Relative difficulty: probably tougher than the usual Monday (solved Downs-only)
THEME: THROW SHADE (63A: Make a subtle insult, or a hint to four highlighted groups of letters in this puzzle) — shaded squares (inside theme answers) contain words that mean "throw":
Theme answers:
SANDCASTLE (18A: Beach project that rarely survives high tide)
CHUCKLEHEAD (23A: Numbskull)
HOG HEAVEN (39A: State of total happiness)
LOBSTER ROLL (56A: Sandwich speciality of Maine)
Word of the Day: POLENTA (48D: Italian cornmeal dish) —
Polenta (/pəˈlɛntə,poʊˈ-/, Italian:[poˈlɛnta]) is an Italian dish of boiled cornmeal that was historically made from other grains. It may be allowed to cool and solidify into a loaf that can be baked, fried, or grilled.
The variety of cereal used is usually yellow maize, but often buckwheat, white maize, or mixtures thereof may be used. Coarse grinds make a firm, coarse polenta; finer grinds make a soft, creamy polenta. Polenta is a staple of both northern and, to a lesser extent, central Italian, Swiss Italian, southern French, Slovenian, Romanian and, due to Italian migrants, Brazilian and Argentinian cuisine. It is often mistaken for the Slovene-Croatian food named žganci. Its consumption was traditionally associated with lower classes, as in times past cornmeal mush was an essential food in their everyday nutrition. (wikipedia)
• • •
Oh, cool, the theme is good. Conceptually, yes, this works. One thing that would've elevated it—and that probably would've been required of such a theme in days of yore—those "shade" words should all break across two words, or at least touch every word in the theme answer. You aren't really probably burying / hiding the shaded words in the theme answers here. CAST is in CASTLE, CHUCK is in CHUCKLE, HEAVE is in HEAVEN, LOB is in LOBSTER, which means SAND, HEAD, HOG, and ROLL are basically unoccupied, unthematically involved, just taking up space. Ideally, the buried word touches all the involved words (and word parts) in the themer. Like, "THE AVENGERS" would be a good way to hide HEAVE—because "HEAVE" is involved in both parts of the phrase: "THE" and "AVENGERS." Admittedly, you set a much higher bar when you insist on this standard, and something like CHUCK, well, that's virtually impossible to break across two words. And it's Monday, and who cares, but the gold standard is "touch 'em all," i.e. the hidden word should touch all words in its base phrase. Here's a "hidden word" grid that obeys the rules:
And here, you can see all the circled words are broken across the words in their base phrases:
But as I say, this is a high standard, and not all themes are up to it, and on a Monday, in a simple puzzle, maybe it doesn't matter so much. Anyway, this puzzle's concept is very good and the execution is, if not ideal, not objectionable either. The theme answers are plenty colorful, so I'm reasonably pleased.
[JELLO BIAFRA]
The rest of the fill gets pretty iffy in places (most notably the middle, which is a disaster: ETCH-A should be completely off limits, what a horrible partial, and NCOS and OER aren't helping much either), but the NW and SE corners are big and add some interest, and ON THE GO is kinda fun, so yeah, on the whole, this is a decent Monday, I'd say.
As for the Downs-only solve, those NW and SE corners were a bit daunting. I whiffed at my first pass at the NW and ended up finishing the puzzle up there. The SE went down a little more easily, though NULL SET gave me a minor fit (49D: { }, in math). All I saw was BRACKETS, and that wouldn't fit. Plus the answer had to start with "Y" or "N" (because ESP-), so pfft. But the ROLL part of LOBSTER ROLL went in and then TOWEL seemed undeniable, which gave me N-LL--- and that's when I saw NULL SET. The one other answer that gave me fits, in a slightly different way, was GONE, which I had at least two other things before I found my way to GONE (32D: Departed). Pretty sure I started with LEFT. Then DEAD. Then I had DONE, which seemed ... off. That's when I realized LODGER might in fact be LOGGER. Finally decided that yes, GONE was better than DONE and that was that. Good decision. Had EN ROUTE for ON THE GO (11D: Currently traveling), but that's pretty much it for mishaps—all minor.
Medium. No erasures and I did not know ELSIE. I’m with @Rex on this one, clever idea with some sparkly theme answers and a bit of iffy fill. Pretty good Monday, liked it.
