"Come with me to art class!" "Sounds sketchy." ("But you'll gain perspective!")
My five favorite original clues from last week (in order of appearance): 1. Basis of some admissions (5) 2. Items harmed when they're scratched, but not when they're burned (3) 3. Cook's offering with chips? (4) 4. Red container, maybe (4) 5. Fudge substitute (6) GUILT CDS IMAC CASK DARNIT
I would’ve needed a pencil for sure for this one. I again went with snob instead of snot and decided a sandwich served on Melba toast might well be a melb. Consider my assumptions checked.
@Justin I did the exact same thing. I literally hate the word SNOT.
@Justin same thing and couldn’t figure out what a melb sandwich was
@Pani Korunova Now now. Don't be a snob. :)
@Justin - Check this: <a href="https://www.merriam-webster.com/thesaurus/snot" target="_blank">https://www.merriam-webster.com/thesaurus/snot</a>
This is the second time in the past short while that I’ve seen “snot” used instead of the much more direct “snob” as the answer for a clue about arrogance. I associate “snot” with someone, particularly a child, who is ill-mannered and badly behaved, not someone who is arrogant. Does this seem odd to anyone else, or is it just me?
@MRR thanks for this comment--it was the one letter I had wrong. Melbs should have tipped me off, but I just thought it was a sandwich I hadn't heard of it. 😄
@MRR Not just you. The only definitions I know for “snot” are a) as you described, and b) the product of a leaky nose. But I guess T’s are easier to cross than B’s? @Jane I was letting “melbs” slide, too, as an abbreviation for some weird sandwich I’d never heard of. MELTS makes much more sense… but SNOT? SRSLY?
@MRR SNOB was my first instinct too. Fortunately, I remembered the SNOB/SNOT snafu of 2024, so I just wrote SNO_ and waited for the cross to fill in the blank.
@MRR Snot is up there with the most vulgar words in the language. I can't think of a single usage that doesn't have a negative impact. Snot green? Snot rag? "You little snot!"? Snotty comments? It'snot a word I ever use. See what I mean?
Yesterday I played a solo for an Epiphany concert. A concert goer approached me as I putting my instrument away and asked to see it. “I’ve never seen one up close before”, she said, “but it’s in my crosswords all the time!” She thanked me, and I continued to put my OBOE away.
Random thoughts: • Column one – MOCHA / GUAC / HDTV – well, that makes me relax just thinking about it. • This puzzle, from start to finish, has a smart witty feel to it, IMO, that jumps out of the clues and answers. • I love how in their answers, SKETCH, DOODLE, and TRACE are not used in their drawing sense. • There were significantly more answers than usual that I couldn’t just slap down, on a Monday puzzle. But it still felt like a Monday, that is, easier than a Tuesday. There’s an art to that, and Rena, IMO, nailed it. • All the longs are interesting, whether for beauty (CATHEDRAL), or fun (GOLDEN DOODLE), or not seen often in puzzles (i.e., two NYT debut answers and two only-once-befores in the theme answers). • Lovely shorts as well: STINT, ABHOR, MOCHA, DEFLATE, HOT SEAT. • I like seeing EAST on the right edge, as well as GUAC on the side. • Lovely PuzzPair© of SCAD and a backward TONS. A sparkling canny beauty in the box today. After your debut puzzle in October, a Thursday, with its scintillating theme and answer set, and now this beauty today, it’s clear to me that you have the knack, Rena. More please, and thank you for a splendid outing!
TIL that POEHLER and SEDARIS have the same number of letters.
@Liz B I started with “Pohler”, but my inability to spell her name made me think it was wrong. So I switched to Schumer… and then to Sedaris… but finally TIL it’s spelled POEHLER!
Having anchored my center with hAm instead of MAC [and cheese] and the ever-popular SNOb instead of SNOT, I had quite the mess to clean up before putting this definitely-challenging-for-a-Monday puzzle in the books!
@jas Eww, you have my sympathy. Cleaning up snot is no fun!
@jas I didn't buy SNOT instead of SNOB when it turned up in the recent past, and I don't buy it now. SNOT is the stuff in your nose that drips out if you don't use a tissue, indicating immaturity. Insult mostly towards children, as in, "Don't be such a snot!"
We came, we solve, we GLOAT! Thank you Rena
Always draw conclusions on an etch-a-sketch in case they need to be erased. Nicely done, Rena. I like the theme. It made an impression on me.
Oy! My PW for a Monday. I will put it down to my having taken a ham-fisted approach to 37D.
