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Gaelic garment / SUN 8-28-22 / Second caliph of Sunni Islam / Gray-brown flycatchers / Sapa ancient emperor's title / N Sync member who later became a gay rights activist / Rhizome to a botanist / Natural source of glitter / Creatures described as catarrhine from the Latin for downward-nosed
Sunday, August 28, 2022
Constructor: Ori Brian
Relative difficulty: Easy-Medium
Theme answers:
- BREAK THE ICE (22A: Get a party started? [bee, hare, tick])
- WET BLANKET (28A: Buzzkill [bat, elk, newt])
- PARKING SPACE (34A: A little of a lot? [carp, pig, snake])
- WATERMELON PATCH (47A: Locale of many vines [cat, elephant, worm])
- BATHROOM SCALE (62A: Something you might step on by the shower [cobra, moth, seal])
- "GENERAL HOSPITAL" (78A: Long-running soap opera that debuted in 1963 [ant, gorilla, sheep])
- GLOBE THEATRE (91A: London landmark [beetle, hog, rat])
- GOLDEN GATE (98A: Bridge that's painted International Orange [dog, eel, gnat])
ʿUmar ibn al-Khaṭṭāb (Arabic: عمر بن الخطاب, also spelled Omar, c. 583/584 – 644) was the second Rashidun caliph, ruling from August 634 until his assassination in 644. He succeeded Abu Bakr (r. 632–634) as the second caliph of the Rashidun Caliphate on 23 August 634. Umar was a senior companion and father-in-law of the Islamic prophet Muhammad. He was also an expert Muslim jurist known for his pious and just nature, which earned him the epithet al-Faruq ("the one who distinguishes (between right and wrong)").
Umar initially opposed Muhammad, his distant Qurayshite kinsman and later son-in-law. Following his conversion to Islam in 616, he became the first Muslim to openly pray at the Kaaba. Umar participated in almost all battles and expeditions under Muhammad, who bestowed the title al-Faruq ('the Distinguisher') upon Umar, for his judgements. After Muhammad's death in June 632, Umar pledged allegiance to Abu Bakr (r. 632–634) as the first caliph and served as the closest adviser to the latter until August 634, when the dying Abu Bakr nominated Umar as his successor.
Under Umar, the caliphate expanded at an unprecedented rate, ruling the Sasanian Empire and more than two-thirds of the Byzantine Empire. His attacks against the Sasanian Empire resulted in the conquest of Persia in less than two years (642–644). According to Jewish tradition, Umar set aside the Christian ban on Jews and allowed them into Jerusalem and to worship. Umar was assassinated by the Persian slave Abu Lu'lu'a Firuz in 644. (wikipedia)
• • •
I weirdly had trouble getting started with this one, mostly because I wasn't understanding how the puzzle was using the word "Gaelic" (or TARTAN, for that matter) (1A: Gaelic garment). I had -ARTA- and still no clue. I think of Gaelic primarily as a language, and when I think of it culturally, I think primarily of Ireland, not Scotland, whereas TARTAN is, in my mind, exclusively a Scottish thing. Also, TARTAN makes me think "pattern" far more than it makes me think "garment." But technically both "Gaelic" and "garment" are used correctly here—I just couldn't process it all, and thought maybe there was a garment called a CARTAN (like ... an Irish caftan??). I also found NOT MANY very hard (6D: A handful). The term "a handful" sounds like something very difficult—specifically, someone very difficult, esp. if that someone is, say, a toddler. "He can be a handful." The idea that "a handful" meant "just a few," i.e. NOT MANY ... that did not occur to me until very late. Beyond that, I had just one significant sticking point, and that was everything in and around and especially including UMAR, which ... wow, OK, that's a new name. I don't even think I've seen the *first* "caliph of Sunni Islam" in the grid before, and you expect me to know the second? That's a big ask, considering that in my 30+ years of solving ...
It looks like the constructor got into a real tight spot with theme answer placement. Things get especially restricted once you decide to run RUNS AMOK in there. You can't do much with that area connecting WATERMELON and BATHROOM unless you do a pretty significant grid tear-down. You can feel the desperation in this tight space, and it's not only because of UMAR. I mean, INRE is in there too, and it's not like that is high-quality fill. I think I would've done whatever I could, including rebuilding the surrounding areas, to get rid of the UMAR / INRE unsightliness. But ... maybe UMAR is a very, very important name that crosswords have unfairly neglected over the years. Lord knows I (continue to) feel that way about OZU and VARDA ...
- 68D: "Beats me" ("I'VE NO IDEA") — so this one is weird because the contraction (unexpectedly?) makes the phrase feel more formal. Like, "beats me" is obviously slangy, but "I HAVE NO IDEA" feels more like what a person who says "beats me" would say, whereas "I'VE NO IDEA" sounds more like what someone who says "Pardon me, have you any Grey Poupon?" would say.
- 82D: Strong hold (IRON GRIP) — don't love the clue, which is basically just [synonym for iron + synonym for grip], but the answer is one of my favorite things in the grid, along with OVERCOOK, for reasons I don't quite understand myself (70A: Make dry, as salmon).
- 80D: ___ Malnati's, Chicago-style pizza chain (LOU) — absolutely no idea. If it's a chain, it's not a chain anywhere I've lived. A very hard-won three-letter name for me today.
- 54A: Al-___, family of Syrian leaders (ASSAD) — yeah, still war criminals, still in power, still unwelcome in my gridspace
- 113A: Gets around (EVADES) — total kealoa* train wreck, as I got the "V" first and (predictably) wrote in the wrong guess, AVOIDS. Sigh.
Congratulations to my friend Matt Gritzmacher for winning the Lollapuzzoola Crossword Tournament yesterday (Tyler Hinman, champion of many tournaments, many times over, won the online division, son congrats to him as well). I really wish I could've been there. COVID really decimated in-person tournaments, which means that I haven't seen many of my crossword friends in years now. Fingers crossed for a 2023 return to crossword tournament normalcy. It was great to see pics of Matt and his championship trophy.
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| [That's Matt with Brooke Husic, who constructed the tournament's apparently lovely and punishing Final Puzzle] |
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| [Pictures stolen from Matt's Twitter feed] |
See you tomorrow.
*kealoa = short, common answer that you can't just fill in quickly because two or more answers are viable, Even With One or More Letters In Place. From the classic [Mauna ___] KEA/LOA conundrum. See also, e.g. [Heaps] ATON/ALOT, ["Git!"] "SHOO"/"SCAT," etc.
[Follow Rex Parker on Twitter and Facebook]
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114 comments:
Least helpful theme. Ever.
But still a reasonably fun Sunday puzzle.
