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Shakespearean fairy queen / WED 2-21-24 / Rodin sculpture featuring a couple whose lips don't quite touch / Clay targets, informally / Commonly torn band, for short / First M.L.B. team to use artificial turf in its stadium / Virtue three-time ice-dancing champion
Wednesday, February 21, 2024
Constructor: Jeffrey Martinovic
Relative difficulty: Easy (puzzle is oversized, at 16-wide, so your solving time might not reflect the easiness)
Theme answers:
- SAHARA DESERT (18A: Region that spans 8% of the earth's land area [Arabic])
- LAKE TAHOE (25A: Body of water bordering Nevada and California [Washoe])
- MISSISSIPPI RIVER (40A: Landmark on which most U.S. radio stations base the starts of their call signs, with "W" on the east and "K" on the west [Algonquin])
- EAST TIMOR (50A: Nation that shares an island with part of Indonesia [Indonesian])
In literary criticism and rhetoric, a tautology is a statement that repeats an idea, using near-synonymous morphemes, words or phrases, effectively "saying the same thing twice". Tautology and pleonasm are not consistently differentiated in literature. Like pleonasm, tautology is often considered a fault of style when unintentional. Intentional repetition may emphasize a thought or help the listener or reader understand a point. Sometimes logical tautologies like "Boys will be boys" are conflated with language tautologies, but a language tautology is not inherently true, while a logical tautology always is. (wikipedia)
• • •
 |
| [LAKE TAHOE in Out of the Past (1947)] |
ADUNITS, oof, this is the kind of answer that just saps your grid of all its power. A long answer given over to the most mundane biz-speak garbage. ADUNITS manages to be somehow worse than ADSPACE, which you see from time to time. UNITS feels even more ... adbizzy. Sales argot. Blech. And playground retorts, why? They are like a pest or a weed the puzzle can't seem to get rid of. SKEETS in the plural just looks weird (44A: Clay targets, informally). You shoot SKEET, not SKEETS. That is, the phrase is "shoot SKEET," which implies that SKEET can be understood as a plural, which is what's making SKEETS sound weird to my ears. SKEETS are what some people call posts on the BlueSky social media app (where some Twitter refugees have gone). This usage has not really caught on. Not with me, anyway. I gave in to TWEETS at one point in my life, I'm not giving in to another silly name. Line in the sand, drawn.
There was no real difficulty today beyond assorted names. The revealer itself seems like the answer most likely to provide difficulty today. I had trouble getting ALONG from the back end ("G"), wasn't entirely sure about DIG AT at first, but ... nope, don't see anything else that gave me more than token resistance, if that. Puzzle was easy enough that there were clues I never even saw. I don't remember even looking at the clue for LAKE TAHOE, so quickly did that area fill itself in. I also, thankfully, never saw the clues on SNOTS (ugly) and AEONS (alt-spelling ugly). Overall, a quick, forgettable experience. No, I take that back. I'm likely to remember seeing TAUTOLOGICAL in the puzzle, and that geography trivia might just stick. So there's that. There is that. That there is. Good day.
Signed, Rex Parker, King of CrossWorld
[Follow Rex Parker on Twitter and Facebook]
Signed, Rex Parker, King of CrossWorld
[Follow Rex Parker on Twitter and Facebook]
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124 comments:
Solved it quickly without using the theme, which seemed vague to me. A student of tautology, I'm not (nor do I speak Algonquin). Only stumbling block was with the EMMA/MAB cross, where I had ERMA/RAB at first.
Easy for a Wednesday, even though I stumbled over the same names as OFL. I was familiar with what the Wiki article calls logical tautologies ("It is what it is") but not with language tautologies. Where is @LMS when we really need her?
No overwrites, although I did put in JOE at 62A with no crosses, fully expecting to have to take it out.
No decent person? Yikes.
TAUTOLOGICAL is one of this words that I recognize, but I don’t (didn’t) know what it means. As I was solving the themers, I had no idea what the trick was. I know Washoe County, but I didn’t know it was a language and I think of the language of Indonesia as Bahasa, so “Indonesian” seemed like a descriptor, not a language. When I got to the bottom, the downs were making TAUTOLOGICAL become clear, but I didn’t look at its clue, hoping I would figure out the theme before looking at the revealer. That didn’t work since I didn’t know what it means. When I did finally read the clue and looked back at the themers, I did finally have a nice Aha! moment when I realized TAUTOLOGICAL must mean something like redundant. Rex told me what it actually means.
