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Relative difficulty: Easy
Theme answers:
Really, really liked this theme. It is slightly thin, and I still don't think "business" is a real H.S. class on the level of traditionality with "gym" and "German" (or "English" or "biology" or "history" etc.). Also, BUSINESS MEETING is about the most boring 15 you're ever likely to see. Still, this one unspooled perfectly for me, with the revealer really doing its job of both making me see something I hadn't and (crucial) making me "oh, wow, cool." The "ME" aspect of the theme probably severely limits the number of plausible answers you could generate here, so maybe the theme isn't "thin" at all, but exactly as thick as it needs to be. And then to get your plausible answers to fit symmetrically in your grid? Yeah, this is probably just what it needs to be to come off properly. Restraint! I'm grateful for it. I was stunned at how easy this seemed for a Wednesday. I had the timer off but barely hesitated at any point in the solve. Felt like yesterday's "guess the expression-of-disbelief phrase!" theme, coupled with harder than usual cluing, took me twice as long as today's. I would expect people's times to be very fast today. LAIT was the only thing I didn't know, and that was because I misread the clue (14A: Brest milk). Me: "Why ... did we make the technical name for breast milk ... French??" Later me: "Oh ... Brest. I see, now, what you did there."
- BUSINESS MEETING (17A: Event with minutes that might last hours)
- GYM MEMBERSHIP (26A: Purchase inspired by a New Year's resolution, often)
- GERMAN MEASLES (43A: Rubella, by another name)
Santiago de Compostela is the capital of the autonomous community of Galicia, in northwestern Spain. The city has its origin in the shrine of Saint James the Great, now the Cathedral of Santiago de Compostela, as the destination of the Way of St. James, a leading Catholic pilgrimage route since the 9th century. In 1985, the city's Old Town was designated a UNESCO World Heritage Site.
Santiago de Compostela has a very mild climate for its latitude with heavy winter rainfall courtesy of its relative proximity to the prevailing winds from Atlantic low-pressure systems. (wikipedia)
• • •
Oh, I also didn't know that OTIS guy who helped develop the pacemaker (4D: Inventor Boykin who helped develop the pacemaker). That answer is the only real speed bump, a total outlier relative to the familiarity of the rest of the answers in the grid, but it's just four letters and wasn't hard to work around. I guessed OTTO at one point but then fixed it. Wasn't sure what shape a bacillus was, but at three letters it didn't take long to figure out. Got to -RED at 41A: Made a peeling? and briefly thought it could be PARED *or* CORED, but then I chose the word that actually referred to peeling, and that solved that (what is [Made a peeling?] even a pun on? "Made appealing?" Looks like it's trying to ape "make a killing" and doing a bad job of it). I remember the IGLESIASes from days gone by. I think Julio sang with Willie Nelson once, and Enrique became a pop star right at the low point of my pop music literacy (the '00s, or, as I heard someone call them the other day, the naughties!). Their name is very familiar to me, so no trouble there. Some trouble with SANTIAGO, which I know only as a place in Chile (the capital!). I don't know that the fill is terribly flashy today, but it's solid. UBERNERD (9D: Tech-obsessed sort, perhaps) is (ironically) supposed to be a cool answer, I think, but it doesn't do anything for me, as the concept "nerd" appears to have lost all meaning in recent years, and UBER just evokes the economic insecurity of the gig economy. I'd rather walk. Or take public transportation. Or a VESPA. Or HAIL A TAXI. Still, despite the non-flashiness, I rarely cringed at the fill today, partially because it was easy (no time to cringe!) but mostly because the fill just did its job and stayed out of the way so we could clearly see and admire the theme. Nice.
Signed, Rex Parker, King of CrossWorld
[Follow Rex Parker on Twitter and Facebook]
Signed, Rex Parker, King of CrossWorld
[Follow Rex Parker on Twitter and Facebook]
Business class, first class, economy class, etc.
ReplyDeleteWill N. is a technician. It is so hard to find junk answers in his puzzles, and today’s is no exception. He also squeezes the most out of what is left in a grid after the theme is laid in, getting longer and more interesting answers in to heighten the puzzle’s quality. The middle answer of this grid – SOLID – describes Will’s craftsmanship.
ReplyDeleteAfter solving this, I tried to think of other theme answers, and that was cool and fun:
MASTER MECHANIC
WORKING MEMORY
SOCIAL MEDIA
MIDDLE MEN
SWEDISH MEATBALLS
Thank you, Will N., for your constructing quality, and for giving me some lovely brainplay!
Loved the reference to Bainbridge Island!!!
DeleteENGLISHMEN
DeleteI was thinking BUSINESS CLASS referred to the expensive seats on a plane.
ReplyDeleteI’m so inept at trivia that anything that is not truly mainstream is going to create a challenge for me and that was certainly the case today - wow, are these people really famous - ADA Lovelace (I would have preferred Linda), RITA Dove, DIAN Fossey (yes, I’ve heard of the gorilla lady - but who the heck knows her first name?), INGA (WTF kind of clue is that ?). Even the IGLESIAS dudes are a stretch for me - doesn’t the dad date back to like the 1960’s ?
ReplyDeleteI’ll take it on faith that MEEMAW is a real word that some small subset of the human race actually uses on occasion, but honestly - it shouldn’t be.
Oh come on! My great aunt from Kansas was called MeeMaw by her grandkids! I guess the Midwest is a subset...
DeleteVery easy and fast, even though I had to get up and chase two ducks off of our patio, which they’ve adopted for some reason. I don’t mind the ducks, but so much poop.
ReplyDeleteI had ‘taps’, as things that run when broken, and thought it was clever. Eggs is cleverer.
ReplyDeleteDefinitely wanted CASToR rather than CASTER. Investigation led me to this wonderful quote from WikiDiff: “Caster is an alternative form of castor. Castor is an alternative form of caster.” Why didn’t I think of that?
