[Capitol gain?] CONGRESS PROGRESS
@Lewis [Amount to a hooker?] CONSTITUTE PR_STITUTE ____________________ Jesse Goldberg 8/28/2024 for Puzzle of the Decade (emu filler)
@Lewis I offered [Amount to a ho_ker] with the answer duly self-censored, but the emus are chewing on it anyway. The answer is now left as an exercise... :( ____________________ Jesse Goldberg 8/28/2024 for Puzzle of the Decade (emu filler)
OLD ONES = items being replaced. Hang on, there’s still some life left in me! I’ll just be over here, with my LAP CAT.
@Cat Lady Margaret Like a certain Monty Python skit. “I’m not dead… I don’t want to go on the cart… I think I’ll go for a walk… I feel happy”
Had to ferret out a few typos at the end but managed to continue my week-long no-check streak, of which I’m inordinately proud! Took me years to get to this point and it suddenly started happening for me this week. I guess something clicked in my brain, or I managed to regrow a few neurons lately. Senility postponed!
@Bobby Salmon Congrats! I’m getting close she’s can’t wait for that day.
@Bobby Salmon It’s quite satisfying to reflect back on the week and realize that you didn’t have to look anything up to finish a puzzle.
@Bobby Salmon Yeah, it took me about a year of marinating in Wednesday puzzles until I felt confident enough to even try Friday or Saturday. (Thursday is a think unto itself.) Congratulations!
Are we going to debate the pros and cons of this puzzle? I hope not. I'd rather just leave them in the grid, where I did find them amusing. I also found them -- and the rest of the answers -- quite easily.
TOE TAP made me think of Chris Smither, who’s still going quietly along writing and playing some of the finest American music: <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TjGP4SzvdOI" target="_blank">https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TjGP4SzvdOI</a> (“Change Your Mind”) I liked this Sunday puzzle, as I have liked pretty much every one of the last 2,000 or so Sunday puzzles. Beyond everything else, they serve as a TIME LOOP for me, connecting me to my younger self and my mother, who introduced me to crosswords. I also have a soft spot for John’s hometown of Gainesville VA because my wife was born there. “Wait, what?!” x 1,000/ CONFUSION PROFUSION
@Puzzlemucker Nice call out for Chris Smither who is indeed an inveterate toe tapper.
@Marshall Walthew Up here in Canada, we had an iconic balladeer, Stompin’ Tom Connors. I doubt anyone south of the border — there really is a border, by the way; not something arbitrarily drawn with a ruler — will have heard of him, as he roamed this country for more than 50 years singing about all things Canadian; for example “Bud the Spud from the Big Red Mud”, a lyrical cheer for P.E.I. potatoes. Wherever he would perform, he would bring a small wooden board with him and stomp his foot on it to the rhythm of whatever he was singing. Apparently this prop came about because the manager of one of the venues where he sang complained about the damage the heel of his foot did to the carpet on the floor. Here’s a sample: <a href="https://tinyurl.com/2nz8vycz" target="_blank">https://tinyurl.com/2nz8vycz</a>
@Puzzlemucker TOE TAP made me think of Steve Martin in The Jerk.
I filled in DRINKY POO with only a few crosses, which confused and terrified me. Dear neurons, how could you have harbored this atrocity in your midst? Great Sunday puzzle, fun theme. Par for the course for Mr. Kugelman, naturally.
@Sam Lyons Imagine my horror when I realized I have actually uttered that atrocity a number of times in my sordid past... I blame the alcohol. 🫣
@Janine Ditto. I blame my misspent youth, which possibly is ongoing. At least the misspent part.
Witty puzzle, and I like how a pro like Ness caught a con like Capone and put him ON TRIAL. Remembering those truckers in Ottawa gumming things up during Covid, I'm hoping liberal American truckers will engage in similar PRO-CHOICE CONVOYS here in the states. I know that doesn't quite work. Maybe we should have a PROTEST CONTEST, but I need more SSRIs if I'm to get any inspo (my vote for the ugliest word in this grid). What would that s@xaholic from a couple of days ago like? Some PROMISCUITY CONTINUITY. What is the act of throwing a pie in someone's face? PROJECTION CONFECTION What you're about to say on bended knee? PROPOSITION COMPOSITION
Ah well, my last one doesn't quite work either. One of these days I'll remember to edit before sending. That was a proclamation of my consternation. And every time I do something boneheaded like this, I smack myself in the nose. Which gives me a protrusion contusion.