Easy-medium. I’m no fan of anagrams so I ignored that aspect of the puzzle and solved it as a themeless. I thought it was pretty good themeless, liked it more than @Rex did.
UMAR had me doubting the crosses.
Bad. The theme was superfluous. I guess it’s cool to get those animals in the answers, but why give the second set of clues at all? At least it wasn’t all that hard, I guess. Another meh Sunday.
I'VE NO IDEA... @Rex said "the contraction (unexpectedly?) makes the phrase feel more formal". Sharp observation!
12 down "Rhizome, to a botanist", I had ROOTSTOCK and: why doesn't it work? Oh, it's STALK, you say?... all the times I've heard the phrase, I never knew!! English pronunciation is just a minefield.
I was just watching golf... they have so many expressions now to describe shots, eg OVERCOOK for hitting it too hard. (We touched on FRIED EGG a while ago.)
[Spelling Bee: Sat. 0; hardly any weird words (well maybe these two 4s).]
May as well be themeless.
Yep.
Abu Bakr and OMAR I know. The NYTX also knows the Caliph as OMAR, with a handful of appearances among the 840 OMAR appearances (along with Bradley, Sharif, Vizquel, Khayyám, Epps, Ilhan, and others). I had to fix oRNS and figured it was an alternative way to transliterate the Arabic name. If we’re going to go with UMAR then maybe equal time is needed for Alī ibn Abī Ṭālib.
I think the answer at 108a should be ANAGRAMIZES.
After I got the first anagram I decided it would be more fun to just figure out the other anagrams rather than bother with the rest of the grid. So my "solution" contains only the theme answers plus the northwest corner (see avatar photo).
And the topic for today's debate is (drum roll)...
CROSSBREEDS or HYBRIDS? Have at it.
33a: What's the best natural source of glitter? A disco ball, of course!
This was one of the very very few Sundays I successfully filled in on my first try, no auto check, so was happy to get it but didn’t understand the theme was an anagram until now. So…still work to do in the smarts category.
I’m with @jae on anagrams. As much as palindromes fascinate me, anagrams just, well, don’t. Unless they’re the brilliant ones. Whoever figured out that eleven plus two anagrams to twelve plus one deserves a Nobel Prize.
Rex – I did refer to the clues as a little check to make sure that, like, there was a K in one of the animals to confirm BREAK THE ICE before I filled it in.
I struggled a bit, especially after an embarrassing “wine region ranch” before WATERMELON PATCH. Yikes.
“Something you might step on by the shower” [cobra, moth, seal]” – I’d rather step on a cobra than a BATHROOM SCALE. See also, rather stepping on a cobra than trying on those jeans that have been temporarily retired all summer.
Rex – Your plaint about I’VE NO IDEA really had me thinking. (Hey, @okanaganer, and I see what you did with your "Sharp observation" compliment.) Man, I love this place. I'VE NO IDEA does feel really British. I think we here stateside are likely to make that -’VE contraction when have is an auxiliary verb:
Any chance you’ve stepped on a cobra?
But we tend not to contract it when it’s the main verb:
Any chance you’ve a cobra I can step on?
And No One contracts the possessive have when it’s sentence-final
*Are those two cobras really all you’ve?
Continuing the British/American comparisons. . . I also misspelled THEATRE as “theater” – OOPS. THEATRE, honour, behaviour, etc. are little written iterations of British English that scream We're smarter than you, the same way their spoken English does. Why this is, I’ve no idea.
I was today years old when I realized girdle was GIRD with an -le suffix. So I took one for the team here and investigated that -le suffix. The first meaning is denoting repeated or continuous action . Makes total sense; that GIRD is constantly girding you. My first feel for the suffix is its diminutive meaning. Like, a girdle is a little GIRD, just a slight smashing in of all that is the reason that BATHROOM SCALE is so offensive. So you could coin a new word and say that a hummingbird is a birdle.
Loved GO LEFT. We hear it a lot now describing a situation that has taken a turn for the worse, the opposite of going right. Everything was going right until Uncle Eugene got ahold of the mic. Then things went left fast. I suggest we add a third meaning to GO LEFT, a la Michele Obama"s famous admonition. A political slogan, maybe for Floridians disgusted by DeSantis saying that Dr. Fauci was a "little elf" who should be "chucked across the Potomac." WHEN THEY GO LOW, WE GO LEFT!
Joyless slog. I got the joke without the revealer. When I got to Assad I decided to just quit. First Sunday I just walked away from because it was no fun.
One of the weakest and worst Sundays in my memory. Extremely weak theme, as Rex noted, and the fill was really bad for a theme that should offer way more sparkling possibilities than what ended up on the grid.
This is Peggy Lee puzzle.
Like so many others, I got the significance of the animals early on and solved as an Easy-medium themeless. Overwrites: NOT a lot before NOT MANY at 6D and I'VE NO clue before I'VE NO IDEA at 68D. I had a bit of trouble in the NE, since I didn't remember LANCE BASS and didn't know POLKA DOTS were fashionable (again?).
Nits
ALEX/ALEC
Turning left on Red is allowed if onto a one way street-not rare.
THE(MEDIA)
Be careful what you say around the carrots and parsnips. ROOTS TALK!
What is the meaning of 42A, ONEASY (the way beginners play video games)???
I hope Zed's head didn't explode.
70 across: “Make dry, as salmon”
Oh… does it have something to do with taking the skin off, or does it mean, like in the process of pulling out water with sugar and salt when you turn it into LOX ? or maybe when salmon is hot smoked - where it certainly dries out some, or as in the longer process of creating jerky - where it gets really dry ?
NO. NONE OF THOSE AT ALL, dear crossword solver ! Salmon is a Red Herring. All the clue meant was that you have a dry SALMON if you OVERCOOK it. Hello ! Doesn’t this happens when you overcook virtually ANYTHING, even water? Why not say “Make dry, as Siberian Yak” ? …or my sister’s Thanksgiving turkey. Let’s get a grip on some of these clues.
***W O R D L E***S P O I L E R***A L E R T
Although I don't think the following would really help anyone.
I always choose my starter from the Xword. Turns out there's a really good one today. Also turns out it's not the one I used.
I never realized there were anagrams so never got the theme but solved it anyway.
I generally like anagrams. They can be fun. This puzzle demonstrates how they can be not fun.
I'm from Chicago and know Lou Malnati's well. Its locations are in Illinois, Wisconsin, Indiana and Arizona so... yeah, for a NYT puzzle solver, unless you're from one of those areas, it's probably not a place you know.
I had a reasonably pleasant (and quick) time solving this, but I had no idea whatsoever how the theme worked or how to make sense out of those animals. I stared and stared at it and tried all kinds of things (hmmm, GOLDEN has DOG, does that mean Golden Retriever? That’s a breed… etc.) but nothing worked.