Agree that this is a really nice Wednesday. Some famous ladies I'm finally learning--RITA, ADA, AVA, ISIS. and hello to INGA too. Also fun to think of Billy Preston and his epic AFRO.
ReplyDeleteSlowed momentarily as I wrote in TORTURES while thinking, hmmm, that's a little weak for "bothers", which of course it was and was easily fixed.
Surprised that OFL is unfamiliar with SANTIAGO de Compostela as its destination for pilgrims strikes me as world-famous.
And UBERNERD was new to me but I'll try to find a use for it ASAP. Great word.
Excellent Wednesdecito, WN. Wicked Nice.
What a smooth puzzle! Personal best time for me. I like the themers that Lewis proposes above better than anything in the puzzle, but SEEMEAFTERCLASS is lovely.
ReplyDeleteThe theme is words that come before class - business class isn’t a reference to a HS or college class but the cushy airline way of travel for people with lots of frequent flyer miles (in the before times). It doesn’t quite match the other types of classes but it works.
ReplyDeleteMy high school had Business Class.
DeleteI'm really impressed with OTIS. First the elevator, then the pacemaker.
ReplyDeleteGood puzzle, weak theme-kinda forced with a "so what?" instead of an "AHA".
As Rex said: Nice!
ReplyDeleteVery much fun. Happy Hump Day.Going back to the office June 14.
ReplyDelete
ReplyDeleteSEE ME AFTER CLASS
implies both
-that there's a ME after "CLASS"
-that there's a "C" before.
Like in
-CHEMISTRY MELL
or
-CALCULUS MEANING.
Egyptology is different.
It teaches us whose
Sister Isis Is.
For the business class as in airplane seating -- I guess that works, but it does make the themers feel a bit loose, as the other two GYM call and GERMAN class, both refer to classes in school. I prefer thinking of it as a subject, as we did (and still do) have business class in my high school, so it fit cleanly with the themers for me. Plus the revealer which evokes an academic setting. If the other two class phrases were non-school classes like "working" and "upper," say, then "business" as a reference to airline seating would work better for me. Having two of the themers and the revealer reference a school setting and one not feels a bit untidy to me. It still works, but I prefer to think of the BUSINESS part of the answer referring to the subject in school. Also, it's a bit of an odd one out as "GERMAN class" and "GYM class" are not set phrases in the sense that "BUSINESS class" in the airline sense is.
ReplyDeleteEasy Wednesday. My only snag was misremember ADA Lovelace as iDA Lovelace, which left me scratching my head a little bit at the end with a BRiG (Clue: "Crow")/iDA cross. I isolated my error, but it added an extra 30-45 seconds to me time. Even with the error, this came in well under Wednesday time and felt more like a Tuesday to me.
I thought Rita Dove would be the word of the day! Never heard of her. But still not hard.
ReplyDeleteSure...solid work. My only beef with the puzzle is that GERMAN is rarely offered in high school. From a quick google search it appears it is offered in exactly 3 high schools and 3 middle schools across the country. So I guess, it’s a “thing”, but it’s by far the weakest of the themes.
ReplyDeleteI had german in high school, and I doubt it is just 1 of 3 in the US.
DeleteI was happier not knowing that Vesper means WASP.
ReplyDelete*Vespa*
ReplyDeleteApologies to @Rex. I just assumed he would hate this puzzle (for some bogus, nit-picky reason) and I was prepared to call him out. But Mike(y) likes it!
ReplyDeleteAnd so did I. Great theme with an even better reveal/aha moment.
Thx Will; excellent Wednes. puz. Always enjoy your creations. :)
ReplyDeleteMed solve.
Good start in the NW; finished off the top half of the puz and ended up in SANTIAGO.
Pretty much on my wavelength for the whole journey.
It is No SECRET (What God Can Do) ~ Jim Reeves
@jae
Same one-take solve as for you; SE was somewhat challenging, but overall pretty easy. Thx, again for your camaraderie! 😊
@albatross shell (1:12 AM last nite)
So much fun running thru these possibilities! ⚾️
___
yd pg -1 (@TTrimble: I bet you didn't miss this one) 😉
Peace ~ Empathy ~ Kindness to all 🕊
My vote for revealer of the month! Qtr? Year?
ReplyDeleteI'm glad Mikey liked it...I did too!
ReplyDeleteWell..I did do a little OGRE face at H BOMB AMMO and getting the GERMAN MEASLES three times and wondering when it would stop, but the ME part made me smile.
OK...fun fact about SANTIAGO de Compostela. The Cathedral has this humungous incense burner called the "Botafumeiro" (put that in your puzzle and smoke it). It weighs about a hundred lbs. and is suspended high up in the rafters. It takes this team of "Tiraboleiros" ( put that in your puzzle and smoke it) to swing the censer across the Cathedral all the while misting the entire congregation with stuff that smells like old shoes. The idea was to hide the stench of the pilgrims (who traveled hundreds of miles with no potty stops) and hope that Jesus wouldn't mind the smell.
I've already told my VESPA story (you know...the one where I rode on the back of this handsome waiter in Rome - the VESPA not his back)....So I won't bore you again.
My PHENOM runneth over.
BUSINESS CLASS was a class in my high school, in fact my home room teacher was the BUSINESS teacher. I just took a peek at the local high school’s course offerings and they have something called “Principles of Business,” which I can pretty much guarantee everyone calls BUSINESS CLASS. There’s even a nationwide organization dedicated to high school BUSINESS education. I never considered the commercial plane designation because the high school meaning works fine.
ReplyDelete@Jon Alexander - That google search must have been too quick. GERMAN is so common that there is an AP GERMAN exam offered. Yes, the number of exam takers pales compared to APUSH (only 5,00 compared to nearly 500,000 for APUSH in 2019) but I don’t think those 5,000 AP Exam takers came from just three high schools, not to mention all the non-AP GERMAN courses out there.
