Steel giant founded in 1899 / WED 5-21-14 / Friedrich units for short / Google co-founder Sergey

Constructor: Mike Buckley

Relative difficulty: Medium-Challenging

THEME: wacky homophones, I guess — two-word phrases are reimagined with homophones in place of the original words

Theme answers:

• PLANE RAPPER (17A: Freestyling pilot?) (plain wrapper??? like "plain brown wrapper" only not "brown"?)
• BANNED LIEDER (28A: Music forbidden in Germany?) (bandleader)
• WHIRLED PIECE (44A: Top?) (world peace)
• HOARSE SHOOS (59A: Throaty dismissals?) (horseshoes) 

Word of the Day: ARMCO (43A: Steel giant founded in 1899) —

AK Steel Holding Corporation is an American steel company whose predecessor, Armco, was founded in 1899 in Middletown, Ohio, United States. In 2007, the company moved its corporate headquarters from Middletown to West Chester, Ohio.

The company derives its name from the first letters of "Armco" and "Kawasaki Steel Corporation," which entered into a limited partnership with Armco in 1989. The company was formally renamed AK Steel in 1993 when it became a publicly traded company. (wikipedia)

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Not going to write much about this because I didn't like it and I don't really get it and (consequently?) I don't have much to say. Are two-word homophone shifts like this really that hard to find? Are there none better than PLANE RAPPER? I honestly had no idea what was going on for most of the solve? The phrases are odd and decidedly Not funny. Fill wasn't terrible, but it wasn't good, either. ARMCO just seems awful, frankly. Can't remember ever seeing it. Also it doesn't exist anymore. Hasn't existed for over 20 years. Ugh. I just guessed that "A" because I've never ever heard of Friedrich brand air conditioners, so [Friedrich units] sounded like something sciencey. I thus really doubted ACS, but any other vowel there seemed preposterous.  Just a ridiculous crossing. NW was absolutely disastrous for me too, mostly because I have not heard the phrase GIRLS DORM in a long time. I didn't go to a prep school, and when I went to college, No One would've said "girls." So I just stared at -SDORM for a bit. Also what on god's green earth is "Land o' Goshen!"???? I wrote in EIRE and ERIN … "MY, MY!" For &%^#'s sake, who says that? Tepid theme, tepid fill, weird / dated frame of reference. Not a great experience. The end.


No, not the end. BEWIG!? OK, now the end.

Signed, Rex Parker, King of CrossWorld

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Short player wise as in hockey / TUE 5-20-14 / Montreal Canadien familiarly / Blue-turfed home for Boise State football / Former fort on Monterey Bay / Beef cuts named for New York restaurateur / Illinois home of Caterpillar

Constructor: Peter A. Collins

Relative difficulty: Medium

THEME: HIDDEN COST (59A: Unexpected expense … or a feature of 17-, 23-, 35- and 49-Across) — "COST" is "HIDDEN" inside theme answers:

Theme answers:

• TACO STANDS (17A: Informal eateries with Mexican fare)
• BRONCO STADIUM (23A: Blue-turfed home for Boise State football)
• DELMONICO STEAKS (35A: Beef cuts named for a New York restaurateur)
• TEXACO STATION (49A: Service site with a star)

Word of the Day: DELMONICO STEAKS —

Definition: Delmonico steak is a steak cut from the beef short loin and named for Delmonico's, a steak house in New York where it is said to originate. 

Delmonico steak is a triangular steak with an L-shaped bone. The Delmonico steak somewhat resembles a T-bone steak, but it comes from the front part of the short loin, the part nearest therib. In contrast to the Delmonico steak, the T-bone steak comes from the center section of the short loin. 

The Delmonico steak is also different from the T-bone in that the Delmonico steak doesn't have any of the tenderloin muscle. 

Because it is a tender cut of meat, the Delmonico steak is good for dry-heat cooking methods such as grilling and broiling. (about.com)

• • •

This is about what I expect an average NYT Tuesday puzzle to be. Simple theme, apt revealer, interesting (if not scintillating) theme answers, mostly solid fill with at least a little zing in the longer Downs. As it stands, I think this is probably a little better than most of the easy themed fare we've been getting in recent days, if only because a. there's nothing terribly groan-inducing in the fill, and b. there is absolutely nothing to quibble about in the theme (except, I suppose, whether either BRONCO STADIUM or DELMONICO STEAKS is sufficiently well known to be in a Tuesday—I'd say "probably" and "it's beside the point; both are easily gettable/inferable via crosses). HIDDEN COST is not what I'd call a sparkly revealer. It is a phrase that one might use, but it has all the pizazz of a corporate newsletter. But it works. This puzzle does what it says it's going to do, and dammit, some days, that's good enough.


I, like many others, I'm sure, was thrown for a loop by "thrown for A LOSS" (50D: Thrown for ___). I think the "loss" version is supposed to be a term from American football. I can't imagine another scenario where I'd use the phrase. Anyway, my initial mistake was easily fixed. I had Schrödinger as an EDWIN at first. Need every single cross to get TINNED, and still am only somewhat sure I understand it (48D: Plated, in a way). If something is tin-plated, it's TINNED? Is that right? I like the tabloidy sequence of Downs in the NE: "SHANIA—DUST-UP AT HOME!" I'm not sure having a grid with both NOLA and NOLO is ideal, but there are no rules against it. My geography got aaaaalllll messed up, because my brain had INDiana farther west than Illinois as I was solving, so having IND. as the answer to 27D: Oh./Ill. separator just didn't compute. Yikes. I always forget INDiana's there. I used to live in Michigan, and I knew Ohio was underneath me, and Illinois was on the other side of the lake, but INDiana … most I ever did was clip the top of it heading to Chicago. Why my brain wants to put it out in Iowaland, I don't know.

Signed, Rex Parker, King of CrossWorld

PS I wonder if non-hockey fans know HAB (59D: Montreal Canadien,  familiarly). I didn't until I got slammed by it a while back in a crossword. Now I see it all the time—for instance, the HABs are in the NHL Eastern Conference finals right now against the Rangers.

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