Strudel Dad, Are you and Justin starting a food fight?
Probably a coincidence that HERS almost crossed ARS, but a notable one since we women look at the Hippocratic Corpus (“Ars longa brevis” is from his Aphorisms) with mixed feelings. Sure, Gynaikeia, the text on women’s ailments, laid the groundwork for women’s health as a specialized field in the Western tradition. Sure, its idea of a “wandering womb” wasn’t new: there are Egyptian papyri from the 18th c. BCE discussing the same physical phenomenon. Sure, who could have predicted that once the Christian tradition rolled around, the Greek “of the womb” (hysterikos) would become what we now think of as hysterics—anything from demonic possession (thanks, Galen) to a medical diagnosis (thanks, Freud) to the slurring insult from a drunk guy at a junket last year whom I calmly told to get his hand off me. But fighting a migraine and ambivalent toward the Greeks, I leave you with this from Gynaikeia: “When the womb moves toward the head and remains there, suffocation occurs, and the head becomes heavy; other symptoms may also arise, some on one side, some on the other. The sign is this: the woman feels pain in the veins of the nostrils and under the eyes; there is drowsiness and frothing at the mouth when the condition improves. In such a case (…) eat cabbage and drink cabbage water.” I’ll take a triptan instead (thanks anyway, Hippocrates) and wait till somnolence which does, in fact, signal the end of a migraine overtakes me. Here’s hoping I don’t froth at the mouth, too.
@Sam Lyons Oops, “Ars longa, vita brevis.” Correcting autocorrect, I accidentally deleted “vita.”
@Sam Lyons To quote the great Andy Reid, "Great googally moogally!".
@Sam Lyons It's important to remember that the uterus was treated as the origin of women's health issues well into the 20th century. I knew a woman who, back in the 1960s, was suffering from depression and alcoholism. Her doctors treated it by giving her a hysterectomy. It did not work.
@Sam Lyons For the migraine three essentail oils, mixed in carrier oil, would cure you. If you are interestred DM me. Basil, marjoram and peppermint are the oils.
And now I want a tuna MELT and a Mocha, but not together. Sam, I wonder if Deb learned about assume the same way I, and probably many others, did, from the television version of The Odd Couple. I still can't use the word without hesitating. <a href="https://youtu.be/KEP1acj29-Y?si=gy9LTPyCxICN5Rs8" target="_blank">https://youtu.be/KEP1acj29-Y?si=gy9LTPyCxICN5Rs8</a>
@Vaer Or possibly from an early scene in Silence of the Lambs for those of us not in the States.
@Vaer For me, it was the original Bad News Bears movie in 1977: <a href="https://youtu.be/LUv3PXLO0hM?si=gVuLpOolR3aBKorj&t=138" target="_blank">https://youtu.be/LUv3PXLO0hM?si=gVuLpOolR3aBKorj&t=138</a>
For me this was the hardest Monday ever 😮. I needed several lookups in the NW corner - the accumulation of name, brand, unfamiliar instrument and theater terminology was too much for this Polish theaterphobe. Also, SNOb took much longer to spot than I would like to admit, and I was so distracted by how badly my solve was going I almost did not spot GOLDENpOODLE crossing pMS was wrong. I almost had to check the puzzle - on Monday! My struggles probably were down to my being Polish rather than anything being wrong with the puzzle itself but I can't say I enjoyed the experience. * * * Reposting below my late reply to replies to my yesterday's comment. @RozzieGrandma When we do a puzzle it takes over our whole dining table - for the 3000 piece puzzles we actually have a huge square of laminated particle board we put on the table to make it even larger so there is room for everything, including the multiple sorting trays. We eat on the sofa anyway so it's not a huge problem 😉. We don't have children and we rarely entertain people at home, which also helps. [She is a high ranking manager in our public administration.] @Jon Yes, that was what I realized after staring at the clue. When we visited the US years ago we were surprised by how different your traffic signs were to European ones - so much was written down and so little handled with pictograms! @B Thanks, I didn't know the thing was called a tamper!
D'oh. NE corner, not NW. SE wasn't easy either
@Andrzej I'm not going to say I found the puzzle hard, but xwstats.com said it was my "fourth slowest Monday of all time". Of cours, "of all time" means since I joined xwordstats, which was in July of 2022, but I was a bit surprised. I didn't find the puzzle particularly hard, but what happened was that I had taken a nap and had just woke up at around 5:58 (two minutes before the puzzle dropped). I was still too groggy to get up and go to my desktop, which is my preferred way to solve, so I picked up my phone and solved that way. I finished without any interruption. The combination of my being a bit groggy and the phone solve brought my time down about three minutes slower than my Monday average. As of now, my time is slower than the "average time" that xwordstats shows for their pool of solvers (5:29). This is quite rare, and it only goes to show that factors other than how difficult one found the puzzle can seriously affect your solve time.
