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Sluglike "Star Wars" bad guy / WED 7-31-24 / Increases sharply / Video streaming giant / Like 10%-fat beef / Man, on the Isle of Man / Duck delicacy / What it would be a mistake to write twice? / Vaccine, informally / Passionately discuss minutiae, with "out"
Wednesday, July 31, 2024
Constructor: Jackson Matz and Ben Matz
Relative difficulty: Easy
Theme answers:
This was kind of echo of yesterday's puzzle. Yesterday, I went from "what the hell is this weak theme?" to "Oh, ha ha, good one." Today, I went from "what the hell is this inscrutable theme?" to "Oh, ha ha, good one." This is to say that the revealer did its job both days. "Huh?" to "Oh!"—that is the trajectory you want to follow from the beginning of a puzzle to the moment you hit the revealer. Today's theme is definitely trickier than yesterday's—yesterday, the only mystery was what was linking all the answers, while today there was real mystery as to how in the world the answers fit the clues at all. But overall yesterday's puzzle felt cleaner. Leaner. And the revealer was slightly funnier (or loopier). Also, there's one major problem with the execution of this theme, to my eyes, which is that in two of the theme answers (COVER CHARGE, CLEAN-CUT), there are actually two (2) "C"s. So the answer is, in fact, under the "C" ... but only the first one. When your answer has two of them, the elegance of the whole design suffers. The extra "C"s don't cause any real confusion at the solving level, but they diminish the force of the revealer. "UNDER THE SEA ... get it? under the "C" ... no not that "C," the other one. Just ignore that one." Still, the revealer did give me a little pop of "aha," instead of a sad slap of "oh" or "ugh" or "oof," so on the whole I'd still put this one in the Thumbs-up column. The ideal version of this theme would have no "C"s but the thematically relevant "C"s, but ... this is fine.
- (C) OVERCHARGE (25D: *Rip off)
- (C) RAMPS UP (18D: *Increases sharply)
- (C) LEAN-CUT (31D: *Like 10%-fat beef)
- (C) LOSING TIME (11D: *Not moving fast enough)
Manx (endonym: Gaelg or Gailck, pronounced [ɡilɡ, geːlɡ] or [gilk]), also known as Manx Gaelic, is a Gaelic language of the insular Celtic branch of the Celtic language family, itself a branch of the Indo-European language family. Manx is the historical language of the Manx people.Although few children native to the Isle of Man speak Manx as a first language, there has been a steady increase in the number of speakers since the death of Ned Maddrell in 1974. He was considered to be the last speaker to grow up in a Manx-speaking community environment. Despite this, the language has never fallen completely out of use, with a minority having some knowledge of it as a heritage language, and it is still an important part of the island's culture and cultural heritage.
Manx is often cited as a good example of language revitalization efforts; in 2015, around 1,800 people had varying levels of second-language conversational ability. Since the late 20th century, Manx has become more visible on the island, with increased signage, radio broadcasts and a Manx-medium primary school. The revival of Manx has been made easier because the language was well recorded, e.g. the Bible and the Book of Common Prayer had been translated into Manx, and audio recordings had been made of native speakers. (wikipedia)
• • •
The theme answers were about the only thing in the grid causing any difficulty today, at least for me. I have almost no ink on my printed-out grid, which means that there was both very little in the way of toughness and (more sadly) very little in the way of real interest. I had HULU before ROKU (42A: Video streaming giant) and GO ON before GUSH (56A: Rave (about)), but that's it for missteps or even serious hesitations. I wanted (C)LOSING TIME to be (C)LOSING GROUND for more than a few seconds, but of course it wouldn't fit. Otherwise, the puzzle was pretty straightforward and the fill a little on the dull side. Liked seeing BRAD PITT; hated seeing FOIE GRAS, as always (for animal cruelty reasons) (39D: Duck delicacy). I was contemplating seeing Tarantino's Once Upon a Time ... in Hollywood at Tarantino's own New Beverly Cinema when I'm out in Southern California next week—BRAD PITT is great in that—but I decided I'd use my one New Beverly visit on a matinee screening of The Godfather, Part II instead). I.B. Technicolor 35mm. I've never seen it on the big screen, with an audience. Can't wait. But back to the puzzle. I kinda wish BROADCASTER (17A: Television pro) had been thematic somehow—would've made the theme symmetrical. Really feels like it's occupying a thematic position, but it isn't, oh well. I also wish they hadn't duped "UP," especially considering one of the "UP's appears in a theme (i.e. marquee) answer (OPENS UP, (C)RAMPS UP).
