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Gets a pooch to attack / TUE 6-2-26 / Word after video or Scotch / Fusion weapon, familiarly / Hindi term meaning master or mister / Original name of a popular shared-ride service / Chris with the 1991 hit "Wicked Game" / Wash with a glycol spray, as an airplane / Silver weapon brandished by one hoping for gold / Sea sight in black and white / Rock that's fracked to release oil
Tuesday, June 2, 2026
Constructor: Rich Katz
Relative difficulty: Easy
Theme answers:
- TOO LATE NOW (17A: "You missed your chance!")
- FOR REAL (21A: "It's legit!")
- SICS THE DOG ON (25A: Gets a pooch to attack)
- ATE LIKE A BIRD (48A: Picked at one's food, in an avian metaphor)
Christopher Joseph Isaak (born June 26, 1956) is an American singer, songwriter, guitarist and occasional actor. Noted for his reverb-laden rockabilly revivalist style and wide vocal range, he is widely known for his breakthrough hit and signature song "Wicked Game" as well as international hits "Blue Hotel", "Baby Did a Bad Bad Thing", and "Somebody's Crying".With a career spanning four decades, Isaak has released 13 studio albums, toured extensively with his band Silvertone, and received numerous award nominations. His sound and image are often compared to those of Roy Orbison, Elvis Presley, Ricky Nelson, and Duane Eddy.
Isaak has associated with film director David Lynch, who has used his music in numerous films. As an actor, he played supporting roles and bit parts in films such as Married to the Mob, The Silence of the Lambs, Little Buddha, That Thing You Do! and Lynch's Twin Peaks: Fire Walk with Me, and starred in two television series: the sitcom The Chris Isaak Show and the talk show The Chris Isaak Hour. (wikipedia)
• • •
It should be WHOM.*
The clues are kind of trying to liven things up. There are four "?" clues, but three of them aren't much trouble at all (the clues on UMP, NYET, OWLETS). Only the fourth made me go "huh?" ... and not in a good way. I truly do not understand how my HEEL helps me get my leg up. Your hip flexors and quads are largely responsible for lifting your leg. Is the idea that you're pushing off with your HEEL to ... what, climb stairs? That's not how people climb stairs? I'm at a loss. Maybe you're doing squats and driving through your HEEL? I do not understand what the clue means by "up" here. "Get a leg up" is a familiar idiomatic phrase, yes, but the "?" here indicates that there's a play on words here, presumably that the idiom is meant to be taken literally, but as I say, I'm at a loss as to how this works (someone in the comments suggested that HEEL refers to part of a shoe—huh, OK). One other question, which may be more of a comment: why is "avian" necessary in the ATE LIKE A BIRD clue? (48A: Picked at one's food, in an avian metaphor). I see how it makes the clue a lot easier, but it's totally unnecessary. The metaphor is well known; you don't have to shout "the one with the bird in it!" Trust solvers to figure out simple things like this. It's insulting otherwise.
Bullets:
- 42A: Part of a shoe or many a bra (LACE) — Me: "STRAP! It's STRAP! ... why won't STRAP fit!? It's obviously STRAP. STRAP, I say!" This is the one clue that seems to at least be trying for trickiness, in that the "LACE" is different in these two contexts (i.e. a shoe LACE is a very different thing from the LACE on a bra). I don't understand why it's "a shoe" but "many a bra." True, not all bras have LACE, but then not all shoes have LACEs either, so ... ??? "Many a" should apply to both or neither.
- 52A: Wash with a glycol spray, as an airplane (DEICE) — unlike with "avian" in the ATE LIKE A BIRD clue, I appreciated the extra help here ("as an airplane"), as I could not have told you what "glycol spray" was.
- 49D: Emirate that was the site of Operation Desert Storm (KUWAIT) — like siccing dogs on people, Operation Desert Storm is something I'm fine never seeing mentioned again in my crossword. You've already got H-BOMB in here (29D: Fusion weapon, familiarly), isn't that enough militarism?
