.png)
Official of ancient Rome / THU 1-30-20 / Arrow poison / Gift that comes in pieces / Star Wars Jedi familiarly
Thursday, January 30, 2020
Constructor: Emily Carroll
Relative difficulty: Easy (time irrelevant as I still don't have the rebus-function on my solving software down pat yet, so I had to figure out the keystroke pattern and kept getting it wrong ... so I restarted time but at that point I was about a quarter done with the grid ... I dunno, rebuses are weird, time-wise depending on how you're doing the multiple-letter thing; point is, it was not hard)
Theme answers:
- IT COUPLE / "IT'S A JOB"
- GO COLD / COLD SHOWER
- "BE COOL" / COOLIO
- WARM UP / WARMS TO
- RED HOT / HOT TEA
- "LEAN ON ME" / COVER ME
1: a complex poison of South American Indians used on arrow tips that causes muscle relaxation and paralysis, includes various substances of plant and animal origin, and typically contains an alkaloid extracted from one of two South American vines (Strychnos toxifera of the family Loganiaceae or Chondodendron tomentosum of the family Menispermaceae) as the primary active ingredient (wikipedia)
• • •
Too bad the theme clunks, because the grid looks pretty good. Pretty good except for:
Issues:
- EDILE (59D: Official of ancient Rome) — fine, it's a term, but it's a bit of an obscurity and reeks of the Maleskan era. Really stands out (badly) in a grid that's otherwise pretty free of old crosswordese.
- TEHEES (10D: Snickers) — I will never come around on even the singular TEHEE, to say nothing of the plural. I've only ever heard the vowel sounds in the first and second syllable as the same, a long "E," so that one-"E"'d first syllable is always going to feel wrong to me.
- NON-PC (52A: Like much stand-up comedy) — as *I* have said, for years now, the concept of PC, and the answers UNPC and NONPC, are guh-arbage. The term "PC" was made up by racist sexist homophobic ****s who wanted to continue to be able to say racist sexist homphobic things while never hearing criticism. Someone is only being "PC" when they're put off by something *you're* not put off by. But your sensitivities are probably just fine. Manly and patriotic, even. Whatever. You can shove allllll the "PC"-related answers very very far ... away.
Nothing else bugged me that much.
[Follow Rex Parker on Twitter and Facebook]
Save And Share :
128 comments:
Easy-medium. I’m with Rex on this one. Nice idea and fun with a reasonably smooth grid, but not really HIDE AND SEEK as I played it as a kid. Still, liked it.
...and at Xwordinfo Emily sort of apologizes for TEHEES and EDILE.
It's been so long that I can't actually recall the 'rules' for Hide 'n Seek. I recall some various modern permutations, specifically Mantracker and 20-20, which I have watched my great nieces/nephews play. (I'm not sure if those are local western Canadian versions or not.) But there may be a version where a referee calls out "cold", "warm", etc. I hope so cuz I kinda like this theme.
I might be unique in this, but what I *really* hated about this puzzle is that it's just plain wrong. Consider different ways of moving around this grid. 1) You can move diagonally (or not), and 2) You can walk on only white squares (or black and white squares). Let's count the distance from the HOT/WARM/COOL/COLD squares to ME:
Diagonal allowed/Black squares allowed:
HOT: 4
WARM: 11
COOL: 9
COLD: 12
So that doesn't work.
Diagonal allowed/Black squares not allowed:
HOT: 4
WARM: 11
COOL: 9
COLD: 12
Same as before, still doesn't work.
Diagonals not allowed, black squares allowed:
HOT: 7
WARM: 14
COOL: 17
COLD: 18
Technically in the right order, but COOL and COLD are basically a tie, and WARM is barely better than COOL.
Diagonals now allowed, black squares not allowed:
HOT: 7
WARM: 16
COOL: 17
COLD: 21
Still in the right. order, but now WARM and COOL are basically tied instead of COOL and COLD.
So there's just not a good way of interpreting the distances in this puzzle that actually give a good definition to the hints (i.e. where there are actual meaningful differences between all four of them, and they are in the right order).
It’s been a very tough week and what with the flu for 10 days and the MLK holiday this month, I wasn’t focused on the fact that today is Thursday. Add to that the fact that we haven’t had a rebus for a while and this fairly easy puzzle was a nightmare for me until LEAN ON ME - yes, all the way down there and after I had filled in the obvious HIDE AND SEEK. So, once I got it, I shouted, “Oh!!” Which woke my two sleeping cats (one of whom is my “librarian cat” avatar) and they helped me finish quickly by pacing up and down my recumbent body demanding their midnight snack. All the spots left by the time my brain woke up to the trick were the rebus places.
This was truly a fun puzzle. I liked it a lot. Classic Thursday fare, perhaps a tad easier, but it did have some interesting new words for me: CURARE and EDILE. I think I had run across the poison before but I thought it was CURARa. Not.
What fun; thanks Ms. Carroll!
Would be so easy to clue NONPC as Apple something.
Got the trick right away with go COLD and COLD shower, then it was just a matter of time before I uncovered the COOL, WARM, and HOT. IT and ME were last to fall. Fun puzzle, a little too easy for me for a Thursday, but I’ll take it. I think Rex is right that we’re talking about two separate games. Similar yes, but not the same game.
Gee, @Rex....racist, sexist, homophobic? You kinda forgot "white."
Hey, this was COOL beans. Loved this. Got the COLD part first so like any other COLD blooded American, I thought this puppy was going to go all COLD on me. Nope. We got a bit of WARM and fuzzy and then there's the RED HOT tamale floating around.
So I see the reveal after my COLD SHOWER (brrrr) and I did do a bit of the head shake. My playing days of HIDE AND SEEK always involved climbing a tree because nobody bothered to ever look up an avocado tree to find me. I was HOT and never became the IT girl. No matter, this was cute and fun especially the WARM HOT ME part.
I liked ORAL sitting underneath JAW and LIMA meeting up with LIMO. Hey, there are no men's name in this puzzle...I cry foul! Oh, wait....we have ELON of the Boring Company so we are good to go.
Thanks for a fun romp, Emily. Do you pronounce the B in SUBTLER?
I enjoyed the theme well enough. I agree with Rex's and others' critique: no clues are given in hide and seek.
I did like realizing that ANSEL Adams's name came from Hansel as I wrote it in, then moments later seeing GRETEL down below.
"The term "PC" was made up by racist sexist homophobic ****s who wanted to continue to be able to say racist sexist homphobic things while never hearing criticism," is the most PC thing I've ever read.