Croce Solvers - Croce’s Freestyle #940 was pretty easy for a Croce. The SW was tough for me mostly due to misreading a clue. Good luck!
Solving down clues only, not quite as adept as Rex. For 24 down "unlikely odds" I had THIN then SLIM then finally LONG. But for 32 down "Departed", at first I had LEFT, and changed it to WENT which fit HOG HEAVEN. But for 11 down "travelling" I had ON THE ?? and GO never occurred to me. So finally I gave up and looked at the across clue for LOGGER which broke the... well, log jam. Win some, lose some.
Since I'm commenting unusually early, may I make a suggestion... The new comment form seems to be here to say, and its threaded format has some advantages. However later in the day, if I refresh the page I will never notice new replies to old comments because they're buried way up there somewhere. So I prefer the yellow unthreaded format which always shows a new comment at the bottom. If a reply is to a recent comment it's not that hard to figure out where it belongs, and I can pop up the white format to verify. However it can be tough to track down where a new reply to an old comment belongs. Are you still with me? Anyway, how about this:
When replying to a comment from several hours ago, why not include the "@So and So 8:55 am said: blah blah" intro we used to all use? That would be the best of both worlds! (If replying to a recent comment, just hit Reply and type away; we'll figure it out.)
Cute little early week theme - I’ve noticed Monday’s tend to have slightly more bite under the new editor. CHUCKLEHEAD and HOG HEAVEN were pretty neat.
Didn’t even notice the theme until I finished. CHUCKLEHEAD was the highlight for me. I wonder how many appearances EMO has made this year - seems like at least once a week (actually it seems like it’s more frequent than that) which would put it on schedule for 50+ appearances in a year - is that possible ?
Fun puzzle. Also one of my fastest times ever for a Monday. Was surprised at Rex’s evaluation, but then noticed there seemed to be a notable dichotomy between the crosses and downs in terms of difficulty. Except for ELSIE the crosses mostly flowed easily, and in turn this made some of the less familiar downs a lot easier to get.
Never in my life have I made an ERASURE in a crossword puzzle. Always overwriting for me. You are more likely to tear your newspaper than to make a clean erasure.
Downs only. Very much a Monday puzzle. Did not come up solving that way, but that's one obscure ELSIE for a Monday.
Croce vacation catchup: 936 was mostly easy, but with a hard SW making it medium overall. 939 was medium overall and I finished with two incorrect boxes at the cross of 22A with 23D and 24D. 940 was a straightforward medium. Of the three, 936 was the hardest and 940 was the easiest, but my times are all within about two minutes of each other.
This checks the boxes for an excellent theme. It’s never been done before. It involves wordplay and is capped with an aha revealer. The theme answers have zing. And they are fresh – one has appeared only three times in the 80 years of NYT puzzles, and the others less than that, including answer debut LOBSTER ROLL.
Bravo on that, Tim!
Plus, there were little things I liked: • Wonderful answer set for a Monday puzzle, with very few if any no-knows. • ELSIE echoing yesterday’s GLUE. • Lovely answers, CLINCH, CHUCKLEHEAD, STAVE, CLARET. • O-tail row two, with NERO, CREDO, INFO, buttressed by nearby wannabe EMO. • ON THE GO abutting GONE.
And a big thing I liked. I actually guessed the revealer before uncovering it! This is an ongoing challenge for me, something I’m weak at. But, THROW SHADE hit me, and I wondered, “Could it be? Could it be?” And it was! So, this is going to be a very good day.
Congratulations on your debut, Tim, and thank you for a basket-of-goodies outing today!
IMHO if you have a Monday theme it should be easy, and this one fits. Would agree with RP that if you put this puzzle in later in the week it would be found wanting, but fine for a Monday. Some fun and original answers. Cap tip to the constructor.
Hit a downs-only dead end sooner than usual. But thank you, across clues!
How about this answer: caustiC HUCKabee (clue = Sarah), though I’d rather not see her in a puzzle or anywhere else. But that’s one way to get CHUCK to touch both words.
Fast and fun puzzle and good @Rex write-up. I’m glad he conceded that the fact that how the shaded areas were presented doesn’t matter that much for a Monday. Plus, I would point out, they are a “gimme” anyway due to the THROWSHADE theme, so it’s not like we were supposed to find hidden words.
Thanks Rex for posting Perfect Day. My favorite Lou Reed album. Now I need to go listen to Wagonwheel [spoke spoke] and others.