- 53D: Chris with the 1991 hit "Wicked Game" (ISAAK) — he really had a moment in the early '90s. I have no idea how well known he is any more ... outside of crosswords, that is, where his name is occasionally very handy (double-A!) and not to be confused with ISAAC or IZAAK (as in IZAAK Walton, who is real, old-school crosswordese; I don't think I'd know him or the work he wrote (The Compleat Angler) without crosswords ... although he did write a bio of Donne, but I know that only because I teach Donne, which most people ... don't). Coincidentally, I encountered Chris ISAAK just yesterday, as we watched David Lynch's Twin Peaks: Fire Walk With Me (1992) just last night, and ISAAK has a pretty large role as an FBI detective early in that movie (alongside Kiefer Sutherland, who I forgot was even in the movie).
- 28D: Bone in the lower leg (TIBIA) — lots of leg anatomy in the puzzle today. Your shin bone (TIBIA) is not connected to your HEEL bone, but it gets pretty close.
That's it. See you next time.
*No, I'm not serious. Grammatically correct, but not serious.
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70 comments:
Easy, but I enjoyed the theme. Which is what a Tuesday is supposed to be.
* * * _ _
Overwrites:
opted before CHOSE for Selected at 15A.
WOEs:
Chris ISAAK at 53D.
I didn't mind the clue at 13D. I figured the HEEL is the thing that keeps your leg up off the ground.
Monday-level easy. I'd rate it a bit higher than Rex did, 2-1/2-3 stars.
What a letdown after yesterday's puzzle. I tend to not be as critical as OFL but this one took me 7 minutes to solve (fast, for me) and I was glad it didn't last longer.
I think the HEEL is referring to the part of the shoe, not the part of the foot? Like, a high heeled shoe lifts your leg higher.
Definitely agree that having HBOMB, KUWAIT (as clued), and SICS THE DOG ON wasn’t how I wanted to begin my Tuesday. Granted, I didn’t want to begin it with an early morning flight, so I guess sometimes you neither get what you want nor what you need.
And I also agree that SICS THE DOG ON is a clunky phrase not worthy of a standalone. It has definite “eats the sandwich up” vibes.
But correcting the who/whom error cracked me up. I often like to correct Star Trek’s mission as being “boldly to go where no man has gone before” (I know, I know, the split infinitive ban is not a current rule, but still…).
Rex must have posted and gone back to sleep without clearing any comments--it's telling me I'm first but I don't believe it.
Anyway, I've never encountered the cheer used the way Rex describes it, one team cheering the other; back in the day, we weren't nearly so courteous. We fans cheered our own team like that; for the other team it was "We're gonna roll [opponent] in the dirt. Make it hurt!"
Otherwise, I'm pretty much with Rex. Except on militarism, he misses the clue for 5-A, "Battling militarily" -- almost in the 'so bad it's good' category.
That's it for me. Gotta take the car to the body shop, my new hobby this year.
Cute enough early week theme - agree that the cheer is slightly nostalgic but the wordplay works. Like the two part revealer.
Well known enough to be covered on the latest Social D record
I took HEEL to be the shoe part also - it works. Overall fill is clunky - Rex highlights most of it. FELL DOWN, KUWAIT, UBER POOL etc are pretty bad. I liked OWLETS.
GRAM
A flat Tuesday morning solve all around.
Sitting here in LIMBO
I enjoyed it a bit more than Rex, probably because I thought the reveal was kind of neat. The central section with the mad dog was a bit of a pain, but I finally wrestled it into submission.
I figured the HEEL referred to high HEEL shoes, but agree it’s a bit of a stretch - probably just a misdemeanor offense on that one.
I’m familiar with ethylene glycol, which is also a primary ingredient in automotive antifreeze, so the DEICE clue wasn’t an issue for me. If I were rating this one, I probably would have made peace with at least another half a star, I think two is going too low.
Odd, I finished the puzzle without ever seeing the clue for HEEL. So no leg to stand on in that discussion. Took me a while to get the theme because I kept overlooking FORREAL as a themer and if treat made no sense without it. Kinda fun/nostalgic theme but relying on a phrase like SICSTHEDOGON to carry the center of the puzzle is not music to the ears.
This solved as a normal Monday for me. I'm guessing that they really wanted to run yesterday's puzzle on June 1 so that would be a good reason for flipping the days.
I think the fill holds up really well today. Sure, Rex picked out some familiar words but every puzzle has its share of those. He did miss TSLOT, which is surely the worst thing in the grid, particularly given the crosses with EPPS and ORSO.
Hey All !
Had SICK in first, and realizing what the Theme was, thought it was a stretch for SIX. Got a chuckle when I got SHALE, and ended up with SICS. Ah, says I.