And now I learn that they’re…. anagrams?!? Jeez… I guess it’s cool post-solve that those answers have those animals in them, but it played no role at all in my solve and is massively anti-climactic.
Same issues as Rex with TARTAN and A handful and, yeah, UMAR.
One of my favorite anagram sets:
LIAR
LAIR
RAIL
LIRA
RIAL
ARIL
Back from a week-long ferns and lycophytes course in Maine. You better believe rhizomes came up a lot (not once called ROOT STALKS, by the way).
On the last night, we watched the Elaine May movie (directing and starring) A New Leaf, which features ferns prominently.
I mention this a) as I enjoy Elaine May b) because there’s not much to say about this puzzle. Solved as a themeless, making two Sundays in a row.
Meh, Umar is easy. People should learn basic facts about major world religions.
Ori, I wondered how the heck you figured out these three-animal anagrams; what kind of genius you are. Alas, I read in Jeff Chen’s blog that it’s fairly easy to do by making a certain type of computer program. I am going to continue to believe, however, that you did it manually, and are an anagram prodigy. We need heroes and role models, do we not?
My brain shuts down at big anagrams, so those animals didn’t help my solve, which nonetheless went smoothly. Furthermore, Ori, your puzzle gave me some lovely moments – throwing in ABUELO when I didn’t know that I knew it, smiling at POLKA DOTS for [Fashionable spots], thinking about WET BLANKET for the first time in forever, and that cool moment when I realized that RUED is both an anagram and homonym of “rude”.
So, Ori, I had a scintillating time going through your puzzle. Thank you so much!
@loren -- "When they go low, we go left". Triple "Hah!"
Aside from the nonsense anagram SLANT - I thought this was a well filled themeless puzzle. I liked most of the themers as standalone entries - WET BLANKET, GOLDEN GATE etc. Literary Walk yesterday and GLOBE THEATRE today is cool. Liked the POP ART x RUNS AMOK cross. The ASS in ASSAD really pops here.
Hey @pablo or @Gill - I’m assuming ABUELitO is used more informally - for gramps, or poppy rather than grandfather?
A sweet 80s Stones’ cover - Miss AMANDA Jones
No anagram fun here - but an enjoyable Sunday solve nonetheless.
I seem to be an outlier today, as I enjoyed this one - probably because I grokked the theme, actually used the animal hints and finished unassisted (probably only the fourth or fifth time in many years). I was holding on for dear life at the end since I had no clue Re TARTAN above ABUELO and fell into the same trap as OFL re “A handful” being an energetic child. Finally had the NOT MANY aha and Mr. Happy Music at the same time.
I’ll spare everyone with the daily nits today since I’m actually kind of excited to have finished a grid containing things like ANKH, UMAR and PHOEBES which usually are my kryptonite.
On easy mode
As in: beginners are playing the game ON EASY (difficulty): as many games allow you to select from a range of difficulties, easy, hard, etc.
I kind of enjoyed the theme. Agree it was unnecessary, but it actually helped me get SCALE when I couldn't figure what what to step on after a shower. And the fill had lots of fun clues and misdirects, like "request for a hand". And I've spent a fair part of my summer trying to identify the flycatchers around here, so PHOEBES was a fun entry (having started with PeeweEs, which is slightly more accurate I think, phoebes having a fair amount of white on them). Know how to identify a Phoebe? They say "fee-bee" a lot. My mom used to insist she suffered much derision from her brothers when she asked her mother "what's that bird going chick-a-dee-dee-dee". We have flocks of them around. Still miss her alot.
I don't hate anagrams, but I'm not that good at them. Although I think I did solve this Saturday's poem anagram puzzle. So I solved this as a themeless puzzle. As such, unless you are hung up on your personal likes and dislikes, the puzzle seemed to be a good puzzle,
By the way, left on red is only allowed from a one way street to another one way street (perhaps not in all states but certainly in NY), but it seems not that many drivers are aware of this. So many that they had to install a sign on Midland Avenue in Yonkers alerting drivers it's OK to proceed onto Central Avenue if the red left traffic arrow light is not lit.
Wordle 435 5/6*
⬜🟧⬜⬜🟧
⬜🟧⬜⬜🟧
⬜🟧⬜🟦🟧
🟧🟧🟧⬜🟧
🟧🟧🟧🟧🟧
Straight guesses on 3, 4, 5
Game needs a revealer, or something!
As the landscape of offensive landmines grows exponentially, apparently it's still not offensive to use a boy as your e.g. for a handful. I have always identified as he/him/his and spent a lot of money on therapy for having been a handful. Maybe the latter was causative of the former. (Or maybe boy is real, the boy-spiritedness is real, and boys will be boys.)
Is this theme "extraneous" or "superfluous"? Hard to say. I caught on at WETBLANKET and proceeded to ignore the rest of the animals in the clues after that. UMAR and LOUS and possible LANCEBASS were the only new-to-me answers. Some hesitation on THEATER vs. THEATRE (I guessed wrong) but otherwise played very easy. Also I like anagrams and ignored them anyway.
BTW, has anyone else noticed the second syllable of vs. has disappeared? I watch a lot of sports and it seems everyone is saying "It's Team A verse Team B". Wha hoppen?
@Son Volt- In my experience, ABUELO can be formal or informal. I've also heard ABUELITO for a more informal nickname. I hope @GILL I weighs in, as she's the native speaker and I'm just a wannabe.
Nice enough Sundecito, OB. Obviously Better than nothing, so thanks for some fun.
Some of the cluing here was terrible and wrong. TARTAN is foremost cloth with a pattern, not the actual garment, and most frequently in my experience is just the pattern, as in 'What's the tartan of your kilt?' 'That's a nice tartan shirt', or jacket, or trousers, or trews if we're being more Scottish. Given that plenty of people already don't know what tartan is, whcih might include the authors of the puzzle, to employ the metonymy is inexcusable. It's so important to make one across good and correct. The fact that they didn't soured my mood and made me suspicious of the rest of the puzzle, with good reason. Next, catarrhine is Greek, not Latin. If you are going to mention etymology, get it right. Furthermore, humans are APES; we 'creatures' are catarrhine too, but so are some monkeys. It's like they discovered the word 'catarrhine' and thought everyone else should know about it too, but who cares about the actual derivation or the fact that it can describe a different species. Never heard of LOU Malnati's—Gino's, Giordanos, Uno and Due, sure— and this is a NY Times puzzle anyway. We don't eat Chicago style pizza in NY. Even the theme itself was absolutely useless as you point out, Rex. It was a distraction. It's all well and good that the authors were clever enough to anagram animals from some of the longer answers, but if that isn't a necessary part of the solve—and it isn't—, for me that falls totally flat.
