"Will Ruby go to prom with me?" / WED 10-8-25 / Demonym suffix / 23andMe mailing / Ariana ___, Best Supporting Actress winner for 2021's "West Side Story" / Author of "L'île Mystéreuese" / "10 and up" preceder

Constructor: Daniel Trujillo Diaz

Relative difficulty: Easy

THEME: A MAGIC EIGHT BALL promposal (55A: Provider of the answers at 16-, 32- and 37-Across) — This looks like an actual promposal, like the constructor is legit using this puzzle to ask someone (someone named Ruby) to prom. The puzzle itself (via theme clues) actually asks the MAGIC EIGHT BALL if Ruby will go to prom with him, and the Eight Ball gives varying / conflicted responses, moving from negative (MY SOURCES SAY NO) to equivocal (ASK AGAIN LATER) to positive (WITHOUT A DOUBT):

Theme answers:

• "MY SOURCES SAY NO" (16A: "Will Ruby go to prom with me?")
• "ASK AGAIN LATER" (32A: I repeat: "Will Ruby go to prom with me?")
• "WITHOUT A DOUBT" (37A: Third time's the charm: "Will Ruby go to prom with me?")

Word of the Day: Demonym (7D: Demonym suffix = -ESE) —

A demonym (/ˈdɛmənɪm/; from Ancient Greek δῆμος (dêmos) 'people, tribe' and ὄνυμα (ónuma) 'name') or 'gentilic' (from Latin gentilis 'of a clan, or gens') is a word that identifies a group of people (inhabitants, residents, natives) in relation to a particular place. Demonyms are usually derived from the name of the place (hamlet, village, town, city, region, province, state, country, and continent). Demonyms are used to designate all people (the general population) of a particular place, regardless of ethnic, linguistic, religious or other cultural differences that may exist within the population of that place. Examples of demonyms include Cochabambino, for someone from the city of Cochabamba; Tunisian for a person from Tunisia; and Swahili, for a person of the Swahili coast. [...] Several linguistic elements are used to create demonyms in the English language. The most common is to add a suffix to the end of the location name, slightly modified in some instances. These may resemble Late Latin, Semitic, Celtic, or Germanic suffixes, such as -(a)n, -ian, -anian, -nian, -in(e), -a(ñ/n)o/a, -e(ñ/n)o/a, -i(ñ/n)o/a, -ite, -(e)r, -(i)sh, -ene, -ensian, -ard, -ese, -nese, -lese, -i(e), -i(ya), -iot, -iote, -k, -asque, -(we)gian, -onian, -vian, -ois(e), or -ais(e). (wikipedia)

• • •

This has to be a real promposal, right? I'm going to have to go check, aren't I? Sigh, hang on ... OK, short answer: no. Longer answer, Ruby is the constructor's wife. He makes her a puzzle every year on their dating anniversary. They've been together eight years this year. I have no idea if they ever actually went to prom. Anyway, it's obviously a very sweet thing to make a puzzle for your wife, and a very cool thing to get said puzzle published in the Times, so if you think I have anything terribly critical to say about this puzzle, think again. For once, I'll just let things be. Mostly. The only "negative" for me is that the questioner seems like someone who won't take 'no' for an answer. I get that he's asking a plastic, fluid-filled toy and not an actual human being, but I can't help it if my initial reaction to the haranguing of the 8 Ball was "hey, buddy, no means no." But the repeated questioning is all in good fun, and really does accurately reflect a certain kind of teenage anxiety, the magical thinking that precedes a high-stakes moment that you want to turn out for the best. Not that this kind of magical thinking is exclusive to teenagers. Just emblematic. I mean, we all know plastic, fluid-filled toys don't have ESP, right? Right? Please say 'right.' (Also, ESP is not a [Helpful skill for guessers], as it is not a skill to begin with, it's a non-existent thing, thank you for coming to my ongoing TED Talk on the fictionality of ESP and the NYTXW's continuing campaign of ESP legitimization). Happy eighth anniversary of being together, Daniel & Ruby! Magic Eighth!