You can’t start your themer set with a BUSINESS MEETING and get a lot of love from me. Intellectually, this is well crafted. But emotionally you lost me at keeping minutes for an hours long BUSINESS MEETING. I’m also not overly fond of getting both ADA and AVA in a single puzzle (where’s ANA?).
UBER NERD strikes me as an apt term for those dudes (it’s always a dude it seems) explaining how a tech company is a “disruptive innovator” when all they’ve really done is repackage the same mousetrap in such a way as to pay workers less and still never manage to make a profit.
Beg to differ. That’s a “tech bro”. The UBER NERD is the guy who’s making less.
Delete@OffTheGrid got to the elevator guy already, sigh. I intended to mention that the elevator guy is clearly more in keeping with the puzzle's level of difficulty.
ReplyDeleteAnd, having known one or two Physical Education Instructors bristle at 'gym class' or 'PE' and the like. Really ticks them off.
And how do the French(?) get from LAIT to LAtte?
They don’t. It’s Italian ...
DeleteNot as keen as Rex about this one. Theme is fine I guess - although you might want to go somewhere other than GERMAN MEASLES for one of your themers. Just seemed like too much trivia and obscure shorts elsewhere.
ReplyDeleteQuick solve - but not overly enjoyable.
Rex,
ReplyDeleteYou'd rather walk than take an Uber? Ok. Good luck with that. We'll see in, I dunno, late June if your trip is anywhere near the length of the mean Uber ride. But yeah, you show those meanies you mean business! LOL. Get over yourself.
@Z: (8:54)
ReplyDeleterepackage the same mousetrap in such a way as to pay workers less
We finally agree on something. Earlier today, for reasons unknown, I, once again, mused on Marx's 'Labour Theory of Value'. For those not up to speed, the Theory posits that the value of capital is actually from accumulated labor that was used to produce all of the bits and pieces down the production hierarchy, right to extracting the raw materials from Mother Earth. (Aside: when will we finally use up the necessary bits?)
Uber/Lyft being the prime example of such silliness. 'Disrupting' one of the lowest paid labour pools on the planet, in order to support lots of internet spend, VC capital payoff, and buckets of moolah to the 'Founders'. There's not much slack on offer there. Cab drivers aren't exactly paid like worthless MBAs churning out endless Ponzi schemes, now are they?
Now, the MBA class is one where there is lots of pay slack to be extracted. Mao had it right: send all those condescending Ivy Leaguers off to rural re-education camps. Learn how to do some real work, like picking cotton.
Hey All !
ReplyDeleteNice extra layer to a "first words" theme. Revealer made it all a hoot. "Hey, I SEE ME AFTER a type of CLASS. Nice!" /Scene
25A clue, Left after taxes, immediate thought was: Nothing! Har. Or maybe: Yes, as in Leave after taxes? Yes, please. See ya.
Clean fill, neat theme. My WedsPuz streak is going strong!
Three F's
RooMonster
DarrinV
@Jon - You might want to redo that google search. German is still somewhat common in US high schools. My local high school offers it.
ReplyDeleteWill Nediger is a pro. And this is a completely professional crossword.
ReplyDeleteThe Way of St. James is the famous pilgrimage in Galicia, the autonomous community in the northwest corner of Spain. James Michener writes of it extensively in Iberia. James was one of the twelve apostles and is the patron saint of Spain. Santiago is James in Spanish. The destination of the pilgrimage is Santiago de Compostela, the capital of Galicia. I think that it is wrong to call it simply Santiago.
Marx was wrong.
ReplyDeleteHis position on labor value is that is is the sum of all the social labor required to produce it, rather than the labor required to buy it.
Think about the implications. If you and your team put in $250,000 worth of labor into your product or company, then it should be worth $250,000 (This includes any labor needed to provide real capital to fund the production.) Even if there is no demand for the product. Even if the company fails. It’s still worth $250,000, according to Marx.
That’s patently absurd.
Marx's labor theory is disconnected from both modern theory and classical economics that price is determined by the intersection of supply and demand. He implied that running a business and creating value is solely dependent on the effort. If that were true, then marketing and selling a product would be easy. Just put in a lot of time and effort to increase the value and you’re guaranteed success.
Such incredibly good cluing -- much of it tricky and all of it designed to make us use our little gray cells. The marquee clue, of course, is the very sardonic one for BUSINESS MEETING. I loved that clue with much the same passion that I have always hated BUSINESS MEETINGS. Everything seems to go on for hours, but the idea of just the minutes alone going on for hours is hilarious. The meetings that I went to during my years of gainful employment were Editorial meetings -- not the same thing at all. We discussed books and the time just flew. I've often felt that in having a life completely free of both driving/sitting in traffic and sitting through BUSINESS MEETINGS has added about 15 years to my life.
ReplyDeleteThere are so many non-theme great clues as well: ABS; LOST; AMMO; EGGS; IDLE. The "left after taxes" clue for NET (as in what's left after taxes) somehow reminded me of the punctuation primer "Eats, Shoots, and Leaves". Instead of NET, I was thinking of FLED THE COUNTRY or MOVED FROM NEW YORK TO FLORIDA. Maybe even PULLED A DONALD.
A crunchy, fun Wednesday by my very talented (sometime) collaborator Will Nediger. Good job, Will.
@Jon Alexander -- that Google search must be missing a lot of schools. It seems rather inconceivable that only three high schools in the country offer it. My high school in Chicago offered it in the early 90s and, checking their website, they still do. I found a couple others in the area that offer it. There's a number in the Milwaukee area, as is to be expected given the German population there. So it's certainly more than three across the country.