What else?:
Signed, Rex Parker, King of CrossWorld
[Follow Rex Parker on Twitter and Facebook]
What else?:
- 19A: "... ___ lack thereof" ("OR A") — I don't usually use an indefinite article when I say this. That is, "or lack thereof" feels like the right phrase. No "a." Obviously, you can say it that way. But I don't.
- 20A: Passionately discuss minutiae, with "out" (NERD) — I think I wanted HASH here but the crosses wouldn't allow it. This is a decent / original clue for NERD.
- 6A: Man, on the Isle of Man (BLOKE) — since the (historical) language of the Isle of Man is Manx (see "Word of the Day," above), I really thought this was going to be some Isle-of-Man-specific thing, maybe a slang term derived from Manx, but it's just ... a general British word for "man."
- 1D: Vaccine, informally (JAB) — this also feels British. Are we calling it the JAB now, too?
- 3D: What it would be a mistake to write twice? (BOO) — can't decide if this is great or awful. If you write BOO twice, it *is* literally a (word meaning) mistake: BOO-BOO. I can't argue with that.
Gotta go get the coffee started and then get to the gym, where I think it probably is a LEG DAY (48D: Gym session devoted to squats, dead lifts, etc.). Thanks for reminding me, puzzle. See you all tomorrow.
[Follow Rex Parker on Twitter and Facebook]
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67 comments:
Easy, with only two overwrites (but one of them generated two child overwrites):
pEnS in before HEMS at 23D
utter before PLAIN at 47A led to CLEAr CUT before CLEAN at 31D (neither made sense with the clue) and SoX before SAX at 43D (the cat's name turned out to be Socks; I thought "Eww!")
No WOEs, but I didn't know (or remember) that BRAD PITT was in the 6D movies.
I'm afraid I do not agree with your criticism regarding the two Cs in the themers which seems to require that there is no c in an answer after the first one. You are being overly literal. No? Initial C. Rest of answer. That's it. Theme met.
OPUS just means 'work', not necessarily a 'great' one which is a magnum opus, as I imagine most people already know. I look forward to the day that the NY Times no longer accepts octopi as an answer in its games section. Octopuses or octopodes are good plurals, the former being much more common. Or if we want to follow the analogy of tripods, we could just say octopods. Anything is preferable to the pretentious and erroneously formed octopi.
Before today I’ve never noticed duplicates, or if I have, they’ve made no impression on me. Today, though, I spotted the second UP and thought, “Rex is going to call them out on this one.” And it was so.
The second C’s eluded me, however. My crossword connoisseurship still has room to grow. In the meantime, I’ll just keep having fun solving the dang things.
I liked it. Fortunately I was patient for a change and plodded around the grid until I hit the revealer, and then the light bulb went off and I was able to make sense of the theme entries as well. Perfect for a Wednesday - just enough crunch and you don’t have to be someone who complains that Saturdays are too easy to solve and enjoy it.
The clue for 41-down is “Something that’s not going to happen.” The answer is NOGO. Using “going” in the clue seems like an editorial oversight since GO is in the answer.
Godfather II in 35 mm?! Gah, so jealous!
Same experience as yesterday. Nicely filled grid but a very weak theme, with a revealer that emphasises the weakness. And yes, the extra Cs in two of the theme answers was inelegant. And today lacked the cleverness in cluing we saw yesterday. Okay, I'm done complaining now.
No overwrites, although I almost wrote in otters before OCTOPI, but immediately realized how ridiculous that was. JABBA crossing JAB at 1a/1d was bold.
This was very easy, but still enjoyable. I got the theme with the first clue, but each subsequent themer was interesting to solve just to see what second phrase would appear with the addition of C.
My only nit comes from putting on my pedant hat (don't share headwear -- that's how they spread!): BLANK Scrabble tiles aren't valuable; they have no value. The word they're looking for is "useful".
I enjoyed seeing Menken & Ashman crossing Menken & Ashman at UNDER THE SEA / (Mushnik and) SON.
@Mack - I’ll suggest a counter-nit to your nit.
Merriam-Webster definition of “valuable”:
2a: having desirable or esteemed characteristics or qualities
valuable friendships
b: of great use or service
valuable advice
I’ll contend that certainly fits the bill in this case (and it helps with the misdirection). It’s actually a pretty good clue in my opinion.
