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Both consonants in "geek" phonetically / THU 2-24-22 / Parties with smokers / Emulate the Lonely Goatherd / One observing the holiday of Arba'een / Montgomery retired WNBA star / Particle with a superscript / Band with first platinum-selling double album
Thursday, February 24, 2022
Constructor: Jake Halperin
Relative difficulty: Easy-Medium
Theme answers:
- LONG-I ISLAND (17A: Wight, e.g.?) (i.e. "Wight" has a long "i" in it)
- HARD-C CANDIES (28A: Crunch bar and Cadbury Creme Egg, e.g.?) (i.e. "Crunch" and "Cadbury Creme" have hard "c"s)
- SILENT-M MOVIE (44A: 1995's "Johnny Mnemonic," e.g.?) (i.e. "Mnemonic" has a silent "m")
- CAPITAL-S SIN (59A: Sloth, e.g.?) (i.e. "Sin" has a capital "S")
Renee Danielle Montgomery (born December 2, 1986) is a retired American basketball player and sports broadcaster who is currently vice president, part-owner, and investor of the Atlanta Dream, and one of three owners of the FCF Beasts Indoor Football Team. During her 11-year playing career in the Women's National Basketball Association, she won two championships with the Minnesota Lynx in 2015 and 2017. During her college playing career, she won a national championship with the UConn Huskies in 2009. In 2020, she married music artist Sirena Grace in Atlanta, Ga.[...] During the 2011 WNBA season, Montgomery had the best season of her career once she became the starting point guard for the [Connecticut] Sun. She averaged 14.6 ppg and was voted as an all-star for the first time in her career. [...] In 2017, Montgomery averaged 8.0 ppg and achieved a new career-high in field goal shooting percentage. Montgomery also started in 12 of 34 games played while Whalen was sidelined with a hand injury. The Lynx continued to be a championship contender in the league after making it to the Finals for the sixth time in seven seasons, setting up a rematch with the Sparks. This time the Lynx would win in 5 games, winning their fourth championship in seven seasons, tying the now-defunct Houston Comets for most championship titles. (wikipedia)
• • •
The grid was also predominantly enjoyable, but there were a couple moments of cruelty and stupidity that made me cringe. First, SEAN / SPICER—why would you make such a show of that guy's name!? Melissa McCarthy is great, but her presence in the clue cannot remove the slime from the grid. Then, what the hell is a BEGATHON!? That seems a really ungenerous way to talk about a fundraiser. I think that answer is supposed to be fresh and fun, but it felt like something a Newsmax guy like SEAN / SPICER would say about any org. that needed money. I looked it up, and BEGATHON is derogatory slang for absolutely ordinary stuff like PBS fund-raising drives. Come on, man. Today is especially not the day for this sneering selfish right-wing nonsense; I'm already trying hard to ignore the fact that a huge chunk of this country is not-so-secretly happy about the Russian attack on Ukraine (the bombing has begun). So spare me your architects of white-right disinformation and stupidity, and spare me your contempt for the needy. In general, but especially today.
The puzzle was easy, by and large, but I had a few struggles. The most embarrassing struggle, for someone who has a Ph.D. in English and whose daughter minored in linguistics and who generally likes word-related stuff a lot, is that I totally spaced on VELARS (47D: Both consonants in "geek," phonetically). It's normal not to know VELARS—it's probably the toughest vocabulary word in the grid—but *I* should've remembered this. I was trying VOC- and VAL- and everything but the right thing. Had to build most of it from crosses before I remembered it. I also forgot CREAM existed, for a bit (29D: Band with the first platinum-selling double album). Eric Clapton was in that band, so there's some more white-right disinformation-spreading garbage for your puzzling day. Sigh. The funniest thing that happened to me today, screw-up-wise, was that I kept wanting AXE and it kept being wrong until finally it decided to show up at the very bottom of the grid (60D: Eliminate). It's relatively normal to want a word, have it be wrong, and then have it show up elsewhere. But to want that word and have it be wrong *twice* before actually showing up—that's strange. What's really strange is not that I wanted AXES for 7D: Handled sharp objects? (AWLS), but that I wanted AXE again at 42D: Leaf-cutter, e.g. (ANT). I had the "A," obviously. Then I saw "cutter" in the clue and AXE was the first thing that leapt to mind. Never mind that only a psychotic is going to use an AXE to cut leaves. The longer answers today were a joy. I really liked TOP-LOADER and SHAKY CAM, and even the somewhat less showy PRE-FLIGHT, mostly because it started "Rocket Man" playing in my head:
Hope you found this puzzle at least as enjoyable as I did. See you tomorrow.
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116 comments:
Dudes. I’m still awash in figuring out how to navigate the bureaucratic waters that are Charlotte Mecklenburg Schools. The actual teaching part is cool- I’m good. But the staggering cya paperwork, meetings, data collection, eleventy thousand online platforms, blah blah are overwhelming to the point of laughable. All I can tell you is that everything you read and all the teaching memes you see on social media are spot-on. The countless “great ideas” that Those Who Do Not Teach But Instead Sit Behind a Desk come up with. . . they roll downhill and right into our laps.
Anyhoo, I’m compelled to defend VELARS as a viable, albeit niche, word. I love my linguistics niche and actually said this word on Tuesday. I got off on a tangent with my kids about how the words mama and papa are the result of a baby babbling and playing around with the bilabial consonants they can see their adoring care-givers form. I told them the dental/alveolars (daddy) come next ‘cause the baby can kinda see them. And the kid who tells her doll, “Dit in the torner!” – she doesn’t have her VELARS yet. And I explained what the velar sounds are. Let me tell you – the kids were riveted. Couldn’t get enough of it. Yeah. Right.
Oh. Wait. My main reason for being late to school today and posting is to say I had a big ole DNF ‘cause I confidently put in LOST S ISLAND and never questioned it. I felt certain that Lost Island was some kind of real thing, some place of interest to anthropologists maybe. Stung, I googled it, and I guess it’s just a waterpark in Waterloo (!), Iowa. Oops. Then I stared out the window and chewed on the name Waterloo. Like you’ve drunk too much beer on the beach and are too lazy to schlep your sunburned self up the four flights of stairs to the house to use the bathroom. . .
“Parties with smokers” – hmm. Pretty much extinct.
The clue for AWLS is nothing short of genius.
Rex – point well-taken on the CAPITAL S SIN being an orthographic outlier. I hadn’t noticed. Maybe if something like DOUBLE S CROSSER had been a themer, it would have balanced out the set more?
PS – anyone who cares about the plight of teachers – I had a Zoom committee meeting that was unexpectedly attended by a member of the CMS brass. An academic coach (desk-sitter-atter) was going down the laundry list of all the paperwork, interventions, phone calls, and data-driven stuff teachers had to do for underperforming students. This Brass person - this hero - said to the coach, No. Hold on. This is how it’s supposed to work: YOU do all this leg work and then tell the teacher what she can do to help the kid. You’re not in the classroom, and you have the time. I had to turn my Zoom camera off momentarily to rein in my tears. No. Really. I wanted to shout YES THANK YOU GOD YOU’RE MY HERO. I have a secret little crush on her now.
I’ve heard of BBQs and Barbecues but never noticed Barbqs.
"Capital sins" has been the term used in the writings of Christian theologians for a millennium or more.