Anyway, that Aha! moment plus the fact that I am a geography nerd made me like the puzzle a bit more than Rex.
BTW, “Bahasa” in Indonesian means “language,” so when you say Bahasa language (as I’m sure you do at least weekly), you are being TAUTOLOGICAL! Nice bonus. I think the correct way to refer to the language is Bahasa Indonesia, which distinguishes it from Bahasa Malaysia, a slightly different language. Oh, and an interesting geography factoid (for me): Indonesia has three islands that it shares with other countries - Borneo (with Malaysia and Brunei), New Guinea (with Papua New Guinea) and Timor (with East Timor). I’ve been to all those countries except Brunei and PNG, so I know this not just as trivia.
Agree with Rex that the fill was a bit drab, and I had the same “ick” feeling at RON followed by ADUNITS (different kinds of “ick”).
Did you know dogs can tear their ACLs? Mine just did, which makes her seem like an elite athlete. Sad to see her limping though she’s getting better. I will have to decide if she will get surgery. Gulp. Not cheap.
My short summary is that, first and foremost, this puzzle’s theme is a new innovation.
I agree with most of these comments. I will say, though, that my 13-year-old son knows (and uses) the word "tautological"...
I would have gone with “All dogs…” for GO TO HEAVEN, yeah. But as to the theme, are we getting a little jaded? More than any other kind of puzzle, a crossword is a kind of work of art, the kind the viewer gets to participate in. I think the sheer artistry of arranging a puzzle around tautological geography is not to be slighted, and it’s a tiny contribution to globalism, too. I think we are in danger of getting a little conventional, too. Who says TAUTOLOGICAL has to make the other themes easier? Just because it is last, doesn’t mean it has to be a revealer. It’s more so the coup de grace.
I also don’t see how the same puzzle can be “easy” and flawed because some of us will need to look up a word…
Seems more redundancy than tautology
Somehow I cruised through this at a pretty good clip - a lot of familiar crosswordese and wheelhouse trivia came to the rescue I guess. The themers and the revealer were fairly crossed and famous enough that you could drop them in without discerning the gimmick.
I had long forgotten what a TAUTOLOGY is, and was welcome to remake its acquaintance today. Weird that I liked a grid that Rex thinks is too trivia-laden, which is usually a death knell for me. Probably an indication that it was appropriate for a Wednesday, difficulty-wise.
I like the theme but got tripped up on the revealer. As a mathematician “tautology” is a log term for a proposition that is always true no matter the inputs. I can see how it could also mean “redundant” but my mind didn’t make that connection until I looked it up post finish.
The names I didn’t know I could guess with a few crosses because they were relatively common English first names. I prefer that to some obscure (to non crossword solvers) movie star or architect from 100 years ago who has an unusual name that just happens to fit the right combination of letters.
Another tautology we often see is THE LA BREA TAR PITS. Logically (and tautologically) speaking, that says “The the tar tar pits.” 🤣
Too easy…
Any Florida residents want to weigh in on your evidently indecent gov?
Multiclues:
( thus named to avoid copyright issues with @GaryJugert)
1. Arthurian legend
2. Two-step instruction for watching "Poor Things"
3. Nanny's nightmare
4. World Series, before 2017
1. ASHE ABS OF STEEL
2. CAST EMMA, ENJOY
3. SOAK IN SNOTS
4. ASTROS MIRAGE
Happy International Mother Language Day to all
No issue with the theme word and I enjoyed learning that these places are tautologically named. But the names--wow. EMMA? TESSA? LEAH? No idea. The crosses were fair (if you do crosswords or know Shakespeare), but that plus SKEETS and AD UNITS dragged it down another notch. I really liked ABS OF STEEL (if you want a throwback, it's "Buns of steel".) No other real resistance, and I think the time made up for a lot of the bleh.
Huh! Didn’t know that and glad to learn it! Many new facts that come my way are throw-aways, not worth consciously registering, quickly tossed, but today’s tautologies struck my fancy, were of the “Well, I’ll be!” ilk. They’re keepers.
As a puzzle, this was plenty of a riddle for me, trying to figure out the theme, wondering what the connection was between the places and the languages in parentheses in their clues, before I got to the revealer.