Fun little puzzle - early week easy but a neat concept and well filled. Once the Cs fell it was off to the races. I like vertical themers and although the revealer is yet another Disney shoutout it does serve the purpose.
A joy to start the day with Verlaine and Richard Lloyd.
The JAB - JABBA start wasn’t pretty and BROADCASTER is a wet long. Following that NW corner though is a relatively clean grid. Liked BEAR HUG x NABBED and GUSH x FOIE GRAS.
Enjoyable Wednesday morning solve.
William BLOKE
I got the revealer before any themers for some reason, which helped make it more enjoyable.
Also had Go on for GUSH which slowed me down for awhile.
That’s a heartwarming story, two brothers, one in high school, the other in college, brothers who adore each other (read the constructors' notes in WordPlay); they make a puzzle together and it gets published in the Times.
It’s a worthy puzzle too, with an elegant theme that brought me, and I’m guessing others, a sweet aha when its gimmick became clear. And the grid not only has hardly a whiff of junk, but brings loveliness: SEE PAST, GUSH, PERUSE, MIMIC, and OPENS UP.
There are four answers that have never appeared in the Times puzzle before, and I’m amazed that three of them – BROADCASTER, CLOSING TIME, and CRAMPS UP – never have. The fourth, LEG DAY, is a gym term that I loved seeing.
I don’t know how the MATZi found these theme answers, but all four of them make wonderful wordplays – bravo, gentlemen! Congratulations to you, Ben, on your debut. And thank you both for a bright and splendid outing today!
I tried coming up with more theme answers, but they all sounded dumb. I crest my case.
TASER before POKER. Alas.
Very pleasing to see one long expression turned into another one by sticking a "c" in front of it. Having a "c" in the first one is a bit inelegant, but it was probably necessary.
HACK means "expose vulnerabilities"? It's not one of the slang meanings of the word I found.
I can't decide which I prefer, Godfather I or II. I lean toward II because DeNiro's in it. I just read that he auditioned for three roles in I and was rejected.
Hey All !
Thought we were dealing with a WedRebus for a minute. Had the _LEANCUT in, wondering what or how a SEA was going to fit in there. Turned out to be a C. Aha, says I, letting out a half-ASS Har.
Nice that the added C makes a real thing, it doesn't end up as just adding a C to the front, ending up with jibberish. Like if an answer was Familytime, for an example, it'd be Cfamilytime, which is said jibberish.
Good puz, quick solve, ready to get on with Hump Day.
Happy Wednesday!
One F
RooMonster
DarrinV
Indeed—octopus is from Greek, not Latin, so Latin-plurals don’t apply
I would agree, except the rest of the tiles have literal values. So if we're using both definitions, all Scrabble tiles are valuable and the clue might as well just be "Some Scrabble tiles.
"Jab" for vaccine is also the standard in Canada, at least in the area near the Rockies where I live.
In the pandemic days, talking about getting a vaccine was quite common in casual conversation and "I got my jab yesterday" was the most common way to hear that.
The TV news was a bit more formal, of course, referring to it as "covid vaccine injection" at the top of the story, but then "jab" every time it was mentioned after that.
Like some others, I caught on right away with the (C)RANPSUP answer. Then it was a matter of trying to guess the revealer, which I did not. Should have notice that all the themers were going down and the extra C was on top. Next time. OK, probably not.
I did like the overall absence of PPP today and was glad that the few chosen were things I knew, like BRADPITT and ROKU. And of course ENOS, a frequent visitor.
Mostly I wondered how many comments it would take before the OCTOPI issue came up. Answer, two. More to come, I'm sure.
I thought this idea and its execution were just great. Well done, JM and BM. A puzz Jointly Made can Be Messy, but this one was elegant. Thanks for all the fun.
Lewis, you reminded me:
"I dropped the toothpaste," said Tom, crestfallen.
Agree. The nit is too picky.
Very nice puzzle! I was surprised that no one has mentioned the very small amount of PPP or “gunk” today. The themer was in my wheelhouse since my daughter watched The Little Mermaid about 100 times, BUT other than that, it looks like only JABBA and BRADPITT for propers? Oh. ENOS and ROKU. Big deal.
I
At first I had "pens" instead of HEMS (in), and "epic" instead of OPUS, so the puzzle took me longer than it should have. I thought the theme was well conceived, and it did help solve it. Never heard of JAB as an inoculation, but I guess it makes sense.