My never-satisfied brain started trying to think of other theme answer possibilities. There was CHURLISH, including HURL.
But the treasure chest was LOFT. Because it has “of” in the middle, there are so many possibilities, all with verve, which I found with the help of the clue/answer tool on XwordInfo. Look at them!
ROLL OF THE DICE SCHOOL OF THOUGHT ALL OF THE ABOVE BALL OF TWINE COUNCIL OF TRENT KERNEL OF TRUTH SMALL OF THE BACK SPOOL OF THREAD
And longer answers, for if the theme ran on Sunday: IN THE STILL OF THE NIGHT THE CALL OF THE WILD THE FALL OF THE HOUSE OF USHER THE MORAL OF THE STORY TRIAL OF THE CENTURY
Hard for a Monday! I almost checked the puzzle, but didn't. Erasure was so hard. Even after I guessed it, I read it as "era-sure," as in "error sure," and thought maybe that's the name of the feature that lets you check your answers while solving?
No Thinking Required -- with the exception of one answer that I didn't know because that math term wasn't in use/vogue when I was taking math way back then. At least I don't think it was. NULL SET is a part of what's called "set theory", right? And I never heard the term "set theory" in Algebra, Geometry, Trigonometry or Calculus. It's been alluded to hundreds of times in the decades since and I have always wondered just what the bleep set theory IS?
FULL SET looked better to me than NULL SET, but I didn't think that ESPN had an ESPF offshoot. So I guessed right.
As for everything else in the puzzle -- I never paused once to raise my pen from the paper. Really easy, even for a Monday.
I agree! i.e., a fine Monday, with it's solid theme phrases topped off by the very clever play with the SHADEd squares, turning a standard grid feature into something special. Great reveal phrase, too. Do-over: BELLboy. No idea: ELSIE. Never saw: NULL SET, and a good thing, too.
@Son Volt, from Saturday - thank you for mentioning Matthew Sewell's Stumper. It took me three sessions to get it, very satisfying to finish.
Feliz lunes a todos. I've decided to try and learn more Spanish since the four words I know in German seem to be all I need to do crossword puzzles, and since people out here in the sticks do speak Spanish and I would like to know why they don't move to someplace better. Probably the shockingly low wages in the area play a role in escapability. The classes here are $350 a pop, and my cheapskatery is kicking in, so maybe Duolingo?
CHUCKLEHEAD? It's KNUCKLEHEAD, amirite? There are zero attempts to be humorous in this puzzle. Arm folded harumphers rejoice.
I wonder who was the first dude to look at a lobster and think, "I'm gonna eat that."
1 What unfriendly waves do. 2 The one you use when the party is good and the wine is being spilt. 3 Consoling phrase to an apiarist with bad honey in the middle ages. 4 Gangster who captures your heart. 5 Couch potato's motto.
1 SLAP SAND CASTLE 2 CLARET TOWEL 3 "THY INSECTS TRY" (~) 4 EKG OUTLAW 5 SLOWEST ON THE GO (~)
My Fascinating Crossword Uniclue Keepsake from Last Year: Slogan for the internet. SLEAZY! NO COST!.
How about this one for dividing up CHUCK: Reaction to something gross ......yeCH UCK. Definitely not as good as @mmorgan's caustiC HUCKabee.
I know that there's a cow chip tossing contest at the Iowa State Fair, but I hear that Joni Ernst wants to introduce HOGHEAVEN' next year. And in unrelated news, Old Crow has taken over the annual fast-ingestion contest from Nathan's Famous, meaning that for Joey Chestnut to defend his title, he'll have to EATCROW.
Stock your bathroom with joke books and you've got a CHUCKLEHEAD.
If only Taylor Fritz had been canonized prior to yesterday's U.S. Open final, it would have been a Sinner vs. SAINT contest. It probably wouldn't have changed the outcome, but it might have gone four sets.
I thought it was super easy as a downs only and I even anticipated the revealer. But a lovely debut. Thanks, Tim D'Alfonso.
Hello from Boston, where we also consider LOBSTER ROLLs to be our specialty, and where if you assume the rightmost lane on the highway to be the SLOWEST, you are in for a surprise. Folks hereabouts like to drive in the middle lane while the speed demons zip past everybody to the right.
I could see the theme right away, but it was kind of boring until I got to the revealer. At last, a real justification for using shaded squares!