Well, it's a bad news day but any day with both @LMS and Derek Jeter (her avatar today) can't be all bad. There was a lot I didn't know but was easy enough to get from crosses: the note at 1D, the basketball player at 3D, the film technique at 8D, the consonants at 47D. Because I didn't know the note (FLAT was obvious but I was thinking c FLAT, which made BAR B Q hard to see. I agree with @Rex's Easy-Medium.
Hadn't come to terms with the theme device as I came to the end of the solve, and ... what can I say ... looking at 29D (Band with 1st platinum selling double album) and having _REA_ in place, I went with bREAd. And I got "CREAMed" with a dnf.
I wouldn't be surprised if SPICER started out as another word, maybe "spider" and the author couldn't make it work and had to reach for whatever is technically a working answer.
OAFS was my last word to solve, had no idea what the clue meant. I thought maybe OAKS, like a tree species.
Wow, it’s a seemingly simple theme, but it couldn’t have been easy for Jake to come up with these theme answers, where the first-word-and-following-letter related to the first letter of the last word, and where the first and last words were an in-the-language phrase. Props, Jake, on finding these theme answers!
This was for me a Wheelhouse of Fortune solve, where it felt like Jake and I shared the same brain – one splat fill from start to finish. This hardly ever happens to me on an end-of-week puzzle, and when it does happen then, it’s a thrill, like sledding down a steep hill. Oh, my brain also loves when it feels like it’s fighting mightily to climb a steep hill. But the occasional “Whee!” is very sweet in its own right.
I liked LENS under EYE EXAM, and speaking of LONG vowel sounds, this puzzle abounded in them, with 10 answers with long-O sounds, 11 with long-E sounds, and 10 or 11 with long-I sounds, depending on whether you count LONG I ISLAND as one or two.
A big “Whee!” and a fun and impressive theme – a divine Thursday experience. Thank you so much for making this, Jake!
Thx Jake; fine Thurs. offering! :)
Med.
Quite surprised I made it thru this one with no gaffs. Can't explain it; felt off my wavelength, but didn't encounter any serious hitches. 🤔
Still working on grokking the theme. [ok,got it]
Only mmm … was VELARS.
"Velars are consonants articulated with the back part of the tongue (the dorsum) against the soft palate, the back part of the roof of the mouth (known also as the velum).
Since the velar region of the roof of the mouth is relatively extensive and the movements of the dorsum are not very precise, velars easily undergo assimilation, shifting their articulation back or to the front depending on the quality of adjacent vowels. They often become automatically fronted, that is partly or completely palatal before a following front vowel, and retracted, that is partly or completely uvular before back vowels." (Wikipedia)
Didn't know: QUI, BEGATHON, RENEE, CREAM, SHAKYCAM, VELARS, LOU.
Another testament to fair crosses.
Good workout; liked it a lot! :)
@okanaganer 👍 for 0 dbyd, and along with @Whatsername & @Nancy, for Wordle: 2s yd (I had two wrong guesses, resulting in a 4*)
@Anonymous (2:45 PM yd) 👍 for QB dbyd (impressive time!)
@Whatsername (3:21 PM yd)
Well said. :)
___
td pg: 33:08 / W: 4*
Peace ~ Compassion ~ Tolerance ~ Kindness to all 🕊
Tom T, if it makes you feel better, I don't think the answer is CREAM, either. I think that's Internet Mythology. The album that's supposed to be the first platinum double album is Wheels of Fire, but it's only listed as Gold on the official Recording Industry Association of America website.
Enjoyable theme, and a nice Brit flair on the first two themers.
Prepare broccoli perhaps: STEAM SUP
Gave birth to a new nickname: BEGAT HON
Adjudicates a sex god race: TIMES PAN
Failure of Washington to convert on the power play: CAPITALS SIN
Shouldn't a monocle, with only one of them, be a LEN?
Lots of fun working this one - I liked all of the trickery. No issue with CAPITAL - in Catholic school growing up it was usually CAPITAL virtue and CARDINAL or deadly sin but all interchangeable. Agree that BARBQS is awkward. The SPICER - ICIER combo caught my eye.
Decent fill - PREFLIGHT and SHAKYCAM were solid. No idea on RENEE or the adjacent BEGATHON. Knew he’d do it chuckle with Rex’s take on CREAM.
Enjoyable Thursday solve.
Curiously, you just sparked the memory that Wheels of Fire also was a double-album with a platinum-colored jacket. Cue theme from the Twilight Zone ...
It was an incredible album, I still have my original, bought in 1968 by the 14-year-old me, who had no idea what it was, but thought it was bound to be cool.
@Anon 7:09 - Wheels of Fire is certified platinum in Australia. Whether it is the first, I double album so certified, I have no idea.
@Anon7:09 - Interesting. The first warning sign is putting the term in the google machine and getting a plethora of xword cheater sites. But scrolling down I did find a link to Wikipedia’s list of Double Albums, scrolled down to CREAM, and lo, there is the assertion. But Note! Wikipedia is a good place to start and it’s always important to check the references. And the claim comes with a “user-generated reference” warning. That is the sort of site that might spread “Internet Mythology” is the reference to support the claim. Scrolling down to the “Certifications” section the claim that it went platinum has a source from Facebook. I have no idea whether or not the clue is correct, but it sure looks like a Wikipedia generated clue where they took Wikipedia at face value rather than reading it critically. Here’s the Wikipedia entry on that album. It took some scrolling, but it looks like the clue is WRONG.
A number of right-winger answers in the NYTXP of late. I often wonder whether it's an attempt to troll the solvers.
@LMS
Heaps of understanding from a happily retired teacher. Wow. Like yours, all my kiddos were "underperforming". Well, yes, they don't speak English yet. I always wanted to tell those coach types to go attend school in a country where they don't speak the language, or better yet one with a different orthography, or best of all one that has a different orthography *and* reads from right to left.
It always infuriated me that most of those types had never studied another language let alone tried living in a country where they had to use another language to survive.
Plus how they *always* assumed I spoke Spanish!! No! English. I'm an English teacher. It doesn't matter what your primary language is. We do have those other teachers; they are called Bilingual teachers and 90% are dominant in the non-English language (the other 10% are truly amazing).
Enough from me. You keep it up, your kids and your district are lucky to have you.
Short A Apple
Long A Apple
(same clue, use whichever fits best in your grid)
I don’t know, but the theme seems like a real dud. So sloth is a sin, so you add an extra letter to the answer because one of the words is capitalized - mesmerizing stuff right there. Fortunately I pay minimal attention to the themes, especially when they contribute so little of substance.
Celerity sounds like a cool word, not as cool as sloth though which is my runaway favorite of the deadly sins. Isn’t “lonely goatherd” a redundancy ? Today we have WHOA and HIYA - not a felony offense, but definitely at least one full verbal synonym over budget.
I’m pretty much always stumped by the musical clues (unless of course there is a SHARP or a FLAT lurking in there) - I’d enjoy watching a documentary about the history of music presented analogous to the history of mathematics - i.e. who was it that first discerned patterns in sound, and tried to define/quantify them through terms (notes) and it’s own language, etc. Oh well, I digress - but feel free to recommend if there is such a historical perspective out there to be viewed.
