Rhyming destinations for yummies / TUE 7-18-23 / Harvest goddess with a daughter in the underworld / Pal you might take fishing? / Chilly-sounding pod in a stir-fry / Muslim land with a monarch / Nonvegan fat in a pie crust

Constructor: Karen and Paul Steinberg

Relative difficulty: Easy

THEME: GRECO-ROMAN (36A: Kind of wrestling ... or a hint to four pairs of crossing answers in this puzzle) — Greek gods cross their Roman counterparts four times:

Theme answers:

• POSEIDON / NEPTUNE (18A and 1D: Trident-wielding god of the sea)
• ARTEMIS / DIANA (19A and 8D: Apollo's twin who rules over the hunt)
• DEMETER / CERES (60A and 52D: Harvest goddess with a daughter in the underworld)
• DIONYSUS / BACCHUS (65A and 45D: God celebrated with wine, feasts and dancing)

Word of the Day: CHUM (4A: Pal you might take fishing?) —

Chumming (American English from Powhatan) is the blue water fishing practice of throwing meat-based groundbait called "chum" into the water in order to lure various marine animals (usually large game fish) to a designated fishing ground, so the target animals are more easily caught by hooking or spearing. Chums typically consist of fresh chunks of fish meat with bone and blood, the scent of which attracts predatory fish, particularly sharks, billfishes, tunas and groupers. In the past, the chum contents have also been made from "offal", the otherwise rejected or unwanted parts of slaughtered animals such as internal organs. [...] Chumming is illegal in some parts of the world (such as in the U.S. state of Alabama) because of the danger it can pose by conditioning sharks to associate feeding with human presence. (wikipedia)

• • •

Was humming along and not really thinking much about the theme at first. I noticed that gods were crossing, but I know my gods pretty well, so I was writing them easily as I went along, without even noticing that the crossing gods were clued identically, or that they were Greek / Roman counterparts. Early in the week, this is pretty typical for me—burn through the grid, vaguely notice that there *is* a theme, wait for that theme to jump out and loudly announce itself. So I'm enjoying myself pretty well, doo doo doo, and then I hit the reveal and have a very genuine aha! Actually, it was more like an "Oh!" but an excited "oh!" with an exclamation point, not a meh "oh" ["Meh oh! ... Meh-eh-eh oh ..."—Harry Belafonte encountering a so-so revealer]. The revealer did what it was supposed to do: grabbed my attention and got me to see the pattern at work. Now, if I'd been going slower and had cared to suss out the pattern on my own, I definitely could have, but that's just not how I solve a Tuesday, so ... great. The revealer was like a tour guide pointing out the side of the bus telling me to notice some building I could see in my peripheral vision but wasn't really paying attention to. Thanks, revealer. GRECO-ROMAN isn't the most ... acrobatic wordplay you're ever going to see. Yes, it is a play on a wrestling term, but it's also straightforward, literal description of the theme. But the fact that GRECO-ROMAN *only* evokes wrestling (that's the only time I'd ever use that term, or have ever heard that term) makes it wordplayish enough, I think. Structurally, it's pretty remarkable that the theme works out so nicely within the confines of a rotationally symmetrical grid. In fact, two of the crossings are perfectly symmetrical (ARTEMIS / DIANA, DEMETER / CERES). The other crossings find the gods shifted one column (and row) out of symmetry, but first of all, you probably didn't notice, and second of all, names cross where they cross ... they have the letter(s) in common that they have in common, so threading the needle can be very challenging. It's genuinely remarkable that the theme was doable at all in the confines of a regular Tuesday grid. That fact that the symmetrical counterparts of every Greek and Roman god are all the same length, and that it's always Greek in the Across and Roman in the Down, these features simply add to the elegance of the theme's execution.