I also enjoyed staring at the clue for 36-D, failing to notice the initial apostrophe, and pndering what the opposite of "heath" might be. Doh!
As far as I know, CHUCKLEHEAD is only one word, so technically it's in compliance. There is a stricter rule that you have to use at least two words, but that's not the rule Rex is citing.
I see I'm not the first Mass resident to question SLOWEST. Hi, @hack mechanic!
Theme nits didn't bother me nearly as much as they did OFL. Nothing new there.
Only new to me name today was ELSIE as clued. I have always known her as the Borden cow. Also have heard of a NULLSET, but hadn't seen the symbol for it. CHUCKLEHEAD made me think of old friends Bob and Ray, who used words like this and "miscreant" pretty often. Always makes me smile.
Had some fun with HOGHEAVEN, as H___GH suggested HIGH and I wondered why HIGHHEAVEN wouldn't fit, as it seemed aptl. Oops.
Nice debut, TD. Not Too Daunting and a well-executed and interesting theme. Thanks for all the fun.
yep. Cute puztheme. Null set: ∅ = the ?-marker clues in this puz. Pretty easy, even for a Monday.
staff weeject pick: HEE. Really a bit cooler, if there's a HAW splatzed somewhere else in the puzgrid. HEE YEWS just don't quite get it enough, for a cross-ref dealy.
fave moo-cow easy-E MonPuz clue: {King with a golden touch} = MIDAS. sooo ... Any guesses on the reverse 5-letter entry, {King-wannabe turning everything he touches to sh*t} = ?
other faves: ONTHEGO + GONE. OUTLAW. CLINCH. SOCIAL.
Only no-know in sight was ELSIE. But she did minimal nanosecond damage, thanx to nice, friendly crossin stuff. Solvequest Hogheaven. [@egs: Luv that there proposed cow-chip toss replacement. har]
Historical note: M&A actually participated in an Iowa cow-chip tossin contest, once. Tried to toss it with a softball pitch launchin strategy. Everybody justifiably thought I was weird. And I did not take home any trophies.
Thanx, Mr. D'Alfonso dude. And congratz on yer real nice debut.
Not a knock on the puzzle but I never understood why THROW SHADE would mean "Make a subtle insult". Maybe it's because I grew up in Tennessee and now live in Texas and in both places SHADE is a highly valued commodity in the summertime. Trees are ranked according to how good their SHADE is. When the sun is blazing high in the sky you can THROW SHADE at me and I will give you a heartfelt "Thank you!".
Throw shade is from Black Americans where much of our slang originates. Shade might be a good thing especially in the summer but shade also implies the loss of light which is historically very much a negative thing, to be feared. Liked the puzzle, though as Nancy said mostly easy clues, even for a Monday. Laughed at the comments about the right lane on a freeway- I live next door to the Bay State, where slow drivers are in every lane. Took me a long time to learn that in English novels etc when the characters talked about claret they were talking about Bordeaux. Claret is not really used that much in the US at least now.
Loved seeing the word POLENTA Found the description of its history which Rex posted very interesting as it is reflected in my parents’s backgrounds. My mother’s parents came from central Italy and she grew up eating polendah ( dialect) at home and always liked it. My father’s parents were from Southern Italy near Naples and he never saw it at home and didn’t like it. It is not easy to prepare so she felt it wasn’t worth doing it for herself-as a child I didn’t know what it was. I eventually got to like it a lot and I did get the chance to take my mother out so we both could have polenta on a regular basis. She died almost 20 years ago so I thank the puzzle for bringing back the memories.
As a mathematician it frustrates me to see the ‘empty set’ incorrectly referred to as the ‘null set’ when they are by definition not the same (and the notation {} or ∅ is for the empty set and not the null set) - but then I should probably direct my frustration at the high school textbook writers who have not yet understood this distinction. Never heard of chuckle head or hog heaven before - just reminds me that whilst English may be a universal language there are a lot of things that are used in the US which are not used in other English speaking countries and vice versa. Other than that, a nice easy Monday crossword.
I have never heard the phrase “throw shade” used by anyone, much less used it myself. An easy puzzle, but the whole theme business is irrelevant, superfluous, and meaningless as far as I am concerned.
Rex got a different clue for 1D than I did. In one of the images Rex shares it shows the clue for 1D as “No more seats sign”, but in the printed version (that I was using) the clue is “sold out sign”. (!?)