ReplyDeleteNow is it common? No. It's going to be demand-driven and the demand is going to be regional and probably socio-economic based, as well. Around here, the obvious second and third languages are Spanish and Mandarin. Many schools, for whatever reason, still offer French (which is what I took). Latin is occasionally found but not as prevalent as it once one (in my high school. Before I got there in the late 80s, Latin + one other language was part of every honor student's curriculum. (They ended the Latin requirement right before I got there.) Italian can also occasionally be found.
All that said, the clue doesn't preclude the class being of the K-12 type; there's nothing excluding it from being a college course, where German is a reasonably common offering.
mathgent,
ReplyDeleteYes!!!
There are two walks I want to complete: the Appalachian Trail and the Way of St. James.
For anyone interested, there's a fine movie called The Way which chronicles the pilmgrammge in a sweet, if a little obvious, way.
BUSINESS class? Okay.
ReplyDeleteGYM class? Fine.
GERMAN class? Whu-huh's that now?
And in UNISON, let's
Bend and s t r e t c h...
Kind of a clever theme, but that last one was a cherry bomb in the schoolboy's lavatory.
Now, don't ask me to come up with a better idea for a themer because that ain't happening. I'll leave that to the smart and creative peeps.
I enjoyed the solve as a themeless and probably shouldn't have gone looking for trouble...but at least the revealer was at the end, so nothing was spoilt.
The fill was mostly good with PHENOM and UBERNERD as a couple of favorites.
Would have preferred a little more trickery, but no real complaints.
🧠🧠
🎉🎉🎉
@Anonymous 8:59 a.m. Well, since you asked: LAIT is French for milk. "Latte" is Italian for milk, not French. Both derive from the Latin "lac" (nominative case) or "lactis" (genetive) meaning "milk." And, while we're at it, that derives from the Proto-Indo European root *g(a)lakt- meaning "milk." (The apostrophe signifies a reconstructed root, as we don't have any direct evidence for Proto-Indo European.)
ReplyDeleteI've spent most of my years in the southern US, but have never known anyone who calls their grandmother MEEMAW.
ReplyDeleteI only know the usage from television, and Annie Potts' Meemaw character on Young Sheldon is one of the sassiest grandmothers around.
Meemaw! Ubernerd! Phenom!
ReplyDeleteGood, fun, and fast.
🤗👍🏽🧩👍🏽🤗
I cycled the Camino De Santiago - a great experience, and Santiago itself (the old part) is well worth a visit. I've been to two of the Santiagos (Spain & Chile) but not Cuba.
ReplyDeleteGracias, Peter P for the etymology lesson; here’s an extension for Spanish:
ReplyDelete“ Leche — Lactose
Posted by Morgan on Nov 8, 2020 in CT to CH, Favorites, Patterns, Spanish
Ah, one of our all-time favorite patterns and examples: leche, the common Spanish word meaning, “milk.”
Leche is a first cousin of the English lactose via a very interesting pattern: the ‑ct- to ‑ch- pattern.
Both come from the same Latin root, lactatio (literally, “suckling.”) The ‑ct- in that root remained unchanged as it entered English (because it entered via the sophisticated French) but that sound almost always turned into a ‑ch- sound as Latin evolved into Spanish. Thus the l‑ct maps to the l‑ch almost exactly.
Many other awesome words follow the same pattern: think octagon/ocho, for example. Some more coming up soon (or see the pattern page linked below).”. From Spanish etymology.com
As for English “milk”:
Old English milc, milcian, of Germanic origin; related to Dutch melk and German Milch, from an Indo-European root shared by Latin mulgere and Greek amelgein ‘to milk’.
Interesting that the l-forms derive from the internal expressing of milk, whereas the m-forms denote the external expressing. Some cultural bias about agency, perhaps?
Not as excited as others here, but it might've been in my maze of a wheelhouse.
ReplyDeletePalau. Lucky me, I've been watching Ken Burn's PBS documentary The War (the big one) since Sunday and it has a long segment on Palau (Amazon Prime, PBS channel, costs a little extra … worth it). Boom, in there.
Business Class. Flew that on Wednesday. It means you get an extra bag of tiny pretzels, but here I think it refers to a high school class.
Pretty sure I learned MeeMaw from the book Hillbilly Elegy. It may be more an Appalachian term than southern.
Billy Preston and his Afro were backing up the Beatles at roughly the same time German Measles were being wiped out by a vaccine. So, two answers Boomers will love.
Cancelled both of my Gym Memberships during Covid and am thinking of reupping one of them now.
DNF on Coster/Ilioc (dumb) but didn't know those little wheels had a name.
@Frantic, Do I detect the beginning of a Romper Room favorite?
Easy. Smooth grid with some nice long downs. The theme seems a little inconsistent, are they all meant to be school classes? If so, it’s a stretch.
ReplyDeleteLiked it.
I loved this puzzle! With respect to MEEMAW, I don’t know about the Deep South but when I was a young child we moved near Louisville, Ky. and there was a local children’s tv show that had a very small studio audience of children. They always had a segment where the kids would be in line to stand by the hosts and say hello to people. Since their parents were “with” them they usually started “I want to say hi to Mammaw and Pappaw [insert last name].” Maybe a hill country term? I’ve never heard the term anywhere else and I confess I never liked the sound of it. Ah well, there really no clearly good alternatives that sound “good” to my ears so I’ll just settle for what my children want their children to call me when the time comes!
ReplyDeleteWhat @Lewis said! Once again, I could not add a thing to his review to make my opinion clearer.
ReplyDeletePretty easy, until that little SW corner that slowed me from having a personal best Wednesday. But I do not regret the slowdown at all! This puzzle was so very Will N, and so very clever in its multilayered theme that knowing I had lost the opportunity for a time record, I gladly and luxuriously meandered back through enjoying the theme and the clever clues “Brest milk” being my first chuckle of the day. I first misread Bre[a]st as he planned but almost instantly my little wordsmith back in my brain’s musty dusty archives yelled (much to the chagrin of the librarian back there in said archives) “Wake up its a capital B and spelled correctly because it’s a city not a body part. Get some coffee already!!!” So I put some LAIT in both the puzzle and my cafe, thank you.
