if you will. It probably has minimum, if any, nutritional or caloric value, other than some minerals, but it at least gets something into the stomach.
A nice, easy Monday, and with PLANETS as a theme, what's not to like? Yeah, I know, because of *Jove* vs. *Jupiter* they don't all work to perfection, but ITS close enough.
Quad seven stacks are ambitious this early in the week, but Alex pulls it off with the help of some talksy stuff like HUMORME, ONIT and LETSNOT. "Additionally," we have a mini-theme with TOO and ALSO.
DOD is MIRANDA Lambert. LETSNOT be a stranger, Alex. Birdie.
The first thing I thought upon filling in PLANETS as the revealer was, “Didn’t the PLANETS’ names come from the names of the gods? We’re missing a step here from the *origins*, no?” Apparently I’m not alone.
The 1960s ADS for Temple wine were sung to the tune of “The VOLGA Boatmen”, which I have on a vinyl PLATTER and may have to give a spin tonight.
While it was an enjoyable Monday with a bit of "crunch" for the day, please remember to keep the newbies in mind. Monday is their day to take a stab at "the world's greatest" etc.
I mean, SATURNINE is not a word used in ordinary conversation. Is it? Do you? Just a bit more rare than VENIAL or MERCURIAL.
I've heard of, but don't believe I've had, a PUPUPLATTER.
Gods, planets, adjectives. Perfect Monday puzzle. Who *really* cares if the etymology/origin thing isn't perfect? The idea is clear, hence the theme works, at least for me, but maybe I'm just being uranial.
Though it wasn't mentioned, MUD PIES is kind of Earthial, I would think. Har.
Maybe it's my chemistry background, but MONOMER is okay, amino acids being "building blocks" for proteins. No need to get all polymeric on anyone. Some "experts" are just so annoying.
This is a perfect puzzle for what a Monday puzzle can be, in my opinion. Newbies, who/whatever they are can solve this baby, and there is sufficient interest and crossword-worthy cluing in here for the veterans.
Well, if the ancients hadn’t believed that the universe was geocentric we could have had “terrestrial” as an answer relating to Terra (Roman goddess of the earth), this third rock from the sun and the ground upon which we walk. And if they’d have had telescopes and this puzzle extended downward a few more lines we might have had “celestial” for the Roman god Caelus. Caelus was the Roman counterpart of the Greek god Uranus. But, of course, the ancients didn’t know Uranus from a hole in the ground.
Rex's beef about etymological origins is a valid one. The puzzle could have had enough going for it otherwise, although CUBES seemed an extraneous throw-in theme.
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Well hello, MONOMER. Long time no see! How are you? I am fine. Tell me.. you don't usually slum around in this neighborhood. What are you doing here in a Monday puzzle? Hmmm, yes, OK, I believe you. And no, I won't tell your wife. *wink*
ReplyDeleteI found this one fast, since I didn't have the hang-ups you did. Likewise found the revealer to be completely incorrect, but I was more miffed than you were about his including venial: etymology.com says that you have to go all the way back to proto-Indo-European to see the word connected up with sexual desire. The word we have in English based on Venus the goddess (hence planet) is venereal. As I said, I find myself surprised to be more persnickety than Mr. Rex Parker himself in this case.
ReplyDeleteMedium-tough. Interesting, liked it.
ReplyDeleteO-chem lesson!
ReplyDeleteMonomer:one::polymer:many
Typically we think of polymers as long chains of bonded organic molecules that form a plastic or something, but the term can refer to any chain of molecules. A protein is a chain of amino acids, so the amino by itself would be a monomer.
At least this is how I remember it, I dropped o-chem halfway through the semester.
All due respect to Samantha, at least in the case of SATURNINE, and I suspect in others, the astrological influence of the planet is the immediate etymological source.
ReplyDelete...Which came from Saturn, the Roman god of the Underworld, who was a dark, broody, and perhaps not entirely benevolent individual. The names of the gods came first and the planets we're named after them. Saturn the planet and "saturnine" the word are siblings - not parent & child. :)
DeleteOr - to speak to your point - the gods are the grandparents. So maybe if the puzzle had ysed your clarifier of "immediate" I'd be having less of a nerd fit. :)
Delete@Samantha: I disagree. The etymology of SATURNINE comes from the planet because as the one most distant from the sun, it was assumed to be cold and forbidding. The planet was named Saturn because the Greeks had named it Kronos. While Saturn was a god and Kronos a titan, they both were in charge of agriculture, and that was good enough for the Romans. So, the god Saturn’s disposition had nothing to do with it. Thank you for opening a fun nerd discussion.
