Rex Parker Does the NYT Crossword Puzzle: Joel Woodford

Constructor: Joel Woodford

Relative difficulty: Easy, maybe Easy-Medium

THEME: SPOONERISM (66A: Feature of the clues for 17-, 25-, 41- and 52-Across) — that's it—read the clues as spoonerisms (i.e. reverse engineer the two words in each clue by swapping their opening consonant sounds)

Theme answers:

GOOD ENOUGH (17A: Recently dates) (i.e. "Decently rated)
FREAK OUT (25A: No guts) (i.e. "Go nuts")
CHAINLINK FENCES (41A: Battle carriers) (i.e. "Cattle barriers")
FELL FLAT (52A: Packed lunch) (i.e. "Lacked punch")

Word of the Day: William Archibald Spooner (See 66A: SPOONERISM) —

William Archibald Spooner (22 July 1844 – 29 August 1930) was a British clergyman and long-serving Oxford don. He was most notable for his absent-mindedness, and for supposedly mixing up the syllables in a spoken phrase, with unintentionally comic effect. Such phrases became known as spoonerisms, and are often used humorously. Many spoonerisms have been invented and attributed to Spooner. [...] Spooner became famous for his manner of speaking, real or alleged "spoonerisms", plays on words in which corresponding consonants, vowels, or morphemes are switched. Few, if any, of his own spoonerisms were deliberate, and many of those attributed to him are apocryphal; in 1928, The New York Times described them as a "myth principally invented by" one of his former students, Robert Seton, who subsequently collaborated with Arthur Sharp on the first book of spoonerisms.// Spooner is said to have disliked the reputation gained for getting his words muddled. Maurice Bowra, who had been another of his students, commented that Spooner "was sensitive to any reference to the subject." He described being part of a group that gathered outside Spooner's window one evening, calling for a speech; Spooner replied "You don't want a speech. You only want me to say one of those things," and refused to comment further. // The Oxford Dictionary of Quotations (3rd edition, 1979) lists only one substantiated spoonerism: "The weight of rages will press hard upon the employer." (rate of wages) In a 1928 interview, Spooner himself admitted to uttering "Kinkering Congs Their Titles Take" (Conquering Kings). Spooner called this hymn out from the pulpit in 1879.

• • •

This seemed pretty ANEMIC (which is the mistake I had to hunt down at the end (14A: Weakness (ANEMIA)—should've been suspicious of YCHWEH as the [Hebrew name for God]). Correct me if I'm wrong, but these are just four random Spoonerisms. You "unlock" (or reverse engineer) four Spoonerisms and then it's the most regular-ass puzzle imaginable, is that it? Why these Spoonerisms? What's the point? This doesn't feel like a NYTXW-worthy theme at all. Spoonerisms ... with no twist, no angle, no exciting revealer (SPOONERISM is the opposite of an "exciting revealer"—it's flatly explanatory, no thrills). It wasn't that hard to find a Spoonerism theme that did have some (much-needed) extra juice: check out this one from Erik Agard and Andy Kravis back in 2018: the Spoonerisms themselves are in the grid, and they're entertainingly wacky, and they're all tied to one another in a clever thematic way (all the theme answers are Spoonerisms for things that can be eaten with ... spoons!). No wackiness here. No revealer to elevate the whole project and make you go "whoa." This one definitely FELL FLAT for me. No punch. No guts.

I didn't see that the clues were Spoonerisms until I got to the revealer. I could see the clues didn't seem to match the answers, and I *knew* that if I just skipped to the bottom of the grid and worked out the revealer, things would go somewhat faster, but I decided to be stubborn and just work my way from top to bottom without any "reveal." So my experience was "fairly boring themeless with four long mystery answers." Shrug. When I got to the end and didn't get the "Congratulations" message. I figured I'd filled my final square incorrectly—the "A" in EMMA / STA (64D: ___ D'Arcy, co-star of HBO's "House of the Dragon" / 73A: "Come ___?" (Italian for "How are you?")). Don't watch dragon shows, don't know that actress, and don't know much Italian, so though "A" seemed right, I was willing to entertain other vowels once "A" seemed to fail. Eventually I just left "A" in place and went over the puzzle answer by answer: all the Acrosses and then into the Downs before I finally saw YCHWEH. Bah. But there's no actual difficulty to this puzzle that I can see, beyond the theme answers themselves. The clue on SKIT threw me, for sure (36D: Bit of camp entertainment). I only just realized the clue is probably referring to summer camp? My first thought was "are SKITs campy? what is 'camp' about a SKIT." But I guess maybe campers put on SKITs? For fun? I'm over 40 years removed from my last experience of summer camp, so any memories I have of such a thing are hazy at best, false at worst.

Clue round-up:

1A: "Table" for one's TV dinner, perhaps (LAP) — do people still eat TV dinners? Like, Swanson's or whatever? These feel like a mid-late 20c phenomenon (i.e. a phenomenon associated with the rise of television). I don't think I've had a proper "TV dinner" since the mid-'80s maybe. My parents never served them, but they were like a fun novelty treat when we were on our own for dinner sometimes. Rarely, but sometimes. Mostly we just harassed them until they let us get Burger King.
15A: ___ Highway (Maui tourist attraction) (HANA) — didn't know it, but also never saw the clue. The answer just sorta filled itself in, and then later I noticed HANA and thought "oh, the tennis player?" Then I read the clue—nope, different HANA.
32A: Like Frodo at the end of the "Lord of the Rings" trilogy (ASEA) — I watched all those LOTR movies and don't remember a thing about them, so boring were they to me. I tried reading the LOTR and couldn't even make it through the first book. I did enjoy The Hobbit as a standalone book. But the LOTR was just never my thing. Anyway, you say he was ASEA at the end, and I believe you.
44A: Mythological beast able to regenerate its heads (HYDRA) — it's weird, demographically, that I didn't like LOTR because I was the right age and the right amount of dorkiness. I even played D&D as a tween, which seems very LOTR-adjacent. Had all the different-sided dice (which I ended up repurposing for my homemade version of Strat-O-Matic baseball...), collected the little lead figures, and read the Monster Manual, which is how I learned about ... the HYDRA (as well as something called a Gelatinous Cube, but that's a monster for another day).

[the original Monster Manual was just fun, the illustrations charming and pleasingly non-digital]

47A: One of three in the Domino's logo (PIP) — feels like it's been a pippy month. Pips on dice, and now pips on dominoes. I haven't eaten Domino's since early grad school, maybe?? (i.e. the '90s). They were big anti-abortion funders (well, the founder, Tom Monaghan was), so we did not f*** with them. Monaghan was an Ann Arbor native, so his politics were maybe better known in Ann Arbor (where I was in grad school) than other places. Anyway, I have great pizza in my neighborhood now, so I'm never desperate enough to order mediocre delivery. If you've got no other options, I guess I get it.
60A: Follower of Joel (AMOS) — in the Bible
7D: Resident of a hidden mushroom village (SMURF) — Can SMURFs and MARIO & LUIGI coexist in the same grid? I feel like they'd be natural enemies. Where's that crossover? I don't care about Marvel's Infinity War or Secret Wars (coming 2027), but I would absolutely check out a SMURF/MARIO WARS. Way more entertainment potential than yet another Star Wars installment, for instance.

That's all. See you next time.

Signed, Rex Parker, King of CrossWorld

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