The grid is 16-wide in order to accommodate GRECO-ROMAN in the center of the grid (an even-number-length central answer requiring an even-numbered grid width in order to sit true in the center), but the extra column didn't seem to add any time to the solve. Anyway, if the puzzle felt easy but your time was normal, the extra column is probably why. I was strong out of the gate on this one—unsure which org. was involved at 1A: U.S. intelligence org. (I wrote in CIA), but then getting NSA easily once I took one look at the clue for NEPTUNE. After that, very few hiccups. I smiled a few times as I was solving, and probably smiled most broadly at the clue for CHUM (4A: Pal you might take fishing?). Something about the idea of bloody chunks of flesh being your "pal" was funny to me. Same thing happened with the clue on TUMMIES—probably too easy, but something about the phrasing "Rhyming destinations"—and the term "yummies"—was bizarre enough to make me laugh (12D: Rhyming destinations for yummies). There's some pretty decent longer fill in here today, which is mildly surprising given how theme-dense the puzzle is. Loved "I'M SO DEAD" and MEDIA SHY, and UNBURDEN and "I'D SAY SO" are solid as well. I made one mistake today, but even that made me laugh: I had the "RE-" at the beginning of 24A: Capital of Saskatchewan and thought "ooh, ooh, I know this ... it's ... uh ... oh, it's RED HAT!" Uh, no. I think I was thinking of Medicine Hat (which is in Alberta). RED HAT is the software company where friends of mine work. REGINA is, of course, the capital of Saskatchewan. 

Had to fight through two little kealoas* today, at ATAD (not ABIT) (56D: Somewhat) and MDS (not DRS, which is what I wrote in at first) (62D: OB/GYNs, e.g.). I found the tide clue on RECEDES odd (66A: Goes out like the tide), since ... well, if you're gonna go tide-specific, I'd say the verb is (always?) EBBS. If you're gonna go hairline-specific, then RECEDES is definitely your guy. [Goes out] = "Ooh, that's pretty vague, I don't know." [Goes out like the tide] = "Oh, EBBS!" But no. Any other minor gripes? Not really. I do grow weary of DLISTER, and DLIST in general, as a term (8A: Very minor celeb). I feel like the term got currency a decade or so ago with the Kathy Griffin show "My Life on the D-List" and then constructors were like "cool" and just ran with it. Well, I discovered just now that the letter scale for celebrity status has a very specific origin. And a name! It's called the Ulmer Scale:

The A-list is part of a larger guide called The Hot List, which ranks the bankability of 1,400 movie actors worldwide, and has become an industry-standard guide in Hollywood. American entertainment journalist James Ulmer, the guide's creator, has also developed a version including directors, the Hot List of Directors. The Ulmer scale categorizes the lists into A+, A, B+, B, C, and D listings. Similarly, in India, there is three-tier strategy, tier-1, tier-2 and tier-3, which are based on the saleability and box office collection capability of a star. (wikipedia)

So I now know two Ulmers, the other being Edgar G. Ulmer, the director of the beautifully grim low-budget film noir classic, Detour (1945). It will surprise probably no one that ULMER has never appeared in a New York Times crossword puzzle. Adding him to the list of legendary directors that the puzzle continues to snub Justice for the OZU-VARDA-ULMER triumvirate! 

See you tomorrow.

Signed, Rex Parker, King of CrossWorld 

*kealoa = a pair of words (normally short, common answers) that can be clued identically and that share at least one letter in common (in the same position). These are answers you can't just fill in quickly because two or more answers are viable, Even With One or More Letters In Place. From the classic [Mauna ___] KEA/LOA conundrum. See also, e.g. [Heaps] ATON/ALOT, ["Git!"] "SHOO"/"SCAT," etc. 

[Follow Rex Parker on Twitter and Facebook]

Read more...