This just went too fast for a Thursday. I approach Thursdays with a Lewis-like sense of anticipation but I caught the theme (which I loved) early and sped through the rest of it. Alas.
I know my bilabial plosives and my voiced and unvoiced fricatives but I had forgotten about VELARS, which I then forgot to check after I was done because the crosses were easy. About the only things new to me were SHAKYCAM and EON as clued.
Always great to see LMS make an appearance and I totally agree with her observations on how teaching is mucked up by those who don't teach. We had new strategies presented to us at the beginning of every new school year, usually from the State Dept. of Education, and many meetings to discuss how to implement them. At one of these my wise friend and colleague asked "Will this change anything I am doing in my classroom?" and the answer was "Not really.". I assume upper echelon types have to do something to keep their jobs and so each year they reinvent the wheel. Also often feel I retired at about the right time.
I liked your Thursday, JH. Just Happened to land in my "stuff I know" zone. Sorry when it was over, and thanks for the fun.
The other thing is that Wight is not particularly long, those particular candies are not hard, I don’t know if the movie is really silent, but sloth really is a sin (unless its @Frantic) so that broke the pattern as well. Didn’t bother me though, I enjoyed the theme.
Two in a row ! Absolutely joyless slogs of erratic cluing and contorted fill. By the time I worked my way back to the NW I just didn't care anymore, so atleast I was spared from coming up with "barbqs" for Gods' Sake. And a *retired* *WNBA* player for all fifteen fans out there. I think I'll blast "Crossroads" and try to start the day all over.
Gee, are tElATHONS really all that "shameless", I'm wondering? I mean all that asking for money can be annoying sometimes, but they are working for a good cause.
It would have helped if BARBQS had occurred to me, but it didn't.
Add to that the fact that I had FREEER instead of FREE UP at 14A. (I just re-read the clue. Don't ask.)
Moving right along to the right: There's such a thing as a SHAKY CAM? Why? Why would a filmmaker want to use that? As for me, I wouldn't need one myself. Any CAM I use is a SHAKY CAM. When strangers come up to me and ask me to take their photo, I usually respond by saying that they could choose a more adept picture-taker out of the Manhattan phone book, blindfolded, with a hat pin.
I had lots of trouble with this in the top section and I needed the theme to solve. It took me a very long time to figure out what the theme was -- it's a rather odd theme, but a clever and crunchy one. Once I had it, I finally figured out LONG I ISLAND and from there BEGATHON -- of which I've never heard, not even once. (But it does definitely sound "shameless".) Had to work to solve this and I enjoyed it.
LMS, bless your heart. Boy do I care about the plight of teachers. I retired last month from a job at a community college and, thinking I'd still like to earn some money and get out of the house by doing some substitute teaching, I dusted off my decades old teaching certificate, took a CPR course and a Pearson exam, paid to get fingerprinted, and now I'm certified to teach 6-12 English in Michigan. The day after all this was complete, I started getting calls to sub the next day... in elementary schools. I'm not qualified to occupy little ones all day. And I guess I should have done my research. Who could believe that a job like that, where you are responsible for these small people, would pay $10-$12 an hour? My son stocks shelves at the grocery store and earns $15. So wrong.
Oh, and ABC's Abbott Elementary is pretty good. Except those teachers seem to have endless lunch hours and breaks.
Oh yeah, the puzzle.The theme is based on the letteral clue* idea which is a wee bit twee to me. Those letteral clues are “clever” when you first run into one. Then along about the 10th time it’s “how did that fool me again.” Keep doing puzzles long enough, though, and the letteral clues start feeling trite and cliché. The theme is neither trite nor cliché, because it takes the letteral clue in a whole new direction, but because the letteral clue conceit has grown a bit tired for me sussing out the theme got more of a shrug and “yeah, others are sure to like it” from me rather than an “aha!” or a smile.
I have seen BAR-B-Q’S but it’s definitely a tertiary spelling. As if someone already grabbed “barbecue” and “BBQ” and you need to name your smoked meat place something different so you’re left with Z’s Placebo and Tentacle BAR-B-Q Inn.
Hand up for not reading many Catholic Theologians so SINS are either deadly or mortal. I’m with Rex that that one really clanked. Yeah Yeah, it’s defensible. But it’s not a good answer.
One of my profs, a former teacher/principal/central office admin, described school administration as being primarily resource acquisition (getting the stuff teachers needed to do their job) and task management (deciding both what needed to be done and who was going to do it). @LMS - It sounds to me like your hero had gotten wind of the need to manage some tasks. Good for her. The next step is to help that coach figure out which tasks need to be done well, which just need to get done, and which aren’t really worth doing. It is shockingly hard to get people to stop doing tasks that no longer serve a purpose. I will guarantee that there is work being done in your building right now that no longer needs to be done but nobody has taken the time to stop and ask “do we really need to be spending time on this?”
@TJS - So you’re not listening to her podcast, then?
*Clues that look like clues for something but are really just clues for a letter in a clue word, so answers are things like HARD C or LONG I
Yes Clapton is a COVID moron but “white-right” is inaccurate. White people do not have a monopoly on spreading vaccine misinformation. See Kylie Irving and myriad other pro athletes who disparage the vaccine. Again Rex’s white guilt shines through
Surely rex realizes that these puzzles are created weeks if not months before they are published. And so the CREAM answer was likely devised well before Eric Clapton took on his anti-vax position. But even so, I like the music of CREAM; I don't care for Eric Clapton's position, and certainly would not attend one of his concerts, but in any event, it doesn't fluster me that he appears in a puzzle. And I'm not sure why rex feels the need to go on his (thankfully not quite daily) rants as to who should and shouldn't appear in a puzzle.Talk about cancel culture!
Same with SEAN SPICER. My nit would be that this clue will not really stand the test of time. In ten years only a handful of folks will remember that clown, so perhaps not a great clue in that regard. Whereas CLAPTON's songs (White Room; Crosswords) have stood the test of time (54 years and counting). Rock on Mr. Clapton. Just wear a mask while you do!
My only nitpick would be 18 three-letter words.
I'm curious as to what is considered "too many" for true puzzle elegance? More than six?
Oh yeah, the important stuff: Turned into a guess-fest
Wordle 250 5/6
⬜🟩🟨⬜⬜
⬜🟩🟩⬜🟩
⬜🟩🟩⬜🟩
⬜🟩🟩🟨🟩
🟩🟩🟩🟩🟩
LMS… best of luck to you! My dear wife, HS English teacher/Librarian/Test Coordinator, is retiring this year (planned way before COVID), and all I can say from my observations is that less and less time and money goes towards teaching the students. In fact I’d say that applies to most institutions - healthcare, industry, education, etc. - where less goes towards the actual objective of that institution. More and more goes towards HR, legal and other bureaucracies. We are all facing… ENTROPY!
Raven, I agree. I get that BAR-B-Q exists, but it’s mostly a term used in the name of a restaurant. In most backyards we have BBQs or barbecues.
Hey All !
Maybe the ole brain is still trying to trick me, but couldn't figure out how the theme worked. Still a bit fuzzy. Phrases that repeat the second words' first letter that correspond to the clues? Maybe?
Got a chuckle and a good memory of my friend who passed some years ago with SHAKY CAM. He hated that in movies! Prime example: Speed 2.