DeleteWowzers, did I sleep through Monday and Tuesday? It took me a while to get to 45D and all the while I’m thinking “a lot of these are not Monday words”. Didn’t seem to take a long time to finish, but it sure didn’t feel like a Monday. Not complaining.
ReplyDeleteTricky little Monday in my cabin. MONOMER is an if Shortz says so kinda answer, but crosses tell me what else could it be? Lots of fun stuff in this. So, yeah constructor!
ReplyDeleteI'm in the desert much of the year, so I know the night sky and it's pretty predictable, except for those pesky PLANETS. Somebody finally came up with helio-centrism and space exploration science and stuff. Mystery explained.
For many years, I taught the play version of The Diary of Anne Frank to teenagers. A stage direction describes Anne as being MERCURIAL in her emotions and that was the first time I had ever seen that adjective.
APU is a problematic character, no question. Familiar with Shakespeare's Problem Plays: Measure for Measure or The Merchant of Venice or Othello, for example? Racial and cultural stereotypes are a real thing. I had nothing to do with any of that, so let's embrace diversity. Anybody else have a better idea?
Tom Jones is a music icon. His voice filled up the audio feed. I can't believe I'm going there, but that terrific song is entitled "IT'S Not Unusual." Tilde people, feel free to chime in. Apostrophes matter.
Proteins are just natural plastics. Including your skin. There aren’t two definitions for polymer.
ReplyDelete@Rex and all, if you think JOVIAL doesn’t share a word origin with a planet, you’re going to have to set all those astronomers and science writers straight about using the word “Jovian” to refer to things like Jupiter’s atmosphere. Even if Jove and Jupiter are not the same word, when it comes to the planet they are both in the mix. I agree about the “origin” vs “cousin” nit, though.
Easy puzzle, almost a speed record, FWIW.
Cool idea for a theme -- how often do we see "Etymological Origins" as a theme?
ReplyDeleteThere's that ever-popular Russian folk song - The "Song of the Volga Boatmen" that helped me get that clue
ReplyDeleteMercur-ial
ReplyDeleteVen-ial
Mart-ial
Jov-ial
Saturn-ine
Bothered me a bit to have 4x -ial and 1x -ine.
On the easy side for a Monday, but with some decidedly un-Monday words (MONOMER, OPTIMA, USENET).
ReplyDeleteGreat theme but the revealer is wrong – though not quite as Rex says. Three of the etymologies are from the Gods, and only two from the planets.
Pity that “plutocrat” couldn’t be worked in.
Thought Rex would for sure tear into that poor theme answer, which was a bit of a downer on an otherwise pretty good (Tuesday difficulty) puzzle.
ReplyDeletePS: Know what's way harder than a Monday NYT puzzle? Finding all the rusty imported bumpers or blinking traffic lights or corners of a yield sign or off duty taxi cabs in the dang A.P. Captcha Test we have to pass lately.
A protein is NOT a polymer. Polymers have repeating units - exact repeats. Proteins are repeats of the different aminio acids. In fact, there is a substance called polylysine which is a polymer of the amino acid lysine, but no biologist would ever call polylysine a protein.
ReplyDeleteBoo!
YAKs are not Tibetan animals. That's a specieist construct imposed on an animal that was not bothering anyone in its native habitat. The preferred locution is an organism found in the region now known as Tibet by speakers of English.
ReplyDeleteThe Tibetan name for their land, Bod བོད་, means "Tibet" or "Tibetan Plateau", although it originally meant the central region[citation needed] around Lhasa, now known in Tibetan as Ü. The Standard Tibetan pronunciation of Bod, [pʰøʔ˨˧˨], is transcribed Bhö in Tournadre Phonetic Transcription, Bö in the THL Simplified Phonetic Transcription and Poi in Tibetan pinyin. [Wikipedia]
While *technically* correct, no one really refers to an amino acid as a MONOMER of a protein. Generally speaking, we refer to something as proteins themselves as monomers if they are a single part of a larger complex. For instance a receptor may be comprised of many subunits and we would singly repeated subunits as monomers, two of the same subunits dimers, etc, etc. We usually refer to amino acids, well, as amino acids.