Now, after solving, I’m d’oh-ing all over the place, wondering why I didn’t figure it out. It seems so gettable now. But you outfoxed me fair and square, Jeffrey – and I like that almost as much as if I had figured it out. Also, my brain enjoyed burrowing all over the place, trying to crack the riddle.
The tautologies reminded me of a professor I had who criticized a student for being “redundant and overly repetitive”, and he wasn’t making a joke! Sometimes in life, something crosses your path that is so funny, you never forget it.
Anyway, Jeffrey, thank you for the riddle and for the cool new facts. And congratulations on your third puzzle in less than three months!
I mean, we get your politics and all but the "no decent person" aside was just a shitty, "basket of deplorables" -type comment that is unecessarily (IMO) alienating to many. Gratuitous to the extreme.
I really hate the cluing on FARSI (“Persian Language”) and really wish it and its variations would disappear from crosswords. The Persian Language is PERSIAN, not FARSI. Farsi is the name of the language in Persian.
It’s like cluing “Spanish Language” “ESPAÑOL” or “Chinese Language” as “ZHONGWEN.”
It’s one of the only languages that gets needlessly exoticized by a ridiculous insistence on using its non-English name and the resulting feel-good hit of pseudo-pedanticism that it gives to its users just further alienates and orientalizes Iran and its people in the public mind.
Easy, and I hadn't realized it was oversized so very easy.
I knew about EAST TIMOR, but the rest are news to me. The one that is surprising to me is MISSISSIPPI, as the Algonquin are Canadian, I think.
What does OFL stand for?
Go to Heaven is of course also the name of a Grateful Dead album!
Forgive me, but as an annoying former philosophy professor, I need to quibble with the Wikipedia example of “boys will be boys” as a logical tautology. A logical tautology is of a structure where you could substitute any variables and it will always be true, e.g, if there are no cats or dogs on my bed, there are no cats on my bed. “Boys will be boys” sounds like one of those, similar to the logical tautology “cats are cats.” But it’s a weak pun using the format of a tautology to make its point. What you are really saying is not “male children are male children,” but “male children are inevitably rambunctious.”
Anyhoo. Can confirm that “tautology,” linguistic or logical, is not a word that a majority of people taking intro level philosophy classes are familiar with.
As a comic book nerd, cluing SKEETS as Booster Gold ‘s little techno pal would’ve saved this one for me
For Marine06: I'm a Florida resident (Sun City Center, near Tampa). I can't fathom DeSantis' popularity. He yelled at a teenage boy for wearing a mask during the COVID crisis, a kid whose crime was following Dr. Fauci's recommendation.
DeSantis is a nasty authoritarian with a mean streak and zero sense of humor, yet he wins elections by wide margins. Go figure.
Sierra Nevada Mountains. Felt like a genius running across the North until it got difficult in the SW corner. Maybe because it was 2 a.m.
Wanted Abso to be Absolute something, but no. And with what I had, Get On to be Board. Aeon needs to be Flux for me. Dig At?
Looked it up:
One, two, three, four, five, six, seven,
All good children go to heaven;
When they die their sin's forgiven,
One, two, three, four, five, six, seven.
There's more ...
Overall, loved this. Learned something and had fun.
Starting to picture the same kid on the playground yelling Does So! Did Not! Do Too! Are So! Am Too! Are Too! Are Not. Am Not! Is there any other clue in the puzzle verse that has as many answers as Playground Retort. Mix it up, maybe make Playground Retort the answer.
Our Fearless Leader
So I learned TAUTOLOGICAL in college as someone had written on a desk top (probably in a philosophy classroom) "It is well to remember that evil is a very bad thing.". Never know when this stuff will come in handy.
I liked learning the geographical facts in this one. Good stuff. And very easy, but I had the same reaction to SKEETS and ADUNITS as OFL. Yuck. And didn't know LEAH.
HOWEVER:
Today is a day when my printed version goes up on the refrigerator as we have both TESSA and EMMA, who could be clued as "pabloinnh's granddaughters". Tada! A few years ago there was a puzz with TESSSA and our surname but that was has, sadly, disappeared. Today's replacement is much appreciated.
Pretty cool Wednesday, JM. Just Made my day, and thanks for all the fun.