Neat throwback to youthful days, when your only worry was school related stuff. This time of year is when the school year ends, and you get a glorious almost 3 month reprieve.
Spelled OPOSSUM with two P's and one S, as always. Seems more correct, OPPOSUM, no?
Saw a funny meme once, where they show an OWLET, then the next picture is it drenched, with the caption "Moist OWLET". Funnier if seen.
Liked overall, easy and average time. Light on dreck. APPRECIATE it, Rich!
Hope y'all have a great Tuesday!
Two F's
RooMonster
DarrinV
How often do we get a tribute puzzle honoring a famous chant? Not often at all, I suggest, and props to Rich for bringing that punch of freshness. Not only that, but also for figuring out a wordplay way to do it.
I liked seeing CUTIE sharing the box with OPOSSUM and OWLETS, which indeed, to me, are adorbs. I loved seeing MISO, whose umami flavor I never tire of.
Before uncovering the revealer, my brain saw that the theme answers started with number homonyms – it rarely catches things like that, and let me tell you, that puffed up my pride for a moment.
So, Rich, you pushed many happy buttons for me today; ‘twas a most lovely outing. Thank you!
Crossnerd addendum: Props also to Rich for skillfully incorporating a dense theme. The four long theme answers would be a typical length for a theme, but adding FOR REAL and WHO DO WE, make the grid much harder to fill cleanly.
Decent Tuesday with an unexpected theme revealer that turned it into a fun one.
Suspect only the Boomers in this crowd are going to APPRECIATE this one. I fondly remember back in the '60s going to my first high school game at age 9, my next door neighbor /babysitter was one of the cheerleaders . You better believe this was one of the first cheers I heard, pregame.
Soso fill, improved by cluing.Thisnone was all about the theme. Don't know about Rich, but suspect he, like Will, is one of us
Good post and I would rate a bit higher also. I like your high heel theory…I just tended to just infer that your leg is “up” when standing and thought the clue was fine and not particularly awkward.
Well. You took away one of the points I planned to make on puzzle being flipped (and the fill) so now I’ll just say “the other thing” I planned (farther down) ;)
Since @kitshef summed up the puzzle for me, I’ll just say I always like thinking about Chris ISAAK’s music. I’ve seen him two times (once with Lyle Lovett who is a bit TOO country for me) and now I have the lovely earworm of Wicked Game floating around in my brain…self-generated mood music for the morning!
Straps are the thing on bras, corsets are laced, but LOTS of bras have decorative lace so maybe that’s fair
Rex, of all people! Kitten HEELs didn't come to mind?
Mirror, mirror on the wall: Who is the fairest of all of the de Armases? ANAIS
Tony ROMO: IPASS
What many say the whole country should do: DEICE
My trip to Central America COSTA leg and an arm.
Upon reading the clue for 28D, I pondered: TIBIA or not TIBIA?
******
In connection with yesterday's puzzle, I was wondering what the closest my boring family had to such a brave and admirable "coming out." One of my wife's sisters is gay but there was no stress in her letting people know. It was probably when my cousin Morty told his parents he was switching out of pre-med to major in music. (The Onion recently had a story about Yo-Yo Ma being nervous about telling his parents he was giving up the cello.)
I liked this a lot. I for one thought that it was *very* interesting that there are ordinary homophones for the first four even numbers. So kudos to Rich for seeing that and getting what I thought was a pretty tight theme out of it.
All the themers took up a nice amount of real estate in the grid and with the exception of SICSTHEDOGON, are very much every day language, which I enjoy.
100% agree with @Rex on his points around SICSTHEDOGON. In the past, I've commented that some puzzles had a rated R vibe to them, those were always about being a bit sexy (*that* I can appreciate). This one's rating (and parental advisory) is for some of the violentish imagery. We have the aforementioned SICSTHEDOGON, but also ATWAR, and HBOMB. While this didn't take much away from my enjoyment, they're just not visuals I'd like to start my day with. But, as I also often say, a puzzle's gotta do what a puzzle's gotta do to make it all work.
Cool new cluing for UMP and nice to learn about the area of a baseball field - that was a fun nugget and in June, two baseball references are kinda fun, even though I'm a Mets fan...
Thank you for making this Rich! I APPRECIATE your effort of getting a neat theme out of a very clever idea.