ReplyDeleteIn re: Volga. My beginning piano book had a song entitled "Song of the Volga Boatmen." A Monday puzzle with a little bounce to it is always appreciated. As is Lin-Manuel. (Including Pluto would be provocative, kitshef!)
ReplyDeleteMy Own Private Natick: Lived sixty years without noticing a pupu platter on a menu—or knowing the name of a common Internet activity. Go figure. (Sussed it out running the alphabet and using common sense...and the phone app.)
DeleteAgreed, @SJAustin. Hate the Captcha Test. Every time.
ReplyDeleteCrazy hard Monday, but theme was great.
Felt like a typical easy Monday puzzle, certainly nothing to get angry about. Thanks Alex.
ReplyDeleteThe Jove / Jupiter thing is simply due to adding the attribute "father" to the name Jove (remember that the v is a u, they're the same letter in Latin). Jou-piter = God the father = exact analog to Deus Pater, the Christian name for God the father.
ReplyDeleteWonderful fun puzzle. This is what I wish more Mondays were like.
ReplyDeleteI love word etymology so this felt like it was made-to-order.
It's great to have to think every once in a while to finish a Monday.
I hope the commenter at 12:18 a.m. is wrong but I fear not. There must be more pleasant examples for Venus.
I misunderstood "Clink on the drink" so was thinking about toasts.
A common menu item in British pubs is Ploughman's Lunch. They love to laugh when a Yank asks what is in the "pluffman's lunch".
Looking back at my completed grid, 60A made me wonder if it was an Apple shopping center? Ha!
A bit tough for a Monday -- at least it felt spurty (that is, answers would come in spurts. If spurty isn't a word, it should be.). I was thinking Gods more than planets, but whatever. And I do get the complaints about the etymology issue, but it didn't bother me. This was a fun spurty Monday for me.
ReplyDeleteMaybe I have misunderstood the meaning of etymology all my life but there’s no connection between these words and the planets except that they share common sources from Roman mythology (except perhaps Venial). But to say “saturnine” or “jovial” comes from the names of a planet or from the astrology tied to said planets is absurd. Or am I misreading the theme?
ReplyDeleteI would have had a better time except I too got Manuela wrong. I plopped in Miranda. Still haven’t seen nor heard “Hamilton.” I also had OKAY instead of On It which screwed me up big time. In fact my time today was the longest ever for a Monday. Loved the clue for BRIG.
Wow, MONomer on a MONday, guess that's the connection. I thought the planetary words read like a vocabulary list you study for the SAT's. A little flinty for a Monday, but interesting fun.
ReplyDeleteTo those who commented about the revealer, the construction says that the puzzle as originally submitted had two revealers, the second one being ROMAN GODS, but Shortz made him delete that entry because it resulted in bad fill.
ReplyDeleteI don't think it's been mentioned here. Did you notice that the planets are named(going down the grid) inthe same order as they fill the galaxy (moving away from the sun).
I see this is going to be an interesting day on the blog. The science crowd is up early and active. The difference between an amino acid and a protein has always been such a riveting topic. I hope it get resolved today.
ReplyDeleteSo far @threeofclubs gets my vote for funniest post.
Specieist construct! Those yaks sure are lucky to have you to defend them against such wickedness.
PLANETS and not Gods? Didn't the Roman's name the Gods first and then the planets? I'm confused.
ReplyDeleteI want to see VENUTIAN and PLUTONIC somewhere today.
I'm with @Suzie Q. I love me a meaty Monday. Had lots of pauses beginning with Pupu. I suppose it's a Hawaiian dish. They seem to have lots of P things. MONOMER is new to me and I promise you I will never use that word in everyday speak. Ever.
I want someone to get all MERCURIAL and clue OTIS with Bette Midler. "Miss OTIS regret" is so much more fun than an elevator.
I'm with those who find the revealer to be just flat incorrect. TOO bad, because it could have easily been rewritten and the puzzle would be fine. I'm usually unmoved by @Rex's snipes at Will Shortz, but today's revealer seems like slipshod editing, particularly in light of @pmdm's comment regarding the deletion of ROMANGODS. Otherwise this was a good Monday puzzle. Clean fill, beautiful open corners, and a good mix of relatively contemporary and relatively not-so-much.
