Fishing basket / THU 5-9-24 / Pigeon dish / Bloodroot produces an orange one / Like the smell of a pub / Body part where a sock might go? / Product identifier similar to a U.P.C.

Constructor: Joe DiPietro

Relative difficulty: Easy

THEME: in old Rome? — the letter strings "ONE," "TWO," "FOUR," and "EIGHT" are represented in the grid by their Roman numeral equivalents:

Theme answers:

• WALKED (I) GGSHELLS (walked [on e]ggshells) (16A: Used extreme caution, in old Rome?)
• "DON (II) RRY ABOUT IT" ("don'[t wo]rry about it") (30A: "Everything will be fine," in old Rome?)
• THE SKIN O (IV) TEETH (the skin o[f our] teeth) (38A: What we might escape by, in old Rome?)
• W(VIII) HE EVIDENCE (w[eigh t]he evidence) (57A: Do a judge's job, in old Rome?)

Word of the Day: ERG (44A: What a piece of work!) —

The erg is a unit of energy equal to 10⁻⁷ joules (100 nJ). It originated in the Centimetre–gram–second system of units (CGS). It has the symbol erg. The erg is not an SI unit. Its name is derived from ergon (ἔργον), a Greek word meaning 'work' or 'task'.

An erg is the amount of work done by a force of one dyne exerted for a distance of one centimetre. In the CGS base units, it is equal to one gram centimetre-squared per second-squared (g⋅cm²/s²). It is thus equal to 10⁻⁷ joules or 100 nanojoules (nJ) in SI units. (wikipedia)

• • •

[it means "One Claudius"]

I kinda liked unpacking these theme answers. The numerals were all well and truly buried in their respective answers (all of them breaking across two words, rather than merely embedded in a single word, or appearing as the numbers themselves, which would've been boring). This is the kind of gibberish that I can accept in my grid—gibberish that isn't really gibberish if you're reading it right. And they're all a perfect grid-spanning 15, and the numbers form an orderly list, doubling as you progress down the grid. I'd've preferred "ancient Rome" to "old Rome" in the clues. Otherwise, I think the theme is aces. But man, things have gotten way, way too easy of late. For a while there, the interim editor seemed to have jacked the difficulty of the puzzles up in a pretty noticeable way (whether intentionally or not), but things have yawed waaaayyy in the other direction in recent days. Every day this week has felt like a Monday until today, which (gimmick aside) felt like a Tuesday. I really would like my Thursdays to have more punch and more flash. The fill today is smooth and uncringey (hurray), and MILD WINTER and STEEP FINES are solid longer answers, but the theme is carrying all of the excitement burden. The burden of interest? The only thing interesting about the puzzle is the theme, is what I'm saying. In a case like this, on a Thursday, the cluing could at least try to put up a bit of fight—get weird or clever or something. But I've looked this puzzle over and have marked hardly any clues as particularly tough or tricky. Fight me, puzzle!

Whatever interest ON IN YEARS and GO ON A TEAR had was negated by the fact that they both contain "ON." Normally an "ON" dupe would not be something I'd notice (or care about), unless the "ON" words intersected or there were three+ "ON"s or something like that. But when symmetrical marquee-level answers dupe a word, I notice. But as I say, moving through the non-thematic areas of this puzzle was largely a pleasant experience. A nice walk. No cool birds or beautiful foliage, but no rain or gnat swarms either. Only a few hesitations and missteps today. Got MILD W- and when I couldn't make MILD WEATHER fit, I was briefly confused. I guess the word "news" in the clue threw me a bit—I think of the weather as "news," but not the season itself. "Forecast" might've got me there. But no matter. My level of confusion, like the imagined weather (I mean winter), was merely mild. I thought a SQUAB was a kind of bird, not a [Pigeon dish]. Ah, I see it is an "immature domestic pigeon or its meat" (wikipedia) (my emph.). I was not sure if it was a dish that contained pigeon, or something the pigeon itself might eat. Also, I routinely confuse SQUAB and SQUIB, so thank god CAR (eventually) was clear (26A: Where F comes before E?) (i.e. on the gas gauge). 

Some more notes:

• 9A: Body part where a sock might go? (CHIN) — this one seems designed to get you to write in SHIN. Well, anyway, that's what I did. But SHIN would mean reading the clue in a more literal, "?"-less way. Here, the sock is not an article of clothing, but a punch. And if you're going to sock someone, I guess the chin is as good a place as any (though your hand would probably prefer the belly)
• 27A: Product identifier similar to a U.P.C. (SKU) — Me: "Uh ... CPU?" (no: that's computerese for "central processing unit”). I haven't seen or thought about SKU numbers in forever, and don't actually know what SKU stands for, so let's find out ... drum roll ... googling ... OK, looks like it's "stock keeping unit." It's pronounced "skew," right? "Skoo" seems like it would be too silly for any self-respecting person to want to say.
• 46A: Result of a failed field sobriety test, for short (DWI) — still not sure what the difference between DWI and DUI is (from a legal standpoint, that is). I went, as I always do, with DUI, largely because it's just easier to say, unless you've decided to treat them as true acronyms, in which case I believe they are both pronounced "Dwee!" 

[I've seen this dumb billboard around town so many times, you'd think I'd've switched my default from DUI to DWI by now. True story: I first thought these were political billboards meant to smear some guy named Tom who was running for office]

• 12D: Mitchell & ___ (sports apparel company) (NESS) — No idea. It's Eliot or Loch or go to hell, NESS-wise.
• 51D: Like the smell of a pub (BEERY) — do not love this as an adjective. As a supporting actor on The Rockford Files, however, I'd love it:

[Noah BEERY, Jr. as Jim's dad, Rocky]

See you next time.

Signed, Rex Parker, King of CrossWorld 

P.S. SWAK = “Sealed With A Kiss”; I though this was well known, but based on some initial comments, apparently not

P.P.S. reader Daniel G. sent me a picture of his cat a while back and I don't remember why and it's just been sitting on my desktop for weeks and weeks now, so now seems as good a time as any to post it—this is Gorky. He's helping:

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