VELARS new to me. Not up on my English nuances. I just speak and am not concerned about how it works. 😁
Loved getting Double-Albums when I was a teen. Was into the band Yes, they had a few. Another cool one is Genesis' The Lamb Lies Down On Broadway.
In OO news, only one today, and it's a ROO! Yes, I know, I'm odd.
What happened to actor SHIA LeBeouf? He was in tons of movies a few years ago, now you don't see him. He was the clue for SHIA for quite a while, also.
Didn't seem ThursPuz-ish enough to me. No real trickery. SADD. Har.
yd -3, should'ves 1 (have seen the other two I missed before, but still wouldn't have gotten them)
Five F's
RooMonster
DarrinV
Does anyone remember the book titled "All I Really Need to Know I Learned in Kindergarten" ? I could write a very short sequel titled "All I Really Know About Linguistics I Learned in Elementary School". Thank you Jake for the exceedingly helpful crosses! The phrases that resulted when the extra letters were dropped were clever. I learned "velars" for the first time.
@LMS As a retired teacher I feel your pain resulting from all the administrative layers that are piled on teachers unnecessarily. I hope your hero follows through!
This is my kind of theme. I figured out from the bottom three themers that the first letter of the second word is repeated. And I still had a lot of white at the top of the grid. It looks like ISLAND is in 17A, not ISLE. So I need another "I." Ah, that "I" is long!
What's he talking about ? That he likes themes that help him solve the puzzle.
Clarinets are tuned to BFLAT? Are different instruments tuned to different notes?
Besides helping with the solve, the theme itself was pretty cool. Doubling a letter in the middle of a common expression to describe how the clue is written. Pretty subtle.
Rex,
The seven dealy sins or cardinal sins have been known as capital sins for millenia. It's not that those sins are worse per se, its that those seven are the bases for all other sin.
https://www.catholic.com/magazine/print-edition/the-seven-deadly-sins
My mind fought like hell to not remember the name SEAN SPICER. Sadly, this puzzle required that I recollect it. That’s a shame.
OK, so I would like to know what exactly how using the name of a classic rock band as an answer correlates with " white-right disinformation-spreading garbage." I didn't see Clapton's name in the clue, I didn't see any promotion of his ridiculous anti-tax message. Please calm down about names you find upsetting. You sound like a college freshman looking for a "safe space." Unless a clue actively celebrates someone or their organization, it's just a damned word.
I was going to make some point about SLOTH being one of the worst sins, but I just decided it was too much work.
I don't know that Clapton is a right wing nutjob regarding vaccinations. He's more of a "adverse side effects for about 0.00001% of the population is fine by me. Wait, you mean I can be that one in a million? Hell no! Vaccines are bad!" kind of nutjob. He got neuropathy in his hands for a couple of weeks after his vaccination. He had a temporary scare, got back to 100% fitness, and went bonkers. Being over-rated has to mess with your head.
@Unknown (9:09). Actually, there are 20 threes today. The best constructors usually keep the threes to under 16.
Challenging for me. I was slow on the uptake for the theme - which, once I got it, I thought was very clever. Even catching on to the theme, though (after the SILENT M), didn't allow me to speed through the rest: each theme answer was its own puzzle and a treat to figure out. I was particularly slowed down by "Wight," where the ISLAND didn't occur to me until the last moment: I was hung up on its ye olde English meaning of "human being."
Do-over: mali before CHAD. Help fro previous puzzles: BFFS. New to me: BEGATHON, SHAKY CAM. No idea: RENEE. VELARS.
I had some stand up and shout OLE moments and I also had some sitting in a corner trying to pull out a plum moments:
My attic light bulb wasn't charging. I knew it was BARBQS...but how to spell it. Couldn't remember SEAN SPICER because we've had about 2 billion White House Press secretaries. I moved away south. The plum from my thumb began to taste good. I needed a napkin to clean up but it was filled with goodie detritus.
HARD CC ANDIES. Oh...so we're dealing with double trouble.
Fill in the sides...erase, erase....fill in some more...erase, erase. Hey, I think I've got this.
Didn't know VELARS, forgot (thankfully) about AIG and I forgot about CREAM/ dREAM.
I stared at Lonely Goatherd and wondered why he will do the YODEL. So now ACAI is a purple puree? It's becoming the new way to clue an OREO. I kept thinking potatoes or carrots.
An enjoyable fandango tango, Jake. Took me a while but....it's Thursday Twister Day.
@Albatross 6:35 from yesterday:
What a wonderful story...so glad you're able to drive disabled veterans to their needed spots.
Before COVID ate up this planet, I used to take food (specifically) deviled eggs to a homeless shelter.
I got to know the names of these hopeless, poor souls; many were disabled Vets. There was one woman I was crazy about. I asked the counselor what her name was and he told me "Fur". I thought he said "Fern" and I said what a lovely name. He said it's spelled F U R. I asked why that name and he told me:
Fur was a lover of animals. She became homeless because nobody wanted her to keep her dogs with her. She was a lovely toothless woman who would sleep with all 14 of her mangy little dogs...under a tent!
Here's the fun part:
When one of her pooches passed on to dog heaven, she'd skin the critter and hang the little fur to dry. When it did, she'd sew the dead skin (beautifully dried and shampooed) on the her hand-me-down coat.
Fur proudly displayed her beloved pups on her coat. She slept in her coat, she wore it even if it was 100 degrees and if you asked her to name each one, she'd give you her beautiful toothless smile. She could name each and everyone and lovingly stroke each one.
Fur couldn't remember her name.....but she sure did remember all of her dog names.
I will be going back again and I pray FUR is still alive....I'm taking her a dozen "angel" eggs.
Not a theologian here, but had 16 years of Catholic education, at least 12 of which preceded Vatican II. It was the capital sins and the cardinal virtues in my book. Of course, today's earworm will be the delightful Camelot song: "The seven deadly virtues."
Pete,
Bot suprinsg that you don't undertand sloth.
It is perhaps the least understood of the seven deadlies. Turn to the Greek to understand why the ancients denounced this sin as the noonday devil from Psalm 91:6. In Greek, the term for sloth is acedia, a compound word meaning without (a-) care (cedia).
It wasn’t until the Protestant Reformers that sloth was viewed as physical laziness. For the Fathers as well as the medieval Doctors, sloth was being so busy that one didn’t make time for what was truly important. What is easier: to make a silent holy hour or to answer emails while talking on one’s cellphone?
But yeah, your joke is arel knee slapper.
I liked the theme - interpreted it this way:
SIN *with a* CAPITAL S
MOVIE *with a* SILENT M
CANDIES *with a* HARD C
ISLAND *with a* LONG I
I wanted 1D to be a new clue for oboes.
BAR-B-Q: seen it that way on eatery signs for years, always thought it was awkward but it’s worse without the hyphens.
Yesterday was the birthday (1949) of Canadian composer Barbara York. Here’s an excellent performance of her
Four Paintings by Grant Wood (including the one from Tuesday’s puzzle). The instrumentation may come as a surprise.
Fun, entertaining and I liked the unique theme. What a neat trick! Really liked solving this and appreciate the effort that went into it. Some puzzles seem like they were probably more fun for constructors than they are for solvers but today was a sweet combination of both I’d say.