(2nd attempt) I see now my last one didn't work either. One of these days I'll learn to edit before sending. That's a proclamation of my consternation. And each time I do something like this I smack myself in the nose. Which gives me a protrusion contusion.
@john ezra someone creating a more excruciating and long-lasting mess. PROFOUNDER CONFOUNDER
The more I look at this puzzle, especially the long answers, the more in awe I am. I love that diversity means there are people a whole lot better than me at creating crosswords. I would hate a world if everyone had the same weaknesses I did. And the same strengths.
@Francis Right? People having weaknesses that correspond to our strengths is the best!
Weirdly, knowing SSRI made me happy.
I love the heading to the answer key, reminding us that the opposite of PROGRESS is CONGRESS. How true! I understood the theme immediately which made for a quick solve. I like PROTESTANT CONTESTANT because the stress is on a different syllable of each word. I’m not sure why the clue for 1A has a question mark. The answer seems straight forward. Nicely done, John.
@Anita The reason for the question mark in the clue is because the phrase "front runner" (runners) normally means the entrant(s) leading a race. In the Iditarod, an entrant is a sled team, and the dog that's harnessed at the front of a team can't win the race.
@Anita Bravo on your first sentence! Never truer than now. And I agree that the question mark at 1A seemed very Mondayish, and for that reason misdirected me. Using a question mark for a term or phrase in a clue that is being used in its literal rather than its idiomatic sense should have a name. A vexing question mark?
Okey-dokey - I don't want to be hoity-toity or do any hanky-panky but I did enjoy this puzzle. Not quite super-duper but close. As usual on a Sunday I did sort of dilly-dally along the way; Some of the answers were confusing but at least not mumbo-jumbo. Sorry about all that - I'm just an old fuddy-duddy. Lots of fun. I'll shut up now. ...
I liked the echoes. In the theme answers, the second word echoed the first. Outside the theme, there was DAT and DOT, LOOKIE and DRINKY, APT and PTA. Then there was an echo of Thursday’s “diminutive ending” puzzle in RINGLET -- as [Ringlet?] could be a clue for TINKLE. This was a tight theme. In XwordInfo, Jim Horne has presented a huge computer-generated list of word pairs like these theme answers, but none of them work well, IMO, except for these theme answers. I mean, what can you do, for instance, with PROVINCECONVINCE or CONFUSEPROFUSE? Although a cute possibility on that list is PROVOCONVO, which could perhaps be clued [Beehive State chat?]. I liked seeing the rare-in-crosswords five-letter palindrome TOPOT, as well as the lovely PuzzPair© of AUTO and TOWIT. And even after cracking the gimmick, the theme answers were fun to guess at, because they weren’t obvious. Your puzzle left me smiling, John, and that’s a gift. Thank you!
@Lewis I feel like the -ion endings are really pulling a lot of weight here. Although CONFUSEPROFUSE might not be workable, I’m sure someone here could come up with a good clue for CONFUSIONPROFUSION
@Lewis Do I need to pay you royalties if I pint out the neat PuzzPair© of KOD and OKD? (Still want that "E," tho.)
Please don’t eve do 72A again. 🤢
@Steve My dog had some digestive issues recently. 72A describes what he produced.
@Steve I went back and forth until the end of the solve between doo and poo.
@Steve By some accounts, we owe the term to the Queen Mother. "A drinky-poo. That's what the Queen Mother preferred to call a cocktail, thinking that the latter was "too harsh a word." " Also common in Australia, apparently. And from the trailerparkboys show. It does sound twee, to my ear.