I think of AVIS (39 across) as being an alternative to Hertz; Dollar’s alternatives are among the budget-conscious car rental lines such as Alamo, Budget and Thrifty.
@GILLI: Stephen Sondheim once* rhymed "SUBTLER" with "butler," so that's the way it must be pronounced.
* https://youtu.be/I96RZh8108o?t=121
As with @Rex, where and when I was a kid, the temperature clues were when an object was hidden, and there were no such clues in Hide and Seek, when a person was hidden. But no matter for the solve, which was fun. I caught on to the rebus at COLD, the theme on COOL and was going red-hot until some pushback from my last section to fill, the NW, where I started with IT PEOPLE (and things would have gone more quickly had someone shouted "COLD!" to set me straight), but better sense eventually reigned.
I did learn EDILE and CURARE, so thank you for that, Emily, and for the fun rebus solve. Actually, aren't crosswords a bit like hide and seek? And a couple more questions. Could you call a birdie in golf a PARSNIP? Did Cleopatra die of ASPIRE?
Harry and Meghan didn’t fit.
Quite a PPP switch from yesterday. And by that, I mean Big Big Big improvement. But, yeah, two different games. The COLD, COOL, WARM, HOT game involved HIDing and SEEKing, but was not HIDE AND SEEK.
As ever, use whatever language you want, but using the term “PC” is the equivalent of having a giant “I’m a Bigot” tattoo on your forehead. Inveigh against this all you want (inveighing against this just reinforces the idea that you’re a bigot), it will not change the facts. And to be clear, this isn’t a right/left thing, it is very much exactly what Rex describes - the desire to use offensive language and not be criticized for it. That desire is not limited to any one group.
@Anon1:11 am - Take a compass and draw circles.
It's scary someone who feels the need to do that insane PC rant actually teaches students.
Do constructors of rebus puzzles make a lot of the clues easy to make up for the rebus squares? Didn't mind the mashup of the two games (kind of an It Couple) but a bit disappointed at how quickly it finished. Ah well, perhaps Letterbox will offer some crunch!
This was a lot of fun. I usually don't care for the rebus but this was excellent.
As Rex\said, name of the game is totally WRONG. But even if we call the game "Hot and Cold", wtf does the final "ME" have to do with it? Did anyone ever play a version ending in "me"?
It's with reluctance that I ask: Could this have been published for PC reasons?
Gerry
Any car rental is an alternative to any other car rental.
Enjoyable puzzle, other than EDILE (which should be AEDILE). I agree there is some question as to whether WARM is closer than COOL.
As the crow flies, COOL is about 6% further away than WARM.
If you assume you can’t cross the black squares, then WARM is 6% further away than COOL.
If you assume you can’t cross the black squares AND you can’t go diagonally, only right or down, then COOL is 6% further away than WARM.
Worst of all, you can see ME from COOL, but not from WARM (assuming you can’t see across black squares).
Oh, and we always called the game "hide and go seek".
You think EDILE is obscure? What about COOLIO?
Just because it's current (sort of) doesn't mean it's widely known.
It was absolutely the last square I filled, and then only because I had the concept.
The only thing I liked about this puzzle was UTZ. I wish they sold them where I live.
Nobody actually calls out COLD, WARM, etc during a game of H & S, but that describes the process of IT finding ME, cleverly portrayed in this puzzle.
About half of my normal time, but the middle with the rapper was tough until I got the theme figured out. Then, it was a matter of locating the rebuses. Lots of fun.
The only sparkle is “A long way to go?” for LIMO. Pretty dull puzzle.
Do any of you know what USA TODAY pays for puzzles? If it’s about what NYT pays, I would think that women constructors would send their work there. A better chance of being accepted.
I enjoyed this one a lot: Relatively straightforward. When I finally understood the theme, I felt good about the overall solving experience. I wondered whether Rex would like it or diss it.
With a bunch of long gimmes this played easy for me. I liked it though. Very cute. As for non-PC, whether I (or Rex or anyone else) like the term is irrelevant. It’s a real term and therefore a legitimate answer. Imagine only wanting words, names and terms of things we like in the puzzle. Who would want that ?
The word is dis. It's short for disrespect. There is no diss. Ask Coolio.
I first heard the term PC circa 1983 from Berkeley leftist types. They used it in a joking, self-deprecating way that was, in fact, the exact opposite of the alt-right stereotype of the humorless PC SJW who can’t take a joke. (And should be hounded off social media for daring to think that my hate-flavored stand up isn’t funny. How dare they. I’m offen . . . er. . . mad in a totally manly way.)
Initially I wanted [POWER] COUPLE for 1A, but 1D didn't work with POWER. Then I thought that maybe it wasn't a rebus at all and the answer should be JAVANKA, which fits. But that didn't work with 1D either. Finally I saw [IT]S A JOB, and all was well.
I don't remember how I PLAYed HIDE AND SEEK. I guess I must have played it, but I really don't remember at all. There has to be a third person, right, calling out the COLDs and WARMs and HOTs? I mean if I'm hiding behind the sofa and I call out "COLD", you'll know where I am, right? Even a child will know, right? Even a very, very, very young and not terribly bright child, right?
This was lots of fun. Very playful -- quite literally so -- and blessedly free of pop culture and crosswordese. I liked it a lot. More like this, please.
You know how when you’re playing hide and seek, and you’re hiding, you yell COLD and WARM and HOT ( not “getting hotter,” mind you, just “hot”), and then, when the person hearing you yell out these words manages to find you, you yell ME? No? Neither do I. That’s why I kicked this puzzle to the curb midway through.
“IT” is from the game “TAG” as in “Tag, you’re it”. Certainly not Hide and Seek where I grew up.
This could have used some crunch but I always like a rebus so OK.
I'm with @ Gerry 7:10 though in wondering about "me". How does that come into the game. I thought you were either IT or Not IT.
Good clue for limo.
I'm gob-smacked at Rex's rant. I thought PC words and phrases were used entirely for people like him. You can't say someone is short, they are vertically challenged. Silly stuff like that. Some days I never know what will light his fuse.
I rolled my eyes at NONPC for reasons similar to Rex's, but I'll quibble with his assertion that the term "politically correct" was invented by the ****s. I first heard it as a college student in the early 80s from like-minded liberal students who used it ironically to poke fun at our own orthodoxy. The right picked it up and weaponized it.
I started in the NE and saw COLDSHOWER immediately, so I suspected a temperature rebus. I did a quick scan and HOTTEA gave it away. The mid grid long revealer felt obvious and the only tricky bit was the use of IT and ME in the diagonal corners. I wasn’t disturbed that HOT/COLD isn’t a factor to one PLAYing HIDEANDSEEK. If I was observing a game, I might think that IT was either one while searching.