I first thought we were in for some sort of cross/down trick when I saw BARB/then QU at 5D. I would TEND to use BARBEQUES or abbreviate to BBQ. Anyway 44A and Mnemonic was the giveaway to the theme for me. Very clever clue for EYE EXAM and I loved BEGATHON. Unlike Rex, I don’t see that as an insult to anyone genuinely in need, but rather a dig at some of the rather questionable pleas for donations that I occasionally see. GO FUND ME anyone?
@Mathgent 9:48 – yes, a lot of wind instruments in particular are said to be "transposing"; what that means is, in the case of a B-flat clarinet, the note that is written as C in the clarinetist's piece of music is actually sounding a concert pitch of B-flat (i.e. one whole step lower).
It's a bit convoluted to go into here, so I refer you to the Wikipedia entry on transposing instruments for a more involved explanation.
(The harmonica its own set of transposition-related issues.)
I confess that I started this puzzle thinking it would be the first Thursday puzzle that I would have a major DNF on in years. It didn’t help that I was on the phone with my sister-in-law when I started it but, even after that, I worked it more in a clockwise fashion like I often have to do to get a foothold on Saturday. That all translates to I enjoyed the challenge!
@LMS…Ican’t even imagine what you must be going through. To top off all the kind of b.s. you are going through, in my part of the country has school board meetings with out of control parents fearing/enraged that Critical Race Theory is being taught in the schools. Seems like they have CRT mixed up with CT…critical thinking about historical facts.
@Mathgent…as a person who “played” clarinet from 5th to 8th grade (thus an expert) I recollect MY clarinet was called a Bflat clarinet as opposed to the larger alto clarinet. In spite of this expert status, I did not know until today that my old clarinet “was tuned” to B flat.
Hand up for being a person who had not heard of the term CAPITAL sin. Not denying it IS a term…but I had always thought the reference was CARDINAL sin. And TIL about VELARS!
@Nancy, you had me in stitches today! So many times I’ve had that experience with the puzzle but can’t quite seem to verbalize my crazy thought processes while working it!
Listen to him YODEL, @GILL!
Nice Thursday theme, which took me a while to understand. I mostly enjoyed the solve.
Thoughts:
-- BARBQS at 1A -- ugh. Never seen it before, but others have so that's on me.
-- Never seen VELARS either, but if it (among other things) compels @LMS to post, it's my new favorite word.
-- EON Productions stands for Everything Or Nothing; Broccoli and Saltzman thankfully achieved more of the former.
-- SEAN SPICER -- supreme goofball and scumbag, but fine in my puzzle.
-- I'll remember Clapton for way more than his current COVIDiocy. Same with Van Morrison.
Easy-medium. VELARS and SHAKYCAM were WOEs, but the rest went pretty smoothly, although I didn’t catch the theme until CAPITALSSIN. The WHOA area was last to fall. Fun Thursday. liked it.
@ mathgent 9:56
French horns (and English horns) are keyed to F. Meaning when they play a C, it actually sounds like an F on a piano.
I would imagine different instruments are keyed variously. I played french horn for many years.
Curious where the "under 16" rule comes from. Is that an unwritten rule, or just an observation on your part?
You missed the point about the capital S sin clue. The capital S is in Sloth in the clue. It doesn't mean that sin has a capital S.
I thought it was Sloth, not SIN, that was CAPITALized. Hasn’t anyone else said this??
Very enjoyable puzzle, tough in parts, took some work here and there, but nicely satisfying.
@Anon 10:31 - You know, I was going to comment yesterday about your post, hoping that it was a new turn for you, as it was a simple follow up to something someone said, adding useful information. I figured that it would come out as condescending, and I didn't want to start a new tit for tat. Foolish me.
Sloth has never meant anything other than how I used it. Here are about a hundred Bible references to sloth. One or two of the refer to the way you used it, as don't be lazy in your devotions. Your interpretation is correct, in that that form of sloth would be a sin. It may even be one of the worst ways that sloth may be a sin. But that doesn't negate all the other ways.
I'm sure some priest or monk or nun pounded that one thing into your head decades ago, and you're proud to have retained it. That's fine, but what one little thing you happen to know or think important doesn't obviate the rest of the world's obvious truth.
@Z from last night: Would you please stop posting links to new games that will take up even more of my time? Just kidding. I googled Globle and further stumbled across Lewdle, Sweardle and Absurdle. It’s beginning to get a little scary. 🤣
@Margaret, @mmorgan - All of the themers are variants on a base phrase Long Island, hard candies, silent movie, and capital sin. The question was, is capital sin as well know as a stand alone phrase as "silent movie". The capital "S" sin was a play words, contrasting a real, get you damned to hell, sin as opposed to the sin of putting mayo on your hamburger.
SEAN SPICER - an attempt to SPICE-R things up for us lefties?
Enjoyed this one… again, fast and easy. (Thinking a certain mishap knocked this 🧠 around and loosened it up for the better 😂.)
🤩🤸🏽♀️🤩
Another good 🧩 this week!
🤗🦖🦖🦖🦖🤗
@OFL:
Then, what the hell is a BEGATHON!?
Holy moly!!! You must be the only Snowflake Liberal in the USofA who's never suffered through a PBS 'pledge drive'. Let's see if the wiki has some definition. Betcha it does. Yes it does. Sort of... accepts the search string, but lands on 'pledge drive'. Told ya.
And now, after having done it, let me just say HARUMPH to the Wordle word today. I would have gotten a birdie (I’m pretty sure) if I hadn’t dismissed THAT word.
Hey, Rex, I am 100% on your side of the political spectrum, but listen, to pretend that Sean Spicer, Cream, and derogatory comments about telethons do not exist in the public forum is just denial. I love you column, read it every day, but I think you should get over your political insistence that the crossword conform to your beliefs.
@7:09
reading comprehension: the asked for the BAND, not the record.
9:09
c'mon man!! all those evangelicals' disinformation campaigns against vaccines?? all those CSA states going all in on HCQ, zinc, ivermectin, bleach and the like; but vaccines are poison and such??? of course it's 99.44% white-right. those are the same folks who say that Putin is right to re-make the USSR or Mother Russia. less than a decade ago Mitt was in the GOP majority. the nutballs are running the asylum.
Wordle 250 1/6
🟩🟩🟩🟩🟩
Not mine. Son Nick got the elusive hole in one today.
This was a great puzzle, and what a delight to see our Muse with the first comment. Don't be a stranger, Loren!
I am wondering if OFL's bed has more than two sides. Clearly he not only got up on the wrong side of bed this morning, he got up on the wrongest side! The grousing and snark, wholly uncalled for. I personally think SEANSPICER had the worst job in history. I can't imagine any sane person being able to do it.
As for BEGATHON, the only people who ever have used that term are the poor radio and public TV personalities, aided by many exhausted volunteers, who take part in those marathon shows that once were the primary support of all the Pacifica radio stations, and many public television stations. KPFA in Berkeley used to have this one lady who lived for Marathon, and dozens of voluntary unpaid (or almost unpaid) hosts who had to suffer through them. Same with our public TV station in San Francisco, KQED. Fortunately, my favorite local public radio station has figured out how to make fundraising fun for the listeners, and reasonably fun for the on-air hosts, and I am sure I am not the only supporter who has chosen to make that station the one I contribute hundreds of dollars a year to, to the exclusion of all the others.