The puzzle was very easy, as a special-occasion puzzle should be. You want people to be able to solve it! Imagine if you made Ruby a puzzle and she couldn't finish. You don't want your dedicatee to hate you. If you make puzzles on commission, for any audience that isn't already crossword aficionados, then Easy is the way you want to go. Back in 2010, I made an "XC"-themed puzzle for my grandma's 90th birthday where all the theme answers contained "XC" (the Roman numeral for "90"), e.g. PHOENIX COYOTES, BOXCARS, etc. My grandma was the first adult I ever saw solving crosswords when I was a child, so I thought it would make a nice (and fitting) gift. And while my heart was in the right place, the difficulty level of the puzzle ... was not. It wasn't hard, just ... too hard for the crowd at a ninetieth birthday party at the BPOE in northern Idaho. Too hard for non-regular solvers. Probably not too hard for my grandma, I don't remember. I wrote about it all here, and the puzzle is still out there (solve it if you want—I haven't thought about this thing in fifteen years!)

[wow this song is way darker than I remembered]

There were a few potential stumbling blocks, all of them minor. 3D: "New and improved" and "For a limited time only" looks like it wants a plural answer, that is, looks like it should end in "S," but instead we get a collective noun, no "S" ending (ADSPEAK). I didn't get the KIT part of DNA KIT right away. The only word my brain wants following "DNA" is TEST, so I just let crosses help me out there (23D: 23andMe mailing). Weren't 23andMe the ones that stole everyone's data, sold it, and went out of business? I feel like something bad happened there. Oh yeah, they went into bankruptcy earlier this year and there was some (great) concern about whether customers' data was going to be sold. I think my sister did a 23andMe test once and discovered that we ... are white (dum dum Dum!). Like, you know, northern European / British, mostly. Real exciting stuff. Moving on: If you weren't here (solving, or at my blog) last month, then DEBOSE might've posed a problem today, but if you were here, then (hopefully) you were like "AHA! Multiple AHAS! I remember her! She was Word of the Day on Sep. 21!" Or maybe you just knew her because she's a famous actress. One person in the puzzle whom I knew but did Not get (easily) from his clue is Jules VERNE (48A: Author of "L'île Mystérieuse"). I know his 20,000 Leagues, and his Journey books (to the Moon, to the Center of the Earth) and the balloon book (Around the World in 80 Days), but L'île Mystérieuse was mystérieuse to me. This probably should've been Word of the Day today:

The Mysterious Island (French: L'Île mystérieuse) is a novel by Jules Verne, serialised from August 1874 to September 1875 and then published in book form in November 1875. The first edition, published by Hetzel, contains illustrations by Jules Férat. The novel is a crossover sequel to Verne's famous Twenty Thousand Leagues Under the Seas (1870) and In Search of the Castaways (1867–68), though its themes are vastly different from those books. An early draft of the novel, rejected by Verne's publisher and wholly reconceived before publication, was titled Shipwrecked Family: Marooned with Uncle Robinson, indicating the influence of the novels Robinson Crusoe and The Swiss Family Robinson. Verne developed a similar theme in his novel, Godfrey Morgan (French: L'École des Robinsons, 1882).

The chronology of The Mysterious Island is incompatible with that of Twenty Thousand Leagues Under the Seas, which begins in 1866, while The Mysterious Island begins during the American Civil War, yet is supposed to happen 16 years after Twenty Thousand Leagues. (wikipedia)

That's all for today. Will I be back tomorrow? [Shakes 8 Ball] ... 'Concentrate and ask again'?? ... stupid 8 Ball ... [smacks 8 Ball] ... 'It is decidedly so.' That's better. See you then.

Signed, Rex Parker, King of CrossWorld

[Follow Rex Parker on BlueSky and Facebook and Letterboxd]
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