I love the struggle of a rebus and this was a clever theme, but much too easy for my taste. I would have preferred cluing with more punch. I like to suffer just a bit on Thursday. Anyone complaining about the obscurity of CURARE is probably not a Christie fan. When she worked in a dispensary, her pharmacist instructor carried a lump of it in his pocket to feel powerful, she wrote. EDILE is tougher but I lived through the Maleska era and have seen it before. I just don’t see much else that would slow one down.
Thanks to @Nancy et al for welcoming my return yesterday. My hiatus wasn’t a protest, but ashamedly early morning laziness. @Teedman, oh yes, that’s the plan. I’m looking forward to catching up!
I've seen Zapp's chips, but had no idea the manufacturer was UTZ.
Re: distances and diagonals, it could be based on the Manhattan distance, e.g. horizontal + vertical. I did not check this, but you may enjoy reading up on the different ways to measure "distance" (toroidal/wrapped, etc.).
This was a best time for Thursday for us, quite easy. Only trouble was BENIN against NEH, that's a pretty obscure cross. And of course TEHEES which is just yikes, let's not pretend anyone has ever said or written that ever.
Doesn’t this puzzle take you back to hot summer nights just before the streetlights come on? The mosquitoes are biting but you don’t care because you and your gang of friends are hiding and shrieking and running all over the neighborhood before you have to jump on your bikes and pedal home as fast as you can. Not a bad way to start a January morning, Emily.
Way to overthink it and ruin the fun. It is an abstraction, so everything doesn't need to work literally. Where are the objects to hide behind? Why isn't "ready or not, here I come" in the puzzle, etc. "IT" is trying to find "ME" and the progression is represented by the degrees of hotness: it doesn't matter if anyone calls it out when playing the actual game.
@Anon 1:11, wait until morning to post next time: all those words based on a self-invented premise that the distance must be calculated by moving square-wise. As Z said, a compass, finger or simple eyeball estimate will give you that their relative proximity is correct.
Enjoyed clue long ride.
N/H/O COOLIO or EDILE. Rest was smooth Thur rebus puz.
Oh for a government that would effectively regulate the hate-filled speech of people with whom I disagree! Not to mention a society which would condone its regulation. Or even better, a society where such regulation was not necessary.
Am I getting warmer?
You can use the term "non-PC" to indicate your disapproval of what someone is saying without attacking their overall character. To claim that anyone who uses this term is automatically a racist,sexist homophobe is an absurdity. I agree that someone who reacts this intensely and indiscriminately to the mere appearance of a word presents problems as an instructor of young minds.
Don't get the ME. Can anyone explain?
I finished the NW last. Since I had the gimmick by that point, I confidently put YOU in square 1, which is what it should have been if the theme was properly executed. "YOU DO YOU" is a plausible answer to 1D. YAK is a fine answer for 19A.
And just about everything else in that corner was obscure proper nouns.
It took a while to sort out that mess.
@Anon 1:11am: You're not alone. The poor placement of COOL and WARM bothered me too.
Rex wrote that edible “reeks of the Maleskan era.“ Why is he knocking the former editor? Another example of his Trumps-like inferiority complex when it comes to NYT puzzle editors like Eugene Maleska, Will Weng and Will Shortz.
Pretty bland if you ask me. @Rex is spot-on that this is not how hide-and-seek works. Nothing at all interesting in the fill either.
It did bring fond memories of playing the "hot-cold game" countless times with my daughters. I also chuckled at the clue for LIMO, even though I've probably seen it before.
I usually steer clear of the NONPC nonsense, but today @Rex and @Z doth protest too much, methinks. Laughable positions, and I dare them to equate my arguing as such to "inveighing" or to bigotry of any kind -- well, except the kind against absurd comments. @Z -- We'll just have to disagree on this; on Elvis Costello, never.
Pretty easy on the whole, yes the general fill was mostly easy (except when it was obscure) to counterbalance the Rebus. Yes, some are that way, some have much harder and obscure clues + Rebus. UGH. This would qualify as a good introduction Rebus.
One has to go loosely with the theme and its execution, it does not stand up to intense scrutiny, but NYT is not the ACME/APEX of puzzles any more by a long shot.
Yes
DISS looked very awkward as does TEHEES (TEEHEES is much better)
COOLIO and EDILE is an odd couple not an ITCOUPLE.
A lot of merits to this puzzle for what I think it is.
I must register my vote for "up to here" with PC and non-PC. Any humour worth its salt is grossly and blatantly non-PC.
Hey All !
@Anonymous 1:11
That was truly confusing. How did you get those numbers?
Agree with Rex on the HIDE AND SEEK not including the HOT-COLD thing. Wasn't that something else? Like hiding an object, and having a friend try to find it with your HOT-COLD clues? I forgot the name.
Did like this puz, despite the non-linearness of the two games. Caught on at the COLD spot (har). Then got WARM, HOT, and saw that the final square could've been ME. I said, "ME? Is that what you're SEEKing?" It was, so I looked at the first square of puz, and figured out 1A ad IT COUPLE. "Ah, IT SEEKing ME."
I talk to myself alot. :-)
PARSNIP is a fun word. Took a minute remember COOLIO. I had to remember Weird Al's Spoof "Amish Paradise", then remember the kerfuffle it caused because COOLIO said he never gave consent to spoof his song.
I cry Foul on the BENIN/NEH/CURARE conflagration. Yeesh. Who knew BENIN right off the bat? Where is that country even? (Well, next to Togo, apparently.) Had BaNIa for my DNF. (Is BaNIa a country?)
@sanfranman from yesterday
FWE is Finished With Errors. I wasn't the one who coined it, but the person who did was pushing it to replace DNF as a more accurate description. As in, you Finished the puzzle, but had Errors. You didn't Did Not Finish, which technically means leaving unfilled squares.
And sometimes I don't even understand my own posts!
OAF PLOD
RooMonster
DarrinV
Oh yeah
Speed-solving is a very unfortunate by-product of getting skill at puzzle solving. I condemn it on hedonistic grounds. However, competitive is competitive … My God is a great pi$$er.
I steadfastly refuse to time as I have progressed from a full pass through a Saturday with "I got nothin'" to solving most puzzles put in front of me. I want to enjoy puzzle solving above all else. "FAST ENOUGH" too not be bored or take all day. I'll only do 2, 3 max in a day.
I had a career where it was a double-edged scalpel to be fast, speed is not a continuum, it is an axis on a graph with another factor, for me with a puzzle, it's enjoyment.