Good theme with a perfect revealer, using SHADE in two senses.
Now the fill. ETCHA is nothing less than desperate, and THEEU should be OUTLAWed--some say in two senses. (There is also the "THE" dupe, with ONTHEGO.) So, one thumb up, one down. Par.
A long time ago, I was solving this puzzle and got stuck at an unguessable (to me) crossing: N. C. WYETH crossing NATICK at the "N"—I knew WYETH but forgot his initials, and NATICK ... is a suburb of Boston that I had no hope of knowing. It was clued as someplace the Boston Marathon runs through (???). Anyway, NATICK— the more obscure name in that crossing—became shorthand for an unguessable cross, esp. where the cross involves two proper nouns, neither of which is exceedingly well known. NATICK took hold as crossword slang, and the term can now be both noun ("I had a NATICK in the SW corner...") or verb ("I got NATICKED by 50A / 34D!")
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48 comments:
Medium. No erasures and I did not know ELSIE. I’m with @Rex on this one, clever idea with some sparkly theme answers and a bit of iffy fill. Pretty good Monday, liked it.
Croce Solvers - Croce’s Freestyle #940 was pretty easy for a Croce. The SW was tough for me mostly due to misreading a clue. Good luck!
Solving down clues only, not quite as adept as Rex. For 24 down "unlikely odds" I had THIN then SLIM then finally LONG. But for 32 down "Departed", at first I had LEFT, and changed it to WENT which fit HOG HEAVEN. But for 11 down "travelling" I had ON THE ?? and GO never occurred to me. So finally I gave up and looked at the across clue for LOGGER which broke the... well, log jam. Win some, lose some.
Since I'm commenting unusually early, may I make a suggestion... The new comment form seems to be here to say, and its threaded format has some advantages. However later in the day, if I refresh the page I will never notice new replies to old comments because they're buried way up there somewhere. So I prefer the yellow unthreaded format which always shows a new comment at the bottom. If a reply is to a recent comment it's not that hard to figure out where it belongs, and I can pop up the white format to verify. However it can be tough to track down where a new reply to an old comment belongs. Are you still with me? Anyway, how about this:
When replying to a comment from several hours ago, why not include the "@So and So 8:55 am said: blah blah" intro we used to all use? That would be the best of both worlds! (If replying to a recent comment, just hit Reply and type away; we'll figure it out.)
Okay that is all, thank you.
My five favorite original clues from last week
(in order of appearance):
1. Student-run class? (3)
2. Chicken or mashed potato (5)
3. Something made just for show? (3)
4. Pass it on! (5)
5. Faux finish? (3)
GYM
DANCE
SET
BATON
PAS
Cute little early week theme - I’ve noticed Monday’s tend to have slightly more bite under the new editor. CHUCKLEHEAD and HOG HEAVEN were pretty neat.
SOCIAL Distortion
Overall fill was hit or miss - Rex highlights many of the hiccups. I liked CLARET, POLENTA and NULL SET.
The SLOWEST Drink at the Saddest Bar on the Snowiest Day in the Greatest City
An enjoyable Monday morning solve.
Turnpike Troubadours
Easy except for the SE. I misspelled POLENTA as "palenta" at first and didn't know NULLSET. But I guessed at LOU and the music started. Nice puzzle.
Didn’t even notice the theme until I finished. CHUCKLEHEAD was the highlight for me. I wonder how many appearances EMO has made this year - seems like at least once a week (actually it seems like it’s more frequent than that) which would put it on schedule for 50+ appearances in a year - is that possible ?
I haven’t thought about NULLSETs in years and years, so getting that right off without crosses made my morning.
Null Set. Roger. Bleep.
https://www.gocomics.com/doonesbury/1971/11/30
Fun puzzle. Also one of my fastest times ever for a Monday. Was surprised at Rex’s evaluation, but then noticed there seemed to be a notable dichotomy between the crosses and downs in terms of difficulty. Except for ELSIE the crosses mostly flowed easily, and in turn this made some of the less familiar downs a lot easier to get.
Never in my life have I made an ERASURE in a crossword puzzle. Always overwriting for me. You are more likely to tear your newspaper than to make a clean erasure.
Downs only. Very much a Monday puzzle. Did not come up solving that way, but that's one obscure ELSIE for a Monday.