“who I forgot…” should be whom as well…
Really heavy on the military clues, including AT WAR. Yuck. Also this is a pet peeve and I will die on this hill, NO one has ever said OR DOC in the medical field. Ever.
@Sun Volt Thanks for the Jimmy Cliff tune. A lovely way to start the day.
A Tuesday puzzle of uncommon good humor, bustling into the morning with the agreeable confidence of a tradesman who knows his wares are sound and has no fear of inspection. One approaches such a day’s crossword with modest expectations—perhaps a small diversion, a little commerce in language before the serious business of life begins—yet this one revealed itself to possess a lively character indeed, full of merry devices and conversational ease. The long entries, those grand avenues through the center of the grid, stretched themselves comfortably before the solver: TOO LATENOW, FORREAL, SICSTHEDOGON, ATELIKEABIRD—phrases so colloquial and bustling they seemed less answers than overheard remarks drifting through an open marketplace. Even OWLETS, clued as babes appointed to the solemn business of wakefulness by night, entered with such absurd dignity as to inspire immediate affection. A sillier clue, perhaps, one might struggle to find, and the puzzle knew it.
The central contrivance—those opening sounds stepping forth in sequence, two, four, six, eight, before yielding to the cheerful inquiry WHODOWE / APPRECIATE—struck precisely the proper balance between cleverness and friendliness, never once descending into vanity. There are puzzles, heaven preserve us, that mistake obscurity for refinement and seem constructed chiefly to remind ordinary people of their inadequacies before breakfast. Not here. This crossword desired companionship rather than conquest. It wished the solver well. It offered little jokes instead of lectures and, where difficulty appeared, it did so politely and withdrew at once, like a gentleman who has overstayed his visit by half a minute and notices with admirable tact.
And what a parade of small pleasures marched quietly through the grid! UBERPOOL, that strangely historical relic of app-mediated civilization; THE decline of Russia? yielding the impudent little NYET, whose clue wears its wit lightly; FELLDOWN, arriving with comic bluntness; ORDOC, absurdly casual in its medical intimacy. Even the humbler crossings performed their duties faithfully, industrious clerks of language carrying meaning from one chamber to the next. By the end one felt not triumphant exactly, but companionably entertained—as after an unexpectedly charming dinner guest who departs before becoming tiresome and leaves behind the agreeable suspicion that the world, for a brief hour, had resolved to be easier company than usual.
Fast and easy to solve. I especially liked 33 across.๐๐๐๐
Only way I can think of to get around the SIC dog outrage would be "sicks" as in "A company is in big trouble when their whole workforce SICKS out". But then we'd have to deal with a company that is so malign as to drive their employees to such drastic action, which might also trigger @Rex. Plus, it would have to start with "Sicks". So a clue and answer might be:
What a companies workforce does in lieu of a strike. SICKSOUTENMASSE.
You know you're in UTAH when people call "hell" the HBOMB. But maybe cannabis has made inroads even there, as the clue tells us that it has the "highest Mormon population."
High HEELs ORDOC Martins might give you a bit of a leg up.
The current administration has decreed that glycol spray will only be used to CE the wings, as DEI is barred from facilities like airports that receive federal funding.
I did APPRECIATE the memory-triggering chant. I think it ought to be mandatory each morning in the House and Senate for each party to do it for the other side. Maybe then they all could start doing the people's business a little easier. Thanks, Rich Katz.
Quick for a Tuesday. Coddlingly easy because of the cluing. For example, "State with the highest Mormon population" -- I mean, come on. "Capital located on a fjord" -- I expect a little resistance in the NW corner. "Prepare for gifting". "My country, this of ____". Rex made me laugh out loud with "the one with the bird in it!". The cluing awkwardness doesn't end there; as Rex said, there's something wildly off in tone SICcing one's "pooch". You get'em, Snookums!
It's relatively rare that I see OPOSSUM any more, as opposed to just POSSUM. The word came into English via the Powhatan language, when John Smith encountered the Native Americans living near the Jamestown settlement, 1610 or so. It only took a few years before the initial O began to be dropped. OPOSSUM means something like "white dog", originally.
Finding a penny tails side up is an "OMEN" -- really? Are you FOR REAL? Seems like an awfully strong word to apply to a situation that occurs about half the time. I have to feel bad for people who see OMENs everywhere.