ReplyDeletenot sure about home base. as a little leaguer, we were always corrected and learned first base, second base, third base, and home plate. some things are right but wrong. know what i mean?
ReplyDeletei'm going to my home. right.
I'm going to home. wrong
the planets in order and their etymology. proteins. hey nyt - it doesn't get much better than this.
zippy
Not a Monday puzzle. 25/76 PPP, isolated corners, and tough vocabulary. This felt much more Wednesdayish to me. I don’t know about you, but doubling up on the gas brand logo clues is too cute. Bad enough that they’re product names (the second P in PPP), but I don’t particularly want to waste brain cells thinking about their branding.
ReplyDeleteHand up for thinking the reveal is wrong. MARTIAL and MERCURIAL are related to the supposed characteristics of the Gods. The OED suggests that SATURNINE and JOVIAL are related to the supposed influence of those planets, so the reveal is defensible in those two cases. But VENIAL? Not related to Venus the goddess or planet at all. Oops.
I wanted something about Galileo as a revealer, since these are a complete set of the planets known to him, often referred to as Galilean. But maybe it's just the non-dwarf planets that have adjectives with the same ancestors. At least, I can't think of any words based on Neptune or Uranus (I mean serious ones -- I know all the puns you can make with planet 7).
ReplyDelete@Larry Gilstrap, you must have loved the clue for 5D, then! Punctuation aside, I think this puzzle goes over its quota for E- words.
If you've been to Boston, you must have noticed the big billboard with the 33A logo flashing high above Kenmore Square. There's a debate going on whether it should be protected as a landmark or removed as an eyesore. It's less popular than it used to be.
No spoilers, but there's a word that appears in both the crossword and the mini, with very similar clues, today. Seems like the editor should have changed that -- you'd just have to switch the mini with tomorrow.
I haven't had that captcha puzzle lately. Wish me luck!
Hey All !
ReplyDeleteBy JOVE, I got my famous one-letter DNF today. YELP! Happened at ONoROUS/MoRCURIAL. Sure, should've figured it out with the PLANETS/ROMAN GODS theme, but the ole brain excepted ONoROUS as correct, and I never looked back. Talk about being ONEROUS. Who decided it should be an E?
SE had me stuck for a bit with monSoON for EROSION. Had YAK, but with monSoON, gave me YM to start 42A. Knew something was amiss, so took out YAK instead of the actual wrong answer. Argh. PARR not helping, either. But when I finally BOOTed out monSoON, was able to finish. Thought IM ALL ON IT! Then, the Almost There! message. Talk about a POOR BOAST.
Agree with the INE ending of 61A off putting, since the other 4 are IALs. Interesting how a peaceful thing, WORSHIP, can become a non-peaceful thing by changing one letter, WARSHIP.
Rex didn't kvetch about longer Across non-themers than two of the actual themers. That usually sets him on an OPTIMAl rage.
Did like puz overall. But didn't PLOUGH through it in 3 minutes like Rex. Holy cow, my first pass through was longer than that!
ARE SO TOO VOLGA
RooMonster
DarrinV
I kept waiting to see how EARTHY would be clued.
ReplyDeleteI was waiting for terrestrial.
ReplyDeleteHow are Jokester's jokes GAPS?
I think I spoke too soon and without the breadth of knowledge of my colleagues here. Saturn was the guy who ate his children, right? Hardly gloomy then. My bad.
ReplyDeleteAn intelligent puzzle, a puzzle for grownups -- and on a Monday. Including MONOMER, yet. I like your STILES, Alex.
ReplyDeleteSPACE is the "final frontier" in Star Trek? I thought they reached that frontier 382 episodes ago.
I never saw the PLANET theme while solving. I was too focused on the IAL endings and wondering what they were all about.
MERCI, Alex, for a JOVIAL morning.
I was disappointed that 46A was WORSHIP instead of WARSHIP.
ReplyDeleteWARSHIPs are pretty cool. I served on a warship that could go under the North Pole, blow up the world, and make donuts. I hated every minute of it. WORSHIP, on the other hand, always seemed to me like a softheaded word. It implies superstition instead of spirituality, at to my ear. I went to twelve years of Catholic school and I hated every minute of that too.
Happiness is never having to worry about whether an adjective is based on a god or a PLANET.