I thought it was an easy clue. the answer was the first thing I thought of after reading the clue.
The fact that the so-called theme answers were so straight forward confused me and so I found it unnecessarily difficult. I didn’t trust the answers. Sheesh.
Easy peasy, finished without getting up once from my beach chair, with a wet/sandy page and luckily a pen that could write anyway.
One comment - you need to get some Lou Malnati's. Drool. As a born & bred midwesterner I can tell you they are excellent pizzas (and even deliver relatively well). https://www.loumalnatis.com/
When I first looked at the theme clues, my thought was: "This puzzle could turn out to be very, very hard!" The clues made no sense...unless...
Could the combined animals possibly produce anagrams? I found myself hoping that they would produce anagrams. Otherwise I might be in trouble.
Whew! They did. And so instead of a very hard puzzle, this was a very easy puzzle -- at least in the themed part of it -- where I only had to look at the definition part of the clue. I could ignore the animals, only glancing at them once in a while to see if the letters matched, more or less. It wasn't even necessary to cross the letters off one by one; a cursory impression was good enough.
A lot, a LOT of work for the constructor and quite an impressive feat. (Or did he use some sort of computer program like what was alluded to yesterday? It seems he would have had to.) But it was wasted on me, since the anagrams made the puzzle less challenging and not more.
Hardest themer for me: When I think of vines I think of grapes and then I think of wine. I do not think of a WATERMELON PATCH. Aren't they awfully heavy to grow on a vine?
I'd call this an anagram-based puzzle for people who hate solving anagrams. Don't worry your pretty little heads about it -- you won't have to.
Oh, yes, did she enjoy it? Actually I did -- the non-themer clues provided resistance and gave me more than enough to ponder.
Lou Marnati is the originator of Chicago deep dish pizza. Popular in Chicago. No where else. I'll take my pizza here in Italy.
Solved as a themeless.
Always remember that a whole bunch of languages, included Arabic and ancient Egyptian, don't systematically use vowels. So if Omar doesn't fit, make it UMAR. It had to be URNS, after all.
I was relieved to see that they spelled THEATRE correctly.
Needed every single cross to get LANCEBASS.
Had no idea whether the solver and Shortz would think there are 8 planets or 9.
I've been having my retinas scanned since 1977, when they detached, so that clue threw me briefly.
Villager
This theme just did not work for me. As Rex said, the answers were gettable straight up with the clues alone, and then it was like "Oh yeah, this is an anagram of those animals." Didn't help the cause at all. I initially didn't get the anagrams, even though I had several filled in already; I was expecting a series of animal breeds strung together and since the first themer I got was Golden Gate Bridge, and a Golden can be a type of dog, I was stuck there for awhile. Sorry to the constructor; just not my cup of theme tea. Happy Sunday everyone!
Sundays tend to bore me anyway, but this one REALLY bored me as it was just banal fill with an extremely dull theme that wasn't even a theme.
This would be an excellent puzzle to give to a new person to instruct them in crosswordese though. I was waiting for epee and Oreo. But a health dose of INRE APES ARID GASH ODES AMANDA CEO GMO IRA TAMI *deep breath* THE MEDIA URNS...
etc
Hey All !
I don't dislike anagrams, they can provide entertainment. The Jumble, anyone? This one was sorta odd in the fact (like Rex mentioned) that the Themers we're clued straitforward. Two of them did have a "?" clue, they should all have been clued like that. How about for BATHROOM SCALE, "Something that always seems off by the shower?" Make them kitchy clues if you're going to add the anagram animals. Two cents, and what not.
I did like the puz. Sure, some odd words that happen when you have close Themers, like that whole UMAR section. But, got away with just two oddballs there, UMAR and ANKH. But disagree with Rex on INRE, that's fairly common- ese. Still fill is fill. You do the best you can, to make it all work. For me, it's too exhausting (especially in a SunPuz) to find all the "bad" fill. Just do the puz, and enjoy yourself!
ROO day today, three of 'em! ROOTSTALK, ROOST, BATHROOM SCALE. And RUED. Har. I never knew ROOTS could TALK. Maybe I'll go out and converse with my tree ..
Nice puz Ori. Don't let the Blah-ers get you down. 😁
One F (NOT MANY)
RooMonster
DarrinV
@Anon6:27 - Head is fine, but I did utter a few profanities. That letters can be rearranged to make different words is still a first grade observation. De gustibus and all that, but most things other people like that I don’t I can at least appreciate on an intellectual level. Anagrams, though, are just complete and utter inanity to me.
@DanQuizzing - Mostly agree, but I am familiar with the whole sectarian split and still misspelt it as oMAR. Speaking of, really wanted to make a comparison between Alī ibn Abī Ṭālib’s stolen election claim and a certain traitorous ex-president’s followers, but the Shia I know are all far more sane, intelligent, and patriotic than the MAGATs. Hence, I didn’t.
@Chris - It’s called “misdirection” and it is a feature, not a bug, of crosswords.
@Anon 6:19 - Yep on the ALEX/ALEC thing. Arched Eyebrow on both ALEC and the way it was clued.
@LMS - Where does the terminal hanging helping verb, “Yes, you should’ve [stepped on the cobra]”, fit? And that it doesn’t really fit the reason we so often change it to, “Yes, you should of”?
And now I’m wondering if Target carries Cobra brand BATHROOM SCALEs. Slogan,Yes, you really would rather step on a Cobra™️
WHEN THEY GO LOW, WE GO LEFT! - Yep. My leftward turn began with Reagan and the onset of the Anti-Robin Hood Socialism of “the right” (steal from the poor to give to the rich - see the recent hypocrisy around student loan forgiveness). Republicans weren’t as uniformly racist in the 1980’s because the “Southern Strategy” hadn’t fully subsumed the party yet. But Reagan’s racism was all too obvious.
Interesting point about watermelons being vines. Like pumpkins, they are grown on the ground, but the plant makes tendrils that seek out vertical supports in an effort to get some elevation and hopefully more sunlight. Now I’m wondering if we bred watermelons and pumpkins to be too large to grow high. The fruits got heavier but the plant didn’t figure out that growing upward wasn’t a net gain anymore? Google “vining vegetable” to see about 16 plants that vine, including a type of spinach.
I planted pole beans to try to outwit the bunnies that decimate my bush beans. I put a foot-high circle of chicken wire around each pole. There’s nothing sadder than the sight of a vine that has gone a long way up the pole, wilting above a bite made at bunny-on-it’s-hind-legs-height. The tradeoff for vining the way pole beans do: more sun, but one bite can kill practically the whole plant.