I was so close to completing the puzzle without any help! Alas, as is often the case, American brands and abbreviations were my undoing. Surprise, surprise - I have no idea what a metal producer based in Pittsburgh may be called. The abbreviation for a member of a conference had me stumped, too. Why do these two things matter? Because PROCESSIONS CONfEctIONS looked like it made sense, as did ALfOA (as much sense as a letter-salad brand name may ever make, anyway; it looks no less reasonable than ALCOA to me). Almost never being able to figure out American abbreviations, I didn't even think what cCH might be. Of course, I should have paid more attention to General TSO, one of Crosslandia's favorites, who ended up being TtO in my version, but I was too fixated on CONfEctIONS being correct. Also, I've never heard of either TO POT and PRAT (as clued today). I had TO rOT there, and the nonsensical rRAT. I accepted it though, parsed as r RAT - that looks vaguely like it might mean something. The thing is, the Sunday grids are so big that when I don't get a gold star I just can't be bothered to look for mistakes. So today, after 1 hour and 2 minutes of solo efforts, I used autocheck to reveal my errors. Not caring about my streak is such a blessing - it saves me so much grief! BTW, in Polish "konferencja" only ever means conference as an event for people coming together to talk about science or business. I've never understood the sport meaning of conference in the US.
@Andrzej “Conference” has the dual meaning in American English: as a meeting for serious discussion, and as an organizational tier in sports, usually a collection of university teams based on geographic regions.
I liked the theme BTW. Most of the fill was enjoyable, too. The reason CONCESSIONS did me in was also the fact Polish has the very same word - koncesja - but it only means one thing over here: a kind of business permit, a license. Much like "conference," I have never internalized the English meaning, or meanings, of the word. I sort of know how you use it, and I would understand it (-ish) if I saw it in writing or heard it, but I would never use it myself. Isn't it funny how the mind of a non-native speaker of a language works?
@Andrzej My theory (made with no look-ups) is that concession in English means exactly the same thing as its Polish equivalent. Something is conceded: the right to operate a business in a specified context. So one would find “concession stands” in, say, a baseball stadium. And if it’s a concession stand, then surely whatever it is selling must be “concessions.” I did say no look-ups!
@Andrzej ALCOA is the Aluminum Company of America. Very big in Pittsburgh for years, back when America was a manufacturing powerhouse. PRAT is actually British English, hence the reference to Newcastle.
@Andrzej You missed something in the theme that would have helped your solve. All of the paired words are identical except for the PRO and CON part. Once you had PRO(CESSIONS), the other word had to be CON(CESSIONS).
@Andrzej, I was thinking about you while I was doing much of this puzzle. This was fairly hard for me to figure out what they were looking for, and I kept thinking, “I wonder how far Andrzej will get with this today”. I thought the cluing was harder than a typical Sunday. It was PROTESTANT CONTESTANT that finally revealed the theme to me. I loved that clue!
@Andrzej Not just non-native speakers (though I suppose I’m not a native speaker of US English). I understand those usages of “concession” and “conference” from absorbing so much US content but don’t think we have them here. I don’t really frequent sports stadiums so I might be wrong, but I think I’d call the hole in the wall where you get your hot chips (er, fries) from a “kiosk”. Weirdly, the concession stand in a cinema is often called the “candy bar” here (that might just be the branding of a particular cinema chain though). I say weirdly because we don’t even call candy “candy”, we’d say “lollies”. Here “concession” can also be used to indicate a cheaper class of ticket for students or pensioners. Not sure if that usage also exists in the US
@Andrzej Possibly helpful in future: A CONFECTION would be sweet; popcorn and pretzels are salty treats, but not confections. A petit four, for example, is a confection.
@Andrzej Try to file ALCOA in the crossword part of your brain because I've seen it more than once in these puzzles. It's got a lot of handy vowels. Thanks for the explanations of how the meanings of these words differ between Polish and English.
@Bobby Salmon Groups of teams that USED TO BE based on geography. The 16 Teams of the Big 12 are all over the country! Why are teams traveling from Utah to West Virginia one week and from Florida to Texas the next? But then the "student" athletes are almost no more. Some get paid a fortune to play for a year and then go pro. And now this revenue sharing thing is cutting scholarships for sports other than Football and Basketball while also capping the number of walk-ons allowed. Too many budding track stars or rugby players are not going to be able to play. So sad... Sorry for the off-topic rant. You can tell this has me riled up!
Happiness is a gold star on Sunday with no typos. A pleasant jaunt not overly challenging.
@Vaer I'm always relieved when I get a Sunday without 20 minutes of error searching. I didn't quite get it on the first try, but my second guess for 17D did the trick.
How embarrassing that a puzzle by a musician would misclue Audio Jack. An audio PLUG is one end of a headphone cable. An audio jack is the female part; it might be 'found at the end' of a cable, but it is not 'one end'.