A clever Wednesday with a cute theme that didn’t make me crazy
@RP: Excellent choice in cinema viewing. Yes BRAD PITT and “Once Upon A Time” are a pleasure but a chance to watch Pacino and De Niro lurking in 35 mm shadows … priceless.
@Lewis (8:04) “I crest my case.” 😄
@MathGent .. "Hack" in this case is referring to a computer hack, i.e. to hack a computer would be to expose the vulnerabilities of the computer.
Ok… so to be clear it’s Octopuses not octopi. The word is greek and not latin
Forgot to mention how perfectly refreshing it was to have so few proper names. I didn’t count but even including the songs, it was very very low. A general lack of PPP is always something to GUSH about. So big thanks to the Matz Bros. (sounds like a CPA firm) for this fun Wednesday, and congratulations to Ben on the debut
Oh and FWIW, I have the old “normal” blog format today.
I like it when the theme goes vertically. A nice refreshing change of pace. When I saw the answers weren't going to make any sense, I went down and found the revealer. And then the rest of the puzzle was a very fast fill in the blank. Actually rather enjoyable once you see the C is taken off. One of the least gunky grids since I've started counting. That's why it flows so well. I wish the cluing voice was a bit more amusing.
Propers: 4
Places: 1
Products: 1
Partials: 6
Foreignisms: 2
--
Gary's Grid Gunk Gauge: 14 (18%) (rawk on gents!)
Recipes: 1 (beta)
Funnyisms: 2 😕
Tee-Hee: Our beloved ASS returns.
Uniclues:
1 Garlic-powered runner took first.
2 "I don't know how to fix your computer either, but I am way better at Google than you."
3 Moniker by Santa detractors thinking he's egoistic.
4 Where octopi get hammered.
5 Groan every 20-something has made.
6 Wears tight underwear.
7 Tabloid headline when Hollywood legend takes another starlet half his age to brunch.
8 What the pro-ARSE NYTXW doesn't do anymore.
9 Area of expertise for pro-marijuana artists.
10 Oft repeated phrase by bar owner near a fraternity house to sleepy patron.
11 Skip all those tedious words so you can be a part of the conversation at book club.
1 AIOLI RACER LED
2 NERD OPENS UP
3 PLAIN SMUG NICK (~)
4 BAR UNDER THE SEA
5 BOO, COVER CHARGE
6 CRAMPS UP UNIT
7 BRAD PITT LEG DAY
8 KEEP CLEAN CUT
9 NEONS SPHERE
10 CLOSING TIME SON
11 PERUSE OPUS END
My Fascinating Crossword Uniclue Keepsake from Last Year: How to make everyone happy. SAY "CLOWN CARS".
¯\_(ツ)_/¯
Merriam-Webster accepts octopi. Guess the language has evolved to allow it.
OCTOPI is defensible, but octopuses is righter.
Hidden Diagonal Word clues:
1. Pin it on a racer
2. First word in commencement, musically
3. Surfer's confidence, in slang
What my right calf does too often in the night: CRAMPS UP (sigh)
ANTE & POKER both crossing 37A, SEE PAST, but ANTE clued (mercifully, for once) in a non-POKER context)
Answers to HDW clues:
1. BIB (a palindrome, it can begin with the B in 1D, JAB, or 3D BOO--I liked finding BIB since it appeared in the clue to 15A, Certain bib wearer)
2. POMP (begins with P the afore-mentioned 38D, POKER--POMP and Circumstance)
3. STOKE (takes its S from 23D, HEMS, moves to the NE; a surfer in a slump might say, "Dude, I lost my STOKE.")
The END ... CLOSING TIME
Filled this one in as fast as I could tap the letters! Found it really easy, fastest Wednesday I've ever done by far. A bunch of fun clue/answers though, especially: SPHERE, LEGDAY, BOO, OCTOPI.
Brilliant! Inspired! Ingenious! Into my running list for "Puzzle of the Year" it goes.
It broke with the mantra I've developed through experience and that I was telling myself: "If there's a mismatch between the clue and the answer, the trick is in the CLUE!"
So I reread every clue, looking for a change of letter or a reversal of the phrase or...something.
But that wasn't it at all.
Because I didn't know the song upfront, there was no early tipoff. I had the UNDER, but was it UNDER the SKY or SEA or SUN? Only after getting UNDER THE SEA did I see that when you remove the C from the starred and completely in-the-language answers you get a different completely-in-the-language answer that completely fits the clue. Wow!
Could I have solved the puzzle without figuring any of this out? Sure -- but that's not the point. What a really clever puzzle!!
