Andrew
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I'm 50 and a bisexual guy, so I was a little surprised to SEE ONTHEDL clued in a non-sexual context. In the US, it's long-standing slang in the Black queer community for straight-presenting men who may have female partners, and who secretly also have sex with men. Like many queer terms, I think it has filtered into the straight world and is used in other contexts, but this meaning is still the main result that comes up when you Google the term, and it's the primary Wikipedia article. <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Down-low_(sexual_slang" target="_blank">https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Down-low_(sexual_slang</a>)
@Andrzej it’s a pronunciation thing, particularly in American English: we often pronounce the D sound like a T and use schwas instead of stronger vowel sounds. So “Crossed a bear” sounds like “crost uh bare”, and “Cross to bear” sounds like “cross tuh bare”. BTW, I always love seeing your comments and am super impressed that you can do our very idiosyncratic American puzzles! <a href="https://punchng.com/when-you-have-to-pronounce-d-as-t/?amp" target="_blank">https://punchng.com/when-you-have-to-pronounce-d-as-t/?amp</a>
@Grant So, better to clue based on an athlete whose high point came in the 1998 Olympics, rather than a legendary basketball coach whose retirement announcement was an ESPN headline yesterday? Part of the fun of doing crosswords is learning new things (even, horrors, a second woman named TARA). I didn’t know this coach either, but I could get her name from the crosses and picked up a little basketball trivia.
@Nom De Plume my issue was 28A dAG instead of TAG
Stymied today by the “Back issue” being ACnE. 🙃
For “Participated in an Ironman, e.g.”, I confidently put TRIED (as in TRIathalonED). What a clever clue, I thought! A little too clever for a Monday, though, especially without a question mark.
@PhilO I finally let my streak go after 1000 days. Heading out to a remote lake with no cell signal helped. Now I do the puzzle when I feel like it, sometimes a couple of days after it drops.
@Ben V Adding more Star Trek clues would have made the puzzle a little easier for me. Too bad we had PHASE rather than PHASER.
@KAC Thanks for responding to the thread! And yes, the puzzle 100% feels like a real human made it. No modern AI is going to come up with anything as weird and wonderful as CHCHCHCHIA as the 1A entry. We appreciate all your work!
@Eric Hougland OMG, me too with MMA!
@Janet I'll add that in the original film, Beetlejuice is unable to say his own name, forcing Winona Ryder (Lydia) to pay supernatural charades to pronounce it correctly and summon him.
I'm an American from the East Coast; I only learned that the 🤙 gesture was called a "shaka" when I visited Hawaii last year. I've seen it in used in surf culture all my life, though, as kind of a "Hi! Be cool!" signal. Apparently, it's the official hand gesture of Hawaii. <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Shaka_sign" target="_blank">https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Shaka_sign</a> Emojipedia lists it as the "Call Me Hand" but notes that it's "[c]ommonly used as a shaka sign, which is a similar gesture at a different orientation." <a href="https://emojipedia.org/call-me-hand" target="_blank">https://emojipedia.org/call-me-hand</a>
@Andrew I agree; there's no way that the editors would clue GREEK as "Bygone European Civilization". For centuries after the Maya ceased to be the dominant indigenous group in Mesoamerica, they've persisted as a people with their own languages and cultural practices through the present day.
@Jess Yes! But I’m a Cheerleader is a landmark queer film, cult classic, extremely funny, and still holds up.
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