Maybe it's a bad example as it is really a 3 axes (3-D graph) In golf don't play slowly, I'll rip you to shreds, but play fast enough to maximize enjoyment, and of course one wants to have proficiency.
Obsession with speed to gauge difficulty is a false narrative. It is more dependent on Rote Memory and marginally-assimilated FOK (Fund of Knowledge), and of course not ripping the paper as you write it in before you raise your paw.
/r
Feeling REDHOT, thought it would BECOOL to WARMUP to my ONELOVE to advise that I ASPIRE to have little cuddle. Alas, she suggested a COLDSHOWER.
Now I need a degree in TOPOLOGY to measure the distance between each rebus in the puzzle? What is the matter with you people?
Has no parent here ever called out "hot" or "cold" while their toddler tried to find Daddy hiding behind the sofa? That's H&S too.
Rex again trashes a female constructor's work!
Although I caught onto the rebus and completed the puzzle correctly. It wasn’t until coming to this site that I understood the temperature things. Because hide and seek has nothing to do with warm, cold, hot, etc. Unless in a bizarro world.
@TJS - Well, sure. But have you ever heard it used that way this century? When someone like Bill Maher inveighs against PC he quite clearly means “why can’t you take a joke!”
BTW - Wikipedia supports people’s memory of PC starting as a self-deprecating term. By 1993, though, it’s current meaning was already fairly dominant.
@Geezer7:29 has the best explanation of the theme, including how the ME makes sense.
@Sgreennyc - Maleska was famous for being trivia oriented. Shortz came from Games Magazine and brought more of a puzzle/game/wordplay emphasis. I think it is fair to say that WordPlay > Trivia in Xwords is pretty much the dominant opinion today. Just look at yesterday’s comments for evidence. EDILE is much more Maleskan than Shortzian. It only appears today because of its useful letters. Heck, Merriam-Webster tells me it is a variant spelling. I would definitely place it on my List of Words that Make Crossword Solvers Look like Dweebs list. You know, those words we have to apologize to new solvers for knowing. Edina, MN, Orono, ME, Orem, UT, Brian Eno’s œuvre, the difference between terns, ernes, and erns, all things Olaf/Olav/Leo... Except for “pewit.” I’ll never apologize for knowing pewit.
True that.
I really enjoyed today's puzzle. Took a while to understand how the rebus squares fit in with the theme, but when I did I had to smile. I must say I love when rebus squares are not symmetrical. I like the challenge of having to guess where the rebus squares are. I hope Emily comes where and reads this comment.
As one who has always used an Apple computer at home (way back when I bought my first computer, the only platform that had good music notation software was the Mac), non-PC does not have any meaning to me except to denote the Mac computer. Ignorance is bliss.
In Hide and Seek, the person who is being sought is "IT" and I guiess in this puzzle I (or ME) is the person who is seeking the person who is IT. In that case, the HOT WARM COOL and COLD boxes are in the opposite order as they should be. But unlike some of those here, I prefer not to overthink the puzzle. Who cares? I certainly don't. But I do wonder if Emily got confused when placing the rebus squares.
100%. Surprised Rex didn’t bring that one up. Also, Legos as a “gift” is just a silly clue.
Speaking of NONPC... Recently, my brother and I were discussing whether the term "lame" was abelist or whether the term "abelist" was lame.
Or both or neither, of course.
LOL, "vertically challenged" was made up by comedians and picked up as a straw man by the anti-PC folks. Burn it down please.
And yes, it would be nice to live in a society which was kind and thoughtful of others. But we're humans, so that's not going to happen any time soon, regulated or not. It'll probably get even worse as the atmosphere poisons and our self-extinction event draws nearer.
No to hot, cold, etc. and I have no clue why "me" is involved. I kept thinking of tag, not hide and seek, but those other words aren't used in tag either, just "it". Even so, I liked the puzzle.
Z, thanks for the idea. Calipers work as well, or just laying your pencil on the me square and rotating it.
I got it at square 18, which led me back to finish up the NW. Had curari, which caused a hiccup in the Benin/Libyan cross. Like the cove/cod then the closeness of day/tre and titrate/agitate. Two roots, one starchy and the other bitter. All in all a very nice, if slightly too easy for me on a Thursday, puzzle.
Gotta agree with Anon at 7:35, it's "dis" not "diss". And totally with Rex on the spelling pronounced "teh-hee". Just wrong.
Sparkle of the day? "Mob man" answer "Don". Just so.
PC is a real thing. and college campuses are at its heart.
Z's risibel claim that anyone who claims so, is a bigot, is frankly the kind of thing that used to get one socked in the nose. Think WF Buckley and Gore Vidal.
But we dob;t have to go back that far. Many top comedians won't play college campuses. Why? In Jerry Seinfeld's words they're too PC. Seinfeld is no bigot. Neither is Chris Rock who also passes on the PC party that Colleges are and for the same reason. Too PC. Chris Rock is no bigot. Judy Gold, another good one, stays away from Colleges because, yeah, she says's the kids and atmosphere is too PC.
S***, Yale just cancelled one of its most beloved classes owing to PC nonsense. It's madness and frankly, chilling. Z says you can say whatever you want... but you're bigot if you don't toe the line of what liberals say is permissible. All that does is chill the speech of those who don't happen to subscribe to whatever craze is current.
1) Excited because its the first time I've ever legitimately looked at a puzzle, said "huh, I think this is a rebus" and been right. Seems like a good crossword milestone!
2) As a Latin student in high school and college, I had a big problem with "EDILE". The correct spelling is "AEDILE", and that would have still been obscure enough to stump most people.
@Roo - I prefer to reserve FWE for puzzles where I could have gotten the answer, but I failed to check the crosses. So if it was one of those YAK/YAP conundra, and I put YAK where it should be YAP, and the cross would have fixed things, that's on me. That's an error. But when I genuinely don't know what should go into a square, that's a DNF.
Not sure I'm explaining it well, but to me a DNF versus FWE should not depend on whether I wrote a wild guess in the box, or left it blank.
@Anon 1:11 AM. You have way too much time on your hands. How about you just take a ruler and measure the distance.
Rex went out of his way to be very PC today. Too bad he despises the concept, since he has truly mastered it.
EDILE is obviously a little to archaic for most peoples tastes. The rest of the grid is remarkably clean (save perhaps BENIN and COOLIO).
I miss my TITRATE(ion) days in chem lab back in the day.
Very cute. I thought the IT and ME rebus phrases were especially good and liked the let’s-have-fun feel of the center cross of the game and STATE FAIR.