Wow, I often agree with Rex at about the 70 or 80% level (and sometimes not at all) but today is 100%. More than 100%. I don’t if he makes a single point I don’t agree with, and there’s nothing I’d want to add. I also wondered how many people know TAUTOLOGICAL. I use it (and pleonastic) all the time, but I’m an academic. It was interesting to learn that those geographical mean those things in their native languages, but it made for a super-easy puzzle, despite all those proper names.
I had AsS OF STEEL for awhile, which seemed reasonable to me.
What, no shrimp scampi? Thinking of Monty Python's Department of Redundancy Department. I didn’t know the same names as @Rex but that didn't slow me down.
Also, QB!
Can someone explain clue for METERS: ‘some downtown street liners’ ??
Meters are shade trees often planted along downtown streets. The Parking Meter is an especially popular variety.
Too easy for Wednesday, felt let down. Would have been nice for Monday morn.
As RP pointed out most of names are crosswordese and not hard to get from crosses
@anonymous 814: METERS referring to parking meters along downtown streets. Does NYC still have those?
@anonymous 716: appreciate the rant , learned something as I do every day here.
I can't be the only person who knows that GO TO HEAVEN nursery rhyme only from The Beatles?
https://youtu.be/BpndGZ71yww?si=HSDH01z1Aqc6dTi5
Pizza Pie - redundant.
(parking meters)
So I guess TAUTOLOGICAL means that SAHARA = DESERT in Arabic; TAHOE = LAKE in Washoe; RIVER = MISSISSIPPI in Algonquin; -- etc., etc.
Actually, I just went to read the blog to make sure I was interpreting the puzzle correctly. But I never want to base my first comment on 20-20 hindsight. How interesting would that be?
I didn't know any of this before. Well, maybe SAHARA = DESERT was swimming around somewhere in my subconscious. But I didn't know the others. And so this very easy puzzle at least taught me something. And the something that it taught me is pretty interesting. The problem is that I may not remember it for very long.
Parking meters line the streets.
Parking meters line the streets.
Hey All !
Brain functioning? Check. Saw the 16 wide grid immediately.
Have heard the word TAUTOLOGICAL, never really knew quite what it meant. So I'm gathering that SAHARA, e.g., is said the same in our English as it is said in Arabic. Got it.
Top half was easier than bottom for me. Still, an overall quick puz here. Timer says just shy of 11 minutes.
12D could've also been clued for dogs. Just sayin'.
MAB was a WOE. Not much into Shakespeare, so no idea. Thankfully, the M was the safe guess with E_MA.
Had MIRror first for MIRAGE. That garnered a Har.
I believe that's where fake grass got its name? ASTRO-Turf was literally the Turf the ASTROS played on. Anyone can say for sure?
Two F's
RooMonster
DarrinV
@mmorgan - buns of steel was definitely a thing, so why not;)
@lewis, did you remember our discussion of auger/augur today? If so, you’re welcome
Still not sure I know precisely what tautology means, probably never will…
@8:14 parking meters
The problem isn't that tautological is a tough word. It's that 99.9 percent of people do not know that MISSISSIPPI is the Algonquin word for RIVER or that TIMOR is the Indonesian word for EAST, and so on through the puzzle.
I could be wrong. But I'd bet serious money that most of us did not know that SAHARA is the Arabic word for DESERT. So there's no way we could know that we were working on a list of tautologies. I didn't.
Even though I didn't know that, I did enjoy the puzzle, especially ABSOFSTEEL. Cuz I'm so proud of mine.
I had the -LOGICAL that Rex did, and plonked down etymoLOGICAL. I was sure it was right for all of 10 seconds before TIM Cook came to the rescue.
definitely an easy solve today - kept wondering when I’d hit some resistance and it just never came.
For anyone else new to TESSA Virtue, highly recommend this watching absolutely insanely beautiful performance https://youtu.be/wOEKdWrtz6U?si=Nnu5InpF9cjlJL4M
OFL = Obtuse Fuzzy Liberal who still supports J*E
Did not finish (groan). Had ASS OF STEEL. Never heard of MAB before.
I really enjoyed this theme - got SAHARA DESERT, then EAST TIMOR, then the revealer, and I knew the former was TAUTOLOGICAL and had the fun "oh!" on realising the latter must be too. I needed a couple of crosses for the other two, but they slotted in easily enough, I knew MISSISSIPPI was one, and got to learn about LAKE TAHOE. Overall, very satisfying to get to exercise some trivia and learn a bit more.