ReplyDeleteIf they hadn't both come in so readily, I, too, would have complained along with @Z about having two gas brands in one puzzle. Not to mention the stupid Kia.
@Odd Sock (9:04) wins my vote for the funniest comment so far today.
GAGS, @gfrpeace (10:09).
My five favorite clues from last week:
ReplyDelete1. Middle of time? (5)
2. Cliff notes? (5)
3. A bitter pull to swallow? (3)
4. Ended a phone call? (10)
5. Quote from a letter (4)
COLON
YODEL
ALE
BUTT DIALED
RENT
@gfrpeace; Jokester’s jokes are GAGS, not GAPS
ReplyDeleteNot anything to do with Venus...
ReplyDeleteve·ni·al /ˈvēnēəl/
adjective
CHRISTIAN THEOLOGY
adjective: venial
denoting a sin that is not regarded as depriving the soul of divine grace.
(of a fault or offense) slight and pardonable.
Origin
Middle English: via Old French from late Latin venialis, from venia ‘forgiveness.’
Immediately latched onto the MERCURIAL+MERCI twosome as a themer set. That mercurial idea was eventually pu-pu-ed, of course.
ReplyDeletestaff weeject pick: ETS. Seems almost theme-related, so it gets the necessary extra(-terrestrial) points to win its category.
At xwordinfo.chen, constructioneer mentions that originally he had a double puzrevealer of PLANET & ROMANGOD. But the puzfill surroundin all that revealin was too raised-by-wolves to pass NYT muster. So, blame the Crossword Gods, maybe.
As @RP already pointed out, lotsa nice 7-stacks. With MONOMER/IMALL providin a primo splash of desperation.
Enjoyed this MonPuz, with its know-yer-gasoline-logos sub-theme.
Thanx, Mr. E-S.
Masked & Anonymo6Us
p.s. See y'all in about a week, after our return from one of the outer planetoids.
unvenial:
**gruntz**
Well, there IS the word Venusian (I was thinking of Venutian, but was wrong). But it probably wouldn't work as it simply means relating to the planet Venus.
ReplyDeleteQuirks and miss-hits aside, this was just fun. I skipped along, took my time to admire the scenery, to smell the roses. I understand the quibble about planets versus gods, but frankly, I don't care. I just like the words and their relationship to planets and gods. So there.
Did anyone wander put into the cold early this am to view the meteor shower? Not I, of course; 28 degrees here at 2 am. But I thought about it. Does that count?
Sorry, but whenever I see this constructor, I feel like not doing the puzzle at all.
ReplyDeleteBut today was Monday..... Not fun for me tho.
Nothing UGLI or ONEROUS about this puzzle. Fun etymological visit to Roman gods and distant PLANETS. And don’t forget the ETS hiding over Jupiter.
ReplyDeleteVENIAL inquiries. When you’re shopping at the I-MALL, would you rather buy an E-CIG or a B-RIG? And if you’re later dissatisfied with your purchase, would your complaint be a U-NIT or an O-NIT?
I loved the puzzle, partly because I love Holst's The Planets and partly just because of all that neat vocabulary clustered together. I got the theme after MERCURIAL and VENIAL ("Wow, 'venial' comes from Venus?!" Well, I guess not, too bad!). I liked WORSHIP along with all of the gods references. Also liked the Shakespearian MIRANDA and ARIEL from The Tempest
ReplyDeleteLooking back over the grid, with E-TADE and E-CIG, I read I-MALL and wondered how I'd missed that to-me-unknown Internet shopping option.
@SJ Austin, re: the captcha - with a "blue name," are you sure you need to deal with it? I find I can completely ignore it. I don't even check the "I'm not a robot" box.
I looked a little more. Using the family tree metaphor:
ReplyDeleteSaturn the god begat Saturn the planet begat SATURNINE the characteristic;
Jupiter the god begat Jupiter the planet begat JOVIAL the characteristic;
Mars the god begat Mars the planet and MARTIAL the characteristic;
Mercury the god begat Mercury he planet and MERCURIAL the characteristic;
Proto-IndoEuropean “wen” begat Venus the goddess that begat Venus the planet, and “wen” begat VENIAL the characteristic. This makes Venus the planet the nephew or niece of VENIAL. Or maybe more like third cousin twice removed.