Nice to see one of our friends hiding in the puzzle. *nods to Mr Ancona* A very gentle, enjoyable Monday. Thank you Rena!
My father was a chemical engineer for ARCO, in what became the spun off Arco Chemical. The A in ARCO represents the Philadelphia-based Atlantic Refining Company, with the R provided by the Los Angeles based Ridgefield Oil - Atlantic-Ridgefield. As with any corporation, it is a complicated history. But it always takes me by surprise when Arco is clued to the west coast. While his home base was in a skyscraper just across the street from City Hall in Philadelphia, my father worked in Holland, Turkey, India, the Caribbean, all as an ARCO employee. In the 70s and 80s at least, ARCO had an international footprint. Anyway, after learning to play arco and pizzicato in my violin lessons off Rittenhouse Square, I would visit my dad in his ARCO office in Centre Square. The one with the Clothespin out front. <a href="https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Clothespin_(Oldenburg" target="_blank">https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Clothespin_(Oldenburg</a>)
@David Connell So far as I'm concerned, everyone should have an Oldenberg in their front lawn. At least Arco did better than BP (British Petroleum), whose North American headquarters were in my home town of Cleveland, OH. In 1982, Sohio commissioned "Free Stamp"--a monumental rubber stamp which reads, well, "Free" (in reverse, natch)--to be displayed in the plaza in front of their corporate headquarters, on the central Public Square. Shortly thereafter, Sohio was acquired by BP, who had no problems paying the commission, but decided to warehouse the sculpture. I guess they had issues with the concept of freedom, at least so far as gasoline pricing goes. After nine years, in 1991, BP donated the sculpture to the city. It is now on display, but in a different location, and --more importantly--with a different orientation: resting on its side (so one can read the "FREE") as opposed to standing upright.
@Bill Your last paragraph was very funny!!!! Lol And I’m from Cleveland but now in Detroit!
Top right was tricky for us Eurotrash - ARCO have no presence, and SCAD is either a fish or a disease here...whereas SCUD is occasionally a group noun (it's a versatile syllable). That was the error I had to look for, and then brute force, when I didn't get the solve. Otherwise though this was plenty of fun.
I was breezing through this airy puzzle so nicely, and was quite confused that I didn't hear the 'music'. It turns out I had "golden poodle" instead of "GoldenDoodle" (and conversely 'pms' instead of 'DMS' for the Insta message). Hunting this took a minute or two. I'm glad to have read the Wordplay, for I missed the 'draw' connections. (And I'm an artist, too!) Thank you for a fun puzzle!
"I'm glad to have read the Wordplay, for I missed the 'draw' connections." Joan, I gather you breezed through the puzzle so quickly that you didn't bother to read all of the 57A clue?
(I posted this quite a while ago, and it may have been nixed by the emu team. I removed what I think might have been the offending word and will try again.) You can DRAWCONCLUSIONS about a GOLDENDOODLE after a CONTACTTRACE. SRSL, Monday is one of my favorite puzzle days because it heals all of my wounds from the previous week. I feel smirky and smart, and I would feel even smirkier and smarter if I hadn't wasted SCADs of time on that HEROIC STINT looking for a typo. Thank you, Rena, we're glad to see you back. Your puzzle was a blueprint for a solid Monday solve!
@dutchiris This finally showed up this morning, with the offending word restored (d--b).
May I…DRAW your attention to this song from eight years ago? SRSLY. (That’s what it’s called) <a href="https://youtu.be/hI8TCA3fJcs" target="_blank">https://youtu.be/hI8TCA3fJcs</a> Guess I won’t comment on it further, in case the emus draw a different conclusion. SRSLY.
@Cat Lady Margaret Aaron Burr, sir. Such a great voice. And Sara was interviewed in the last segment of the New Yorker Radio Hour this past Saturday,
@Cat Lady Margaret thanks for that, I missed it 8 years ago!
@Cat Lady Margaret Amazing song.... I felt it in my soul. ........................................ .............................
I just wasn’t on the right wavelength. I solved it with no lookups but it took over 2x my average time.