Thx, Ori, for this fun Sun.! :)
Easy-med.
Smooth, steady solve.
Lot's of clever clueing.
Solid theme, but didn't really need to refer to it as an aid.
Currently listening to an audiobook ('Focused' by Alyson Gerber) where the protagonist (a chess player named Clea) talks about 'promoting' PAWNS (usually to queens).
Excellent video re: PAWNS. (see 1:30 in for 'promotion'.
Enjoyed the adventure! :)
Very challenging Acrostic today (maybe toughest ever for me), but also very gratifying to get it right in the end. :)
___
Peace 🙏 🇺🇦 ~ Compassion ~ Tolerance ~ Kindness to all 🕊
This puzzle was fine, mainly because of the clue for PARKINGSPACE.
The best part of the puzzle was @LMS's cobra examples.
totally agree with the group today. played themeless and "enough of the Alex/Alec" clues. When we get to the "if you drop the middle letter and count back from 10 you get..." clues I'll cancel my crossword subscription.
when did "should of" replace "should have"? I should of seen it coming? bah.
that crossword contest must have been super competitive. is Brooke Husic wearing a bulletproof vest?
anyway, I only come here for the LMS comments.
Zippy
I saw WATERMELON from crosses and had -A-CH after that, so naturally I put in rAnCH and thought, Is that a thing? Are there watermelon wranglers and watermelon drives? @Nancy - they do grow on vines, but the vines run along the ground. It’s amazing how far they can travel. I don’t grow them (they take up too much space and I don’t like them all that much), but I do grow squash and zucchini and I’m often amazed to find one popping up among the cucumbers. How did you get all the way over here?
@Loren, that is a fascinating discovery about how a contraction of “have” only sounds British when it’s a solo verb. (“I see you’ve no crumpets today.”) Never would have noticed that. I spend a lot of time editing American and British writers of reports to our funders, and it’s maddening when a British colleague is writing a report to an American funder or vice versa. Taking out (or adding) all the letter u’s in honor/honour, moving commas and periods inside or outside quotation marks, etc. If only there were a program that just changed all that automatically. Hmm, I guess you can set the preferred language as British or American English - not sure you can do it in Google docs, which is mostly what I use.
Like everyone else, I did not use the animal clues at all, but I did think it was nice that the three beasts were always exact anagrams of the long answer. Anagrams don’t interest me much but I love acrostics, even more than crosswords.
Finally, let’s give a shout-out to SERENA, probably playing her last tournament next week. Unquestionably the GOAT of the women’s game. Hope she and Venus keep playing doubles.
Sure, create a phrase scrambling three animal names. Easy peasy with the animals the constructors chose. Let’s see them do something with quagga, zebu and axolotl!
This was an easy puzzle once I realized how recognizable the themers we're and quit trying to make sense of the bracketed gibberish. I was briefly distracted by the dog/GOLDEN fluke but went right back to dispatching the grid.
After I'd finished I went to xwordinfo and found out what the theme was...BORRRRING!
Like most Sunday puzzles what I enjoyed of this one was the thorniness of the fill and smoking out the unknown names.
My OHSURE/OKSURE write over was of little interest but I really liked changing SITU to LIEU. That's one of your more exotic looking kea/loas.
I'm a Chicagoan who does not like deep dish pizza and I find Lou Malnati's version to be particularly distasteful. What you really want to order in Chicago is stuffed pizza.
A TARTAN is a garment? I'm trying to picture what that might be. Maybe a wee kilt for a risque Scotsman.
yd -0
Nice nod to Pittsburgh at 34D with Andy Warhol crossing PITT at 46A. I was just out there for a visit -- it's a wonderful city, easy to get around. The AW museum is worth the time, tho you leave with a craving for tomato soup. The Bayernhof Museum is an unusual gem -- rare and few-of-a-kind music machines in a weird Bavarian Mansion overlooking the Allegheny R.
The ballpark is spectacular, tho the Pirates are awful. I paid $1.45 to park at a meter on the street not far from the stadium. Unheard of (for a New Yorker). I had to stop a couple passing by and ask if it was legal. They said, Yeah, that's what you do.
Favorite clue/answer today: POLKA DOTS for "fashionable spots," at 15D.
How come nobody is mentioning that Globe Theatre has two Ts and the anagram only had one T?
Beetle and rat
@Anon 10:46 Should of has not replaced should have and is always wrong. These egregious errors occur when oral language sounds are, through ignorance, misunderstood. Should've can sound like should of. That's just the way we speak. But, in case your(ha, just kidding) You're missing my point, should of is incorrect in writing.
I've been foregoing Sundays because they seem to always need sauce. Instead, the usual condiments are the boring ketchup - mustard variety that are our only choices.
I wanted to try this one because of what @Nancy said yesterday. Let's see if I'm intrigued...
I believe a computer was used to find the animals to make into anagrams. A feature I don't particularly like.
That Ori was able to develop a system that gives you the anagrams is a feat in itself. How grandiose it would've been had he had done this without help from the ROBOT's that control our thinking.
At 1A I asked Mr. Scouser what he thinks might be a Gaelic garment. He immediately said "tam o shanter."
Cool... only it's wrong. I penned in BREAK THE ICE and pondered any significance. None. I penned in WET BLANKET and the rat maze took hold. No need to GO LEFT. Anagrams of animals...generated by a computer no less. OK SURE.
I looked at POLKA DOTS and wanted to know who fell off the turnip truck. Did Martha Stewart tell us they are back in fashion? UHOH, will it be one of those days?
I finished and pondered my reaction. It was a bit like looking at a WATERMELON PATCH and wondering what happened to the grapes.
On a bathroom scale from one to ten, I give it a 9 for ingenuity and a 4 for for fat content. The satisfaction came in at an even 5. I need to gain some weight.
@Son Volt 8:04....adding ito/ita and sometimes ico/ica are lovely endearments the Spanish speaking community might add to en ending word. It indicates affection and maybe something that is small and cute. Someone might ask "Es tu ABUELO?" and the answer (if you love grandpa) would be "es mi ABUELITO." I think, in this cluing, Ori, or Will, should've clued it as Granada grandfather...not grandpa. Ojito to details.
@bocamp-The Acrostic played mostly easy-medium for me, but I got several answers on my first pass through, which always helps.
I did enjoy what I thought was a mini-theme running through the quote and the answers, once I saw that it was very helpful, and I'm not going to spoil anything by identifying it.