@quasi-Saturn was indeed the child eater. If you want to see what that looked like, one of Goya's most famous "black" paintings is "Saturn Devouring His Children". Does not pass the breakfast or lunch test.
ReplyDelete@jberg-Best description of the gas sign beyond left field in Fenway was offered by a player sitting in the dugout, watching a long home run heading over the wall in that direction, and saying "See it go.".
The word *venal* may share some sort of common root with Venus, since Venus always implies sexual intercourse, and venality suggests prostitution--but even here I'm not sure the link is direct. Venereal derives from Venus. But the word in the puzzle, *venial* I think has a different root not etymologically related to Venus (or to venal, for that matter), as others have noted above. Perhaps there is some common root, but I don't think so.
ReplyDeleteBut I thought this was a good puzzle, especially for a Monday. Thanks to pmdm (8:49) for pointing out that the planets are in order, which I had not noticed.
Anon. i.e. Poggius
Someone asked for an adjective derived from planet Neptune. How about “ineptunal” aka tone deaf?
ReplyDeleteI usually forget, but today I remembered that it's New Yorker Crossword Puzzle Monday.
ReplyDeleteHey, an AES puzzle that didn't twist my brain. I like it, and got the theme around the time I got to MARTIAL.
ReplyDeleteI like seeing MERCURIAL with MERCI right after it. I like I,MALL (60A) a la I,Robot and I,Claudius.
Seeing PLOUGH makes me think of the Jethro Tull song, Heavy Horses:
Heavy horses, move the land under me
Behind the plough gliding, slipping and sliding free
And now you're down to the few and there's no work to do
The tractor is on its way
Thanks, Alex, by Jove.
This comment has been removed by a blog administrator.
ReplyDeleteMars has always been known as "the angry red planet". Martial, war.
ReplyDeleteUntil I got to the e-cig answer, I thought that this was a reprint of a puzzle from a long time ago.
ReplyDeleteSo all the other PLANETS get cool names from mythology but our little pale blue dot gets....Earth? As in synonymous with....dirt? Don't seem right.
ReplyDeleteFor an upgrade to something a little spiffier, I nominate Circe, goddess of pharmacy whose knowledge of herbs and potions allowed her to change SAILORS into swine. Kind of earthy, right?
A minitheme was missed, what with SAILORS ENCASED in a BRIG already in place, and a simple O to A switch available to make 46A WARSHIP. Or maybe change 39D MONOMER into MAN O WAR.
Anthropologists have observed various peoples who actually do eat MUD PIES. The practice is called---you may want to add this to your word list---GEOPHAGY.
Started this at 4:30am, waiting for an UBER which didn’t make his appointed pickup. The idea was to UBER back and forth to a hospital 40 miles away for a minor surgery on my ear. I had to invoke plan B, which was to drive up to the hospital, UBER back, and then to UBER up tomorrow and drive back. I was about half done when I returned home from the surgery. I liked the puzzle, but was a bit slow, maybe from the anaesthesia, an excuse I’d like to use more ofter.
ReplyDelete@Hungry Mother
ReplyDeleteHope all goes well.
@JC66 - Crossword Butler on Twitter reminded me that today was New Yorker Monday. Chewy. I liked it despite it’s highish PPP (21/68 - 2 PPP answers shy of going over the line). No Spoilers here (wouldn’t want a moderator to nix my comment) but 38D/57A was a coin flip here. I had to look up 57A to confirm post solve.
ReplyDelete"Has the perp been Mirandized, officer?"
ReplyDelete"I was just about to do that now."
(to perp): "You have the right to remain silent. Anything you say can and will be used against you in the lyrics of the upcoming new Broadway musical by Lin-Manuel Miranda.
"Your character may be killed off during the action of the play or cut from the show in its entirety, at Mr. Miranda's discretion. Mr. Miranda reserves the right to use anything you say in future artistic undertakings as he sees fit, without your explicit permission.
"You have the right to a choreographer. If Mr. Miranda's choreographer is unacceptable, Debbie Allen is prepared to provide her services gratis, as she needs a job after being dumped from all of those awards shows.
"Do you understand everything I have said to you?"
@Z
ReplyDeleteYeah those 38D type clues always get me, too, but fortunately I knew 57A.
And thanks for the Twitter suggestion, but who knows if I'd remember to look at that, either. ;-). I still have CrosswordButlerMac in my Finder, but it's no longer operational.