Given the IT in square 1, I thought we might be having in informational technology theme, but square 18 poured COLD water on that idea and also woke me up to the game we were playing. Toughest for me was the COOL square: I realized that in my old neighborhood we used only COLD, colder, WARM, warmer, and HOT, followed by various embellishments like “Burning up!” - but no COOL.
@kitshef, I made a brief attempt to work in a “go” as part of the rebus.
Help from....previous crosswords: EDILE; ...childhood fascination with poison darts: CURARE. No idea: COOLIO.
Great to have a Monday on a Thursday. Not! I never time myself but I must have finished in just a few minutes. I have a thing for rebus puzzles. As Johnnie Cochran once said, “If it don’t fit, it must be a rebus”, or something like that.
The puzzle was fine, clever, and with a noticeable absence of drek. Perfect for a newbie, just wrong for a Thursday.
Thanks for doing the research, @Z. I think @Donald and @Mark we’re just correcting @Rex about the origins of the term; Rex is spot on about how it’s used today.
OTOH, “vertically challenged” was, still is, and always will be a joke.
Four years of Latin helped me dredge up EDILE, but it took some time. I think they were the guys who carried the fasces around. But everybody better learn where BENIN is, in case Mike Pompei demands you find it on a map.
Confusingly, the Times recently has a story about stolen BENIN bronzes that are now in various museums, and whose return is demanded by—Nigeria!
Current New York Revie of Books has a review of a new bio of Claude Levi-Strauss in which CURARE features gruesomely. I got it right off, which gave me nUancEd at 15A, my biggest problem today.
The enforcement of PC language today is eerily similar to Newspeak from 1984.
I happened to begin in the middle, wrote in PLAYHIDEANDSEEK, discovered the rebus early, knew both EDILE and CURARE, in short, this was a Thursday speedfest, although I never time either. Memories of whoever was IT counting to a certain number,usually as quickly as possible,and then shouting "Anyone hiding around my base is it!" before those takng off to look for those hidden. Also made me think of Tommy Smothers explaining about finding a great hiding place and realizing that no one was looking for him. And we never said HOT or COLD or anything else during the game, so that part of the puzzle struck me as a huh?
OK stuff, EC, but pretty easy for a Thursday, thus, the Thursdecito award.
Not too PC to DiSS a country just because it’s in Africa. I lived in Togo for two years, but the clue wasn’t an automatic gimme because I had to decide between Ghana And Benin. (Knew it wasn’t Bourkina Faso right off the bat.)
As I am likely Rex Parker's mother's age, I would like to point out that "politically correct" and "not politically correct" was invented not by the Right or racists/sexists/homophobes but by the Left in the 60s. The Right likely weren't aware of the coinage until the late 80s or 90s.
As a college student in the 70s, I was briefly enamored of Marx and attended Socialist Party USA meetings with my then roommate, an African American lesbian. When I was told that shaving my legs and wearing makeup was not politically correct and a sign of my oppression and when she was told by a white woman that black men's homophobia was to be overlooked because of their oppression, she and I started using "not PC" as a withering put down of absolutist dogma. So many others did too. The Right picked up on it and changed its meaning entirely.
Today, the Left is not offended by PC/non-PC labels. The Right is. So your comments on this makes me laugh at how almost full circle the terms have travelled.
Once again Rex equates his abhorrence for a particular concept/person/thing with non-suitability for it to be in the puzzle. Just shove it very very far away where he doesn't have to see it.
I think Anon 8:43 got it right: when you are searching for something, you are relatively "warmer" or "colder" as you hunt around, whether or not someone is actually calling out those terms. I liked this idea and think it was well-executed. Some nice gridwork with SUBTLER, PARSNIP, CURARE and STATE FAIR.
Seek and ye shall find. (One, anyway. Maybe not another one.)
IT didn’t occur to me until the final key stroke today. Wanted “you “ to balance ME and never recovered. Rebus on Thursday is like hollandaise on eggs for solvers in our house, so thanks Emily for a nice morning’s treat. Neither the proximities issue nor the PC diatribes seemed worthy of the attention received, but I most often side with @Lewis when the chasms of discord rupture the very fabric of Crossworld.”This is the best possible world,” says the optimist; “Afraid so,” responds the pessimist. AMEN
Curious - what shall/should/do we call the plural of a rebus (puzzle)? "Rebuses" looks dumb. "Rebi" seems unnecessarily Latin. But I'll do what has to be done ;)
Funny little rebus theme. Works fine for m&e, as a polite, gamey ThursPuz fix.
About the theme mcguffin:
* In a way, the rebus squares are "hidin" from us, and we have to find them. Just sayin.
* IT is the player chosen to find ME. I'm gonna go out on a limb, and say IT is the puzsolver, here.
* The COLD, COOL, WARM, HOT squares are evidently in the puz's voice, informin IT (the puzsolver) how close the player is gettin to ME. Sooo … ME is kinda also like the puz itself, embodied as both a player and a moderator, here.
* The distance in nano-meters from COOL to ME is ever so slightly longer than the distance from WARM to ME. But they're really too close to the same length. WARM probably shoulda been nudged a little closer to ME, in the puzgrid, to make everyone happy.
staff weeject pick: NEH. Better clue: {Sky is falling alarmist, in retreat??}. Primo weeject stacks in the NW (where M&A zoomed to, to start the solvequest) & SE.
M&A had no problemo with EDILE. Have actually used it before, in a few of my own puzs. EDILEs had PEWITs on their official badges, yah know. But … Don't U Judge M&E.
80-worder! More for yer moneybucks. scenicest words of the 80: ARIZONA. PARSNIP. CURARE. STATEFAIR. UTZ.
Am thinkin of startin to use TEHEE instead of HAR for moments of comment levity. Maybe. Would have to cautiously phase it in, and see how it feels …
Thanx for the heat-seekin puz fun, Emily C. darlin.
Masked & Anonymo3US
**gruntz**
Speaking as a Brit, "hot tea" is not a thing. Tea is hot. Iced tea isn't. Grrr. Pants suit, PDF file etc.
Pretty much the same reaction to the rebus as @Rex and others: cute concept, reasonably well executed, but unfortunately conflating two different kids’ games. Agree puzzle was on the easy side for Thursday, except for EDILE, which I did not recall from HS Latin classes. (CURARE was a gimme b/o medical background; also think it figured prominently in a Sherlock Holmes mystery.)