On the other hand the rest felt very underwhelming. Difficulty wise, names aside it felt very straightforward, more of a Monday/Tuesday puzzle (did it at work and was very disappointed to have to go back to my inbox in under 10 minutes). A lot went in immediately with very few overwrites later. Names are always a coin toss but this time I knew almost all of them, and got the rest easily through crosses.
My biggest hiccup was not knowing SPRIT, nor that Cousin ITT had two Ts, but once the other T went in there were hardly any other options. And it's not actually a very remarkable clue, but I did like the subversion of my expectations when the four letter fencing item turned out not to be crossword classic epee after my initial eyeroll.
I think plenty of people know what tautological means, or are at least familiar enough with it that they could fill it in. You don't need to be in academia to know long words.
However, I wouldn't describe these geographical features' names as tautological. I'd say they are redundant. To me, you'd call something tautological when the outcome is dictated by the premise. So, "when x is true, then x is true," is tautological. Just because the word sahara means desert in Arabic doesn't necessitate that something named Sahara is a desert. Sahara Hotel. Sahara winds. Chevy Tahoe. I thought the revealer was weak.
Despise him
Bring a Brit, Emma Radacanu was a gimme for me, but I had no idea who Bobby Orr, Ron DeSantis or Leah Remini are/were
The only problem I had was my Shakespeare letting me down for once and I crossed it with “ASs of steel”… that took a minute to sort out at the end!
In the Algonquin language, "Mississippi" means "river". Happy to learn that and the other theme facts. But the connection to TAUTOLOGICAL is remote. More like redundant.
@Stuart 7:02AM All over the Hudson Valley are streams so named, duplicating the Dutch word "kill" that means creek. Fishkill Creek for one example.
My Gal Sal feels 10000 years old. I put in pAL which effed me
How about "waim" instead of "wail". And "among". Instead of "alone"?
what the heck is doesso. that one word (actually the last letter) prevented me from completing this puzzle grr.
Cool! I was wondering how the constructor was going to pull together a bunch of geographical names...and then...TAUTOLOGICAL! I had no idea. For me, it was a great pull-a-rabbit-out-of-a-hat reveal. Elsewhere - yesterday I hadn't noticed how name-heavy the grid was, but I sure did today. Luckily I knew most and crosses got me the rest. The nearest I came to a face plant was when I had A?SOP and wondered if the titles were books by Stewart Alsop (only people past a certain age are going to know his name, I'm sure). Thankfully, LEAH got me the needed E for AESOP.
@pabloinnh, remembering your plea for respite from playground retorts the other day, I felt like today's puzzle was giving those of us who agree a "nyah-nyah."
1234567...all good children go to heaven....
it's a children's rhyme.
it's also the outro on a beatles song. "you never give me your money" abbey road album.
I thought for a bit that the revealer might be scaTOLOGICAL. Seemed like a pretty shitty theme.
I once wrote an AEmail about AESOP's AEONS as a popular fabulist. It was aelectric.
I scratched my head for a nanosecond about FOIL (Fencing Option). I mean, who builds a fence out of Reynolds Wrap?
Playground retort: Your mama cheats on the NYT crossword!
Since this is a language-based theme, it might have been better to clue RON as "Spanish rum." I know, right?
I don't think it is of even the slightest importance whether the solver knows something in advance. This was an interesting, informative puzzle built around a very original theme. Thank you so much, Jeffrey Martinovic.
Ka-Whoosh went this puztheme, right over M&A's head. Ah well, not too hard a puz -- and I learned somethin new.
At first, I thought I was bein asked for a translation of SAHARADESERT to Arabic. Was thinkin "Geez, dude -- I don't even know what "is" is in French!"
staff weeject picks: The JOE, SAL, TIM, RON, and ITT names. Two of these are very close relatives of mine. (Not ITT, btw.)
Kinda liked the IGNITE & IGNORE combo. And AUGUR has a cool look to it. ADUNITS, not so much.
Thanx, Mr. Martinovic dude. Clever, once I knew more about that there tautology stuff.
See y'all TIMOR-OH...
Masked & Anonymo4Us
**gruntz**
Choked with trivia? Gagging on it, absolutely gagging on it. Doing some quick math, it appears ONE needed to know seven different foreign languages to really get this theme and puzzle: Arabic, Washoe, Algonquin, Indonesian, French, FARSI, and whatever they speak in Ghana and Botswana, which turned out to be ENGlish but who knew until you got the crosses. Oh, and the definition of a twelve-letter answer which isn’t exactly a household word.