@Joe DiPinto lmao. You’re killing me...
ReplyDelete@Joe D
ReplyDeleteLOL. Maybe you can do something similar about the guy who can't decide how to cross the stream: Roe vs Wade.
Sorry, but sometimes (too often, actually) you can be such a stupid prat. Said with a smile.
ReplyDeleteAnoa Bob,
ReplyDeleteI know I could look it up, but if you've got expertise I'd prefer it to goggle. Is Geophagy a subset of pica? Is it related but different? Not related at all? T.I.A.
@Mike E from yesterday. In case no one responded regarding Sunday Cryptic 12A - beginning of Simmered was moved to make Immersed.
ReplyDeleteAnon @5:52, if I recall correctly, pica is considered an abnormal behavior of an individual, often in an infant or child, while geophagy is a cultural thing, practiced by many in a group, especially, yup, during periods when food is scarce. It usually follows standardized procedures of how to prepare, store and consume the earth, typically clay, a kind of recipe, if you will. It probably has minimum, if any, nutritional or caloric value, other than some minerals, but it at least gets something into the stomach.
ReplyDeleteA nice, easy Monday, and with PLANETS as a theme, what's not to like? Yeah, I know, because of *Jove* vs. *Jupiter* they don't all work to perfection, but ITS close enough.
ReplyDeleteQuad seven stacks are ambitious this early in the week, but Alex pulls it off with the help of some talksy stuff like HUMORME, ONIT and LETSNOT. "Additionally," we have a mini-theme with TOO and ALSO.
DOD is MIRANDA Lambert. LETSNOT be a stranger, Alex. Birdie.
PLANETS’ SPACE
ReplyDeleteLET’SNOT YELP and YAK about *VENIAL*,
HUMORME, I’MALL TOO well-versed,
though IT’S ONEROUS and MERCURIAL
I WORSHIP the POOR gods (who CAME first).
--- ARIEL MIRANDA
The first thing I thought upon filling in PLANETS as the revealer was, “Didn’t the PLANETS’ names come from the names of the gods? We’re missing a step here from the *origins*, no?” Apparently I’m not alone.
ReplyDeleteThe 1960s ADS for Temple wine were sung to the tune of “The VOLGA Boatmen”, which I have on a vinyl PLATTER and may have to give a spin tonight.
IMALL in for Julia STILES as yeah baby.
Any puz with a RONALD in it must be OK.
While it was an enjoyable Monday with a bit of "crunch" for the day, please remember to keep the newbies in mind. Monday is their day to take a stab at "the world's greatest" etc.
ReplyDeleteI mean, SATURNINE is not a word used in ordinary conversation. Is it? Do you? Just a bit more rare than VENIAL or MERCURIAL.
I've heard of, but don't believe I've had, a PUPUPLATTER.
That's just JOVIAL me.
Diana, Lady-in-Waiting for Crosswords
Clue: Trump aka the _____ president.
ReplyDeleteYes. Plutonian.
Gods, planets, adjectives. Perfect Monday puzzle. Who *really* cares if the etymology/origin thing isn't perfect? The idea is clear, hence the theme works, at least for me, but maybe I'm just being uranial.
ReplyDeleteThough it wasn't mentioned, MUD PIES is kind of Earthial, I would think. Har.
Maybe it's my chemistry background, but MONOMER is okay, amino acids being "building blocks" for proteins. No need to get all polymeric on anyone. Some "experts" are just so annoying.
This is a perfect puzzle for what a Monday puzzle can be, in my opinion. Newbies, who/whatever they are can solve this baby, and there is sufficient interest and crossword-worthy cluing in here for the veterans.
Neptunial.
Well, if the ancients hadn’t believed that the universe was geocentric we could have had “terrestrial” as an answer relating to Terra (Roman goddess of the earth), this third rock from the sun and the ground upon which we walk. And if they’d have had telescopes and this puzzle extended downward a few more lines we might have had “celestial” for the Roman god Caelus. Caelus was the Roman counterpart of the Greek god Uranus. But, of course, the ancients didn’t know Uranus from a hole in the ground.
ReplyDeleteRex's beef about etymological origins is a valid one. The puzzle could have had enough going for it otherwise, although CUBES seemed an extraneous throw-in theme.
ReplyDelete