Croce vacation catchup:
936 was mostly easy, but with a hard SW making it medium overall.
939 was medium overall and I finished with two incorrect boxes at the cross of 22A with 23D and 24D.
940 was a straightforward medium.
Of the three, 936 was the hardest and 940 was the easiest, but my times are all within about two minutes of each other.
This checks the boxes for an excellent theme. It’s never been done before. It involves wordplay and is capped with an aha revealer. The theme answers have zing. And they are fresh – one has appeared only three times in the 80 years of NYT puzzles, and the others less than that, including answer debut LOBSTER ROLL.
Bravo on that, Tim!
Plus, there were little things I liked:
• Wonderful answer set for a Monday puzzle, with very few if any no-knows.
• ELSIE echoing yesterday’s GLUE.
• Lovely answers, CLINCH, CHUCKLEHEAD, STAVE, CLARET.
• O-tail row two, with NERO, CREDO, INFO, buttressed by nearby wannabe EMO.
• ON THE GO abutting GONE.
And a big thing I liked. I actually guessed the revealer before uncovering it! This is an ongoing challenge for me, something I’m weak at. But, THROW SHADE hit me, and I wondered, “Could it be? Could it be?” And it was! So, this is going to be a very good day.
Congratulations on your debut, Tim, and thank you for a basket-of-goodies outing today!
IMHO if you have a Monday theme it should be easy, and this one fits. Would agree with RP that if you put this puzzle in later in the week it would be found wanting, but fine for a Monday. Some fun and original answers. Cap tip to the constructor.
I’m, {} are braces ☝️🤓
Hit a downs-only dead end sooner than usual. But thank you, across clues!
How about this answer: caustiC HUCKabee (clue = Sarah), though I’d rather not see her in a puzzle or anywhere else. But that’s one way to get CHUCK to touch both words.
Hey All !
Nice MonPuz. NW seemed toughest area. Good Revealer to tie things up.
Seems the puz has been EATing CROW quite a bit lately.
Afraid to write a big post, in case it dissipates into the Ether-net. Har.
Another dang Monday. Try to have a good one.
One F
RooMonster
DarrinV
Fast and fun puzzle and good @Rex write-up. I’m glad he conceded that the fact that how the shaded areas were presented doesn’t matter that much for a Monday. Plus, I would point out, they are a “gimme” anyway due to the THROWSHADE theme, so it’s not like we were supposed to find hidden words.
Thanks Rex for posting Perfect Day. My favorite Lou Reed album. Now I need to go listen to Wagonwheel [spoke spoke] and others.
My never-satisfied brain started trying to think of other theme answer possibilities. There was CHURLISH, including HURL.
But the treasure chest was LOFT. Because it has “of” in the middle, there are so many possibilities, all with verve, which I found with the help of the clue/answer tool on XwordInfo. Look at them!
ROLL OF THE DICE
SCHOOL OF THOUGHT
ALL OF THE ABOVE
BALL OF TWINE
COUNCIL OF TRENT
KERNEL OF TRUTH
SMALL OF THE BACK
SPOOL OF THREAD
And longer answers, for if the theme ran on Sunday:
IN THE STILL OF THE NIGHT
THE CALL OF THE WILD
THE FALL OF THE HOUSE OF USHER
THE MORAL OF THE STORY
TRIAL OF THE CENTURY
The right lane of the highway is the slowest?
Never driven in Mass then obviously!
Hard for a Monday! I almost checked the puzzle, but didn't. Erasure was so hard. Even after I guessed it, I read it as "era-sure," as in "error sure," and thought maybe that's the name of the feature that lets you check your answers while solving?
No Thinking Required -- with the exception of one answer that I didn't know because that math term wasn't in use/vogue when I was taking math way back then. At least I don't think it was. NULL SET is a part of what's called "set theory", right? And I never heard the term "set theory" in Algebra, Geometry, Trigonometry or Calculus. It's been alluded to hundreds of times in the decades since and I have always wondered just what the bleep set theory IS?
FULL SET looked better to me than NULL SET, but I didn't think that ESPN had an ESPF offshoot. So I guessed right.
As for everything else in the puzzle -- I never paused once to raise my pen from the paper. Really easy, even for a Monday.
I agree! i.e., a fine Monday, with it's solid theme phrases topped off by the very clever play with the SHADEd squares, turning a standard grid feature into something special. Great reveal phrase, too.