And that doesn’t even cover the author, the sports teams, the porridge, grain, the sculpture, the song, the actor, the queen, the governor, the Beatles album, the fashion designer, the actress, the tennis player, the ice skater, the nursery rhyme, the hockey player, the baseball team, the other tennis player, the ape weapon, the oil group, the guy at Apple and the other hockey player.
S*I*G*H* Well, as I suspect, many will be telling themselves today, at least I learned a few things.
Easy. I too did not know TESSA and EMMA and I needed some crosses for the playground retort but that was about it for hiccups. I did know the theme answers but did not know they were tautologies, so learned something!
Reasonably smooth grid with an interesting/informative theme, liked it.
All good children go to heaven is used by the Beatles on Abbey Road. However it is a children’s ring game (like the duck, duck goose ring game) from England and the words are: “1,2,3,4,5,6,7 all good children got to heaven. A penny on the water, a twopence on the sea, threepence on the railway, and out goes she.”
And often not effective. And then there is the unhappy time your poor doggie has to spend in the cone of shame.
What nursery rhyme says that all good children go to heaven? I've never encountered it.
Pretty easy, fun puzzle. Thanks, Jeffrey :)
AEONS: Unlike Rex, I liked this entry as clued. The first "long" in "Long, long times" can be interpreted as as an emphasis of the second, or it could be descriptive of the word itself, as the leading "A" makes the word "EONS" longer.
TESSA Virtue: Her name has stuck in my head ever since seeing her and her partner Scott singing "O, Canada" at an Olympic awards ceremony some years ago. Their joyful enthusiasm exemplified a patriotism that was celebratory, and not in any way jingoistic.
TAUTOLOGICAL: No problems with this. It's a word that I learned in a math class, but it also is important in philosophy. It's a useful word to learn if you don't already know it.
I appreciate what I learned from this puzzle.
1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7
All good children go to heaven
There may be more but I only know those first two lines.
I'm a Florida escapee. Seeing RON "Il Duce" in this grid made me wish the constructor and/or the editor knew of any other individuals with that name. Frinstance Howard or Perlman. Or even "Nickname that drops the 'ald'"
p.s.
Actually, it appears the SAHARADESERT in Arabic would be "sahra".
And oddly, the official name of EASTTIMOR (east = "timur", so thats pretty close) is Timor Leste.
And LAKETAHOE ends up bein a mispronunciation of "Da ow", which is the first part of "Da ow a ga", meanin "edge of the lake".
MISSISSIPPI holds up pretty well, comin from the original "misi-sipi", meanin "big river". Some name-adjustment folks was evidently big fans of double letters [yo, @Lewis dude].
M&A Taut Desk
DOES SO! Another "playground taunt" like IS SO and I DO SO, ad infinitum.
Wasn't it Roseanne Roseannadanna who led the animal rights protest against Fishkill Creek?
Can't help visualizing R*N ADUNITS as he announces his name change while ON TOE.
These kinds of comments are why I treasure this blog. Notwithstanding OFL’s trenchant analysis.
I guess you never heard of Car Talk's "Save the Skeets" campaign then?
How about The La Brea Tar Pits? The = La; Brea = Tar; "The the tar tar pits...
Dogs don’t have ACLs
I, for one, was filled with joy at the spelling of aeons, and am filled with rage at the constant usage of the modern more grotesque spelling.
Viva la ae.
Mount Fujiyama [Japenese]
Yes, the puzzle was fairly easy but I made it a battle of the small words: SOAK up before IN and DIG in before AT. And then there was that blind spot at 18A where I put in SAHARA and then thought there were too many spaces for DESERT. The clue certainly wasn't pointing to wackiness (DEsSERT?) so I was stymied. The crosses filled and there it was, DESERT is a six letter word after all. Really, what was I looking at?
I certainly have seen the word tautological but didn't know the meaning, especially towards these theme answers so today I feel smarter and entertained at the same time.
Nice long downs in ABS OF STEEL and GO TO HEAVEN, though I don't know the latter's nursery rhyme and usually associate the phrase with dogs.
Thanks, Jeffrey Martinovic!
Paul McCartney used it on Abbey Road
You're not.