Small fancy confections / THU 6-1-23 / Subtle expression of contempt in modern lingo / Hotter substitute for jalapeño / Palindromic tracker / First Nissan model offered as a hybrid / Store with a suggested navigational map / Fontaine contents

Constructor: David and Karen and Paul Steinberg

Relative difficulty: Medium-Easy (for me, a brutal four square section ... and, once I worked that out, a cakewalk)

THEME: Reducing Fractions — The word "HALF" (in three Down answers) is replaced (over two squares) with a fraction representing "HALF" (with numerator/denominator reduced by HALF each time: 4/8, 2/4, 1/2); in the Across answers, the numbers in the fractions function as letters (e.g. "-four-," "-eight-," etc.).  
Theme answers (Downs / fractions):

• 17D: Coffee with less kick (4/8 CAF, i.e. HALF CAF)
• 26D: Pretty darn good (NOT 2/4 BAD, i.e. NOT HALF BAD)
• 47D: Inning part when the visiting team bats (TOP 1/2, i.e. TOP HALF)

Theme answers (Acrosses / letters):

• 16A: Not up to us (OUT OF OUR HANDS)
• 19A: Increase the intensity of (HEIGHTEN)
• 37A: Doctor's reassurance before a shot ("IT WON'T HURT")
• 40A: Small, fancy confections (PETITS FOURS)
• 60A: Made amends (ATONED)
• 63A: Reliable, to a lender (CREDIT-WORTHY)

Word of the Day: PETITS-FOURS (40A) —

A petit four (plural: petits fours, also known as mignardises) is a small bite-sized confectionery or savory appetizer. The name is  French, petit four (French pronunciation: ​[pə.ti fuʁ]), meaning "small oven". // In 18th and 19th century France, gas ovens did not exist. Large brick (Dutch design) ovens were used, which took a long time to heat up to bake bread, but also to cool down. Bakers used the ovens during the cooling process, taking advantage of their stored heat, for baking pastry. This was called baking à petit four (literally "at small oven"), a lower temperature which allowed pastry baking. // Petits fours come in three varieties:

• Glacé ("glazed"), iced or decorated tiny cakes covered in fondant or icing, such as small éclairs, and tartlets
• Salé ("salted"), savory bite-sized appetizers usually served at cocktail parties or buffets
• Sec ("dry"), dainty biscuits, baked meringues, macarons, and puff pastries

In a French patisserie, assorted small desserts are usually called mignardises, while hard, buttery biscuits are called petits fours.

• • •

Huge "aha" with this one, though it doubled as a huge "D'oh!" because once I got the gimmick (after much staring and quizzical head-tilting) I realized I'd been reading one of the clues wrong. For me the most vicious part of this puzzle was the fact that DECAF fit perfectly at 17D: Coffee with less kick. The second most vicious part was the fact that HIKE fit at 19A: Increase the intensity of, and the third most vicious was the clue on SHELLS (14D: Racing boats), which I thought were SCULLS (Is That A Thing!?!?! ... oh, %#$&@! It Is!! Cruel). I could see that 16A: Not up to us wanted to be OUT OF OUR HANDS, but with DECAF and SCULLS wanting in on the action, I had OUT O--ANDS and couldn't visualize how any of that was gonna work. And underneath that I had H--N for 19A: Increase the intensity of and no idea what I was supposed to do with that. Kept trying to pull GHANA (5D: Major exporter of gold and cocoa) but GHANA wasn't ghana go anywhere, so... yeah. Eventually I decided it was a "FOUR" rebus, somehow, and I shifted SCULLS to SHELLS. This allowed me to finally see the "8" in HEIGHTEN, right under the "4" in OUT OF OUR HANDS, but I still had this dumb moment of "Wait, if it's DECAF ... how does 4 over 8 equal "DE" ... D = 4? E = 8? This isn't some phone keypad thing, is it ... no, that doesn't work. I don't get it, why would you put HALF over CA- ... oh for &^#$%'s sake." It's coffee with less kick, not no kick. So ... HALF CAF. Allow me to repeat: D'oh! After that, the rest of the puzzle (and I still had a long way to go) was a breeze. 

