"It was news to me," in online shorthand / FRI 10-25-24 / Another name for C## / Dog's post-surgery wear, familiarly / Timesaver for a breakfast chef / Nickname for an early 2000s governor of California / Flawless display of technique / Mount Rushmore's makeup / Closest confidant, informally / Misleading cognate, like the German "Gift" which actually means "poison" / Male protocol popularized by "How I Met Your Mother"

Constructor: Alex Murphy

Relative difficulty: Easy-Medium

THEME: none 

Word of the Day: piragua (46A: Main ingredient of the Puerto Rican dessert piragua) —

A piragua Spanish pronunciation: [piˈɾa.ɣwa] is a Puerto Rican shaved ice dessert, shaped like a cone, consisting of shaved ice and covered with fruit-flavored syrup. Piraguas are sold by vendors, known as piragüeros, from small, traditionally brightly-colored pushcarts offering a variety of flavors. Besides Puerto Rico, piraguas can be found in mainland areas of the United States with large Puerto Rican communities, such as New York and Central Florida.

• • •

Probably the biggest reaction this puzzle got out of me was when I literally laughed out loud at the clue on TIL (37A: "It was news to me," in online shorthand), not because the clue is particularly funny, but because I thought "wow, that is going to be news to a sizable segment of the solving population." It's a slightly cruel way to clue what is normally an ordinary (if quaint) and forgettable contraction. Well, "cruel" if you are not extremely online. Luckily, I'm at least moderately online, and so I've known TIL ("Today I Learned...") for years. And maybe I've completely misjudged the breadth of its familiarity, but it *feels* like an abbr. that will resonate with younger (and here I mean, under 60*) people far more than older people. I don't mind online initialisms in my puzzle, but it's always frustrating to encounter an initialism you've never heard of, and then, even after you've worked it out from crosses, have no idea what the initials stand for. I remember the first time I saw TIL in a tweet or whatever, and having no clue what I was looking at. IDK ("I don't know") and IRL ("In real life") are reasonably intuitive (if you've got some amount of context from the clue). But TIL, yeesh. IDK and IRL have the virtue of being truly original answers (i.e. you can't clue them any other way), whereas TIL isn't new at all—the clue just dresses it up in new clothes. To some, those "clothes" will be totally inscrutable, and if you were one of those "some," well, just know I was thinking about you while I was solving. And if you didn't know TIL, just think: you can go on social media and post this perfect post: "TIL what TIL means." Or just send it in an email to your BESTIE, if that's easier.

Speaking of BESTIE, that was my first answer today. Got it off the "T" in INT, which was wrong, but just right enough (i.e. 1/3 right) to get me going (ATT = attempt, as in "attempted pass"; a QB's completion rate is "completed passes / ATTs"). BESTIE to LOIS to DREAM, and then I saw RIBALD, which changed INT to ATT, and off I went. The middle of this puzzle is nice, but it came together awfully easily. The front ends of those long Downs are not hard to pick up, and with the first few letters in place, both TEN OUT OF TEN and OVERSELLING were cinches. I had ... not trouble, but hesitation on FALSE FRIEND (17D: Misleading cognate, like the German "Gift" which actually means "poison"), as I know the term as FALSE COGNATE ... but then I learned just now (TIL!) that these are distinct terms:

False cognates are pairs of words that seem to be cognates because of similar sounds and meaning, but have different etymologies; they can be within the same language or from different languages, even within the same family. For example, the English word dog and the Mbabaram word dog have exactly the same meaning and very similar pronunciations, but by complete coincidence. [...] The term "false cognate" is sometimes misused to refer to false friends, but the two phenomena are distinct. False friends occur when two words in different languages or dialects look similar, but have different meanings. While some false friends are also false cognates, many are genuine cognates (see False friends § Causes). For example, English pretend and French prétendre are false friends, but not false cognates, as they have the same origin. (wikipedia)

So there you go. I thought it was FRIEND, but I wasn't sure, but then crosses confirmed it, ta da. The triple stack across the middle of the grid today is really lovely. It's weird that SHAME is attached to the cone (34A: Dog's post-surgery wear, familiarly). I guess the idea is that it must be humiliating for the dog to have to suffer the distinctly uncanine indignity of wearing such a thing. It's even worse on a cat, tbh. Our cats have so far avoided cone-dom, though the dogs both had injuries of one kind or another that necessitated preventing them from gnawing, licking, etc. So sad, so adorable. You can make up all kinds of "cone" nicknames for your poor animal. Like "CONE-an, the Barbarian" or "Mrs Conington" etc. May as well have fun with it (note: your animal will not see the humor).