Leah Remini will always be Stacey Carosi to me.
This puzzle was approved by the Department of Redundancy Department. ( Shout out to Firesign Theater )
Gosh Rex, what a great way to show Lake Tahoe in your post.
You’ll find a fair amount of that here.
Zippy puzzle for me, making for a new Wednesday personal best time. It must have been the Canadian-friendly references to Tessa Virtue and hockey that helped me out.
@jberg here on my phone, all packed up to drive to Florida, hoping we won’t be arrested for having dictionaries on our phones.
The weakness of the theme is that you had to know some of those languages to figure it out, so it wasn’t so much fun. Also IMHO it detracted from this language oriented theme to have two other languages as random answers.
The Outerbridge Crossing connects NJ and Staten Island. The redundancy arose from its being named for Eugenius Harvey Outerbridge, first chairman of what was then called the Port of NY Authority.
My favorite: TSETSE FLY
I rely upon the NYT crossword to be precise, so was disappointed today. East Timor is not really a nation---it's the former name of what is now Timor-Leste.
Solved successfully down clues only, but had to guess 3 times to get the M where EMMA crosses MAB. Mab? I was completely mystified what the theme was because I couldn't quite remember what tautology meant.
I just read the latest issue of Wired magazine (Mar-Apr) and there is a short article about the NYT Vertex game. And on the very next page, an article about my fave computer language Javascript!
[Spelling Bee: Tues 0. puzzlehoarder, where are you and is your streak still going?]
@Joe Dipinto 8:31 Thanks for the chuckle
Brain still malfunctioning? Check.
Har.
Thought the Theme was "words said the same in both [languages]". Turns out to be "words that mean the same in both [languages]". (I'm sure I'm not getting my point across!)
Anyway, my silly brain thinks it knows what it's trying to say!
I liked @SFR 12:40's example as well.
RooMonster Actually Thinking My Brain Was Thinking, Imagine That Guy
I would fall in that 99.9%, including not knowing Sahara is Arabic for desert.
Excellently written and well said @Lewis!
An Anonymous was offended earlier.
But I agree with you and Rex.
As someone once said, I worship the quicksand that man walks on.
Karl Grouch
Very funny post
Easy but I enjoyed figuring out the theme. I also spent my lengthy career writing and speaking (mostly arguing in courts,) and from my first 7th grade glance at Strunk and White through writing and revising for two Justices of the Oklahoma Supreme Court, arguing many times in the 10th Circuit, and twice briefing for The US Supreme Court, I’ll just say that I enjoy writing and writing well feeds my soul. Alas, I wish I had the gift of writing entertaining things non-lawyers might enjoy.
I am disappointed in myself that I did not pick up the tautology concept. The fill was so easy (hello wavelength and trivia in my wheelhouse!) that I simply did not see the brackets. Doh! And my solve took me from top to bottom so TAUTOLOGICAL appeared and easily fell right at the end,
Going back to look for the languages didn’t take long, and was really not completely necessary, but thoroughly enjoyable to learn the genesis of the places whose origins I was wholly unaware. I happened to know that MISSISSIPPI meant river in Algonquin so the concept fell nicely.
I liked it. Made me enjoy thinking about useful stylistic tools. And c’mon, the word TAUTOLOGICAL is just a fun word.
Anonymous 7:16 AM
About Farsi v Persian.
Of course the British when they were in control of Iran called it Persia and persisted doing so long after the name was officially changed. That sounds to me the exact opposite of woke.
So Persian has its own issues
You say people are exoticizing Iranians by using their word for the main national language.
To me it seems the trend toward using Farsi comes was from that colonial connotation of Persian.
Are Iranians or the diaspora actually objecting to the use of Farsi? They seem to use it all the time ?
What I love about this place is that those who ♥️ the NRA, alt-right, Trump and their pals AND have a hard time understanding why folks count women who author (create?) Xwords seem to leave the site.
What are GM’s? Thanks!
RooMonster
You are correct about Astro Turf. The Astro dome was first built with skylights so they could have sod on the field. But there was too much glare so they painted over the skylights and had someone create AstroTurf to replace the sod.
James
It was a help to me that just a few days ago SPRIT appeared in the puzzle!
Kelly
Timor Leste means East Timor!
In the colonial language no less.
A bit of an overreaction in context, in my opinion
A dog named Dog.