As for BAR B Q, I remember being told an absolute lie about where it came from, when I was in summer camp. A counselor insisted it started as a cattle brand, BAR-B (a B with a bar on top, which was common in branding) followed by a capital Q. The truth is, the term came from the Spanish barbacoa, or at least that is the most common explanation. Pork or other meat roasted over an open flame.
For CAPITAL SINS I wanted "cardinal" SINS, which I remember from Catechism class. But it is true, in many Bibles and early theological works, Lust, Pride, Envy, etc., among them Sloth, were capitalized in texts. But then, most nouns were sometimes capitalized.
There were also, as I recall, seven holy Virtues. Perhaps one of them was putting a coin in the poor box whenever you passed it.
Pete,
I find your link to the Bible verses wanting exgeisis.
As for using M-W as a source for understanding what The Church--the true authority--teaches regarding sloth is utterly silly.
Of course I know how sloth is popularly used and understood. But it is, funademntally, a misunderstanding. I was trying to show you that error. You've not only rejected the truth it but scorned it. God only knows why.
By the way, belittling me for having retained information is another of your misunderstandings. It isn't that I have retained a fact, rather it is that I learned and have for drcades, understood a concept.
@Anon 10:22 – Excellent choice!
If SPICER must be in the puzzle I'd rather have it clued this way than "Person using chives and garlic", the way they clued it a month ago.
"Wheels of Fire" may have been the first double album to sell 1,000,000 copies but that was the Gold level of sales back in the 1960's. I guess when 1,000,000 became the Platinum level in the mid-1970's and Gold was demoted to 500,000, the RIAA went back and recertified everything. The "White Album" came out only a couple of months later so I'm guessing that would have been the second double album to sell a million.
Also, I meant to write at 10:52 that the harmonica *has* its own set of transposition issues.
The timing: I assume these puzzles are scheduled FAR out in advance, so there was no way to pull the puzzle due to any breaking news. But I'm not in the biz, I don't know.
FWIW
"more people are dying of the coronavirus now than during most points of the pandemic. "
here: https://www.cnn.com/2022/02/24/health/covid-deaths-now-younger-unvaccinated/index.html
OK, it's the Snowflake Channel, but still...
Another Wednesday puzzle masquerading as a Thursday offering. Stop it already!
But as usual I was not disappointed by Rexacommie…of course he had to mention Sean Spicer but I got a bonus with Eric Clapton!
Naturally anyone with opinions that don’t precisely match those of OFCL’s must be taken to task and vilified as white supremacists, racists, etc. The leftist claptrap propaganda machine at work! Too funny.
I had never heard of Sean Spicer or Melissa McCarthy and I don't know who they are, but I am cheering on Putin and his push to the English Channel.
Rex is right. CARDINAL sin, CAPITAL offense or crime. You're not allowed to mix-and-match/mangle elements of long-established linguistic idioms for crossword-constructing convenience.
18 D SADD looks like it should be part of a themer. I can’t think of any legit phrase. SADDDOG? Nor can I figure out how to pronounce a sad “D”. Moving right along…..
Wasn’t Blair Witch Project the foundational use of SHAKYCAM? I think that in that movie the shaking came from just running with a camera in hand. I’m probably wrong, as I’m not that much of a film buff.
Clever theme today. I caught on early and made this a very fast Thursday. But it was totally enjoyable. Thanks, Jake Halperin.
Is there a rule somewhere that Republicans aren't supposed to do the NYT crossword? I apparently erroneously thought it was nothing more than a pleasurable pastime with the added bonus of quite often learning something new. Instead I'm learning why the country has become hopelessly divided. So now Eric Clapton should be on the banned list? This is absurd!
I can always count on amiga, @Nancy...
When I opened your link it started with this woman struggling to get her bra on and being told she has fat hanging out of her sides......
Oh...it's just an ad.
Ah.....Lonely Goatherd is not someone herding a goat and chewing on a straw. You can't imagine what went through my head. WHAT DOES A GOAT HERDER do? I won't get into the Bacchus and his children Hymen and Comus...They ate a lot of grapes.....
@11:44 - CREAM was clued via the double album with a factoid that is not actually factual. The purported platinum album is only gold, Disraeli Gears went platinum in 1993.
@Whatsername 11:16 - 🤣😂🤣 - Quordle is probably my favorite of the -le games. Globle is really just “warmer/colder.”
@albatross shell - Spelling!?!?! Nope. It does bear some resemblance to anagramming, but it’s not actually either.
@Pete 11:14 - 🤣😂🤣
@Pete9:55 - Clapton’s 1976 racist rant got lots of sunshine when he and Van Morrison did their anti-vaccine rant because a whole bunch of people never forgot.
@Roo Monster - SHIA LeBouef has spent a much of the past decade doing his best to wreck his reputation.
Agree with @egs that the puzzle would have benefited by the elimination of the other dupes: SADD 18D and BFFS 22A.
Wordle 250 4/6
⬛⬛⬛⬛🟩
⬛⬛🟩🟩🟩
🟩⬛🟩🟩🟩
🟩🟩🟩🟩🟩
Guessed wrong, so missed the birdie.
@Whatsername – There's also Wordlde, which is like a Rorschach test but the inkblots are shapes of countries.
Just don't play Subwaydle, it's really awful. It makes you take three trains to get from station A to station B when two or even just one train would suffice. And if different lines have a station with the same name (e.g. 59th St.) it doesn't tell you which one it means. It would be like telling you to travel from Rome to Paris but by Rome it means Rome, NY and by Paris it means Paris TX, and in between you have to go to Singapore.
@A (10:38) -- Yes, that's absolutely the way -- the ONLY way -- to interpret it!
@GILL -- I found your "Fur" story enormously sweet, evocative, and moving.
@old timer: "I personally think SEANSPICER had the worst job in history. I can't imagine any sane person being able to do it."
That, @old timer, is the best and funniest put-down of SEAN SPICER I've ever seen. Melissa McCarthy couldn't have done it better.
@Joe Dipinto - See the second link in my first post. Only 0.5 million certified units. The White Album is 24x platinum now, but did not actually get certified platinum until 1991. The search tools on that site don’t seem conducive to determining what double album went platinum first.
I had cash grab before BEGATHON, which I maintain is a much better answer
My favorite new word game is the one with all the slang terms for feces: TURDLE
SMALLPPRINT?
Neat theme idea … made M&A wanna think of other themer possibilities. Absolutely forced m&e to do it. No mercy.
Man, did I ever have trouble gettin a decent toe-hold in this puppy. Believe it or not, my first entry was AWLS [but was worried it could be ADZS or AXES]. But next, had to migrate way over to the ROOF/ROW/BFFS region.
staff weeject pick: QUI. Non-French clue: {Quit quite early??}. Them NYTPuz folks really need to buy into the M&A double-?-mark clue constructioneerin toolkit. [M&A would charge em far less than what they had to pay for Wordle].
some faves: MEGAHIT. TIMESPAN. BATON, AWLS & CASK clues. STEAMSUP/SSIN.
BARBQS. har
Thanx for the capitalffun, Mr. Halperin dude.
Masked & Anonymo3Us
p.s. Great to hear from U, as always, @Muse darlin. Primo avatar.
