Extremely damaged, in military lingo / TUE 6-18-24 / Kinda comedic and saucy? / Pungent sushi condiment / Ending with Apple or Obama / Playful term for one's female friends

Constructor: Aaron M. Rosenberg

Relative difficulty: Medium 

THEME: kinda — suffixes or prefixes meaning "kinda" (that's "kind of") are appended to the backs or fronts of familiar phrases that already contain those suffixes or prefixes (in non-suffix or non-prefix form), giving you wacky phrases where those suffixes or prefixes are whimsically, ridiculously, Seussically doubled:

Theme answers:

• BURLESQUE-ESQUE (16A: Kinda comedic and saucy?)
• SEMI-SEMINARY (28A: Kinda religious institution?)
• JELLYFISH-ISH (39A: Kinda squishy and sting-y?)
• QUASI-QUASIMODO (50A: Kinda hunchbacked figure?)

Word of the Day: FUBAR (21A: Extremely damaged, in military lingo) —

FUBAR (Fucked/Fouled Up Beyond All/Any Repair/Recognition/Reason), like SNAFU and SUSFU, dates from World War II. The Oxford English Dictionary lists Yank, the Army Weekly magazine (1944, 7 Jan. p. 8) as its earliest citation: "The FUBAR squadron. ‥ FUBAR? It means 'Fouled Up Beyond All Recognition," referring to unpaid military personnel with erroneous paperwork.

Another version of FUBAR, said to have originated in the military, gives its meaning as "Fucked Up By Assholes in the Rear". This version has at least surface validity in that it is a common belief among enlistees that most problems are created by the military brass (officers, especially those bearing the rank of general, from one to four stars). This version is also most likely to have had its origin in the U.S. Army, where the senior officers command from the rear, as opposed to the Navy or Air Force, where it is common for generals to command alongside their forces. FUBAR had a resurgence in the American lexicon after the term was used in two popular movies: Tango and Cash(1989); and Saving Private Ryan (1998). (wikipedia)

• • •

Good morning, fellow heat-handlers, I hope that you are handling the heat! The next few days are going to be suffocatingly terrible for the northeastern U.S., where I happen to reside, but I understand that things aren't much better in the upper midwest either, so ... yeah, stay hydrated, find some afternoon AC, and best of luck! I might have my first ice cream sandwich *and* my first vanilla malt of the season this week—must find joy in dismal circumstances (seriously, this is my least favorite of all the weathers). Today's puzzle theme falls under the category of "So Stupid That I Like It." It's just silly. That's it. Made-up words, but the kind of words I would absolutely make up because they need making up. Admittedly, they don't need making up very often, but if you've ever seen bad burlesque or a bad drawing of a jellyfish, or known a religious school of dubious accreditation, then these "words" may in fact have come in handy at one time in your life. I had real trouble getting started (with the themers, that is) because, well, you definitely need a bunch of crosses for that first one before you have any idea, so there's that. But if you solved that first themer from the front (as I did), then you got BURLESQUE first and (again, if you are me, specifically), you might've thought "so ... like Milton Burle? ... hey wait, that's not how you spell Milton Berle!" Comedic + saucy + "BURLE" had me thinking UNCLE Miltie, and then wondering what the hell the rest of the letters in the themer could be. Wasn't til I got all the way to BURLESQUEES- that I finally "got" it. Then I expected the next themer to also involve a suffix, but [zany sound effect] nope! Prefix this time. After that, smooth sailing—just enjoyed hunting the remaining suffix/prefixes and seeing what strange sound combinations they'd produce. JELLYFISHISH is by far my favorite—the most fun to say. -ISH has the most entertaining real-life applications, as well. "How do you like the knish? Pretty good, right?" "Well..."

As for the rest of the grid, I thought it was sufficiently bouncy and interestingly varied. It's undersized today, probably because handling 14s in a 15x15 grid is remarkably hard. Grid-spanners don't give you any black square problems, whereas having that one damned black square at the end of your themer creates cascading black square problems that affect where you can put the themer, which then affects where you can put the other themers, etc. A 15x15 grid would force these themers all closer to one another, creating a much more constricted constructing environment. The grid would suffer. Better to shrink the grid to 14, thereby eliminating your black square problem and giving your themers room to breathe. The only place the grid really felt under pressure today was in the NE—things get real ugly in and around that second "Q" because, well, it's a "Q," and "Q"s will do that. BCCS CPU SSE is definitely an OOPS situation, in that it's unpretty, but it's also a tiny part of the grid, and none of the fill in there is horrible, so as fouls go, it's very minor. The rest of the grid looks pretty good. Spicy, even. WASABI crossing FUBAR! Looking up FUBAR was funny for me, mostly because I knew "fuck" was involved somehow, but had forgotten how. It's got the FU like SNAFU, but unlike SNAFU, I couldn't remember what the initialism stood for. "Fucking U-Boat Attacking Rear!"? "Fuck U, Big-Ass Robot!"? So, becoming reacquainted with profanity, that was fun. Also fun: this sentence from FUBAR's wikipedia page: "FUBAR had a resurgence in the American lexicon after the term was used in two popular movies: Tango and Cash (1989); and Saving Private Ryan (1998)." Those are not two movies I would expect to find in the same sentence, or anywhere near each other. My actual first thought was "wow, what is it with Tom Hanks movies and FUBAR?" but that's because I was confusing Tango & Cash with Turner & Hooch. Who can blame me? I'm not convinced they're actually different movies. Both from 1989!? Come on...

Had ObamaCORE before ObamaCARE because of apple (core) and because I want ObamaCORE to be a real fashion trend that really exists in the real world (37A: Ending with Apple or Obama). I'm going to google it now and I better get a lot of pictures of tall dads in fleece vests or tan suits. Hang on ... LOL OK Obamacore is real ("real") but it appears to be a term referring to fashion of the (early) Obama Era, rather than Obama himself. Behold: The Dawn of Obamacore! (cue "Thus Spake Zarathustra")

[from ssense.com, 2022]

I liked the playful clue on GIRLIES, though I would not call my "female friends" that, ever, for maybe obvious reasons (38D: Playful term for one's female friends). The clue probably should've indicated that the gender of the speaker matters, but no biggie. I'm pro-GIRLIES. Traveling to Minneapolis in December to see CYNDI Lauper with my best friend, who is a woman, not a girlie, though I may start calling her that and see how it goes over. If I know her (and I do), it will go over ... interestingly. Anyway, GIRLIES just want to have fun, and that is just what we're gonna do. Hope you had fun with this one, and, again, stay cool, everybody. See you tomorrow.  

Signed, Rex Parker, King of CrossWorld

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