A straightforward Monday for me. I was surprised to read some found it a little chewy; that would normally be me, so I’ll take the win. We considered a GOLDENDOODLE or any Doodle type when looking for our current hound, as I’m allergic to all animal fur. But I just can’t get attached to any poodle-like dog; a hangover from a vicious poodle we had when I was young I think. Ironically we plumped for a Shiba; a non-hypoallergenic hairy furball to which I display no allergic reaction at all, unlike every Lab we’ve had. Go figure.
A good crossword for me, I checked how long it took (Usually don't bother) and it was 30 mins. I know, some people solve in about 6 mins but some crosswords here take me up to 2 hours! I had to look up a few, like Crimson Tide, obviously and the crossers solved some mysteries, like 'seven layer dip' and 'ball club VIP - is that General Managers?
@Jane Wheelaghan Yes, GM = General Manager. Is GUAC a big thing in your neck of the woods? It always amazes me how restaurants can manage their avocado stock. Our are usually either rock hard or over ripe with only a few hour window of perfection.
@Jane Wheelaghan I normally solve Mondays in < 6 minutes, but this one took me 20+ !! I had like 5 errors - some just typos, but some were flat out mistakes. Some I'm embarrassed to share, but my final square was changing SNOb (25D) Having filled 25D first, I thought MELbS was slang for a Melba Toast sandwich of some kind.
Nice Monday puzzle. On the slow side for me, but that just made for an enjoyable workout. Was not at all familiar with CONTACTTRACE and had to completely work that out from the crosses. A couple of other things only dawned on me with a few crosses also but had fun working them out. Back on a one day streak. We'll see how long that lasts. I'll put my usual puzzle find in a reply. ...
@Rich in Atlanta As threatened: A Sunday from January 2, 2011 by David Levinson Wilk with the title "Works in translation." This one was all in the clues. Some examples: 1934 novel "Maw'id" APPOINTMENTINSAMARRA 1968 hit song "Nazad" BACKINTHEUSSR 1985 hit song "Neung Keun" ONENIGHTINBANGKOK 1951 film "Une Personne des États-Unis" ANAMERICANINPARIS And there were more. Thought that was quite clever. Here's the Xword Info link: <a href="https://www.xwordinfo.com/Crossword?date=1/2/2011&g=38&d=A" target="_blank">https://www.xwordinfo.com/Crossword?date=1/2/2011&g=38&d=A</a> I'm done. ....
@Rich in Atlanta A one-day streak always lasts just one day. After that, either it is broken, or it's a two-day streak.
My golden-doodle resents being reduced to a caricature. But I thought it was a great puzzle.
@DIVAS IVLIVS Your dog told you that?
@DIVAS IVLIVS I read somewhere that vets think most goldendoodles are psychotic nutjobs and people should stop breeding them (or avoid buying them as pets).... surely that can't be true, they look so cute and innocent!
24D. There I go again misreading the clue as bouncy HORSE instead of HOUSE. Eww, didn't want to go there... Enjoyed the puzzle; nice and straight-forward. Good way to start a Monday!
A perfect Monday! Nice to see a theme and some cleverness. Good Job!
Despite a typo I had to flyspeck, this was a nice, relaxing Monday puzzle. I even finished just under my average time. I really appreciate having the Mon-Tues-Wed stretch to recover from the Thurs-Fri-Sat trifecta of evil followed by the Sunday marathon. I honestly enjoy the NYTXW challenges.... SRSLY!
Gee, a lot of grousing about SCAD. I, for one, do use it in the singular. Maybe it is a regionalism. I found this Monday puzzle to be witty and thoughtful. Loved seeing KAZOO in there! Thanks, Rena
The last thing into the grid was 33D. TEEN what? Riverdale? XO, Kitty? No clue! This is a bit unfair to solvers in their "upper 70's"--don't you think? Then there's 47A, which was Not MDS. Even after the TROWEL put in the R, I wasn't sure about the "Hosp. V.I.P.s" (weird punctuation, there....why the periods for VIP?) Anyway: the DRS may send you to the Hosp., operate on you, prescribe treatment for you, stop by on rounds.....but it's the RNS who take care of you who really save your life. Just sayin'. As an inveterate DOODLEr, I am of the opinion that if you TRACE, you're not really DRAWing. You're COPYing-- possibly due to a lack of confidence. I minored in Art as an undergrad; you CAN learn to draw.) On with our WINDY, CccccOLD Monday!