**gruntz**
Anonymous 12:08: I wish I could tell if you were serious D:
Several commenters here seem to be wholly unaware of Clapton's drunken 1976 rant that was really very racist.
https://people.com/music/eric-clapton-racist-rant-resurfaces-after-lockdown-protest-song-van-morrison/
ATTEN....hut! Which of the following is not like the others: LONG I ISLAND, HARD C CANDY, SILENT M MOVIE & CAPITAL S SIN? Yeah, one is too short for its slot and needs a two letter boost to get the job done. The plural of convenience (POC) comes to the rescue! Also on display are several two for one POCs where a Down and an Across share a final letter count boosting S. (Look in the lower, rightmost corner, for example.) I'd say this grid gets at least a POC assisted if not a POC marked rating.
With __OA in place at 15 Across I thought for a second that my spirit animal, that noble beast, smallest of the buffalo and an endangered species native to Indonesia, would make a rare appearance. No, to my woe, it wasn't ANOA but WHOA.
Amen!
I enjoyed this theme - it helps that I got it right away with LONG I ISLAND.
And the clue for 7D, even while I was looking for a way to make AxeS work, I knew it was a winner. Perhaps because my husband loves the show, "Forged in Fire" and I end up watching it peripherally. The episode last night had him in high dudgeon on behalf of the contestants because they were asked to forge a handle out of titanium before even knowing what sharp object it was for. "Not fair" was my husband's conclusion.
My writeover was 39D, TIME Slot went in first, but it was easy enough to recover from.
What a lovely, sad story, @Gill I.
Thanks, Jake Halperin, nice Thursday puzzle.
Rex, Rex, Rex.... I’m with you on most of your criticism of this puzzle, but I’m calling foul on your denunciation of “begathon” as “sneering selfish right-wing nonsense.”
Save your indignation for moments like when Jeff Sessions said we needed more family separations at the border. That was deliberate rightwing cruelty.
Exasperation at NPR’s constantly interrupting its programming to plead for money is fair criticism. It’s neither unkind nor political to call it a begathon. In fact, it’s funny.
MFCTM.
Anonymous (10:31)
Unknown (11:03)
old timer (11:53)
@1:08
Mods spiked @12:08 without even the standard message. I saw it, too. I suspect s/he is one of the token CSA refugees.
@Joe D (12:30) 😂 I think I’ll stay away from either one of those. Not sure doubt I could even find those places on a map, much less get there on a subway.
@Rex -Why "self-rigteous right-wing nonsense" re "begathon"? I've always, since about 1973, been a PBS donor, have participated in, even organized fund-raisers for various organizations, and contribute mainly to Democrats' political campaigns. I got a chuckle out of "begathon"- not sure I'd heard it before, but got it quickly with about two crosses and thought it fit a lot of fund drives I'd seen.
Agree the last themer didn't work as well.
@Anon - "The obvious needs no exegesis. ( Or exegeisis, whatever the hell that stuff is )" - Aristotle.
Item #1, The informative line in the M-W citation I shared what that the first usage of SLOTH was in exactly the usage in definition 1A. So, the word sloth has always been used in the manner in which I used it. I don't know how you think I misused sloth when it as always meant exactly that. That some group adapted it to suit their specific needs is besides the point. Aquinas goes on about how if laziness, avoidance of duty, etc (i.e. sloth, which is a venal sin) becomes chronic past a certain point it becomes Capital S Sin. Lower case sloth becomes upper case Sloth, venal sin becomes Cardinal sin if you live in 13th century Italy, and are Christian and are Roman Catholic and have read Aquinas. I know for damned sure that I made no reference to Medieval Roman Catholicism's understanding of sloth or Sloth in my first post. sloth is a sin. I'm to lazy to care.
And, I never belittled you for knowing what you know at about Medieval Roman Catholicism's understanding of sloth or Sloth. If it was the ".. beating it into your head.." comment, you're mistaken. I cherish many of the things that have been beaten into my head, some of them by priests. I belittled you for thinking that those things obviate every other understanding held my multiples of your ken.
I think someone right here on the blog might have had an unpleasant encounter with the labyrinthine NYC subway system recently. Also, I'd flunk "Worldle" if someone were to invent it. Funny post, Joe.
I hadn't read Rex, never heard of BEGATHON, and thought it must be an actual Thing like "Go Fund Me". Now that I learn it's a facetious term, I think it's pretty darn funny. And why on earth would it be "sneering, selfish right-wing nonsense"? Why would it have anything to do with the right-wing at all? Rex finds the damndest things to things to be outraged about; it simply boggles the mind.
Pete,
Your asserertina that sloth has only ever been defined by how M-W defines it is demonstrably incorrect. Sloth is not fundamentally laziness, no matter what M-W says, or how you belittle me.
Here is the Angelic Doctor on sloth from his Summa Theoligcae Second Part of teh Second part quetions 35. As you'll see it is not laziness which defines sloth, but sorrow. The difference is critical. I hope you find it helpful.
Sloth, according to Damascene (De Fide Orth. ii, 14) is an oppressive sorrow, which, to wit, so weighs upon man's mind, that he wants to do nothing; thus acid things are also cold. Hence sloth implies a certain weariness of work, as appears from a gloss on Psalm 106:18, "Their soul abhorred all manner of meat," and from the definition of some who say that sloth is a "sluggishness of the mind which neglects to begin good."
Now this sorrow is always evil, sometimes in itself, sometimes in its effect. For sorrow is evil in itself when it is about that which is apparently evil but good in reality, even as, on the other hand, pleasure is evil if it is about that which seems to be good but is, in truth, evil. Since, then, spiritual good is a good in very truth, sorrow about spiritual good is evil in itself. And yet that sorrow also which is about a real evil, is evil in its effect, if it so oppresses man as to draw him away entirely from good deeds. Hence the Apostle (2 Corinthians 2:7) did not wish those who repented to be "swallowed up with overmuch sorrow."
Accordingly, since sloth, as we understand it here, denotes sorrow for spiritual good, it is evil on two counts, both in itself and in point of its effect. Consequently it is a sin, for by sin we mean an evil movement of the appetite, as appears from what has been said above (II-II:10:2; I-II:74:4).
I enojyed doing this puzzle while waiting for my medical appointment. Enjoyed it a lot more than my (voluntary) colonoscopy will probably be. I hate being knocked out. (I prefer to breathe for myself.) And on that day I probably not be in the mood to do the crossword (or come here) prior to the procedure (the first time for me). But to reiterate: I enjoyed this puzzle a lot. And not obsessing on Clapton or the Cream helps in not becoming irate (no, not you, Z) over the problem with the clue.
By the way, to supplement the conversation Joe and mathgent had, the clarinet was the last of the orchestral woodwinds to be invented, (Single reed winds are absent from early Mozart and Haydn, and are totally absent from J. S. Bach.) Because early instruments could only play certain tones (until the keying system was improved), the size of the clarinet was altered to allow clarinets to be used with the common symphonic keys. Because the fingering used to play a C Major scale stayed the same regardless of the size of the instrument, you could play a scale using the fingering used with a C clarinet but the music would sound in a different key depending on the size of the instrument. It made more sense to notate music based upon the fingering used rather than the actual tone you heard. Crooks used with French Horns achieved the same ends. Was that TMI? Probably. As important as a country invading Ukraine. Of course not. But I hope at least some will understand better why transposition instruments exist.