@Hugh The internet seems to believe otherwise. <a href="https://www.hollyland.com/blog/tips/different-types-of-audio-jacks" target="_blank">https://www.hollyland.com/blog/tips/different-types-of-audio-jacks</a>
@Hugh I'll swoop in here and flog this as a contagonist and confounder. I have a Headphone extension cable. It has a Jack end and a Plug end. It's a "Headphone cable" in a generic sense. My background in instrumentation/electronics nods at your technical description as being absolutely correct. The layman's errors, however, are profuse as these connectors are often confused as one. I'm out. Wait a minute...Didn't we leave all that molcajete/tejolote, mortar/pestle, yoni/lingam stuff in yesterday's puzzle?
@Hugh Wouldn't the female end be called a jill?
@Hugh Audio Jack is the cryptid that sneaks into your basement and steals that one cable you suddenly need.
@Hugh I came to Wordplay just to see if anyone had mentioned this. It's *possible* to have headphones with a jack on the end of the cable, but I've never seen it, and they wouldn't be very useful. Or as replay points out, you could have an extension cable. But I agree, the audio jack is the hole in the stereo (or these days the phone), that you plug the cable into.
@Hugh On the other hand, this clue could be absolutely correct if you read it a different way. The clue is "one end of a headphone cable." Well, when the cable is plugged in, what's at the end of it? The jack. The clue doesn't ask what's *attached* to the end of the cable.
I saw a couple of groans in the comments for certain clues, but no one groaned at what my husband groaned at: 404 messages being “errors”. He said technically 500s are errors and 400s are status messages. 😝
@KStandiford Feel free to tell your husband that 400s and 500s are both errors. 500s are server errors and 400s are client errors.
@KStandiford "File not found" is somebody's error.
@KStandiford He’s right. But when you encounter a clue here in an area you know about, you often have to pretend to be ignorant to figure out what the ill-informed constructor intends.
I was so happy to see IAN (as in Ian Anderson of Jethro Tull) for "famous flautist"...until I realized it was PAN. And, what is the largest tech hub in North America? I'm guessing the San Francisco Bay Area. (Interesting that Toronto is the third. That's cool.)
@John Someone wants to make Toronto the third largest tech hub in America...that's not cool.
@John i also smiled when I put in "Ian", until a moment later when I thought, "that can't be right".
You have to applaud any Crossword that gets YOINKS in there. And I beat my Saturday time by a few seconds!
Crossing KIDFLASH and LYNN might be a Natick, but that's west of Boston
@Joseph Having been raised north of Boston, it took me a while to find it :)
Anybody mind if I point out something that looks a little inconsistent? As the answer to 23A was PROCESSIONSCONCESSIONS, shouldn't the clue have been [Popcorn and pretzels at paradeS?] I'm totally being a jerk here, and I try to be very tolerant of editing errors because I'm awful at things like that (I have problems with the big picture but I'm hopeless on the details.) Still, I was wondering if that might have been a slip up.
@Francis I assumed it was a possessive s
@Francis To me, the final S in PROCESSIONS was pretty awkward, I chalked it up to crosswordese. I would have preferred both to be singular, but I'm just the solver here.
@Francis I'm with you on this point.
@Francis Popcorn and pretzels are the concessions (plural). Processions has an apostrophe s to make the singular parade correct.
@Francis I thought so too. This was the entry where I started to grok the theme, but removed my answer because it didn’t fit without the S. Only after I’d filled in some other themers did I come back and reluctantly fill it in with the S. Yes, if it’s a possessive it works I guess (awkwardly). But (IMHO) would have been less awkward to just clue it in the plural. I thought the theme overall was a fun one though!
I can't help wondering if that cat competition in Bangkok considers friendliness a pro or a con. Curiosity ...
[A restaurant’s payoff from duck, garlic, or fruit, cooked over time] CONFIT PROFIT
I was a nanny in Cambridge, MA in the early aughts. I kept hearing Trot trot to Boston Trot trot to LYNN Trot trot to Marblehead We all fall innnnn!