Well, that was a let-down. And for that I had to suffer through ASSAD crossing Lance BASS? Bad enough UMAR who? ALEX and ALEC? Then we had the GIRLS gone craze fest of RHEA, LEAH, OONA, HODA, TAMI, finally finishing up with SERENA. Then on to the boys with LOU and ABNER to go with the aforementioned others. With that streak of 3, 4, and 5 letter names, I’m actually surprised that they missed the opportunity to clue BOND as ‘Spy 007’, IRA as ‘Journalist Flatow’, and PHOEBES as ‘Friends character and others’.
I thought the revealer was also a bit inappropriate. CROSSBREEDS would have been more like what we saw with the state names the other day, where one state name CROSSed over into another state name. So I like the term ANIMALAGRAMS much better to describe today’s theme (even if I just made it up).
Also stretching the languages a bit I think with ABUELO on top of OCHO and AMIE (which, I thought should have had the une before it as the clue included that in French as well). Couldn’t find any place to put our more familiar tio? About the only thing I liked was DEALMEIN. ENROLEES, especially as clued, just looks ugly to me. And that’s all this puzzle AMOUNTedTO in my opinion. Thought kvetch just meant to talk, to shoot the breeze, to gab. So I learned something there. Yay. And had no idea video games had an ONEASY setting. I did it in slightly better than average time, but felt very little joy in it. I’ll be taking some ALEVE now before the headache that this puzzle gave me forces me to go to the GENERALHOSPITAL.
@ Anon 10:24, My pumpkins, and cucumbers, get grown on trellises to save my garden space. As they grow, I ‘sling’ them. i.e. I support them in little hammocks made from those nets lemons and oranges are sold in, or the occasional old pantyhose. Lore has it that native Americans used to grow corn, beans, and squash together. The corn provided the stalk support for the beans and the squash gave groundcover to keep the weeds out. They were called The Three Sisters.
@okanaganer, I always thought ROOTSTocK was the original plant onto which another type is grafted. Most ‘dwarf’ fruit tree varieties fall into that category as do some tomatos and shrubs. I also know that I eat a STALK of celery with my BBQ wings. I never quite heard of the puzzles ROOTSTALK, but google says it’s valid. And @ Anon 6:25 AM: You should never tell secrets in a garden because the potatoes have eyes, the corn has ears, and the beans-talk!
Also congrats to Matt on his Lollapuzzoola 2022 (aka Twentytwentytoola) win. I joined the fun online. Fun and brutal at the same time. Came in at 300 out of @375 in the standings and was totally spent. But will promptly do it again next year.
They're not crossbreeds. They're cross breeds. Across breeds.
For those in doubt, I can assure you that TARTAN is a very versatile word. It can refer to the distinctive pattern of the garment, the fabric that makes up the garment, or the garment itself.
Natick at LANCEBASS and INCA crossing BOND. I had “cord,” and Lance Cass and Sapa Irca seemed reasonable enough answers in my mind. Oh, well. Happy Sunday, all.
Editors must’ve been asleep here: ( I’m with you, Anonymous 9:02)
1. I can’t believe “the editor” passed on 7A clue! If you’re going to allow a high-falootin’ word like catarrhine you really ought to know where it came from. Kata “down”+rhin- “nose’ IN GREEK, for Pete’s sake, not Latin. I mean, really, with all those other off the wall references (2nd Sunni caliph? Sapa- ruler? ‘NSYNC?) you can’t be bothered to check an etymology?
2. both ALEX and ALEC? REALLY? Bad editing!! Not an actual repeat, but we’ve seen so many laxes on repeats lately) maybe if clued differently…again, lazy editing.
3. Plus, inconsistent use of ?: Not needed for BREAK THE ICE, as it’s almost as literal as GENERAL HOSPITAL and GOLDEN GATE, with no ? even though they’re themers.
4. “Make dry, like salmon”??? Doesn’t everything become dry if you OVERCOOK IT? “…like salmon” totally unnecessary.
As to all detractors of the use of “tartan”, you’ll find several examples of its use as the garment here https://dictionary.cambridge.org/us/dictionary/english/tartan
I still don't understand the anagrams. Can someone explain one like 34 across for me?
I just love Chinese food. Chow Mein, Lo Mein, DEALMEIN.
In this world, you’re either a GOATEE or a GOATor.
I seem to remember a British version of our 1960’s western featuring the character Paladin. It was called I’ve Gun, Will Travel.
BATHROOMSCALE is most effectively addressed with Ajax and a wire brush.
According to M-W, it is allowable to refer to GENERALHOSPITAL as GENusesLHOSPITAL.
People are actually being paid money these days to get tattoos of brand names. When you get one on your butt, it’s an ASSAD.
Enough of this malarkey. I agree with Rex and also enjoyed his write up.
I've been waiting to see one of the other lawyer commenters complain about 68A. Granted, my practice was more litigation than transactions, but I saw a fair number of contracts, and I don't remember ever seeing one with "in re" in it. Memos, sure. Case names, sure.
@egs -
Don't Bogart that joint, my friend
Pass it over to me
Easy, dull, boring, little excitement, not a single “wow” moment. Theme was useless. Not a factor at all.
@egs 12:23
LOL! Great form today (well, not like you're in bad form any other day...
You get what I'm saying!)
@Gill
Enjoy your stories also. Some have me literally LOLing. (Yes, "literally" used correctly there,.) 😁
@LMS
You always have the good stories. My life pales in comparison to your "adventures!" (Or maybe you just know how to tell a story.)
(Nah, my life pales...)
RooMonster Pale Guy
Sigh!
“Classic” Sunday easyish slog.
Sigh!
Got the anagram thing but so what?
🥱🦖🦖🦖😴
Yikes. Comin up with 8 themers, all anagrams of three different animals … the construcioneer clearly suffered, during the theme development phase. I respect the effort, and -- since no PEWITs were used in these theme answers -- hereby give this SunPuz an automatic honorary thUmbsUp.
staff weeject pick: GMO. OMG hybrid.
Kinda sad, that APES didn't get to cross-breed. Cuz APE+TRUMP+OWL does anagram to TEMPURA PLOW, after all …
Thanx for the fun, Mr. Brian dude.
Masked & Anonymo6Us
**gruntz**
The roughest KEALOA I can think of is DITTO SODOI SOAMI METOO TRUTH—all clued as “Agreed!” or some such. I’m sure I’m missing one or two, no less.
@Anon 9:02, @Mary M All taxonomy, zoological and biological, is expressed in New Latin. Catarrhini, hence Catarrhine, is part of New Latin, which borrowed the term from Ancient Greek. The clue is correct, as the Parvorder is expressed in New Latin. That it is also in Ancient Greek is besides the point.
@Anon 9:02 That a clue doesn't match definition 1A of the answer doesn't make it either wrong nor bad, just a tad more difficult. And it doesn't matter if this occurs at 1 Across.