[Couldn't find a cone pic, so here's a cast pic (Gabby, 2008-2020)]

The SW corner was the hardest part of the grid for me, and also the least pleasant. Nothing like BROCODE to put me off my lunch (luckily, it's 5am and therefore not lunch time). Feels like the puzzle is overly fond of How I Met Your Mother, possibly as some kind of payback for having Will Shortz on the show once. Anyway, the very idea of a BROCODE is a hard pass for me (however hilarious it was on the show itself—I wouldn't know). The other off-putting thing down here was CREPE MIX (34D: Timesaver for a breakfast chef). I want to say "is that a thing?" but I suppose it is. I've just never seen or heard of it or seen anyone use it etc. so the only thing I'm thinking when I see CREPE is PAN. A CREPE PAN is very much a thing. A familiar thing that I have seen. I've never made crêpes, and when my mom made them she didn't use a mix (I don't think), so ... shrug. No idea about the Mozart opera (47D: "La Clemenza di ___" (Mozart opera) (TITO)), and no idea what was supposed to follow SEX at 56A: What might be included in an act of congress (SEX TOY). Ah, the old "congress" pun; an oldie but ... well, an oldie, for sure. Luckily, Lily TOMLIN was a gimme (god bless her), and she gave me the leverage I needed to pry that corner open.

D NATURAL is a funny one if you know nothing about music because you could easily find yourself wondering what the hell the clue has to do with DNA (that was certainly where I thought the answer was going before I looked at the clue, and even for a second or two afterwards, frankly) (52A: Another name for C##). C sharp sharp = D.  Sharp the sharp and you're back at the natural. That SE corner was generally easy, though I definitely misspelled KRONER at my first pass (KRONOR!) (57A: Scandinavian capital) ("capital" as in money, another clue misdirection oldie). Hey wait, I didn't misspell it! KRONOR is the plural of "krona," the basic monetary unit of Sweden (and Iceland). What is KRONER, then? ... [looks it up] ... Aw jeez, what are you doing, Scandinavia? Why do Denmark and Norway spell it "krone / kroner"? That seems perverse. You all should get on the same page, because AS IT IS, it's unnecessarily confusing.

Bullets:

• 22A: Broadway's Salonga (LEA) — misspelled it LIA, the only trouble I had in that NE corner. Somehow, though, I couldn't drop down easily from that corner, as neither DRAMEDY (26D: It'll make you laugh, it'll make you cry) nor PLAZA (30D: Square) computed at first. Brutally vague clue on PLAZA. This is my preferred PLAZA clue at the moment:

• 7D: Suck up (ABSORB) — boo. You mean "Soak up." This is an awkward attempt at misdirection. Again I say, boo.
• 26A: Where the lions sleep tonight, presumably (DENS) — boo. Save this clue for singular DEN, so you can at least get the song phrasing right. It's "the lion sleeps tonight," not the "lions sleep tonight." Again I say, boo.

• 36A: Play place (ARENA) — I wanted not to like this, as I've never seen a play in an ARENA, but then I realized "play" is just a general term, not a theatrical performance. For instance, people "play" football in an ARENA. So it's fine.
• 7D: Nickname for an early 2000s governor of California (ARNIE) — as in Arnold, as in Schwarzenegger. Slightly hilarious at the time, but the dude looks positively presidential now.
• 41D: Like firstborn children vis-à-vis second-born children, statistically (TALLER) — I'm 6'3" and my sister is a mere 5'7", so this one checks out.

Thanks for reading. See you next time.

Signed, Rex Parker, King of CrossWorld

*I'll be 55 in November—just trying to extend my "youth" a few more years, please indulge  

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