@Manda Adams In my family, it was always: Ride away to Boston Ride away to Lynn Ride away to Boston We all fall in! This is done while bouncing a toddler on one's knees, and dropping the kid between one's knees at the end of the verse. On each repetition, one word gets left off, so it gets shorter and shorter. I loved it as a kid in the 1960s, and little kids love it when we do it now.
@J-J Cote My parents bounced me to: Choo-choo to Boston Choo-choo to Lynn You better watch out or You'll fall in!
@Manda Adams et all From Ancient Times (1940's) This is the way the Lady rides....trit-trot, trit-trot, trit-trot; This is the way the Gentleman rides...gallopty-gallop+2 And this is the way the Farmer rides...hobblety-hoy, hobblety hoy, hobbletyHOY (drops child through the opened knees)
Had the constructor merely come up with two-word phrases that start with PRO- and CON-, it would have been a clever puzzle. To come up with two-word phrases that start with PRO- and CON- in which the rest of the words are identical is pretty genius! Hats off to you, John Kugelman! The CON to that PRO is that, once you figured out the gimmick, it became quite easy to fill in the theme clues, resulting in a easier-than-desired Sunday puzzle. But, nevertheless, a satisfying solve.
That was fun! Whoda thunk there were so many pro/con sets of roots that could make cogent phrases? Hmmm… any others? I can think of four. Here’s how I’d clue them. See if you can guess what they are (answers below): Teacher with a guilty conscience Get Quebeckers to agree to secede Electrify an assembly line Politician willing to to sell out his country PROFESSORCONFESSOR CONVINCEPROVINCE PRODUCTIONCONDUCTION CONSTITUTIONPROSTITUTION
Hubby- “Did you just say, ‘It’s a Kugelman day!’ ?” Yep. Yep I did. I was looking at an empty field of silliness, discovery, wit and charm! With an extra column and row! LOOKIE DRINKYPOO TAO OF POOH YONDER TOE TAP… That right there’s a list of happy words. Nobody says “yonder” when they’re mad. And the theme was tight! Mighty tight. I’m *so* gonna reach out to you, Mr. K. In part because your puzzles make me grin. It’s not an attractive look, but it’s fun. But also because I’m rarin’ to go with a couple (potential) Sundays, and if I can be a part of a frolicking Kugelman romp, I’m in! I’m. So. In. Fangirl CC out!
@CCNY I don't know...when I am fuming, I shriek, "GET THEE YONDER, CRETIN!"
Getting to the puzzle somewhat late today. I usually solve on my laptop, but a certain LAP CAT had other ideas. Instead I read a book while perilously balancing a cup of coffee directly above the aforementioned feline. She has no idea how close she came to disaster. Anyway, this puzzle was mostly PROs for me. I especially loved seeing KID FLASH, as I am a massive DC nerd. Thank you, Mr. Kugelman. I feel seen.
I am, fortunately, unfamiliar with antidepressants and my initial reaction to [Something added to a plot] was fOIL. Took me a while to figure out my mistake.
@Aaron same. Completely clueless on it.
@Aaron What helped me was that SSRI is in a ton of prescription warnings, on the insert that tells you all the scary parts. Although that didn't pop right up, it looked right eventually.
@Aaron Selective Serotonin Reuptake Inhibitor
This was really fun and made me happy, which is all we can really ask. I love seeing a clever and consistent theme. I assume there are implied apostrophes for both procession's (because the cited parade is singular) and contractors' or possibly contractor's. Happy holidays to all. ____________________ Jesse Goldberg 8/28/2024 for Puzzle of the Decade (emu filler)
Minors: Need we call Bloody Mary "Mary I" ere there's an even Bloodier Mary II? *** The heroism of one's entry depends on whether one's swoop is fair or fell. *** Which makes me wonder--if you swoop in or he swoops in, do you itsa in and he itsas in? Similarly, while you were ripping on, I was busy nikking on. *** Speaking of CORPSEs (were we?), Charles Martin Hall, the founder of Alcoa, has an aluminum headstone, whilst Eliot Ness' is in Cleveland's Lakeview Cemetery. I've been to both. *** I loved the deek of the slangy [Way out there] solving to YONDER. English, like many Indo-european languages, originally had the trifold distinction of "near me/far from me/really far from me": dis, dat and yon. Latin had it, too: hic/ille/iste. But in Latin, "iste" developed a secondary, pejoration connotation: "that man way over there, who's so smelly I can't stand being next to him." Which would come in really handy in these politically fractious times. ***
@Bill *** Finally, Pan id not technically play the flute (Hornbstel-Sachs classification 421.111), he played a syrinx (HSC 421.112). Originally, Syrinx was a beautiful nymph pursued, unwilling, by Pan. To escape his advances, she fled into a marsh, where she was transformed into a reed, which Pan cut down and turned into a musical instrument. The typical Greek Me Too moment. If it's any consolation, wikipedia's list of "Notable pan flute musicians" includes Ian Anderson. I could not find a youtube of him doing so, but here's some People performing choreography set to Jethro Tull's "Pan Dance": <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Xk4_k-QeU_I" target="_blank">https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Xk4_k-QeU_I</a> (since someone beat me to the Pet Shop Boys:-( )
@Bill For your first nit: Ask Pope Francis.