I wonder if solving on paper would've made this easier. I think I could've maybe visualized the whole number rebus aspect a little better with pencil and paper. But as I say, once the "half" gimmick dropped, there wasn't much left to this one, except to discover how the remaining "halves" were going to play out, although at that point I guess I didn't know they were all going to be halves. I suppose other fractional amounts were still possible. But I at least knew to look for number rebuses in the Across answers, and it's not too hard to see the number in PETITS FOURS, which helped me change NOT SO BAD (?) to the much better NOT 2/4 i.e. HALF BAD. And then I came at TOP 1/2 i.e. HALF from above, with the TOP already in place before I ever looked at the clue, so no problem there—just needed to see what numbers were going to be involved, and ATONED made that clear quickly. I think this theme is ingenious, even if it meant that the puzzle played really, really unevenly (much struggle up front, virtually none thereafter). The fractions are handed gracefully—more gracefully than I require, frankly. No need to make your rebus gimmick this symmetrical, but if symmetry's your thing, here you go. I was definitely looking for another HALF somewhere in the grid, but I guess the choice was made to keep it simple, symmetrical, clean—so those NE and SW corners are allowed to remain fraction-free, and since they're more than solid, I appreciate that. Love the chili pepper over LIBIDO (hot!), and I love the colloquial quality of "GOT THAT?" I don't love TAKE A CAB, but of all the EAT A SANDWICH-type answers, TAKE A CAB is probably among the best, in that it actually seems like a legit standalone phrase. So we've got a very clever theme and a highly polished grid. Good enough for me.

I feel like some contingent of solvers are going to have trouble with PETITS FOURS, either with not really knowing what they are, or not knowing how plural French spellings work, or ... something. But I don't see much else (outside the entire theme concept!) to give solvers too much trouble today. There are hardly any proper nouns from pop culture (of any era). In fact ... there are none? I mean, SPOOFS is clued via "Airplane!" and "This is Spinal Tap," and I guess you could consider POOH "pop culture" if you wanted, but this puzzle just doesn't have trivia of the sort that is likely to leave anyone generationally baffled (see yesterday's BEASTIE BOYS, lol). My mistakes were all fairly petty. I wanted UTAH before UTES (18A: Salt Lake City team), which left me briefly wondering why a chair might need UGANDA (11D: Something a chair needs = AGENDA). I wrote in LEST for some reason at 22D: "Should that be the case ..." ("IF SO...") (four letters, "S" in place ... it seemed plausible in the moment). 32A: Grammy equivalent is a wicked clue, in that you're sure to think "award" before "grandmother." NAN came as a surprise there, but luckily crosses were easy. I liked the clue on DESELECT (8D: Turn off, digitally) because "digitally" seemed to work in two ways ("online," "with your fingers"). I don't really get the HOW and YES clues at the end (66D: Good question / 67D: Good answer). That is, I don't know why they're "good." Is this some kind of meta-commentary, like "HOW does this puzzle even work?" and "YES! I finally figured it out!"?  Maybe you have better ideas. Let me know. 

It's a new month—time to highlight the best NYTXW puzzles of last month (two themed puzzles, and one themeless). So here it is, the Best of May 2023:

• Themed: Catherine Cetta, "SAY CHEESE" (Mon. May 8); David J. Kahn, "CAPITAL / GAINS" (Thu., May 4)
• Themeless: Spencer Leach (PRIDE PARADE / POLE DANCE / PROMO CODE / BORED TO DEATH) (Sat., May 13)

See you tomorrow.

 

Signed, Rex Parker, King of CrossWorld 

P.S. OK some of you seem to have gotten a dark line between numerators and denominators but I cannot figure out what solving format was involved. If you *did* have a dark line, what solving format were you using?

[Follow Rex Parker on Twitter and Facebook]

Read more...

Italian rice balls / SUN 5-22-22 / Snack item that's partly foreordained? / Love ___ Pet Shop Boys dance hit of 2009 / Publication with an annual Power 100 list / Eric B Pimp C Chuck D / Weasel family members / There was Noah-counting for it

Constructor: David and Karen and Paul Steinberg

Relative difficulty: Easy-Medium

THEME: "Parting Ways" — eight Down answers are double-clued; the answers split at a circled letter, and then the answer to the first clue heads one way (west) while the answer to the second heads the other (east). The resulting Across answers (made up of the latter part of both Down answers) are coherent (but unclued) words and phrases. The circled letters end up spelling out SEPARATE, which ... I don't know if it's a verb or a noun here, but either way: apt.

