Trait of the fabled fisherman's wife / MON 1-22-24 / Inexperienced gamer, informally / British publishing house founded in 1935 / Bodily response to something eerie

Constructor: Jake Halperin

Relative difficulty: Medium (with one particularly hard part for this Downs-only solver)

THEME: BIRDS AND BEES (56A: Subject of "the talk" about sex ... or a hint to the answers to the four starred clues) — familiar two-word names or terms where the first word is a "bird" and the second word starts with "B":

Theme answers:

• PENGUIN BOOKS (20A: *British publishing house founded in 1935)
• GOOSEBUMPS (11D: *Bodily response to something eerie)
• TURKEY BOWL (29D: *Thanksgiving football game)
• DOVE BAR (39A: *Certain ice cream or soap product)

Word of the Day: TURKEY BOWL (see 29D) —

High school football games played on Thanksgiving are often called a Turkey Day Game or a Turkey Bowl (not to be confused with Turkey bowling), as Americans typically eat turkeys on Thanksgiving, although the title varies with each game. Most commonly these games are between high school football rivalries although in many cases, when poor weather requires a shorter season, the game can be the culmination of league play among a high-school league, in which the winners of this game will be the league champions for the year. (Statewide playoffs were generally rare until the 1970s and 1980s, which allowed for longer regular seasons.) The custom dates back more than 100 years and is particularly prevalent in the Northeast. In most cases, games are contested with kickoff times as early as 9 a.m., allowing the participants to have the rest of the holiday off. [...]

Unorganized groups have also been known to partake in American football on Thanksgiving. These informal matches are usually known as a Turkey Bowl(not to be confused with some high school football games that also use the name "Turkey Bowl", see above, and with Turkey Bowling). These games are usually unofficiated with a flag football, street football, or touch football format.

While the games themselves are not generally nationally known, Turkey Bowls hold importance for those who participate and it is not uncommon for rivalries to last for decades. Turkey Bowls are played by a variety of people including extended families, college fraternities, volunteer fire departments, and local churches across the country which use the day and the game to have fun, exercise and renew old acquaintances. (wikipedia)

• • •

[47D: Token of past times]

I actually think this theme is great, but I'm super mad at the clue that nearly cost me my Downs-only solve today, so that's mostly what I'm gonna talk about. Up front, anyway. So ... about the spelling of the abbreviated form of "newbie": it's NOOB. Actually, let me be more specific. It's sometimes NEWB, but If You Mention Gaming In Your Clue It Is Definitely NOOB. Not only does NOOB beat NEWB 18-5 in terms of overall NYTXW appearances, but until today, Every Single Time "gaming" was mentioned in the clue, the answer was NOOB. It's a gaming spelling, a gaming term. You all force me to learn all this damn gaming terminology, the least you could do is stick to the damn rules and be consistent. 

[xwordinfo.com]

Here's some more NOOB/NEWB distinction:

And more from wikipedia:

"The origin of this term ["newbie"] is uncertain. Earliest uses probably date to late twentieth century United States Armed Forces jargon, though possible precursor terms are much earlier. Variant forms of the noun include newby and newbie, while the related term noob (often stylized as "n00b") is often used in online gaming."

Notice how "gaming" comes up only in relation to NOOB, not NEWB. It took so long for my brain to let go of NOOB (well, I don't know how long, but it felt long, especially for a Monday). I kept pulling OVEN out when I couldn't get that top section to work, so certain was I that NOOB had to be right. And since I was also having trouble with adjacent RATION (not a great synonym for [Mete out], frankly), that top section gave me fits. And just a few columns over to the east, I struggled to get my hands around WORKMAN as well. I thought the clue was going to have some punny / wordplay angle, like ... maybe "hands" meant "hands of poker" or "cowhands" or something ... but no, literally, someone who works with his hands: WORKMAN. I had RO-EOS for one of the crosses there and the only possibilities my brain would entertain were RODEOS and ROLEOS (a thing I only know about because of crosses—something to do with lumberjack games??? ... well, close, a "logrolling tournament").

Just lost up there. South of the equator, the puzzle was a cinch, but up top, yeesh, lots of trouble. I had PENUIN B- and no idea what it could be ... despite the fact that I have a vintage paperback collection consisting of close to 3,000 books, many of which are, in fact, PENGUIN BOOKS. I was like "What could this be? PENGUIN BOOTS? What are PENGUIN BOOTS? Are they formal? The way a tuxedo, i.e. a PENGUIN SUIT, is formal?" Also, who is this fisherman and what the hell is wrong with his wife? (21D: Trait of the fabled fisherman's wife (GREED)). If she is "fabled," well, whoever fabled her did it out of earshot of me. Never heard of her, or her GREED. AW, GEEzzzzz do not google "fisherman's wife" unless you want to see a very explicit Hokusai print ("Dream of the Fisherman's Wife") featuring a young woman "entwined sexually with a pair of octopuses." [Keeps googling ...] Ah, here we go, the non-octopus version is apparently a Grimm's fairy tale. Something about not asking for too much (from a magic fish), being satisfied with what you have. News to me, I'll tell you that much.

LOW IQ is such a grim answer. All IQ stuff just reeks of eugenics ("The Eugenic Origins of IQ Testing"). All IQ-related answers make me cringe, as does (relatedly) MENSA, and all the punny clues that often come with it. The Very Worst People in our country use the term LOW IQ. See this recent NYT article on the anti-DEI movement. This is a Short-Era debut. Why would you debut this? You certainly don't *need* this term in your Monday grid. Is the "Q" so tempting that you just had to have it? Baffling.

[Why is MENSA defining "colloquium" on its website? Presumably if you're smart enough to get into MENSA, You Know What "Colloquium" Means. Also, someone need to explain to Gabe Werba how deathly the passive voice is]

But back to where I started, which is: this theme is excellent. Great play on words in the revealer, great set of themers, which oddly, and impressively, intersect. Themers rarely do this. Hard enough to get the themers to work out symmetrically, let alone get them to cross one another repeatedly. But that little architectural detail isn't really important. What is important is the light-hearted whimsical theme that's just strange enough to be interesting. "Interesting" is hard to come by on Mondays. I'm impressed. 

OK, that's it. See you later.

Signed, Rex Parker, King of CrossWorld

[Follow Rex Parker on Twitter and Facebook]