@Bill So interesting. My father used to use 'yonder' quite a lot: "It's over yonder"and 'yon' is still used in Scots dialect now: "See yon boy over there."
@Bill I've never heard of her referred to as Mary I, only as Mary Tudor, to distinguish her from Mary Stuart, also known as Mary, Queen of Scots.
@Bill Ian Anderson is who I thought of when I read the clue. Love Jethro Tull.
Great Sunday puzzle. Reading the comments I see a few thought it was too easy. Er, ok. Not for this Brit. There were a lot of US centric clues that had me scratching my head; ORD, KIDFLASH, LOOKIE, ALCOA etc etc, but they didn’t stop the enjoyment. Love the CO/PRO theme. I’m amazed at the stuff that my brain does know, that I have no concept of how or why. Example: I have never seen a single episode of House, yet I knew the answer to 28A was ONCOLOGY, with no crosses filled. Am humming ITS A SIN. Great song. Did last years’s (?) BBC drama of the same name make it State side? An unbelievably raw look at the early days of AIDS in the UK and the young community that had to find a way through it. Harrowing but ultimately uplifting.
@Helen Wright I watched an episode of House, once. My only memory is of thinking that, if the man was such a brilliant physician, he should know how to use a walking stick properly. So ____LOGY sat there unfilled for a long time. In contrast, the Global MegaCorp of ALCOA felt like a gimme---not least because the closure of their plant in Swansea made the UK news for a while. KIDFLASH was one of those strange lightbulb moments---filled on the basis of the first letter and the lightning bolt reference, despite my knowing less about superheros than I do about baseball. TONYSTARK, on the other hand, was pieced together slowly from the crosses.
@Helen Wright This puzzle wasn't "too easy" for this American. I needed twenty four cheats. While I can appreciate its cleverness, it was not created for people like me. (But I complain anyway.) I hope that Brit drama makes it to PBS, it sounds very interesting!
When I filled in the second theme answer, I was a little uncomfortable with the fact that it didn't rhyme... as I went through the PROs and CONs of the puzzle, I discovered that rhyming was not the point. My discomfort became delight when I realized the amazing feat Mr. Kugelman managed to pull off. Bravo!
What can I say? Fast and fun! Very light-hearted theme and fill, and who couldn't use a little light-heartedness these days!? Re THETAOOFPOOH, It was the first thing I thought of, but I couldn't remember the author's name to verify it and my copy is in a different room so I couldn't just casually stretch and look over at the bookshelf... So I rejected putting it in for a long time because it couldn't possibly have been from 1982! Later, when I happily realized it had to be that, I remembered that the copy I have was given to me by a friend was in like 1990... So 1982 was entirely possible. My sense of time these days is so outrageously out of whack. It doesn't seem like it could be that long ago. Anyhow it made me smile and I was happy to plug it in and be wrong! My husband asked me today how old our nephew is now, my response was, "The real question is how old am I?" He was able to answer that and all we have to do is subtract 30 years and two days and that's how old my nephew is. Anyhoooooo.... Nice puzzle. Very close to being my fastest ever, but I found I had some little error where DRINKYPOO AND POSY crossed, so looking for that took up too much time. Had an i there instead, which was appropriately crossed with a DOT. ☺️
@HeathieJ I know what you mean by time being out of whack. Time absolutely flew for me from early November to mid January. Since then it's been moving as slowly as an old man trying to send back soup at a deli.