I APPRECIATE what Lewis said about the challenges faced by a constructor to devise a puzzle of this nature. But it was a little too easy. I'll surmise it was the editors who FELL DOWN on the job.
Am I wrong, or should the clue for 47-across be “Picked at one’s food, in an avian SIMILE”?
That makes sense, but it's still a bizarre clue/answer.
But still funny.
I thought this or maybe that if someone gives you a boost to climb a wall or a tree, you would put your heel in their cupped hands - maybe?
Es legรญtimo.
Erm, who DO we appreciate exactly?
Nicely geographical today.
Poor dog. They're meant for love.
❤️ Adorbs.
People: 6
Places: 7
Products: 1
Partials: 5
Foreignisms: 2
--
Gary's Grid Gunk Gauge: 21 of 76 (28%)
Funny Factor: 1 ๐คจ
Tee-Hee: MANY a bra.
Uniclues:
1 Camisole you wear to clean out the gutters and motivate the neighbors.
2 Question from a member of a prankster organization planning on hiding a marsupial as a gotcha.
3 Result of insufficient nest building skills.
4 Metonym for Japanese soup in the bedroom.
5 Really really really needing a dunk.
6 Knockout of a local krill killer.
1 ROOF LABOR LACE
2 WHO DO WE OPOSSUM
3 OWLETS FELL DOWN
4 ANAรฏS MISO
5 UBER POOL DESIRE
6 AREA ORCA CUTIE
My Fascinating Crossword Uniclue Keepsake from Last Year: My feelings on one too many walks here in the high desert. MEH THOSE CACTI.
¯\_(ใ)_/¯
❌ ๐คก amateurs should not correct people’s grammar online. Actually no one should, but at least Rex indicated he was kidding. And at least ~he~ was, technically, correct.
I almost didn't want to solve this after I saw SICS THE DOG ON. Major turn-off. And crossing HBOMB, no less :(
Easy.
No costly erasures and UBER POOL was it for WOEs.
I too didn’t get HEEL
Cute and nostalgic, liked it more than @Rex did.
I’ll take an occasional Uber reference over the never-ending cavalcade of free Apple advertising typically served up in the NYT puzzle.
Solved online so the themers were highlighted and made the revealer a little too obvious. What @tht said about the cluing, just too straightforward for me. I would add that even the ? clue UMP read more like a definition. I would prefer a tad more subtlety.
Never remember Mr. EPPS and am unfamiliar with the oeuvre of Mr. ISAAC, undoubtedly my loss. No other real slow downs to be found, fill-in-the-blanks or as OFL put it, point and shoot (which I like).
I'm old enough to have heard the 2-4-6-8 cheer and remember trying to finish it in a disparaging way when applied to the other guys, best we could come up with was "who do we especially hate", which was pretty funny when I was in junior high school. I think "who will we obliterate" would be better as I look back but of course that opportunity is long gone.
I liked the idea and the execution, RK, Really Kinda cool but maybe better on a Monday. Thanks for a fair amount of fun.
I especially liked your last sentence.
I think the 2-4-6-8 chant was done in grade-school basketball here in San Francisco, not high school. At least in my day, the forties. It wasn't done any more when I watched my son play in the nineties. The teams would form two lines and say "Good game!" to each other.
Me, upon reading the reveal clue: OMG, not WHO DO WE APPRECIATE?! That got a laugh out of me. Earlier on, I'd noticed that SICS sounds like six, but I overlooked the other homophones, making the unmasking of the cheer even more of a delight. i found it a witty and fun Tuesday.
I found this puzzle entertainong as I went through it.
Can't remember why right now as I did it many hours ago, before I went to bed, but I surprised to read Rex's opening comments.
Well, if we must… ‘who’ is indeed correct because there are two clauses there. While Kiefer is indeed the object of the first clause (‘I forgot HIM’), that gets superseded by the second clause, in which he’s the subject (‘HE was in the movie’).
That would make the clue for 47A eerily similar to the one for 48A
Nice Tuesday themeless.
Even if it's a bit crosswordese-y, "The decline of Russia?" is a great clue for NYET!
I thought the clues for ol’ favorites EPEE (19a) and ORCA (31f) were kind of cute. The first thing that came to mind at 13d was a stiletto HEEL - now that lifts the leg up! Did not like the overall aggressiveness of the puzzle: attacking dogs and so so many war clues/answers.