Got up late after a wild and woolly week with friends and had no patience to even care about the puzzle theme so I solved like a themeless since my powers of observation can be amazingly low at times, i.e. not noticing the anagrams. Still in all I enjoyed the puzzle and felt very smug at the fact I could fill in LANCEBASS with very few crosses.
But. At first I totally resisted INRE as a “contract phrase.” Any contract attorneys in the crowd here? As an attorney I think of ‘In re The Estate of John Doe’ and other court actions where ‘Doe v. Smith’ isn’t applicable. May I add this did not affect my enjoyment of the puzzle. Just curious.
Anon 6:19…my state only allows one to turn left at a red light when you are ON a one-way street turning onto a one-way street. If I am driving in another state I wouldn’t even do THAT unless someone behind me beeps.
@Okanaganer—Me too on ROOTstock!
@LMS, I guess my thought on BATHROOMSCALE was “Do people still put scales in their bathrooms”? Such a psychologically unhealthy daily habit. Seems like it should be on a shelf to be pulled out occasionally. I use the “this pair of pants seems tight/loose” weight monitoring method.
@OffTheGrid, LOL on the Peggy Lee puzzle. A very nice way of conveying your sentiments. Wink.
@Conrad, not sure how I know this but navy blue with white polka dots were in style I believe last year. Of course, I only know this because I get a Nordstrom “catalog.”
@Pabloinnh - I’ve noted the use of verse in LIEU of versus also! Maybe Rushdie’s controversial book will become The Satanic Verse
Well, I certainly ran off at the mouth today!
Ha - glad I didn’t think of @Rex’s toddler. NOT MANY and TARTAN went right in. I’ll echo the rest of the writeup, though, right down to his take on I’VE, where my first guess was “got NO IDEA,” and OVERCOOK being a fave. I also enjoyed the clues for WATERMELON PATCH, ALEX, PAWNS, SINE and POLKA DOTS.
Is it just me or is ROOST uncommon to find in the crossword? Usually it’s ROO or ROOS. Maybe ROOSTER will show up soon.
If SERENA wins a game is her opponent a GOATEE?
My good friend BREEDs and shows pugs, and she is a real OVER achiever. She takes great pains to socialize them, makes their food herself, and she also teaches them to play piano and make paintings with their paws. I’d like to change ON EASY to uNEASY, and clue 34D as [Paw prints?] just for her.
Overall OK, SURE for a Sunday, especially on the heels of yesterday’s SHAZAMity. Eight phrases/places that anagram to animal trios. Neat trick that didn’t add glitter to the solve. At least Ori Brian anagrams to borarini, which according to google translate is Uzbek for “going.” I’ll be borarini shortly.
Somber music in memory of a friend and mentor.
p.s.
Stuff M&A almost forgot to mention:
1) The Puztheme did sometimes help M&A out with the solvequest. Exhibit #1: Had BATHROOMS????, and just checked out the clue's animal pool, to see what the leftover letters were, to get SCALE.
2) APE+TRUMP+PEST = PUPPET MASTER. QED.
3) This mornin both m&e and PuzEatinSpouse tested negative on the covid for a change. Nice change. Feelin pretty good. Almost better than snot, in medical terms.
4) UMAR. har
5) fave grid stuffins included: IVENOIDEA. OVERCOOK. DEALMEIN. IRONGRIP. OKSURE. ANIMUS. Good stuff.
6) Part of why I was gone so long was becuz of attendin some neat super-spreader seminars, includin a great week-long one on Astronomy. Will begin the runtpuz Astronomy recap seminar series, soon ...
M&Also
Getting in late today, you know, because of my party lifestyle on Saturdays. Looks like folks generally aren't too happy with this puzzle.
I had to look up all the actors and actresses, but otherwise just a typical Sunday slog. Took forever to find a footing, but once I did things started rolling along just fine. I think my solving time was longer than usual. I'm going to go read Rex now to find out why I should have cared about the theme. Worked perfectly fine as a themeless.
THE media. Sheesk. Phoebes... gotta go read Wikipedia again.
The one time I was in London many years ago, I wanted to go to the Globe Theater, but it was sold out of course. Somehow at the last minute two tickets became available and I grabbed them. Turns out they were the premier seats one level up straight across from the stage. I have watched dozens of productions of Shakespeare's plays over the years, but still to this day the Globe version of The Comedy of Errors was far and away the best Shakespeare I've ever seen.
Uniclues:
1 Party pooper Gorman to friends.
2 Bananas, rice, applesauce, and toast -- puréed or not.
3 Ophthalmologist was unimpressed by study participants.
4 N'Sync member emulated Vincent van Gogh or Mike Tyson.
1 SAD AMANDA WETBLANKET
2 GENERAL HOSPITAL MENU
3 RUED RETINA ENROLLEES
4 LANCE BASS CAME AT EAR
Two obscure PPP downs: 21 down INSYNC FORMER MEMBER and 40 down SAPA ____ led to an error on 45 across STRONG CONNECTION. I had “hold” for strong connection and Lance Hass and Ilca as a result, both of which were as good to me as the correct Lance Bass and Inca. Took me forever. To find the error.
Super bore!! And, the CEO is not a VIP at a board meeting. The board chair is. The CEO is reporting to the board.
As another retired lawyer I agree with Another Retired Lawyer. In over 40 years never used IN RE in a contract. It’s in case names primarily but could be used in other legal writing - but not contracts.
@another retired lawyer, we must have been composing at the same time! I’m glad you and retired lawyer 3:35 weighed in so I know I’m not crazy. I’m semi-retired now and did primarily litigation also but would occasionally have to (ugh) wade through a contract. Oh well.
The clue reads: "Legal contract phrase." It does not specify it has to be in the actual contract. The clue is pretty expansive.
In Re is short for "in regard to."
Certainly, in cases and legal correspondence, the phrase is used concerning contract matters.
@ yet another retired lawyer…LOL…I think you were a DEFENSE lawyer!
Using tartan to refer to the garment itself must be pretty uncommon. I’ve never heard it and it doesn’t sound right. Maybe just an American usage?
Always a treat to get some fun anagrams!
Anagramming becomes an art when the anagram is an apt description of or commentary on the original. It's fun to try this with names, like Spiro Agnew --> "Grow a spine" (or "Grow a penis", h/t to Dick Cavett). It's also pretty hard to pull off well.
It was @Wanderlust who noted that Acrostics are anagrams writ large, which I've not seen put quite that way before. I love Acrostics too.