@Mean Old Lady The full stops (periods) between the letters of an initialism used to be standard, but look old- fashioned, now. Maybe they're still in the NYT style-book. Someone in their upper 70s might recall that it was always The Man From U.N.C.L.E., back in the day. <a href="https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Man_from_U.N.C.L.E" target="_blank">https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Man_from_U.N.C.L.E</a>.
@Mean Old Lady ‘But it’s the RN’s who take care of you’. Well said. Proud Mum of an ED Sister here. She worked 6 x 12 hour shifts right through Christmas, while the VIPs were mostly absent.
@Oikofuge I hadn't heard of Muphry's Law. Thanks! Also, this made me chuckle. From the second link: "And he concludes, "I think 'to be a nitpicker' is one of those irregular verbs: I am a purist, you are a pedant, they are a bunch of nitpickers." Very true."
If oodles of poodles were rolled in with goldens, it’s hard to believe that you could retrieve… a teddy bear? Doodles are cute and all, but I always thought of Pomeranians as the teddy bear dogs.
With respect to yesterday’s brouhaha about the rebuses I feel that answer clue pairs are a bit like jokes. If you have to explain a joke, it wasn’t a good one. Today was nice. A Monday afternoon. Not quite a Tuesday but almost there. Thanks
Nice theme, interesting fill. Rena's Thursday debut in October was terrific as well. Going for the cycle? It's funny seeing ARS here and in Connections today.
What a grind that was! Dips, dogs, actors, organizations, drinks, abbreviations, customs ...possibly the largest concentration of unknowns I've encountered in *any* NYT crossword, let alone a Monday. CONTACTTRACE was a relief to find, and there was a moment of hilarity when [Hosp. V.I.P.s] solved to DRS. In your dreams!
Ooh so hip to put SXSW in there…if this were the 90s. I kid. Great puzzle with a fun theme, but my timing ended up more like a Tues.
@Charles Nelson Reilly Pretty fresh talk for a 60s TV actor! :)
Some really nice fill, if a little tricker than usual for a Monday. Loved CONTACT TRACE and the DRAW CONCLUSIONS. Thanks!
Does the NYT get a kickback every time Oreos appears in the crossword?
Richard Ciotti, Yes. And they (we?) get a kick in the back every time an emu shows up.
@Richard Ciotti Not even a Nickelback. Consider it as a gimme for regular solvers. Lagniappe, or frequent solver miles. And a challenge to come up with new clues for it.
This was a lovely puzzle! It felt meaty for a Monday, but I'm not complaining. I do have an issue with GOLDENDOODLEs, though. They seem to hate me. I was on a midnight walk once, when out of nowhere a GOLDENDOODLE started chasing me down the middle of the road. It's utterly humiliating to have to flee from something with such a goofy name.
@Katie Oh my! If you were running away, he was maybe just playing tag with you. This is very common canine behavior.
@Katie I have a bluetick who got into it with a doodle-dog at the dog park and we got kicked out It was my fault to some degree but the other dog was not blameless, so I really am not fond of them. They look cute though.
I can usually solve a Monday puzzle in about 12 minutes, but this one took 24 minutes. I had (it turns out) only one square amiss but it took me 4 minutes to find it. It was Amy Poehler's last name. My eyes don't focus as well as they used to. I also just ended a sentence with a preposition. My record for a Monday is 7:00 minutes, but I have a feeling that record is going to stand for quite a while. Are Monday puzzles getting harder? It seems like I've had an easier time on Tuesdays lately.
@Alan They do seem to be a little harder than they were 6 months or so ago. I thought this one felt more difficult than usual, but still finished around my average time.
As a grade schooler during the Korean War I heard a lot about Pusan. I didn't know the name of the city was changed, but corn waste could only be "cobs" so I learned something
My five favorite original clues from last week (in order of appearance): 1. Basis of some admissions (5) 2. Items harmed when they're scratched, but not when they're burned (3) 3. Cook's offering with chips? (4) 4. Red container, maybe (4) 5. Fudge substitute (6) GUILT CDS IMAC CASK DARN IT
Hi Lewis, Your faves post appeared yesterday evening. Was this a first posting attempt that was swallowed by an emu and just regurgitated? Or are the emus recycling posts?
Very sorry about this repeat! Last night I was seriously emued. There may be yet another repeat to come. But here's a tip, should you find yourself emued. At least it worked for me last night. Even though my Times app was working, I signed in (username and password), and like magic, my post appeared. Maybe it was a one-off, or maybe it will work again. I'll surely try it again.