Do-over: BELLboy. No idea: ELSIE. Never saw: NULL SET, and a good thing, too.
@Son Volt, from Saturday - thank you for mentioning Matthew Sewell's Stumper. It took me three sessions to get it, very satisfying to finish.
Feliz lunes a todos. I've decided to try and learn more Spanish since the four words I know in German seem to be all I need to do crossword puzzles, and since people out here in the sticks do speak Spanish and I would like to know why they don't move to someplace better. Probably the shockingly low wages in the area play a role in escapability. The classes here are $350 a pop, and my cheapskatery is kicking in, so maybe Duolingo?
CHUCKLEHEAD? It's KNUCKLEHEAD, amirite? There are zero attempts to be humorous in this puzzle. Arm folded harumphers rejoice.
I wonder who was the first dude to look at a lobster and think, "I'm gonna eat that."
Propers: 7
Places: 0
Products: 1
Partials: 14 (holy moly)
Foreignisms: 1
--
Gary's Grid Gunk Gauge: 23 of 78 (29%)
Funnyisms: 0 😫
Tee-Hee: HEE (didn't miss it today!)
Uniclues:
1 What unfriendly waves do.
2 The one you use when the party is good and the wine is being spilt.
3 Consoling phrase to an apiarist with bad honey in the middle ages.
4 Gangster who captures your heart.
5 Couch potato's motto.
1 SLAP SAND CASTLE
2 CLARET TOWEL
3 "THY INSECTS TRY" (~)
4 EKG OUTLAW
5 SLOWEST ON THE GO (~)
My Fascinating Crossword Uniclue Keepsake from Last Year: Slogan for the internet. SLEAZY! NO COST!.
¯\_(ツ)_/¯
How about this one for dividing up CHUCK: Reaction to something gross ......yeCH UCK. Definitely not as good as @mmorgan's caustiC HUCKabee.
I know that there's a cow chip tossing contest at the Iowa State Fair, but I hear that Joni Ernst wants to introduce HOGHEAVEN' next year. And in unrelated news, Old Crow has taken over the annual fast-ingestion contest from Nathan's Famous, meaning that for Joey Chestnut to defend his title, he'll have to EATCROW.
Stock your bathroom with joke books and you've got a CHUCKLEHEAD.
If only Taylor Fritz had been canonized prior to yesterday's U.S. Open final, it would have been a Sinner vs. SAINT contest. It probably wouldn't have changed the outcome, but it might have gone four sets.
I thought it was super easy as a downs only and I even anticipated the revealer. But a lovely debut. Thanks, Tim D'Alfonso.
How are you able to come up with such funny comments everyday? I always look forward to your posts. Thanks!
I liked ETCHA. I just gave an Etch A Sketch to a friend for her birthday.
Hello from Boston, where we also consider LOBSTER ROLLs to be our specialty, and where if you assume the rightmost lane on the highway to be the SLOWEST, you are in for a surprise. Folks hereabouts like to drive in the middle lane while the speed demons zip past everybody to the right.
I could see the theme right away, but it was kind of boring until I got to the revealer. At last, a real justification for using shaded squares!
I also enjoyed staring at the clue for 36-D, failing to notice the initial apostrophe, and pndering what the opposite of "heath" might be. Doh!
OK, be back after I read you all.
d, failin
I didn't notice the theme until I finished. Cute, breezy Monday. Congrats on your debut, Tim :)
As far as I know, CHUCKLEHEAD is only one word, so technically it's in compliance. There is a stricter rule that you have to use at least two words, but that's not the rule Rex is citing.
I see I'm not the first Mass resident to question SLOWEST. Hi, @hack mechanic!
Theme nits didn't bother me nearly as much as they did OFL. Nothing new there.
Only new to me name today was ELSIE as clued. I have always known her as the Borden cow. Also have heard of a NULLSET, but hadn't seen the symbol for it. CHUCKLEHEAD made me think of old friends Bob and Ray, who used words like this and "miscreant" pretty often. Always makes me smile.
Had some fun with HOGHEAVEN, as H___GH suggested HIGH and I wondered why HIGHHEAVEN wouldn't fit, as it seemed aptl. Oops.
Nice debut, TD. Not Too Daunting and a well-executed and interesting theme. Thanks for all the fun.
yep. Cute puztheme.