Theme answers:

• DESPOTS / DESIGNS (5D: Tyrants / Patterns) => STOP SIGNS
• WHEREVER / WHENCE (12D: Anyplace / From which place) => REVERENCE
• PLUMPED / PLUM POSITION (29D: Made puffier, as cushions / Very desirable job) => DEPOSITION
• TRAVELER / TRANCE (53D: Tourist, e.g. / Hypnotic state) => RELEVANCE
• BERGERON / BERETS (61D: Tom who hosted "Dancing With the Stars" / Brimless caps) => NO REGRETS
• STAMINA / STATIONS (73D: Endurance / Subway map info) => ANIMATIONS
• SECRET LOVER / SECRETING (84D: Tryst partner / Discharging, as a liquid) => REVOLTING
• PRELIM / PRESTONE (104D: Qualifying match, for shot / Big name in antifreeze and brake fluid) => MILESTONE

Word of the Day: ARANCINI (54D: Italian rice balls) —

Arancini (UK: /ˌærənˈtʃiːni/, US: /ˌɑːr-/, Italian: [aranˈtʃiːni], Sicilian: [aɾanˈtʃiːnɪ, -ˈdʒiː-]) are Italian rice balls that are stuffed, coated with bread crumbs and deep fried, and are a staple of Sicilian cuisine. The most common fillings are: al ragù or al sugo, filled with ragù (meat or mince, slow-cooked at low temperature with tomato sauce and spices), mozzarella or caciocavallo cheese, and often peas, and al burro or ô burru, filled with ham and mozzarella or besciamella.

A number of regional variants exist which differ in fillings and shape. Arancini al ragùproduced in eastern Sicily have a conical shape inspired by the volcano Etna. (wikipedia)

• • •

If you think I'm going to go HARD- (ass ... I mean CASE!) on a puzzle that a young man co-constructed with his parents (!!!) then LOL you don't know me as well as you thought you did. Actually, if I didn't like it, I'd probably still have to share that info with you, such is my perverse commitment to writing what I'm actually thinking / feeling, but hey, good news, I actually did like this one. My exact comment (to myself) upon getting the theme concept was a sincere and curious "Oh, hey, innnnnnteresting." There are a lot of layers to this theme. I don't know that it actually needs the showiest element, actually. That is, I think I was least impressed by the fact that the circled letters spelled SEPARATE, in part because it's just not a very colorful or evocative or interesting or (in this case) terribly specific word, in part because I wasn't really sure if it was intended to be interpreted as a verb or a noun. But kudos for trying to do *something* with those squares where the answers diverge; if nothing else, it gives the grid some visual interest, and adds another layer of theme restriction to an already pretty strict theme. Those Down answers have to diverge *and* their diverging latter parts have to spell out a plausible answer. It's a nice little trick. The SEPARATE part gives it a kind of coherence that it wouldn't have otherwise, I see; that is, without it, the puzzle is just a bunch of diverging answers ... which would've been enough for me, but the added spelling trick is nice little cherry, even if the cherry doesn't really add much to the overall Wow factor. The most important thing here is that the puzzle was actually fun to solve; I liked being able to use the hybrid Across answer (that is, knowing it would have to make a real word/phrase) to help make sense of the Downs that flow into it. I hope this puzzle's title ("Parting Ways") is not a coded way of saying that David's parents are getting a divorce. Unless that makes them happy. Anyway, that's probably not what's happening here. No deeper meaning. Just a good, family puzzle.