Mostly easy except for the theme answers which I hesitated on until I got the reveal late in the solve.
No WOEs and leaK before HACK was it for erasures.
Smooth with a cute/fun theme, liked it.
(C)rack up. (C)lock out. Definitely not easy to think of workable examples of this theme.
Additional Uniclue (hi @Gary Jugert!):
Definite NOGO for @ Rex
OCTOPI FOIEGRAS
Of course today's hipsters probably shorten octopus to OPUS.
Shouldn't SEEPAST be considered a tiny contributor to the reveal? You have to get past the "see" to get the meaning of the clue.
Excellent puzzle. Thanks, Jackson Matz and Ben Matz.
I always thought JABBA was more toad like than slug like. And then I get me a BLOKE and a little JAB and I know I'm going to enjoy the puzzle. I did!
Now where did I first see my first UNDER THE SEA....Ah, yes. CRAMPS UP. Then I looked at the clue: Increases sharply. CRAMPS UP made sense in an odd way but I hadn't seen the reveal yet. CLOSING TIME for not moving fast enough made me HUH out loud. Then I stared at those two, took out the C's, and voila! I saw what had happened! I didn't mind the two C's, but then again, I don't suffer elegance.
I've eaten FOIE GRAS and it's delicious. It melts in your mouth. Once again, the French serve me up heaven food until.......I never ate it again. I was probably 18 or so and visiting Dad in Nice when I took my first bite. It was much later that I learned what the poor duck had to go through in order to satisfy me. So now I make my own version with chicken livers. It's called mousse GILLI. I really hope no chicken suffered because of my need to satisfy my taste buds. I'll have to call Perdue Farms.
@Whatsername...I love your new avatar. I hope you keep it for at least 100 more days!
The fun ones are just rolling in this week - you don't want to spoil us do you, NYT?! Very clever. And I liked it a lot.
Thank you, Ben & Jackson :)
I'm jealous, too, Rex - 35mm! The Godfather I & II are my favorite movies of all time. Enjoy it!
A BRAD PITT joke
My wife is absolutely furious with me. Here’s the story – see what you think.
When my wife and I married we vowed to be faithful, of course, but we left ourselves one opening. And that was if the fantasy dream romance of either of us could possibly come true, we could go for it. But we had to pick one person, and we’d write it down. So I picked Julia Roberts, and my wife picked Tom Cruise. And we wrote the names down and put them in an envelope.
Well, this morning at breakfast, I suggested that we update the list. It’s been a very long time. And she agreed. So we took out the envelope, and she crossed out Tom Cruise and wrote down Brad Pitt. And I crossed out Julia Roberts and wrote down Cindy Markowitz – a high school girl who lives up the street.
What did I do wrong? She agreed to the update!!
The BLANKS bothered the heck out of me also. It has 0 value. The least valuable tile in the bunch! Yes, it’s versatile, and yes, it’s useful. But it is in fact, valueless!
@Tom T 10:40 AM
As of yesterday, we all became surfing experts so thanks for finding this HDW. And the right calf issue is a hydration issue. Drink lots more water and plan for the 3 am pee. It's a great opportunity to check if you locked the front door.
In print usage, OCTOPI led until about 1930 when OCTOPUSES took off. OCTOPODES was/is seldom used:
octopus plurals
Always love the anticipation of commentary from the anti-octopi crowd 😀
Yes, it's a great theme and revealer, and yes, it would have been even better without any extra Cs. Nothing wrong with striving for perfection, as long as one realizes that something can be less than perfect but still a delight, as with this puzzle. The only theme answer I almost completed before seeing the revealer was CLEA_CUT. I was convincing myself that if the butcher cut a steak without much fat on it it would be CLEAn-CUT, and was glad to learn otherwise
As I wrote in OCTOPI I could hear the comments coming. I think people started to say it as pedantic humor, but the word had crept into our language.
For me, the JABBA/JAB crossing was a joy and a delight; I realize that it's a matter of taste.
I had FOIE GRAS exactly once; it was almost as good as shad roe, which I've had the same number of times. I wouldn't eat the former now, either, but people's sensitivities vary. I'm still willing to boil a live lobster.
Finished with an error, though, pEnS crossing pACK, figuring the latter was some term-of-trade, and nTV was one of the two thousand networks I've never heard of.
GREAT puzzle by the brothers. Thanks! Well constructed and fun. 3D BOO-BOO clue was a little wordy but other than that it was smooth for me. I hope the young brothers continue to collaborate and know that the XWORD community appreciates them.