Null set: ∅ = the ?-marker clues in this puz. Pretty easy, even for a Monday.
staff weeject pick: HEE. Really a bit cooler, if there's a HAW splatzed somewhere else in the puzgrid. HEE YEWS just don't quite get it enough, for a cross-ref dealy.
fave moo-cow easy-E MonPuz clue: {King with a golden touch} = MIDAS.
sooo ... Any guesses on the reverse 5-letter entry, {King-wannabe turning everything he touches to sh*t} = ?
other faves: ONTHEGO + GONE. OUTLAW. CLINCH. SOCIAL.
Only no-know in sight was ELSIE. But she did minimal nanosecond damage, thanx to nice, friendly crossin stuff. Solvequest Hogheaven. [@egs: Luv that there proposed cow-chip toss replacement. har]
Historical note: M&A actually participated in an Iowa cow-chip tossin contest, once. Tried to toss it with a softball pitch launchin strategy. Everybody justifiably thought I was weird. And I did not take home any trophies.
Thanx, Mr. D'Alfonso dude. And congratz on yer real nice debut.
Masked & Anonymo3Us
**gruntz**
A mite is not an insect, right? It's an arachnid.
Can I still eat another meal before fasting? I just need to be ahead of him right?
Not a knock on the puzzle but I never understood why THROW SHADE would mean "Make a subtle insult". Maybe it's because I grew up in Tennessee and now live in Texas and in both places SHADE is a highly valued commodity in the summertime. Trees are ranked according to how good their SHADE is. When the sun is blazing high in the sky you can THROW SHADE at me and I will give you a heartfelt "Thank you!".
The clue says “Fleas and flies”
Wow. My brain just decided to substitute an entirely different word there. Thanks Beezer.
Agree. Never heard of chucklehead. Knicklehead yes.
Throw shade is from Black Americans where much of our slang originates.
Shade might be a good thing especially in the summer but shade also implies the loss of light which is historically very much a negative thing, to be feared.
Liked the puzzle, though as Nancy said mostly easy clues, even for a Monday.
Laughed at the comments about the right lane on a freeway- I live next door to the Bay State, where slow drivers are in every lane.
Took me a long time to learn that in English novels etc when the characters talked about claret they were talking about Bordeaux. Claret is not really used that much in the US at least now.
Loved seeing the word POLENTA
Found the description of its history which Rex posted very interesting as it is reflected in my parents’s backgrounds.
My mother’s parents came from central Italy and she grew up eating polendah ( dialect) at home and always liked it. My father’s parents were from Southern Italy near Naples and he never saw it at home and didn’t like it. It is not easy to prepare so she felt it wasn’t worth doing it for herself-as a child I didn’t know what it was. I eventually got to like it a lot and I did get the chance to take my mother out so we both could have polenta on a regular basis. She died almost 20 years ago so I thank the puzzle for bringing back the memories.
Haha…my brain does that all the time!
As a mathematician it frustrates me to see the ‘empty set’ incorrectly referred to as the ‘null set’ when they are by definition not the same (and the notation {} or ∅ is for the empty set and not the null set) - but then I should probably direct my frustration at the high school textbook writers who have not yet understood this distinction.
Never heard of chuckle head or hog heaven before - just reminds me that whilst English may be a universal language there are a lot of things that are used in the US which are not used in other English speaking countries and vice versa. Other than that, a nice easy Monday crossword.
Yes, those are braces, squiggly brackets perhaps, but unique and distinct from parentheses and plain old brackets.
I have never heard the phrase “throw shade” used by anyone, much less used it myself. An easy puzzle, but the whole theme business is irrelevant, superfluous, and meaningless as far as I am concerned.
Crossing proper nouns natick:
clarEt x bEhar
Had to just guess the vowel until I got the solved message
Rex got a different clue for 1D than I did. In one of the images Rex shares it shows the clue for 1D as “No more seats sign”, but in the printed version (that I was using) the clue is “sold out sign”. (!?)
This Monday puzzle did its Monday job.
Good theme with a perfect revealer, using SHADE in two senses.
Now the fill. ETCHA is nothing less than desperate, and THEEU should be OUTLAWed--some say in two senses. (There is also the "THE" dupe, with ONTHEGO.) So, one thumb up, one down. Par.
Wordle par.
You betcha they say etcha in Minnesota!
A knucklehead or chucklehead both do or say something stupid, but the thing the chucklehead does or says is also hilarious!
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