I loved the weirdo shape of this grid (a rectangular 19x23). I am all for off-book grid shapes, as long as you've still got some kind of symmetry (or at least an artful asymmetry). I had two trouble spots, both of them coming right around the transition from the top half to bottom half of the grid. SCORER had a "?" clue that I couldn't see through (50D: Point person?), and it was next to a themer I couldn't start (BER-), which was itself next to a clue where I couldn't understand how "clutch" was being used (60D: Parts of a clutch). A clutch of EGGS! Yes, I do know that meaning, though it's the last meaning of "clutch" I would come up with if I had to list all the "clutch" meanings I know. I worked it out, but there was a definitely slow-down in that area, and then again around ELLIOT Page, which is really stupid, as I absolutely know his name but also totally blanked, even with ELL- in place, ugh. Me: "Man's name ... starts ELL- ... how many of these can there be!?!?!" Had no idea about the adjacent ASIAN pear (72A: Kind of pear that resembles an apple), and wasn't sure about ATM since I only take $$$ out of ATMs—I've literally never put $$$ in (72D: $$$ taker). Forgot that PRESTONE was a thing (really wanted FIRESTONE), but otherwise, no other answers really stand out as troublemakers. I thought the grid had some lovely non-theme fill, like ARANCINI and "MAN OH MAN!" and "BIG NEWS!" and LAVA CAKE. Fun stuff.

Notes:

• 56A: Wall molding (CORNICE) — I had a sweet CORN ICE cream cone today, and it was delicious (if global warming is going to roast me to death in the middle of spring, I'm gonna die with a cone in my hand)
• 42D: Amounts of sugar, perhaps (SPOONFULS) — my brain keeps glitching on this. "Spoonsful ...  SPOONFULS ... Spoons ... full? "Yes sir, yes sir, three bags full" ... not bagfuls ... but ... SPOONFULS ... Attorneys ... General? ... OK wait, let's start over ..."
• 10D: Snack item that's partly foreordained? (OREO) — I really really hope that everyone got and appreciated this answer, but I worry that the cryptic-type cluing might've baffled a solver or three (OREO is part of ("partly") the word "foreordained"). 
• 17A: Janis ___, main role in "Mean Girls" (IAN) — uh, do all girl-centered teen comedies feature protagonists named after famous singers of the Baby-Boomer generation!? (The main character in "Clueless" is Cher)

• 37A: Places of refuge (ASYLUMS) — if there's one thing I count on crosswords for, it's weird-ass Latinate plurals, so I really Really balked at this perfectly normal English plural. If the puzzle won't give me ASYLA, who will!?

READER MAIL!

And now, I'm going to print this blog's official first-ever "Letter to the Editor." The writer and I had a series of email back-and-forths and he said "you should write about this conversation" and I said "why don't you put your thoughts in the form of a Letter to the Editor?" and I did not think he would but when I checked my email later in the day, bam, there it was. And here it is (Subject line: "my letter to the editaur"):

Dear Rex:

I love your work.  I read you daily.  You are a cantankerous prude.  

As you know from our previous email exchanges, I find your analyses spot on, if just a tad grumpy.  But I like the grump.  I rely on the grump.  What I do not like -- because the attitude you take is symptomatic of, or even a contributor to (you are, undeniably, an "influencer"), what I believe is a longstanding weakness in the crossword genre.  It, and you, seem Victorian in your sensibilities.  

TV and newspapers and news sites report the world as it is.  Much muck and mayhem and malodor, murder, indecency, crudeness, crassness, cruelty.   On TV, Homer gets drunk and strangles Bart.  The South Park kids curse.  One of them gets murdered all the time.   Movies delve into sex with aplomb and without apology.  And yet crosswords, for the most part, seem to inhabit a different world, one closer to, say, movies in the 1940s and 1950s under the fusty, harrumphing, puritanical Hays Code.   They do not include as clues or answers anything that might cause an elderly 1920s dowager to almost swoon with the vapors. 

You might say this is a trivial complaint about an inconsequential issue , and in one sense, of course it is. But  I would contend that there IS damage done to the crossword genre by instituting an outdated set of criteria for what are acceptable answers: It makes crosswords seem stilted, mannered, and out of touch with modernity.   An atavism.  Further, it skews their readership toward the older readers.  Not a good thing.

Hitler?  Perhaps the most influential and consequential monster of history -- a name almost better known than anyone's, ever -- has, to my memory at least, never appeared in the Times XWord—at least not for decades.  Vomit, a totally normal bodily function, one that can be induced to save lives?  Nope. Too icky apparently for Mr. Hays.  Orgasm?  Gimme a break.   And don't get me started on body parts.  Has "penis" ever appeared?  Even though there are nearly 4 billion of them in the world?