PC is an unfortunate term that unfortunately has itself become very un-PC without spawning a more neutral alternative. It has also become a major issue in today’s “culture wars” in large part because those who still use the term feel the concept has been weaponized unfairly to make everyone not entirely in sympathy with the progressive viewpoint look like a “racist sexist homophobic ***s” with “a giant ‘I’m a bigot’ tattoo on [their] forehead”. The dehumanizing hate-amplifying impact of social media has greatly aggravated the situation for both sides.
If a Democrat is to win the White House this year, they will need a lot of votes from people who in their actions, if not all of their words, are generally decent, and very put off by both Trump and the PC policers. Best to COOL IT on this front IMO.
For a relevant perspective, see this piece published yesterday in the online NYT: What Will You Do When the Culture War Comes for You?
https://www.nytimes.com/2020/01/29/opinion/sonmez-kobe-washington-post.html?smid=nytcore-ios-share
(Still haven’t figured out how to incorporate working links here.)
Also the excellent recently published book, The Problem with Everything, by Meghan Daum.
We liked it. That’s all we’re going to say in light of all this over analysis.
Glinda said : “Today, the Left is not offended by PC/non-PC labels. The Right is.” Not sure where you’re coming from with that. Rex is clearly offended by being labeled PC and he is certainly of the left. That’s how this whole thing started.
It was fun, and fairly easy. Way faster than my usual Thurs. And, now that I've read Masked and Anonymous's post, I like the theme a lot more.
I had fun finding where WARM was hiding from me. The SW was empty along with the square where 41D and 56A intersected. I had all of the other rebopodes filled in - where's WARM? Could it be part of 41D? I stared at that clue, "A long way to go?" for an embarrassingly long time, (not knowing the Korean currency), and finally, running the vowels, got me to LIMO and a head slap.
Still looking for WARM, (could it be hiding in EDILE?) and moving to the SW, I spun my wheels a bit when "tan" didn't fit in for the "bronze or golden" 66D object, but finally found my WARM at #61, yay. I did scratch my head a bit at the melding of Hide and Seek and Hide the Thimble, but I liked this a lot.
Fun idea, Emily Carroll, thanks.
It's also true. https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2016/nov/30/political-correctness-how-the-right-invented-phantom-enemy-donald-trump
In an age of global warming & species loss, it seems awfully nit picky to call out the creator on the Hide & Seek theme. I loved it and thought the rebuses were clever.
I agree that this is a different game and not hide and seek. But I thought it was fun. In Caesar iii, one of the greatest pc games ever, your rank is briefly an aedile on the way to being Caesar, so there are alternate spellings for EDILE.
p.s.
yeah … and of course, the weeject stacks were in the NE & SW, which my first comment bungled up the directions on. PAR SNIPpet for the course.
Was extra great to hear from @muse darlin yesterday … Always an all-too-rare occasion anymore -- but treasured, when she shows. Maybe she is busy crankin out future NYTPuzs (in addition to that horrendous school load, of course)? BURNSFORGEORGE sure seems like a promisin seed entry.
Was tryin and tryin to come up with a fresher clue for good ol EDILE. Can't budge it loose. Maybe they shoulda went with EXILE, crossin REX(HOT)? … Now, REXHOT I could easily come up with lots primo clue candidates for. tehee
M&Also
p.p.s.s.
nope. That tehee just ain't gettin er done, for m&e.
My hot/warm/cool/cold game was Huckle Buckle Beanstalk. I used to play it with my fifth graders as a way to kill ten minutes at the end of a (typically academically rigorous) day. You’d partially hide a small object like a pink eraser and a group of kids who had been exiled to the hall would try to find it. Once a year, I’d hide the eraser in one of my belt loops and give hot/cold clues whilst moving around the room, thereby changing the degree of closeness of the participants. The rest of the class roared as the poor hunters felt utterly lost. Fun.
The EDILE/TITRATE crossing did me in. Otherwise, piece of cake. And the hide and seek theme was fine for me, even if a bit off.
The first time I heard the phrase "politically correct" used, ca. 1988, it was unironic and approving. Although I agree that most people who use it as an epithet mostly want to be allowed to be make racist jokes and smack waitresses on their butts without anyone being able to complain, and have no wish to side with them, I gotta say there's something a little creepy and oppressive about a movement/phenomena that forbids itself from being named. In other words declaring "PC" NONPC is the PCEST thing imaginable.
What's offensive about the clue is that NOTPC is a much more obvious and natural-sounding answer than NONPC, so if you don't happen to know the Japanese city name (TAGANO seems totally plausible) you are screwed.
Glinda at about 11:23 AM is correct. The term *politically correct* was first used in all seriousness by the puritanical left and subsequently appropriated by the right. This use has resonated so strongly that the original meaning has apparently been lost.
I would say the same progression is underway with the term *woke* which works better as a conservative criticism than a leftist one.
@jberg - It’s a pretty good article. The NYT’s ignominious role in popularizing the term is well documented in the article (again - the NYT has always been slightly right of center). My LOL moment, though, was at the end with Jim Geraghty of National Review replied to Nowrasteh, stating that "there is no right-wing equivalent to political correctness.” I mean, Seriously? I count a half dozen right-wing PC statements just in today’s comments.
If anyone is curious, here’s a link to one of the NYT’s articles cited. If you don’t see the patronizingly skewed perspective you’re probably one of those who think Rex is wrong to complain about how the term is used today.
I also found this article interesting. I will leave it to my fans to grapple with how it disproves many of their contentions.
Anonymous from 1:11 here again.
A few people suggested taking a compass and drawing a circle. That doesn't work for fairly obvious (I thought) reasons: it'll change depending on the fonts and print layout. I suppose you could take the print version as canonical, but I don't have the print version.
But you can do something similar with Pythagoras that's better, so let's use that method:
HOT: 6.4
WARM: 12.6
COOL: 13.5
COLD: 14.8
So again, we have a tie for WARM and COOL, and COLD is now barely worse than COOL. In fact, if you pad it out to more significant digits and then round to a whole number, then WARM and COOL really do tie at 13.
Also, it's pretty rich telling someone they have too much time on their hands to count a few squares when it's a crossword blog.
@Conrad: Sondheim also rhymed "liasons" with "raisins" and "indiscriminate" with "women it." Both from "A Little Night Music," probably his funniest show, mostly in waltz time.
Enjoyed the puzzle and feel that many are over-thinking the theme/game angle. The person who is IT is the one seeking, and the temperate-rebus squares at least approximate getting nearer to ME. The revealer says 'participate in a common kid's game', so the solver can be either hiding or seeking IMO.
My only real trouble spot the center long down, where I had boArdwAlk lightly in place, until I realized most of the crosses would not cooperate.
On the PC-NOTPC question, I have to wonder if George Carlin would still be performing at colleges, since that's where he got his start.