@bocamp
If it's any consolation, I also found today's Acrostic harder than usual, by a factor of 2 or 3, but in the end I really enjoyed the quote for being unusually vivid. The first four words alone brought pleasure. Reminds me how there are so many things I miss out on in life.
@Anonymous 12:22
At the risk of over-explaining: the letter instances of "carp, pig, snake" when written in alphabetical order are a, a, c, e, g, i, k, n, p, p, r, s.
Those are the same letter instances as those of PARKING SPACE. In other words, the latter is a rearrangement of the letters of "carp, pig, snake".
Fascinating observation by @LMS that the 've contraction never appears at the end of a sentence, like "How much money do you've?" Any convincing explanation for that? That's not true for all contractions, as everyone is aware -- I mean, who isn't? Sounds like something Chomsky could chomp his teeth into.
I pretty much never talk about SB anymore, but boy was I annoyed on the way to attaining pg for today's. Maybe @okanaganer or @bocamp knows the word I'm referring to. Ug-lee! (pg -1)
@A – I have this Schubert recording, which is terrific.
Not in the Northeast anyway.
@TTrimble, re SB, I've reached g-4, but am still missing one of the pangrams. So I probably haven't run into that word yet, whatever it is!
Seeing early on that the theme entries anagrammed into three unrelated animals (or vice versa) and that there was no other connection between the theme entries and animals definitely threw a big WET BLANKET on my solve buzz. Never recovered from that.
I did like being reminded of seeing a play a long, long time ago at an exact replica of London's GLOBE THEATRE in Balboa Park in San Diego. I believe it was named the Old Globe Theater. It was a Shakespeare play but I don't remember which one. Did I mention it was a long, long time ago?
I was feeling crossword deprived so I did this one. Big mistake. It was a long slog. And I love anagrams!
Last time I saw the GOLDEN GATE it was red. Did they change it?
@jberg
Always enjoy your comments, Pablo. But enjoy an anagram puzzle?...I don't THINK so!
@Joe D, thanks! I'll listen to that. A cellist friend was a big Lynn Harrell fan and took me with her to hear him live. I do have "The complete Robert and Clara Piano Trios with the Beaux Arts Trio" which I enjoyed but haven't listened to it in years.
I am wondering why the SPARE PART? clue warranted a question mark for the answer PIN. Can anyone shed light on a nuance here?
I had trouble with 65 Down (What you can rarely do at a red light) because I live in Oregon and yes, you can turn left on red here as long as you're turning onto a one-way street. This law applies even if you're on a two-way street, turning onto a one-way. It's only illegal if there's a separate left-turn-only lane with its own little red arrow. So many Californians have moved here, the law is basically moot as they just sit at red lights even if nobody is coming. I tooted my horn at a California car once and they pointed up to the red light. I yelled out the window "it's not illegal!" but they didn't hear me or didn't care 😀
Other than that, I thought the puzzle was great.
I am with @TTrimble and@bocamp on the acrostic - at least twice as hard as an average week.
Easy medium my eye, That SE corner made it one of the toughest Sundays ever.
Such fascinating posts today! This place is great! Just so much to say about such “simple” (seeming) things such as I’VE NO IDEA. Like many, I am not a huge fan of anagrams, prefer palindromes and fortunately for the solve, didn’t need to be concerned with the animal names. For the record, I find the word CROSSBREEDS offensive and have only ever heard it used pejoratively, even in animal husbandry. Mixed breed yes, CROSSBREEDS never or at least never responsibly. In fact, even used in old black and white westerns and television, calling someone (usually an Indigenous American) a crossbreed was said with a sneer or tone and facial mannerism to denote lack of respect at best and hatred at the other end of the spectrum. I loathe labels generally, so that word as a theme rankled.
Other than that, I enjoyed the solve. Not too difficult and solved nicely as a themeless.
@Anon 9:45 – Because it's a double entendre: the usual meaning is "replacement piece for a component", but here you are supposed to think of bowling: A “spare” is awarded when no PINs are left standing after the second ball of a frame
Got stuck right away at 1 Across. Finally got it from crosses. It doesn’t pay to know more than the constructor and Will.
British English “tartan,” a cloth pattern denoting a clan, = American English “plaid.”
“Plaid” in British English is a specific garment in tartan worn by men in the Highlands.
I have never heard “tartan” to denote a garment in British or American English.
Same here.
Wordle 436 4/6*
⬜⬜🟧⬜🟦
⬜🟦🟧⬜⬜
⬜🟧🟧🟧🟧
🟧🟧🟧🟧🟧
Ouch? Natick alert!! Had 2 choices, about as common as each other, to get it for #3. Chose the way-more-common first letter. (I’ve found that when facing what appear to be equally likely word options that differ by just one letter, automatically selecting the more common letter to be a simple guess tie-breaker. There’s no other way to resolve these kinds of of situations. Maybe they should introduce a cryptic-type clue to assist. PSm Hey, NYT, I’m available for this task! ;) !)
⬜⬜🟧⬜🟦
⬜🟦🟧⬜⬜
⬜🟧🟧🟧🟧
🟧🟧🟧🟧🟧f
IALSO and OHYES as well
I'm certainly hoping that WS takes input from these posts; last Sunday "themeless" (read useless) and this puzzle just uninteresting anagrams? Sheeeesh ...
With the OTMA In place, my first guess for “ a handful” was “hot mama”, which I much prefer to “ not many.”
Dreadful.
I may have missed it, but no comments on “goes down” crossing Lance Bass?? Hilarious.
THE SIREN
PHOEBE is an EASY GIRL,
but "THAT'SALIE", SHE said,
"SOME ESCAPADES, OKSURE,
GOOD TO get AMANDA bed."
--- GENERAL ABNER "LOU LIEU" BOND
Pretty easy. Not so sure knowing the letters helped at all. Also not so much CROSSBREEDS as mixedBREEDS. AMANDA Seyfried, yeah baby.
Wordle par.
R&R @ 9:49am Uno, Due, and Gino's all came before Malnati's.
Sometimes I wonder why these aren't completely written in URDU.
Sure, I did get most of it - eventually. Guess my eyes started by going to the way-out outliers.
Lady Di
My favorite rendition of the "I've no idea" sentiment occurs in "The Bridge on the River Kwai," when Col. Saito (Sessue Hayakawa) has Col. Nicholson (Alec Guinness) brought out of the box in a desperate attempt to get the bridge back on schedule.
SAITO: Do you know what will happen to me if the bridge is not ready on time?
NICHOLSON: I haven't the foggiest.
So, yeah, a bunch of animalagrams. I guess you can do that all day, so my reaction was sort of "meh." Though I have to admit that it was amusing to find an elephant wandering around in that WATERMELONPATCH. Par, just like my wordle score.
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