Loved the classes. BUSINESS made me think of my junior and se job high business teacher Miss Thompson. She looked the part of a Secretary straight from Mad Men central casting. And @Rex, even back in the 60s BUSINESS was indeed a series of classes - mostly ruling, shorthand and business math in junior high but business organizations in high school. Many high schools even have a business law class now as well. So, get out of the humanities, @Rex and take a look at what some of your colleagues are doing. Trust me, if larger schools in backward OK are offering BUSINESS classes other more well funded states have undoubtedly been doing so for a long time.
I almost didn’t catch the “ME” layer, and when I did, I gave Mr. N. a fully verbalized “wow,” and a toast of my coffee cup. Nice one! I have nothing but praise this morning and enjoyed every minute of the solve especially when the going got tough down in the SW. thankfully, I recalled doing some dramaturgy on the libretto of the “Magic Flute,” and learned about Nephtys and her sis’ ISIS. I love that basso arietta that begins “O ISIS and Osiris. . . 🎶. .”
Fun, fun, fun today.
Don't know where MEEMAW came from but it's a horrible word to call a loving grandmother. Rhymes with Heehaw for Christ's sake!
ReplyDeletethe Labour Theory of Value concerns how the value of an object is apportioned in its production. it says nothing about the ultimate price. given that Smith made up his toy economy, and the history of monopoly/oligopoly/cartels/etc on the output side and the equivalents on the input side: monopsony(e.g. the 'company town')/oligopsony(e.g. anti-poaching agreements among employers)/etc. in the USofA and the whole planet; not to mention dictator economies like China, it's ludicrous to assert that pricing is a simple supply and demand exercise and the result is the one perfect solution.
ReplyDeletein any case, it's still true that 'disruptive' companies that target low skill/low wage job sectors are fooling themselves, the VCs, and Mr. Market. the only way they make money is if the Damn Gummint steps in and allows them to explicitly exploit labor; even if they're allowed to squeeze ever more, there's only so much blood you can get from a stone (once again, Mao got it right, if you're a 'disruptive' capitalist; go after the fat fish not the scrawny one). we see this with the Red states now forcing people to work in dangerous environments simply by refusing to distribute federal aid; these are states at the bottom of the barrel with vaccinations and top of the heap with continuing infections.
After getting GERMAN MEASLES, I paused to ponder what tied the three theme answers together: it wasn't hard to SEE ME, but I had no idea about the "why." So the terrific, witty reveal was a delight.
ReplyDeleteSpeaking of GERMAN - at the time I retired from teaching 10 years ago, it appeared that GERMAN was on an inexorable slide into the dreaded category of LCTLs (less commonly taught languages), due mainly, I think, to budget constraints and the waning influence of a cultural heritage. Wisconsin had been a bastion of German teaching at all levels, but the University no longer has a stand-alone German Department (it's now German, Nordic, and Slavic+) and the number of grade, middle, and high schools offering German has shrunk to a mere dozen across the state.
@JD -- I also learned MEEMAW from "Hillbilly Elegy" (both book and film). In the film the role was played indelibly and almost unrecognizably by Glenn Close. I guess if you've grown up with the word MEEMAW, it doesn't seem any weirder than Grammy or Nana.
ReplyDeleteYou had two GYM MEMBERSHIPS simultaneously, @JD??? Why not even Simone Biles has that, I bet. What a rare physical specimen you must be! As for me, my idea of enjoyable exercise is exercise I can indulge in as far away from a GYM as possible.
Anonymous 10:59,
ReplyDeleteOh dear. Your theories are fascinating. I'm guessing you have a podcast to disseminate them. I mean, now that newsletters are passé.
Took me a minute to get the theme because I wasn’t thinking in terms of school for BUSINESS or for GERMAN which was not an option at the tiny little school I attended. We were lucky to have an English CLASS. But a fun Wednesday. Thanks Will. Not to BRAG, but your puzzle inspired me to poetry this morning. Well sort of.
ReplyDeleteOTIS AVA ADA INGA RITA and MEEMAW walked into a bar.
Followed by an UBER NERD and a RISING STAR.
They FORMed an OCTET
And performed a full set.
Then left on a VESPA to POST from AFAR.
To an EXPO in SANTIAGO maybe.
OR NOT.
@anonymous 9:32 — Marx wasn’t wrong, you are, I’m afraid. If you oversimplify, you miss all the fun.
ReplyDeleteHe never claimed that the “price” of a product was equal to the “value.” Value (the encapsulated socially necessary labor that went into making the product, and all the “bits and pieces” that the product was made of) is kind of a starting point around which the price varies.
“Socially necessary” means, if you have a large operation (in Marx’s day he figured that was a bout 30 people, but that doesn’t mean he thought 30 was a magic number that would be true in every time and place and enterprise) — if you hire a large number of people, you can’t just hire the fasted most skillful workers, some will be average some less than average. So the impetus is not for factory owners to go out and only hire super-workers, but rather, to automate and standardize as much as possible, to reduce the amount of skill needed to produce the product.
That impulse really drives capitalism: everybody who makes widgets is using the same techniques, requiring about the same amount of labor, and then some smarty figures out a way to do it more efficiently. That is, the smarty, or rather his boss, can have his employees make widgets in less time per widget — less labor! — than the competition. Well, remember that “socially necessary” stuff— within the whole market, the amount of average labor needed to make a widget hasn’t changed appreciably, so the value of Mr. Smarty’s widgets is still high. But Mr. Smarty is only putting a fraction, let’s say half as much labor into each widget. This is his opportunity — if he lowers the price to reflect the actual labor that went into the widgets, he won’t be making any more profit than before, so what’s the point of innovating? (I won’t go into profit here, you can read about it on your own.). But what he can do, do his immense benefit, is split the difference. He can lower the price somewhat, but not all the way down, and beat out his competition, and make a ton of money.