"It should be WHOM." Nice one Rex, it made me spit out my non-existent drink.
I'd rather not see a 15x15 grid with SIX Across theme answers ever again. 6 is just too many. REWOVE shows you just how constrained the construction was. It's almost a miracle that the K and W on the other side line up juuuust right for KUWAIT to fit... but only KUWAIT fits, unless you think KAWAII is NYT Tuesday material, and then TSLOT happens.
I'm Gen Z and not from the US, so I'm way outside the Venn diagram of people who might have enjoyed the theme, or even grasped what it was going for in the first place.
Yes, sounds like Dickens.
Hi Mathgent! Yes, we did it in the grade school games, which were, at that time…only the 7th & 8th grade played. Like @jberg said…when WE chanted it, it was for OUR team…the Dragons.
If you find a penny head side up, bend over and take it. It's good luck. Even at my age with my back I bend over. Tail side up, let it go. A giant foot will come out of the sky and squoosh you. This has been proven time and time again. Well, maybe not, but why take the chance?
Haha…in grade school in the Midwest in the 60s, I guess we were blood and guts because, like I said to Mathgent, we cheered (appreciated) our team during the time-outs, etc. Also chanted the “Two bits, four bits, six bits, a dollar..All for Dragons stand up and holler!” It HAD to be old, because I had NO idea what the “bits” were and how they even remotely related to a dollar, until I asked my parents. (Of course, back then I didn’t think words like “remotely related.”)
PS…With all the “grammar talk” today…I’ll JUST put it out there that farther/further” is my personal “thing” that I will NEVER remember. When I was working, and it REALLY counted…I ALWAYS had to check it….haha…or rephrase to say “below.” And to anyone that is dying to give me a way to remember…fuhgeddabout…I love learning new things…but not new grammar hacks..:)
Cool first-stuff sounds-alike puztheme.
And there were no no-knows, at our house. A rare event. UBERPOOL came closest, but it was pretty inferable.
Also, there were no apparent Ow de Speration award winners, altho REWOVE & ORDOC were hopefuls.
staff weeject pick, of a modest 8 choices: UMP. Had a nice, sorta sneaky, clue -- plus, it had a U in it.
some fave stuff: The symmetric(al) IMMENSE OPOSSUM. OSLO & ORSO. OWLETS clue. NYET clue.
Thanx for the fun, Mr. Katz dude. A RICH-ly deserved TuesPuz thUmbsUp.
Masked & Anonymo4Us
p.s.
Runt puzzle:
**gruntz**
M&A
This was fun and silly, exactly right for a Tuesday (or Monday). The phrase "2 4 6 8.." was still very common when I was a kid. And I never noticed that TOO FOR SICS ATE are homophones of the even digits, so nice to learn that!
I solved this down clues only, and almost succeeded. I was done in by guessing UBER ZOOM for 10 down (never ever heard of Uber Pool), crossing VIZ and MACE whose clues I couldn't read. Not really a Natick type thing because no one made me solve downs only. So I'm claiming a semi-success, and it was fun anyway, so there.
Typeover: Chris RHEA (didn't fit) before ISAAC before ISAAK. Fortunately I noticed ECED was highly unlikely for 70 across. And luckily the only dreaded Unknown Names today were UBER POOL and LSU.
A "first-word-is-a-hint-to" puzzle that does something new - I like it.
56A got me; when I saw WHODOWE (WHO DOWE?), it made me take out the D in 39D until APPRECIATE came into sight and I was able to put it back in.
How long have I been saying I need to start reading the entire clue? And how long before I actually do it? I saw Arthur Miller in the 43A clue and wrote in SALEs. And thought that SALEs was an odd answer for a "setting". Miso soup set that straight.
Rich Katz, thanks for the Tuesday puzzle.
If your heel stays on the ground you can't get your leg up, but that's not in any way helping
I’m surprised by all the opprobrium aimed at the SICS THE DOG ON entry. I have to assume that most of the protesters have dogs as house pets and love them and pet them and only take them outside on a leash. That’s great.