Oops, another gaffe – I misspelled the game with the countries at 12:30 – It's WORLDLE, as in world + le.
@Z 12:38 – I saw that. The RIAA site overall seems a little cagey about what things mean. On this timeline it never specifies what a gold certification signified. Only when it gets to 1976 does it say that platinum was introduced to "signify one million copies sold".
This site repeats the line that "Wheels of Fire" was the first to go platinum, but if you look at the RIAA Certification zoom-in under the plaque, it says it's to "Commemorate the sale of more than one million dollars worth of..."Wheels of Fire". That's a bit different than one million copies of the album.
One site (I forget which, I looked at a bunch) used the circular logic that yes it sold 500,000 but it's a double album so it counts twice, therefore it sold a million and it's platinum. Nice try, but no.
Anyway, this page has the most detailed and coherent explanation of how things evolved, in the section labeled History. It seems obvious the CREAM clue really isn't correct even though that "fact" is all over the internet.
Hell's Bell's and Sin Schpin, Anonymous 2:01, Sloth isn't "evil"! Why don't you just go lie down on your couch for a bit and force yourself to do nothing at all. It will be good for your judgmental, sanctimonious soul.
Would someone explain the “awls” clue. Jim
Don't know why PBS is getting shit on over the fund raising clue. My first thought was TV preachers. Talk about shameless!
This blog is truly blessed with so many experts on so many subjects.
In defense of the constructor, Rex said he didn't know what a capital sin is but, of course he's not thinking clearly cause he's pissed off about Ukraine like me, capital S just means sloth is one of the biggies, the seven deadly.
@3:49
It's kinda like an ice pick, only with a shorter, and straight, shaft. Has a vewy, vewy sharp point used to push holes through, mostly, leather. Found it's way into numerous crime novels and movies. How it got the name? No clue.
@4:09
Your quite welcome. And we thank you for you're support. You have no idea what its like to be a polymath. Wanna cracker?
@Anon3:49 - Handled sharp objects? - That question mark indicates that we are not supposed to think of the clue in the usual way we might think of it. Here the clue is being literal, an AWL is a sharp object with a handle, therefore it is a “handled sharp object.” And the S in “objects” means we have more than one, so AWLS.
@pearly gates - I really like “Sin Schpin.”
@Joe Dipinto 2:33 - Yep. Whoever pointed this out first was spot on with calling it an “internet myth.”
@pmdm - Not obsessing just observing. There are so many times that someone cries “wrong” when it isn’t, that I feel we need to give credit and acknowledge when “wrong” is right.
One down irritated me because I thought everyone in the orchestra tuned to the oboe. BEGATHON is vile when referring to PBS. I get a lot of value for that money. I have a soft spot for St. Jude’s also, but occasionally GoFundMe pages can get a little strange.
I’m sad to learn Eric Clapton is an anti-vaxxer. I understand his neuropathy concern, but my son-in-law can do him better. After his shot, he fell asleep on the sofa. He awakened in the night and on the way to bed tripped and broke his leg. He considers it a side effect of the shot and no amount of mockery has changed his mind.
VELARS was new to me despite my English degree. Unlike the fabulous @LMS, linguistics didn’t speak to me so I left the course after the first week before the drop/add period ended.
I quite liked this puzzle overall. I think the theme was inventive and I enjoyed the cluing. SHAKYCAM was especially nice and BATON stopped me a bit.
@Ciclista21 NPR is exactly why i knew BEGATHON too, and it is certainly not right wing anything. my dad always used this term, and i knew it right off the bat without any crosses. gave me a chuckle. has nothing to do with being anti-mutual aid or fundraising, it's simply a good natured dig at literal hours and days of asking for money...usually involving comically overpriced incentives too. (winston flowers anyone?) :)
@Z:
It's, in the common sense of the word, not a handle, in that you just don't grip it with your whole hand. It's a palm grip; you push the point through with the round-ish bit of wood (commonly) at the other end of the point.
Rex, I love your column and I read it every day.
Please be mindful of your use of mental health language. Saying it’s something “a psychotic” might do gets laughs but contributes to the stigma and misunderstanding of a very complex medical problem. I know you appreciate the importance of language.
@pmdm -- "Was that TMI? Probably... But I hope at least some will understand better why transposition instruments exist."
Sad to say, @pmdm, it didn't help me understand anything about the clarinet better. It all sailed right over my head. But that's on me and has nothing to do with your explanation. I did learn something valuable, though: I learned that you (along with @A, @pabloinnh, @burtonkd, @JoeDipinto and others I'm sure I'm inadvertently leaving out) have a very sophisticated knowledge of music that the majority of us on this blog don't have. I never fail to be impressed by it.
I heard on a podcast that crosswords are known to cause covid and encourage "alternative lifestyles." It's our responsibility to warn them.
Ditto! Words don't trigger - people pull their own triggers. Why surrender any power to mere words? Unless you like to suffer. Bury your head in the sand - you'll still be in the desert.
You, Uncle Rex and others might want to Google "capital sin"
I don't know how we can really know what's in Clapton's heart. But he has been quite close to a number of black people. Knowing what I know about black-out type alcoholics, I tend to accept the 76 rant as outlier. (I'm befuddled by his vax mumbojumbo, but he apparently does believe that the vaccine nearly killed him.)
Re CAPITAL sins, yeah, that was a clunker for me too. But as regards the Seven Deadlies themselves, perhaps Rex as a self-confessed medievalis, like myself may have encountered the rule that the one you can't remember is the one you're most guilty of. So we wouldn't be caught in that trap, Larry Benson (ed. of the Riverside Chaucer) taught us this mnemonic when I was in grad school at Harvard back when:
LAS VEGAS
Lust
Avarice
Sloth
Vanitas (pride)
Envy
Gluttony
Anger
Sloth
Sloth appears twice for emphasis, because it was considered the worst of the lot. The one unforgivable sin, because in the form of Despair because it denied hope of forgiveness and led ultimately to suicide. Ah, the Middle Ages--full of fun stuff like that.
Not bad. I thought 59A was a veiled reference to the working habits of elected DC Senators.
WHOA. You're going to stuff your grid with stupid letter-add-ons, and MAKE IT YOUR THEME?? Plus extras?!? This has to be the worst puzzle ever made. It has everything I can't stand. Yesterday's now shines out as the week's best--by a long shot--and it contained EKE! Aiee, the sky is falling!
ISLAND END-AWLS
RENEE was ASEA for a TIMESPAN
so LONG, maybe ASIF an EON it's BIN,
SADD and HARD UP TO BED a man,
she STEAMSUP in HASTE for CAPITALSSIN.
--- CHAD SPICER
Got the theme, and almost finished the whole puzzle, but unknown names once again caused me to look up my "pop" culture. That mnemonic was a movie. Who knew? Probably everyone else. I am a one-person cultural wasteland.
At least I knew SEAN SPICER, which was my entry point into the puzzle.
And the stadium had a dome before it got a ROOF. Other than those bits, smooth sailing ASEA.
Diana, Lady-in-Waiting for Crosswords
Was anticipating a good rant and @spacey did not disappoint. Otherwise it would be ASIF the beer would BFLAT at BARBQS. Maybe got to FREEUP what STEAMSUP the man. Take your BOWS in the corners. More ATTEN.
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