But then the other widget makers will adopt the Smarty Method, and lower their prices a little more, and others will adopt the method and lower their prices a little more, and after a while there’s a new “socially necessary amount of labor” required to make widgets, and the new, lower price reflects that.
People who have a warehouse full of widgets made the old way have to sell them at the new lower price — not because of magic “supply and demand” that has no meaning, but because the new value is based on the average amount of labor that is NOW needed to make them. If the widgets are replaced by something entirely different, say trains instead of stagecoaches, then there is no “necessary” labor encapsulated in the stagecoaches sitting rotting on the dealership lot — stagecoaches are no longer necessary, so neither is the labor that went into making them. They have no value at this point except for scrap.
And so on.
I liked the puzzle, by the way.
one last bit of typing.
ReplyDeletefrom the wiki: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Labor_theory_of_value#Criticism
"Some argue that it predicts that profits will be higher in labor-intensive industries than in capital-intensive industries, which would be contradicted by measured empirical data inherent in quantitative analysis."
which is contradicted by the facts of Chinese export production, most notably Foxconn which do just exactly that. simple machines, many hands. why did New England manufacturing head for Confederate states? when that didn't lower labor prices enough to satisfy, then Mexico, then central America, then Asia.
If I had a h.s. do-over, I'd take Spanish, GERMAN or Latin before French (apologies to my poodles, Jacques & Jay). 🐩
ReplyDeleteFirst year of college, encountered my first experience with a blue book exam. Filled up a page and thot I'd done reasonably well. Got an 'F' and a SEE ME AFTER CLASS note. Got some great advice and ended the semester with a B+.
To All the Girls I've Loved Before ~ Julio Iglesias and Julio Iglesias Jr
___
td pg -5
Peace ~ Empathy ~ Kindness to all ~ Woof Woof 🕊
I intended to be a chemistry major in college when I was in 8th grade and had to choose my main language, so it was German. While in Spain, immersed in Spanish, I talked to some German students at my language school and asked about the German/chemistry connection. They told me that the major chemical reference that had been in German was now in English.
ReplyDeleteOFL liked the puzzle, so did I, and for all the reasons @Lewis gave us. As always, I waited for @Rex to explain the theme.
ReplyDeleteA couple of comments on the comments:
For milk, don't forget the Milky Way. The Greek word for milk is something like Galaxos, which gives us galaxy, which, as far as the Greeks knew, was a combination of all the stars in the universe. It took a while for early modern astronomers to figure out there were many other galaxies.
For the Camino de Santiago, the pilgrimages began at several different locations, mostly in France, but some I think in Italy and even Germany. One route passed through Pamplona, famous for the running of the bulls, which is near a major pass across the Pyrenees.
Uber and Lyft have indeed had a major impact on the taxi industry. Many years ago, one of my roommates was a taxi driver in SF. He was an independent contractor, who had to pay the taxi company for his use of the cab. Drivers always want their riders to think they are poor, exploited folks. That way, they get more tips, and they can be incredibly generous -- and as a practical matter, almost tax free. My friend really did quite well. He knew the City backwards and forwards, and had the gift of gab. Where it can be tough to be a cab driver is, actually, New York, even though most New Yorkers use cabs, some only occasionally, some on a daily basis. The competition is stiff, the drivers tend to be immigrants, of a surly disposition and unable to make small talk -- so much so that my UBER Progressive daughter once insisted we take an Uber from the Union Square area to our midtown hotel -- no more expensive than a cab, and far more pleasant. The other big taxi town is Washington. When I lived there in the summer of 1968, it was only 75 cents to ride anywhere you were likely to want to go. I often walked the 12 blocks to work in the morning, and grabbed a cab to get home on hot or rainy afternoons. That has changed now, but a lot of Washington folks still use cabs to get around.
Say what you will about Amazon (and I don't like them much either) -- but I ordered some reading glasses late yesterday afternoon and they were on my front porch at 9 this morning; so here I am, after telling you all that I would be absent for a few days. And I'm glad I was able to do this lovely puzzle.
ReplyDeleteI don't think there's anything in the revealer clue that indicates a high school class. I taught 42 years at a university, and was known to write "see me" on a student's paper from time to time. I would agree that @Lewis's list of other classes would have been even better, but they may have been hard to fit in, so I was perfectly content with these.
I always love Will Nediger's puzzles, and especially his fresh cluing. As usual, you can usually get by if you just simplify: e.g., 4D is "4-letter inventor;" in this case it's a fluke that it works. A more typical example is VESPA -- just simplify it to "scooter brand."
Even better example: the clue for 60A is not completely accurate, as this song demonstrates; but just change it to "Swedish women's name starting with ING, and Bob's your uncle.
Two little hitches -- I know people who've walked the Camino de SANTIAGO, and even walked a couple hundred yards myself while at a conference in Pamplona; but for some reason I thought it was a path St. James had walked himself, rather than a path to where he may be buried. So I hesitated, though it was obvious from the crosses.
Second, I thought it was GERMAN MEASelS. That left me totally in the dark about IeIAC, but ONE eventually fixed it for me.
Anon 8:59 -- How do you get from LAIT to latte? Just cross the Alps.
Could someone explain 6 down? prominent features on firefighter calendars?
ReplyDelete@Ellen S., You're being trapped by a troll. Please don't respond further.
ReplyDelete@chuck w - I had to fix AdS there, myself. Here is your explanation. (No drooling, ladies and gentlemen)
ReplyDeleteI love when an offhanded jibe results in an economic theory brawl. Personally, economic theory is only as right as its predictive ability - does it predict what will happen? I don't remember where I just saw this quote about science or who it was attributed to, but I think it applies to econ as well: "Scientific progress is replacing theories that are wrong with theories that are more subtly wrong."