But out here in the sticks dogs have more than a single purpose and, while I’ve never actually said “Sic ‘em, Fred”, I have said “Go get ‘em, big guy” as we have walked along the edge of the property and spotted coyotes. He lumbers ahead, gloriously woofing (he’s a Great Pyrenees, about 125 pounds) and the wild canines disappear and the chickens are once again happy. Even Pablo, our 18 pound lap dog, will chase rabbits out of the orchard and he loves to patrol around the chicken coop, presumably looking for rodents. They both get lots of love but they do have jobs to do. So when someone says “Les SICS THE DOG ON the coyotes”, I’m not nearly as offended as some of you.
Oh, the puzzle. I enjoyed it. Fairly breezy downs-only solve and I didn’t see the theme until I hit the revealer. But it was a nice, cheery blast from the past. Little League days. I can’t remember at what age we stopped doing that.
Ah, it's wonderful to be free from superstition. Because I pick up all pennies -whichever face is showing - I am at least 24 cents richer than I would otherwise be.
Pennies? Quels sont-ils?
Good point Les on how dogs can be cuddly AND provide a service (scaring away coyotes). I have a tendency to think of domestic urban and suburban life so my mind went dark.
I know nothing about “heads v tails” preference. I just remember “find a penny, pick it up…all the day you’ll have good luck.”
Oh, no! Kitshef! Please be careful!
"It should be whom" (RP)
I shopped for birthday cards today and saw one with a (famous, it seems) cartoon of a bunch of owls on the desk of an executive who tells his assistant "Hire the one that said 'whom' ".
"The Day 7 Ate 9"
You know you (and your sense of humor) are old when you ask your grandkids "Why is six afraid of seven?" and you get eye rolls.
Yes, wonderful observation
@Stillwell and y'all grammarians:
Okay, maybe for the first time ever on this blog, I am asking a serious question I hope can be explained to me:
In the sentence we are examining, I quite clearly see how (after the comma in an independent clause) Rex did the forgetting and so "whom" feels right to me as Kiefer is the object of the forgetting. You're saying Kiefer not being in the movie takes control of the sentence, that is, Kiefer "who" was not in the movie. I am sure y'all are correct, but why?
I try to eliminate who, which, and that when I write as they always seem to create a minefield of grammatical confusion for me.
The LACE clue is correct. Shoes have laces; they are a part of a shoe. Bras are sometimes partially comprised of lace; these are called lace bras. Lace there is an adjective. Thus, the word LACE fits "part of a shoe" as a noun and "many a bra" as an adjective. LACE might be part of a bra, but it is not the name of a part of a bra. The word LACE is always the name of a part of a shoe: you do not need to specify that some shoes do not have all the possible parts of shoes. But not all bras are lace.
Oddly I know of the Complete Angler only because in a certain legal theoretical discussion I found this quotation from it:
PISCATOR: And now I have a bite at another. Oh me! he has broke all: there's half a line and a good hook lost.
VENATOR: Aye, and a good Trout too.
PISCATOR: Nay, the Trout is not lost; for pray take notice: no man can lose what he never had.
No idea of the author though.
Messed up my question: Simplifying Rex's sentence seems like it would say, "Kiefer who is in the movie, whom I had forgotten being in the movie...." And you're saying the "who" takes control, even though the whom is an independent clause. Why?
The heel in a high heel shoe gets a leg up by X inches.
I can't hear or read the expression "Eat like a bird" without being reminded of the weird dinner scene in Alfred Hitchcock's "Psycho" (1960). After a desperate fugitive-from-the-law Marion Crane (Janet Leigh) has been driving for the better part of 36 hours, she stops at the Bates Motel, too tired to drive on, and checks in. Lonely innkeeper Norman Bates (Anthony Hopkins) convinces Marion to stay at the hotel for a simple repast of sandwiches and milk rather than drive up the road to a restaurant. They sit in a side room decorated with dead animals that Norman, whose hobby is amateur taxidermy, has stuffed himself. As he sets the food in front of her and Marion begins to help herself, almost before she even touches the food, Norman, who is enchanted by the pretty blonde woman but is awkward, nervous, and has no real social skills, says "You eat like a bird," perhaps trying in his dithering and clumsy ways to compliment her on her lady-like ways. Then he immediately undercuts his statement by pointing out, nerdily, that the expression is a "falsity" and that birds in actuality eat a lot, thus undermining his attempts to flirt with her by implying that she is piggish and greedy. I've never forgotten that scene in that unforgettable movie, and so when I see or hear the expression "to eat like a bird," it always comes to mind.
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