Abbreviated entry: Lifer PROCON
Fairly easy solve, though complicated by Pet Shop Boys going through my head on repeat through half of it. IT’S A SIN!
The CONFESSION PROFESSIONs showed up so early that it drained a bit of the suspense and challenge. However, there were some fun, tricksy bits in there....such as SLED DOGS, DOG SLEDS, good grief.... and then there's Charlotte the Kitty in DHubby's lap while I make supper every day God sends, but 1D was like pulling teeth. Doh! Warner Bros. And DC Comics--woof. Had to dredge those up letter by letter. Wavered between TWIT and PRAT... The 'Gallup' clue had me cudgeling my brain for New Mexico's environs... And, finally, the terrible injustice of 66A, when the venerable IRON was thrown on the ash-heap by cruel overlords! I myself have *two* IRONs which I use often! Well, okay, three, but the tiny one is just for times when I'm going to a quilting project/class event. There is no substitute. Congrats to John Kugelman.
Am I the only one who spelled it LOOKEE on the first go-around? Between that and my nonexistent German-language skills it took me quite a while to solve this one. I kept thinking the problem was up in the NE with SSRI / SOIL (since I have no clue about antidepressants and kept telling myself that a "plot" should have SOIL in it already) but I had that one right all along...
@Dave Munger That’s how I went with LOOKEE too. Couldn’t understand how NeE was a German word!
@Dave Munger I went first with LOOKEY
@Dave Munger Thanks for this comment, Dave Munger. You just saved me a LOT of time!
Maybe I'm being too picky, but a dot doesn't complete "i". It does however complete "ı".
Colby Hawkins, You make a good dot, and also a good dotless i - how’d you do that? Yes, a dot completes a vertical line, but so does a cross. Or an arrow-head, or three horizontal lines for a capital E, or two for an F… I think the phrase “Make sure to dot all your |’s and cross all your |’s “ is rarer than some other more familiar ones.
@Colby Hawkins There's the expression cross your t's and dot your i's meaning to pay close attention to details. How did you type the i without a dot, by the way? With DAT for 41D and [Iditarod] in the clue for 1A and an i and a dot you have the ingredients of some serious wordplay. Anyone?
@Colby Hawkins A roof completes a house. Hops complete a beer. A dot completes an i.
@Colby Hawkins Thank you for this. I was trying to make “Pad” or POd” work. It didn’t go well.
The theme made me smile, and made the puzzle pretty easy as the long acrosses came very quickly once the trick became clear. Peter O’TOOLE is becoming a regular lately. Three times in the last couple of weeks IIRC. Shield for a trailer hitch: CONNECTORPROTECTOR
@Marshall Walthew Unfortunately that doesn't quite meet the clever theme (identical suffixes)... ____________________ Jesse Goldberg 8/28/2024 for Puzzle of the Decade (emu filler)
In the same vein.. Q: Getting rid of a few laws? A: Congress Progress Nice to see Lynn as an answer, the birthplace to many of my extended family..
@Steve Or, on the same theme, Q: Lawmakers gone awry? A: Constitution Prostitution
@Steve <a href="https://www.quora.com/What-is-the-full-poem-of-Lynn-Lynn-the-city-of-sin" target="_blank">https://www.quora.com/What-is-the-full-poem-of-Lynn-Lynn-the-city-of-sin</a>
@Steve So much love for LYNN; not so much for NATICK.
Clever. I didn't get the con/pro aspect but I did find the answers. Thanks for the challenge.
I was PRO this puzzle, fun Sunday. Well done. John.
Pro: a quick fun fill Con: it’s done and now I have to deal with the rest of the paper
How's that new gadget performing for you? PRODUCT CONDUCT Figured out the theme right quick from the title and first themer 23A. Puzzle flowed fairly smoothly thereon. Hate the 58D word, INSPO. It sounds like a cleaning product sold at the dollar store. Degrading to real creativity and art. May not get to read the column and comments 'til much later, if at all, tho I may try Strands. I'm still neck-deep in working out my mother's tax retrurns. Makes me wonder if the 666 SSNs are reserved for the evil-doers who wrote the tax code.