This was a pretty nice Wednesday puzzle, except technically I had a DNF, the worst kind of DNF.
ReplyDeleteI didn’t know what the heck that grandma was, and it crossed with a Swedish name that could have been INGA, INGE, or INGO (I’ve seen all three before). So I was guessing, but none of it worked. Then I realized I had ABOMB instead of HBOMB. This was inexcusable as I am a huge fan of thermonuclear weapons.
I don’t know about you but I took four years of GERMAN CLASSES in Gynasium and Universität. This helped me out a lot when I did a few jobs for the O.S.S. during the war
German is the language of engineering, by the way, just as Latin is the language of medicine and science, English is the language of aviation, and French is the maritime language. Did you know that when you call out “mayday” from your sinking ocean liner you are actually saying the French term m’aider which means “help me?” “Pan-Pan” and “securite” are French too. Crazy but true.
Here’s a scene from The Treasure of the Sierra Madre that explains the theory of value better than anything else you will ever see.
I have walked the Camino De Santiago four times, the last in 2018. It’s an amazing experience - and even though the full name of the city is Santiago de Compostela, every pilgrim on the route today calls it Santiago so the answer is fine. Connecting with LAIT/Latte/Leche, one common theory for the word Compostela is that it translates as Field of Stars aka The Milky Way. The main starting point is considered St. Jean Pied de Port at the base of the Pyrenees in France, and on your first day, you walk up and over the mountain into Spain - not the easiest start. You need to be fit. There are many “Ways” to Santiago, from Portugal, from Puy in France (1000 km), from England even, although that requires a sea voyage. I met a woman who started it at her front door in Holland, and an 80 year old couple who started in Monserrat in Spain. It is a fascinating experience and although there are some who do it asian organized tour dropping in and out of different sections over 3 weeks with vehicle support, most walk for a full month (every day). And it’s walked by over 200,000 people a year (and up). Santiago is Spanish for St. James, not James by itself. The bones of St. James as identified in about 975 CE lie in a Silver casket under the altar of the Cathedral. Apparently his body arrived by a “stone boat” in Padron Spain, and was carried inland 90 km and buried on the spot where the cathedral is now. Go figure. It’s a marvellous experience and needs dedication - the last time I walked it , I walked the last 18 days beginning just before Astorga and it rained every day - but after the first day of rain when I arrived in Astorga drenched and cold, I even loved that, once I got a good rain poncho. I know this is a long post but I love every step I’ve made on my pilgrimages, although the first 2 times my feet were so badly blistered I had to get them treated in Burgos. One last note - I am not at all religious, I’m not Catholic, but the xperience of the Camino can be the most amazing cathartic journey, even for someone as irreligious as I am. Do your research, practice walking long days 4 to 5 hours a day, but as many say, no training can really prepare you to walk that 774 km journey from St. Jean. You learn to walk the Camino by walking the Camino.
ReplyDeleteEllen S,
ReplyDeleteI'd be suspicious of anyone trying to direct my actions as anonymous 12:55 is attempting to direct yours.
If I may say so, you seem more than capable of knowing what to do. And that dude's request is wrong on so many levels. I think You're wrong, really wrong, about Marx. I think the Austrian school (von Bohm0Bawek et al., has it right. But even post Keynesians like Joan Robinson, who is very sympathetic to Marxist economic thought, disagree with him regarding LVT.
I eagerly await your reply. Not just because I want to hear your thoughts on my rejoinder, but the idea that I'm a troll irks me. And it irks me even more when someone here tells someone else what to do.
I had no idea that rubella referred to the GERMAN MEASLES, which I had when I was around 6 years old.
ReplyDeleteI only grokked half the theme, needed to read rex to get it. Lovely!
really liked the puzzle, thought it was perhaps just a tad easier than the typical Wednesday, but no complaints- definitely a Wed. level puzzle.
If I had one minor nit, i thought there were too many names, and some were a little esoteric, although all were ultimately gettable with the crosses.
Don’t know why German is offered in HS. I suppose some students may think it’s necessary for a career in science but English is the lingua franca for science (and for international airline personnel (Flight Meals - ugh).
ReplyDelete@Nancy, One gym was near the office and the other was near my house for easy access. Over the last year, gravity has won the battle that we fought for years. I flap in a light breeze.
ReplyDeleteRe. Hillbilly Elegy, loved the book, but hearing it being act out would be tough.
ReplyDelete@Anonymous 9:47 AM: "Annie Potts' Meemaw character on Young Sheldon is one of the sassiest grandmothers around". Yes, she is the best, at least of the current shows I watch (which aren't that many).
German was the best class I ever took. For one, you can use it in quite a few countries: Germany, Switzerland, Austria, Czech, etc. But even better, if you're interested in the English language (and admit it you are), German was the origin of English 1500 years ago, and many words have hardly changed. Land, Mann, Hand, Haus, Sommer, Winter, kuhl (pronounced 'cool'), warm.
Well...since we're talking about taking GERMAN in a class of some sort, I will chime in.
ReplyDeleteTop opera singers will have a knowledge of Italian, French and German. If you're a Wagner aficionado, then German is your go to language. And now it brings me to a probably unpopular topic. Someone told me that I suffered from "misophonia." I thought they were telling me to get off my phone. It's a condition that cause your head to explode when you hear certain sounds. With HUGE apologies to every single German person out there, I find your language insane. Why do I want to clear my throat? I feel the same way when I hear the Basque and the Catalan language. I want to run up to anyone speaking these a\languages and offer them lozenges.
So now we'll get to MEE MAW. How do you get from grandmother to MEE MAW? "Hey is that you're MAW? No it's MEE. Bless my heart, you Southerners sure do have cutey patootie sayings.
Anyway, I really came back here to tell @Whatsername that I'd walk into a bar with her any day.