This brings me to the stunning reason I write this.  The other day you allowed as to how you suppose "vagina" might be okay.  It astounded me; seemed like a seismic change in your thinking.  Except it isn't, really, I fear.   A few days before that you railed against the Times's answer of "phlegmy."  Icky icky icky-poo that you do not wish to see in your crossword puzzle.  You wrote "No one but no one wants to encounter PHLEGM in their puzzles."  That was an uncharacteristically erroneous statement.  I, for one, do.   I found it refreshing

You have also spoken against seeing in your crossword puzzle the name of a person of whom you do not approve.   Elon Musk comes to mind.  You don't like that one little bit, even though, well, he is the RICHEST MAN IN THE WORLD.   Get him out of my puzzle, you demand.  I, Rex Parker, do not wish to see this name.  Trump, too, one of 46 presidents of the United States.  He displeases you, and you are horrified when your crossword insists that you confront, for a second, this distasteful presence. 

An answer in a crossword puzzle does not endorse the worthiness or humanity of a person or the niceness and sweetness of a thing.  It is simply an acknowledgement that we are adults living in a complex, fascinating world.  I do not, personally, approve of Hitler or Trump or, for that matter, Musk.  I do not think it is remotely tasteless to include them as answers.  I do not harrumph.  "Taste" may be in the eye of the beholder, but that eye should not be behind a 19th century monocle.  

So "vagina" might be okay with you now?  Wow.  But how would you feel about "clitoris"?  Is that different?  Why?  (I confess that I am ending with this as an experiment.  I want to see if you will publish the name of this perfectly normal body part EVEN IN YOUR BLOG, or will you prudishly substitute [Redacted] ?  And if so, why?) 

Respectfully, and tastefully, 

Gene Weingarten [ed.: Gene is a former columnist for the Washington Post]

The editaur (i.e. me), briefly, responds: 

Dear Gene,

First, re: "clitoris," my "19th-century monocle," as you put it, would be more than happy to see CLITORIS (or even CLIT) in the grid. And if you can't see how PHLEGM and VAGINA might provoke vastly different reactions from a solver ... I don't know what to say about that. Those terms are both related to the body, but that's about as far as the similarity goes. At any rate, I'm not trying to lay down rules. All I've ever done is explain my genuine feelings about the effect that words (and names) have on me. Some I don't like, but tolerate. Some I tolerate ... less well. Mostly I don't like seeing the names of awful people (or orgs.) who have done (truly) awful things. I would like to be the kind of person who sees all words and names as legit simply because they exist in the world. But I am a mere human being trying to be honest about his human feelings, even if those feelings sometimes seem overly sensitive or even outright contradictory ("Do I contradict myself? Very well then, I contradict myself"); so no, no HITLER for me, or PUS, or [redacted former president], or ORBÁN or ... I dunno, lots of things. No racial slurs, no slurs at all. There are a host of terms I can think of that a. exist, and b. are entirely unwelcome in my grids. I won't name them, but you can probably make such a list yourself if you tried. If I were editor, I would likely make reasonable allowance for stuff I don't particularly, personally like. But as a solver, I'm going to yap at whatever feels bad or wrong or gross or whatever. I assume disagreement will be plentiful. This has never bothered me. After all, if no one disagreed, my Inbox would be a much sadder, emptier place... ~RP

So ... I guess I publish letters to the editor now, so if you have something you want to say (about crossword puzzles, or the blog, or the above letter, or anything that's at least crossword-adjacent), feel free to write me at rexparker at icloud dot com, or (if you're really old-school) at the snail-mail address in the sidebar of this blog. Either way, make sure you put "OK TO PRINT" somewhere on the letter. If I plan on printing it, I'll let you know (snail-mailers should give me an email address to speed the process up a bit :)

Signed, Rex Parker, King of CrossWorld 

[Follow Rex Parker on Twitter and Facebook]

Read more...