RT
Donald Trump is Non-PC. I don’t like him or the expression, but they exist and are they current. There is no reason why either of them shouldn’t be crossword answers, Lighten up people.
I have often mused: does pc mean politically correct, politically corrupt or my telling someone I’m taking a whiz with my back turned? That’s the trouble with acronyms…e. g., PSA can mean Public Service Announcement or Prostate Specific Antigen, The former could mean a young man of voting age telling his girlfriend that he was considering running for Congress (viz. Mark Twain on school boards & Congress) Orwell was right…pigs are smarter than people. Einstein once said that two things are infinite: the universe & the stupidity of the human race but that there were times when he had doubts about the universe. Judge not lest ye be judged. We should stop fouling our nest.
john
@ Anonymous from 1:11
Doesn’t your latest analysis show that the temps are in the proper order? What am I missing? 12.6 miles is definitely closer than 13.5, no?
I see Rex is back at it rant-wise and the blog comments pretty much exploded as the woke and non-woke constituencies all chime in (many just regurgitating the same arguments made by others). At the end of the day, I suspect that very few will have changed their perspective though. I wonder if all of the hot air is contributing to climate change.
Using The Crimson to refute the idea that Universities are insanely PC is the height of insularity.
Here's an article from someone no one accuse of an ideaoly.
https://www.theatlantic.com/ideas/archive/2018/10/large-majorities-dislike-political-correctness/572581/
The proper and only spelling for 59 down is AEDILE, one of the two public officials responsible for maintenance of public buildings and managing public festivals in Rome. You might as well spell Aeneas as Eneas.
Been a while. I felt I had to take some time away from this blog and actually start enjoying puzzles again and not worrying about what other people say about them.
That being said, this was both easy for a Thursday and annoyingly off. Random rebuses and a few totally off clues really ruined this experience for me.
Maybe it's not against the rules technically, but SUBTLER should be clued as a comparison. I know colloquially you can say something is a SUBTLER detail, but it is also a "subtle" detail and that feels far more correct. It may be be subtler than something else, but subtler without a comparison feels wrong.
JAW for shooting the breeze is not something I've come across in real life ever.
Obviously I wanted TREs for 37A, but Italian will do, and the clue for TITRATE bugs me. It's sort of technically correct without actually encompassing the full meaning of the word, but I'll let that pass. Are TEHEES a thing? Thought it was TEeHEES.
Then the theme... oof. First, that's not how hide and seek is played. Second, ending on ME feels very awkward. IT is fine, but ME feels weird. Way too close/personal. I do the puzzle alone, and now I feel like someone's sitting here with me talking to me from the puzzle. It's a little eerie.
Political Correctness is not always a bad thing. For instance, there are photographs of the current Prime Minister of Canada in blackface from a few years back. Similarly, on the current governor of Virginia’s medical school yearbook page there is a picture of a Klansman standing next to a man in blackface (it’s unclear which one is the governor). Governor Northam’s nickname back then was coon man. Prime Minister Trudeau and Governor Northam were being non-PC in those photos but they were rightly admonished. Fortunately for for them they are progressives and so they were forgiven by the PC folks.
It's obvious that a crossword puzzle is limited by its shape and available space. If every single theme had to strictly adhere, literally, within this grid, there would be many fewer available indeed. Add that to the complaints of people who are "tired" of certain themes because they've appeared for so long or so often (e.g., word ladders), then the list gets smaller and smaller.
The pedants who frequent this blog ("a person who is excessively concerned with minor details and rules or with displaying academic learning") might want to take that into consideration once in a while.
I admit to being one of you, but let's do try to get over ourselves.
Perhaps it's being from the Midwest, but we used to use "cold" "warm" and "hot" all the time in Hide and Seek, especially as a babysitter to help the kids find each other. I LOVED this puzzle. It was SO clever. Some of you really overthink these things.
I am a M-Th solver and relative newcomer to this blog. I find it amusing how AGITATEd folks seem to get over not much, and are so certain they are correct. The theme arguments are an example, where age or regional differences probably account for things. I grew up in the mt. west, and never heard of hide the thimble but remember hide and seek played with various rules, so this theme is fine with me. Go to Deb Amlens write up in the times where she susses out the theme; the ME is the constructor. Ms Carroll basically apologizes for NEH, TEHEE, and EDILE as poor fill. EDILE is obscure, and oddly appears to be the French spelling, but familiar to me from reading some Roman history; Cicero was an aedile on his way to Consul. I would much prefer reacquainting myself with something historically important than try to guess pop culture PPPs as in yesterday’s awful slog.
Well, it’s time for some HOT TEA before I get back to work; ITS A JOB but someone has to do it. I am sorry the first initials of my name are causing such a ruckus but it’s too late to change them.
Forgot to add that I liked the puzzle. Thanks Ms. Carroll, hope to see more.
haven't read each and every comment, but Hide and Seek does involve COLD, COOL, WARM and HOT. Rex and everyone is confusing this game with TAG, which uses IT and NOT IT (ME). Let's remember our childhoods.
Rex claiming that he immediately knew “it couple” with a rebus included was the answer to 1A is the most brazen lie anyone has ever told about a crossword puzzle.
@M&A How about "Skip returning??" for EDILE?
"Endlessly remediless?"
Here is part of Rex's statement. You should apologize.
Got the rebus thing instantly with IT COUPLE. Well, "got" may be an overstatement, as I wasn't entirely sure,
@Valerie D.S. 2:38...."I wonder if all the hot air is contributing to climate change." Wins comment of the year....
My Dell PC has blown up.
The rebus placements still feel completely arbitrary to me, and while that's doubtless in large part due to my inexperience, I think it's also because it's simply not very well put together. The fascination with themed puzzles means that ones like this get published simply because the constructor tried, not because they succeeded.
@kitshef: har. Very nice EDILE double-?? clue. The runtpuz cluin committee staff hears footsteps.
Still workin on the analysis of that {Endlessly remediless?} one -- feelin pretty sure it may be sneaky enough to also rate double-??'s, if it's doin what I think it's doin.
M&A III
As far as PC-ness is concerned, he's like that because he's surrounded by these crazy kids who won't read a book from the 19th century if there's the possibility of an anti-semitic trigger.
Here's a fun PC story. The other day (and this may be a little embarrassing) I thought I'd ask Alexa a question about the Broadway cast of Gypsy. Couldn't remember the name of the actor who played Herbie when I saw it with my daughter in the 90's. (It was Jonathan Hadary.)
"I'd rather not answer that."