@GILL (10:53) Planning on it. ;-]
Like @kitschef, I had OTTERS briefly until I thought: that can't be right. Also had PENS before HEMS in for quite a while, and I was wondering if 23 across could possibly be PUNK to expose vulnerabilities.
But my funniest typeover was having Bill Clinton's SAT displayed at the Smithsonian.
I’ll get my nit out of the way first: PENDS is a NO GO. So is (are?) OMS.
Clever theme with the bonus “sea creatures” entry. Is the SEA dupe is a fault or a deliberate hint?
More importantly, does JABBA AIOLI pass the breakfast test?
English language weirdness: adding “down” to powers and SHUTS, words with totally dissimilar meanings, creates terms that can be interchangeable.
The clue for ICE AGE not being in past tense piqued my curiosity so I read UP on ICE AGEs. (There is a lot/ton of interesting reading out there about ICE AGEs.) Turns out some glaciers were formed as recently as the last century.
Re BLANK, I have to agree with Mack and Anon 11:23. In a Scrabble game where tiles have designated values, a blank tile is defined as having zero value. Which is not to say that they can't be useful.
@Gary Jugert, Tee-hee (or is that 3:00 AM Tee-tee?)
Yeah I think the "ex" word they needed was exploit.
Nicely easy. And the very best "Closing Time" song is Leonard Cohen's.
@Whatsername -- Wonderful avatar that I never would have noticed if @GILL hadn't called attention to it. (I'm not visual and I never notice avatars -- not even Loren's.)
For reasons having nothing to do with puzzles or Rex or the blog or any of us, I hope that this bit of internet art has already gone viral and become a "meme" -- whatever a meme is.
Marie Jean Babic. I am old enough to have seen Godfather II when it first came out. A great movie. One of the rare cases where the sequel is better than the original- the original bothered me because it made a hero out of a mafioso though it is a good movie.
Reading about 35 mm film being special these days. Another reminder that I am old!
Bob Mills
Jab is used much more in Britain & Canada than in the US.
@Nancy 5:02....."this bit of internet art" had indeed gone viral. I would've changed my avatar as well but @Whatsername beat me to it.... ;-)
Interesting that octopi was once commonly used, per a commenter above
It clearly started as a hypercorrection (trying too hard to be correct making another error) But the hypercorrection is being corrected out of existence except in crosswords? That’s language.
Also like the comment about the brothers who made the puzzle.
Liked the puzzle. Change of pace so few names.
In case you are counting votes, I thought 3D BOOBOO was great.
For “Bloke” and “Isle of Man” you can’t beat Hitchcock’s last silent movie “The Manxman”
https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/en/4/41/Manxman.jpg
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Manxman_(1929_film)
I had a major "ick" reaction to BRAD PITT, whose mistreatment (and credibly alleged abuse) of his ex-wife and kids was apparently so egregious, most of his children have changed their last names to no longer be associated with him.
Gill and Nancy: I think that was the crux of Vance's lament: Childless Cat Ladies (do) Vote...
Pretty good. Not much to complain about.
I'd like to be
UNDER THE SEA
In an OCTOPI' garden...
Extra C's? Well, yeah. Unexciting? I disagree.
Constructors, I want you to study this grid carefully. There are three, count 'em, three, PPPs: JABBA, BRADPITT and MTV. ALL of the rest of the puzzle is...wait for it...WORDS! You see, it CAN be done!! Oh, two acronyms, CPA and IPO. All these are extremely well-known. And please don't bother me with NICK Nolte or Jeremy IRONS. Neither is clued that way, or needs be.
I think this is a triumph of execution, and award a rare eagle!
Wordle par.
NO COVER
BRADPITT OPTS to be CLEANCUT,
but it’s PLAIN THE BLOKE ADAPTS,
so if ONE DAY he OPENSUP,
FEASTON what you can’t SEEPAST.
--- DEE DEE LONG
Octopus is the LATINIZED version of the Greek word. In fact, octo is the exact Latin spelling of the word eight. Thus there is nothing wrong with the Latin plural. Latin and Greek are both ancient languages and both borrowed from each other frequently; they are nextdoor neighbors after all. In fact there are names of gods and goddesses that are the same in both mythologies, although they are spelled differently.
I loved 3D clue and answer!
My favorite row in the puzzle is: ENOS MIMIC ONES! Because it actually does. They are anagrams!!! I wonder if the constructors did that intentionally.
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