Quite a bit faster for me than yesterday's puzzle. TAOOFPOOH is visually striking. DRINKYPOO is something else. Unfortunate that the very first themer doesn't quite work properly. Seems that "Popcorn and pretzels at a parade?" should be PROCESSIONCONCESSIONS. But, for size reasons, neither that nor PROCESSIONCONCESSION---with the clue modified appropriately---can work. I suppose we can tell ourselves that the snacks belong to the parade, making them the PROCESSION'SCONCESSIONS. Doesn't really work for me. Why wasn't the clue just "Popcorn and pretzels at parades?" Maybe I'm missing something here. The PRO/CON theme is clever enough, with CONVOCATIONPROVOCATION probably my favorite thematic entry. Will need to scan the comments for additional offerings provided by my clever fellow commenters. Given the constraints imposed by the theme, some of the fill can be forgiven. But, for the worst of it, I can only hope that Mr. Kugelman will prove a sincere ATONER.
@Xword Junkie The 1st theme clue annoyed me as well. It's such an easy fix on the clue to make it correct. Loved TAOOFPOOH and fondly remembered reading it.
Xword Junkie, Sorry the possessive in the first themer didn't work for you. It worked for me. When you scan the comments you will see it worked for a few other people.
Just read an article here in the Times on college basketball phenom Paige Bueckers. She's described there as having a goodly amount of RIZZ (charisma), which was the Oxford University Press (publisher of the OED) Word of the Year in 2023. It has never been used in a Times xword puzzle. What other WOTYs have been used? Oxford is not the only one with such a list: Merriam Webster, Cambridge, Collins and several others do, too, but many of their selections are well established words that take on new currency and topicality (M-W's WOTY for 2024 is "polarization" for example). Here are some recent ones: AMERICAN DIALECT SOCIETY: Metros@xual (2003; I have to spell it that way to make it emu-friendly), hasn't been used in NYT since 2013 Enshi☦☦ification (2023, never used for obvs reasons) Dumpster Fire (2016; used 2x in 2017) CAMBRIDGE: Nomophobia (2018, fear your cellphone's not working, never used) Upcycling (2019, creative reuse, "Upcycle" used once in 2023 by Michael Schlossberg) COLLINS: (They not only have WOTYs but also runners-up) Permacrisis (2022, never used) Brainrot (2024 runner up, used once in 2013) Nepo Baby (2023 runner up, used once that year by Ahmed Bayoumi) Metaverse (2021 runner up, never used) DICTIONARY.COM Allyship (2021, social justice activist term for groups advancing causes of marginalized populations, never used) OXFORD Brain Rot (2024, used once in 2012 by Byron Walden) Goblin Mode (2022, used once in 2023 by Rebecca Goldstein)
@john ezra Puh-leeze! Do NOT help the editors and constructors with obscurities....they are already addicted enough!
@john ezra I suggest that these organizations are trying to be clever and fashion-forward with their "word of the year" nominations, and not necessarily engaging in exhaustive research. (Allyship would be a prime example of that.) I would not expect to see "reciprocal" appear on any such list this year, but it certainly should. Stop trying to make "fetch" happen.
I was given the TAOOFPOOH as a gift by a now-deceased friend many years ago, and loved it. Such a joy to be reconnected with it here. CONFESSIONPROFESSION was my first big win in this board, and it opened the door to the others. 49A was a favorite, what used to be my mantra. If you don't get it, just IGNOREIT. Of course, that wasn't a good way to live one's life, so ... 72A makes me think of an old movie or sitcom, where someone who has had a bit too much already is asking for just another little DRINKYPOO before moving on. Thanks to the years we lived in MKE, I was familiar with the options for airports in our neighboring state, so Midway MDA brought ORD to mind immediately. Otherwise, I'd not have gotten that at all. Well, the kids are coming over for the second seder tonight, and I have to finish preparations, so IMOUT! Happy solving!
"72A makes me think of an old movie or sitcom, where someone who has had a bit too much already is asking for just another little DRINKYPOO before moving on." Momerlyn, It sounds to me like an expression one would have heard in "The Thin Man," but I can't find a cite for DRINKYPOO before 1983! <a href="https://www.wordsense.eu/drinkypoo" target="_blank">https://www.wordsense.eu/drinkypoo</a>/
The end of a headphone cable is a plug. A jack is a receptacle for the plug in a device.
@Colby Hawkins agreed; this was incorrectly clued.