I tried it many different ways, but if I used that offensive word GYPSY, I got the same answer. Try it. (To answer the question I know you've got, Siri just asked me which one. Then answered me.)
That kind of shit, and I do mean shit leads to madness and more lunatic madmen and women in power.
Oh, the puzzle! I have to admit that for the first time in my solving life, I had no idea what was happening. So many of the answers were easy and I got the hot, cool, warms, it, me, and hide and seek, and didn't figure it out until I came here. I like Rex's logic about the two games, but I didn't even realize that IT had anything to do with hide and seek. (I get it now.) So it was a complete bust for me today. I admit it. So that means the puzzle was bad. Yeah! I like that logic! Yeah!
The comments are amazing today. I wish Utz were sold in your town, too! @quasimojo
Anon @ 3:43, wouldn't that make it really easy to find people when they're yelling out hot, warm and cold? We played tag by declaring someone it and then running like maniacs until It tapped somebody who then became It.
Hide and seek, the person covered their eyes, counted to 10 and then ran around looking for people who waited for opportunities to run out of hiding, touch base and be safe before IT could tap them.
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Diss_(music)
I ate it because I had cool couple instead of it couple. Also transposed the I and y in Libyan.
Hmm. The constructor snuck in mass-murderer Lenin and Rex didn't even notice.
And @Amelia wins the best PC offensive GYPSY story of the year.
We're all getting warmer.
BENIN/NEH. did me in
@Anon2:43 - Try again. Why oh why would I link to an article about an “assistant professor of German and of Comparative Literature?” Hint: not for his insights on ambiguity. But, yes, that he works at Harvard is relevant to my point. Second hint: reading all my links would help, too.
@Amelia and @GILL I - What reason would Amazon have to program in any sort of language filters? I think parental controls can be set for explicit music, but I’ve never heard of any explicit language filters being programmed into the question function. I did a search and all that came back was a bunch of “Amazon is sending your voice to the CIA” conspiracy theories (No, I don’t know why my search seemed to turn up all the privacy breach stuff). Curious...
Okay, did some more looking around and it seems getting Alexa to swear is a common endeavor. Carlin’s 7 words are apparently off limits for Alexa to say. I still haven’t found anything about it refusing to answer questions about profanity or pejoratives, though.
DNF. I had LIMa instead of LIMO for 41D. A bit too cute for the clueing there...
I sorta suspended the incompatibility of the two kids' games while solving. Had to start in the SE with NAGANO et al, so the ME in the corner was the first rebus in, closely followed by HOT. Those two, I must admit, made little sense with each other to me, but I soldiered on. Soon I had the east central and the ...SEEK ending to the reveal line; bingo! Then I simply thought: OK, a kids' game. Whatever.
Yet in the NW I fully expected a COLD, or even FREEZING, rebus at 1a. The term ITCOUPLE is not as familiar to me as it is to OFC, but after finally working out ITSAJOB, I recognized IT.
If we must have a bleedover, MUST it be TEHEE? First of all, the customary spelling (I don't believe I'm even discussing this!) would be TEEHEE. And anyway, this crutch is getting old FAST. Please, no more tittering. Unless you want to put THAT word in your grid. I'll take a TITTER.
The fill other than that is pretty solid, so if I don't actually have to eat the PARSNIP, it's all good. TYRA is of course DOD. Because I want to do my part to encourage distaff constructors, I'm happy to score this a birdie.
Just as I was about to throw in the towel (into the SW corner) - I did it. All by myself. Rebii and all!!
Now I gotta figure out what all the rebii have in common - thought they would be temps, at first, but ME figured it out.
Diana, Lady-in-Waiting for Crosswords
Rex Parker molds - in both senses of the word - young minds. Frightening...
ITCOUPLE WARMSTO PLAY
WOW, my ONELOVE was TYRA –
in SPITE of the COLDSHOWER I’d get –
but in the SAUNA she’d ASPIRE
to WARMUP, get REDHOT, then PET.
--- DON WAN
PC = censorship. OFL's long, long list of words and phrases he is pre-offended by =
censorship. Ergo, Rex = PC.
Got the grid-spanning revealer first, then the gimmick at REDHOT/HOTTEA and BECOOL/COOLIO.
All was well until arriving in the SE and the NAGANO/TARO cross. Wanted TurANO(?) instead of NAGANO. Unfortunately made a mess of that corner, and cleaned it up with a google.
Liked the puzzle a lot. Clever and fun, rebuses and all, except for....
Just as all those COLD, WARM, etc. answers have nothing to do with HIDEANDSEEK, OFL’s claim that “The term "PC" was made up by racist sexist homophobic ****s who wanted to continue to be able to say racist sexist homphobic things while never hearing criticism” (OFL’s hinting that those folks were righties) is also waaaaaay off the mark, to wit:
In the 1970s, the American New Left began using the term politically correct. In the essay The Black Woman: An Anthology (1970), Toni Cade Bambara said that "a man cannot be politically correct and a [male] chauvinist, too." Thereafter, the term was often used as self-critical satire . . . by the New Left, feminists, and progressives . (from Wikipedia). So OFL should get the facts straight before ranting or being pre-offended.
The only thing I didn’t like about NONPC is that at first I had NOtPC. On that note, TYRA Banks; yeah baby. AMEN. SMOKE ‘em if ya got ‘em.
Neato for ME, but as for the PC discussion, I choose to defer. I'm not PC sometimes, but I persist. I once told a very funny joke about indigenous people talking to Jesus, and some people laughed while others got in a huff. I haven't told it since. Perhaps I'm not clear on the concept, or non-concept, whatever.
However, the HIDE AND SEEK DISCUSSION had me remembering when I used to play it as a kid. When the IT person had found all the hiders except for one, the rest of us would yell out when the IT person was COLD, COOL, WARM(ER), HOT. We might have TEHEE'd as well. We also had a time limit.
The puzzle's theme was excellent, and I enjoyed solving it. A different take on rebi that was appreciated. I also liked the SW corner and ITS A JOB, CURARE, COVER ME, TITRATE, and MASCOT.
I forgot what N/H/O stood for in texting, but the first definition in the urban dictionary was: nipple hard on. Hilarious. I do remember the texting definition now.
Once I got the idea that it was a Hide-and-seek theme the puzzle started to be real fun. I had an enjoyable time hunting around for squares which might contain the keywords and plotting a path across the grid.
So what if it's a mutant cross between Hide-and-seek and Find-the-thimble? No rule I know of says compilers can't make up their own games.
Well then let's have some answers like NOBS PEG CRIB DOUBLERUN and SKUNK and have the revealer be POKER.
Post a Comment