@JD 1041am You might, but not from me. I never watched Romper Room. 😲
ReplyDeleteAlso, poor Glenn Close and her seemingly endless string of "this-could-be-her-year" nominations that fall prey to extraordinary circumstances. She's becoming the Susan Lucci of the Oscars. Her MEEMAW was one for the ages.
@Gill, The Scots-Irish settle the Appalachians and these are the people who came to be known as hillbillies. I just looked up what Scots call their grandmothers and found this, "... Gaelic dialects common in Ireland and Scotland commonly use "Mamó" as an informal name for Grandmother as well."
ReplyDeleteI'll be damned. They sent over the people who couldn't spell. As I said this morning, it's more Appalachian than southern ... ranging as far as Pennsylvania.
Fun puzzle. Finished it quicker than average. Great cluding overall. Struggled a little in the W section (wasn't sure of 'Crow' or the 2 names), but nothing too bad.
ReplyDeleteClever theme, although I enjoy them more when figuring it out helps with the clues more. But...just a small complaint. Had a lot of fun today!
@Nigel Pottle (1:15) and SANTIAGO pilgrimage -- Your walking experiences and their impact are provocative. A few years ago my mom spent a month in Wales a with a group of pilgrims, visiting different shrines. It's a motivating thought.
ReplyDelete@Mary McCarty (10:31) -- I liked your explanation of LAIT's history.
I’m reading these posts late in the day, about 6 p.m., and I don’t know how the discussion turned to Marx and the labor theory of value. When opinions are posted anonymously, with reference to previous remarks, it is difficult to know who is responding to whom, particularly when the “previous remarks” are not even dignified with a time of day. I find Anonymous’s remarks on the labor theory of value completely inane (9:09a.m.; 9:32a.m.; 10:59 a.m.; and 1:28 p.m., the last responding to Ellen S. at 11:31 a.m.–these were sorts of arguments that Marx either dismissed in a footnote or refused to consider due to their banality.
ReplyDeleteEllen S., 11:31 a.m., gives us an intelligent discussion, and for that we should all be grateful. It should be remembered that the “labor theory of value” was not Marx’s invention, as he acknowledged regularly. It’s sometimes called the “classical theory of value.” It can be found all over the place, from the Renaissance humanist Leon Battista Alberti (in his Italian work, *Della famiglia*) to John Locke.
When our Anonymous declares that he has completely overthrown Marx in two paragraphs, I say, whew!–150 years of political discourse has now been laid to rest! As for the vulgarities of our unnamed Anonymous, I’ll quote from the end of the first German edition of the Das Kapital:
“Every opinion based on scientific criticism I welcome. As to the prejudices of so-called public opinion, to which I have never made concessions. Now as aforetime the maxim of the great Florentine is mine: ‘Segui il tuo corso, a lascia dir le genti.’”
[The Florentine is Dante, and the quotation is from the Divine Comedy. The quotation means, roughly, “follow your own course, and let the masses say what they will.”]
Ellen S., thanks for your intelligent remarks at 11:31 a.m. I would attempt that sort of thing, but for those unacquainted with Marx, I would suggest following the suggestions given by children to St. Augustine, in his Confessions: “Take up and read.”
Anon. i.e. Poggius
Meemaw crossing Inga is a Natick in my book. And I should know, having run Boston twice in the ‘70s.
ReplyDeleteYes, JD, Glenn has been so good (and so different) in so many films that it really is a shame she's never won. I think she's one of the best of her generation.
ReplyDeleteI'm laughing at the anonymous posters today seemingly worried about our @Ellen S and her being led astray -- or something of that nature, I'm not exactly sure -- by trolls. Ellen doesn't post much, but when she does, it's obvious that she's very smart and very secure in her own skin and her own opinions. Certainly she seems a lot smarter than any of the Anons who are giving her advice today and I think they should stop "protecting" her. She really doesn't need your protection, Anons.
Really enjoyed this puzzle. SOLID (dead center SOLID, you might say) in the best possible sense. Well-crafted. I love the cluing style that clues stuff I know with info I do not know but when you think of the correct answer you just know it's correct. WASP ISIS are examples. And the theme. Expertly constructed double layer theme.
ReplyDelete@Lewis nailed it. Yes indeedy.
How the hell would Marx have refuted anything Joan Robinson had to say regarding LVT. He was long dead before she was born poggius.
ReplyDeleteAs soon as I read the revealer, it occurred to me that you-know-who's "favorite" from a few days' ago -- ITALIANMEAL -- fits the theme.
ReplyDeleteRex, please in the future choose a highlighting style (of the "ME" in the themers) that does not make the somewhat colorblind of us initially think that something has been redacted via white-out
ReplyDeleteGYM works but the other themers, not so much. Surprised to see Rex liked it.
ReplyDeleteYeah, me too. To begin with, he made no mention of HAILSATAXI being the crosswordese equivalent of EATSASANDWICH. That usually wakes him up. I agree this was easy, but it did not impart that much enjoyment. Theme seems UBER-contrived rather than "smooth." It's OK, and the grid breathes well and all, but it's no better than a par here. DIAN Fossey--especially as played by Sigourney weaver!--is DOD.
ReplyDeleteDidn't get the theme until I got here, and I did take some business courses in HS. I blame the heat.
ReplyDeleteAnd yes, the weather service predicts another record breaker today.
And @Rondo - some roads actually buckled in the heat! (They must have used tar when making them.)
Off to the GYM - p'raps I should HAILATAXI.
Diana, Lady-in-Waiting and thankful for Air Conditioning
PHENOM CASTER
ReplyDeleteINGA was a RISINGSTAR
in a BUSINESSMEETING with NORM,
"You're ONE GERMAN who'll go AFAR,
it's NOT just CLASS, it is DEFORM."
--- ROD VESP
Easy and smooth as it is, this puzzle virtually solved itself. No fuss, no muss, and deserves some CLASS credit for that.
ReplyDelete