1234567
All good children go to Heaven
When you die the Lord will say
“Where is the book you stole that day”
And if you say you do not know
The Lord will send you down below
And if you say you do not care
The Devil will pull you by the hair
(Courtesy of my grandmother)
If the clue for GO TO HEAVEN doesn’t work for people, maybe they should have gone with “1980 Grateful Dead album.”
Appropriately, I guess, this tune is on this album twice. I like the alternate take better.
Tautology (alternate take)
We call it a CCL in dogs but it’s basically the same thing different naming scheme.
General Managers
I've watched "Planet of the Apes" (the original, not the Tim Burton mess) dozens of times and the apes' weapons are RIFLES not SPEARS! The critical scene where the spacemen first encounter the apes hunting the humans has Taylor (Charlton Heston) crucially being SHOT in the vocal chords.
Oh, if only everyone could be as charitable, loving, and respectful of diversity as you, there would be so much more decency in the world!
I’m only a family doctor and not a veterinarian, but google disagrees. It’s called the canine cruciate ligament, but does exactly the same thing as the anterior cruciate ligament in humans.
https://www.webmd.com/pets/dogs/acl-injuries-in-dogs
Thank you
Yep, probably would
Did not know what tautology was (thanks for the explainer, RP) but I had heard the word so the revealer wasn’t difficult. In fact, this was a Wednesday record for me.
As an amateur linguist, I loved this puzzle. Yes it was very easy if you knew the trivia, but I hadn't known that Sahara meant desert in Arabic, Tahoe meant Lake in Washoe, or Mississippi meant river in Alongquin (I did know Timor). I feel like that education, especially in indigenous languages that have suffered tremendous language loss, is fantastic and I wish you had called it out.
Late to the party but am currently reading The Rose Code so Queen Mab came after some lateral thinking
The tautological puzzle. I don't think there's ever a reason not to repeat yourself. The older I get the more I want to repeat myself. The repeatable stories just get better and better and better and better and better. If you repeat them.
EMMA / MAB / EWAN cross is rude.
Tee-Hee: UTERI. That's lots of lady privates in the puzzle.
Uniclues:
1 Where morals come with porridge and crowds.
2 My ex-girlfriend's suggestion on where I should live.
3 Theme from my dating years.
4 Observe kindergarten.
5 Scottish boys ride invisible dragon.
6 Oil the well oiled on the sly.
7 Fraternity slogan.
8 Paletas purchased during a drive-by shooting.
1 AESOP OAT ARENAS (~)
2 TRY SARAHA DESERT (~)
3 UTERI IGNORE ONE (~)
4 SOAK IN SNOTS
5 LADS MOUNT NESS (~)
6 SNEAK OPEC ALES
7 BARLEY... IT'LL DO
8 GO TO HEAVEN ICES
My Fascinating Crossword Uniclue Keepsake from Last Year: Lizard lounge entertainer, literally. IGUANA LIBERACE.
¯\_(ツ)_/¯
Mississippi means "big river," and Algonquin is a language family, in addition to to being an individual language. While I was studying Cree, a member of that family, and learning that "sipiy" meant "river" and "misi" was a prefix meaning big, I had the aha moment to realize how aptly named the Mississippi was.
LEAH Remini can now be seen as the host of a game show called People Puzzler.
When 29d started ABSO-, I almost wrote in LUTELY--which fits.
Easy puzzle, but enlightening as well. I think I knew about SAHARA = DESERT, but the others were a surprise. Points are given for surprises.
Agree that "children" should have been edited to "dogs." As one who buried a child, I was wounded anew by that clue.
Also agree that we've just about had it with playground retorts. They can be a useful crutch, but yikes, so often?
Despite above imperfections, this one gets a birdie. Solving is learning.
Wordle birdie.
YORE THE ONE
LET’SBE clear ON THE STYLE, TRY TO not IGNORE this,
GOTOHEAVEN A while, and ENJOY ALONG KISS.
--- EMMA JOE ASHE
A dog named chien
@Daniel 10:17am :
The clue was in quotes. My Gal Sal is the title of a song
Cool theme.
Good ole "M I crooked letter crooked letter I...etc." An old childhood song pays off again.
And of course, EMMA and EWAN crossing was my only "guestimate," but I didn't get FOILed.
I remember when EASTTIMOR became a country - cool beans.
Diana, Lady-in-Waiting for Crosswords
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