You can DRAWCONCLUSIONS about a GOLDENDOODLE after a CONTACTTRACE. SRSL, Monday is one of my favorite puzzle days because it heals all of my wounds from the previous week. I feel smirky and smart, and I would feel even smirkier and smarter if I hadn't wasted SCADs of time on that HEROIC STINT looking for a dumb typo. Thank you, Rena, we're glad to see you back. Your puzzle was a blueprint for a solid Monday solve!
@dutchiris I agree that Mondays are the most fun… I’m ok through Wednesdays at the moment… all are good. Lately I’ve been going back and finishing all the Thu-Sundays I gave up on over the past few years. Mainly learning so many obscure words like OBOL (ancient Greek coin) and LISLE (fine cotton used for hosiery). My radar for rebuses is getting tuned up too. There is a certain ambiguity in definitions that is a signature of these crosswords. And obscure words from certain areas… like ADIT in mining, or GUDGEON in hinges… seem less common than literary or commercial obscurities.
@dutchiris I posted this yesterday, re-posted it last night, and here it is again, here and there, all over the place.
I think I had the most number of corrections ever for a Monday! I managed to make every silly error others have mentioned - pOODLE instead of DOODLE, SNOb for SNOT (yet again!), AND i put in NOvat instead of NOTAX because Eve Paison seemed quite a reasonable name for an athlete and I'd never heard of the SXSW festival so STSW seemed equally weird 😂
In a stormy world, this cove was just right. With a tuna melt.
Wow, so many puzzlers Gotcha-ed me! No doubt you saved others from acting on my misstatement about soil acidity! I am grateful. My hydrangeas of varied species in sandy clayey soil on Cape Cod range from pale mauve to deep vivid blue. I use aluminum sulfate on those that were born pink. On those that were born blue I use iron.
It's always interesting to learn what sections others found sticky. For me today it was GMS/MENUS. Neither of those clues clicked and I sat with it for a few minutes which really threw off my time. For what it's worth, I think the country club clue made it seem like the answer should specifically relate to country clubs when in fact almost every establishment of any kind has a GM, so a more generic clue would have been better in my opinion. ARCO/TARA was also a little dodgy but there are only one or two letters that could really make sense there so it was a matter of just guessing. Otherwise a pretty straightforward puzzle with enough easy crossers to bring the chewier fill down to a Monday level. And some nice satisfying chunkers too. I enjoyed it.
Scott, My clue for GMS is [Ball club V.I.P.s], not country club.
@Scott Yes, my rule of "Never dine with dogs or children" meant that MENUS was a completely incomprehensible solution for me---the M at the cross with GMS went in purely for lack of anything better, given that I also didn't know what a "ball club" might be. So, what? The children colour in the menus?
@Barry Ancona my mistake. Had it in my head as country club for some reason. Ball club is a better clue but something about the VIP doesn't sit well. I feel like a more creative clue would have been both easier and more interesting.
@Barry Ancona I don't think the tone of my comment implied that I could do better. Constructive criticism suggests the potential for improvement, sometimes including general ideas, without veering into presumptuous specifics.
SCAD is an interesting word. When referring to amounts (as clued here) the singular seems rarely used. When referring to the marine fish, it can serve as both singular and plural: Look, two scad! Or maybe it's a pair of jacks? Let's ask CaptainQuahog. Anyway, a nice Monday puzzle, with a solid and satisfying theme. Seemed a bit meatier to me than usual, and took me a bit more time as well.
@Xword Junkie and around here, SCAD is the Savannah College of Art and Design. If they only had a football team, they'd be well known enough to use as a clue.
@Xword Junkie - Since you asked (I think you already know this, amirite?): It's fairly common with critters, especially when they are ones we hunt or fish for, to not use the S when pluralizing. I don't think there are any hard and fast rules -- you might take a brace of ducks (not duck) but trap two beaver (not beavers). I think for most fishes (this plural refers to more than one species, so takes the -es), it is common to drop the S when pluralizing. "I caught two salmon yesterday." I think the same would be true for SCAD and most other fishes. @Linda Jo: My stepdaughter's best friend from HS graduated from SCAD. Great school!
A harder than average (by 21%) Monday for me, probably due somewhat to the long theme answers. Clever theme.
Even on Mondays, I learn a SCAD. Thanks, Rena. An artful puzzle.
@Linda Jo Yes! I looked up BUSAN--it's really pretty! Our dad was stationed in Uijongbu, South Korea. One of his photos shows him standing beside a big sign reading "US ARMED FORCES: THE LAW South of the 38th Parallel" ....the year was 1957.