Mark Smith

@Andrzej Age-related, no doubt. Some of us who were of age to be drafted during the Vietnam conflict will probably always remember “Draft Dodger Rag” from Phil Ochs. I immediately filled in his name. Never heard of Puth before today.

@Nancy J. I still haven’t figured out how the Eiffel Tower is “rod shaped.”

@Eric Hougland I also just entered the U and thought I might get away with it. I just considered the down items to be in a pocket and therefore out of sight.

@Pani Korunova I’m American and I also found those same clues a bit too esoteric.

@Leontion Thank you for the explanation since I had a similar confusion over that combination. Evidently, I need to get out more often.

@Wayne Harrison I agree, but I also believe the original definition in Heinlein’s “Stranger in a Strange Land” should be how the word is used. Unfortunately, it has been co-opted and corrupted into popular parlance and no longer retains that meaning. I seem to have that problem with a lot of definitions. For example, the common phrase “to pull oneself up by one’s bootstraps” was a sarcastic phrase depicted in a political cartoon as something that would be impossible, but has become a desirable characteristic. And don’t get me started on the meaning of “eke.”

@Kathlene If we want to include women receiving votes for a major party nomination, Margaret Chase Smith predates Shirley Chisholm. She did not secure the Republican Party nomination. The first woman actually on the ballot for President was Victoria Woodhull in 1872 (yes, before women could vote) on the Equal Rights Party, which would not be considered a “major” party.

@Teresa And in Canada, the one dollar coin is a loonie because of the depiction of a loon on it. A two dollar coin is a twoonie, probably because Canadians have an interesting sense of humor.

@B What I found for kale as slang for cash was that it originated in 1902. I recall encountering it in that context is some gangster novel from the 1930s…possibly a Perry Mason novel, since I read a lot of those from that time period.

@Andrzej There’s an idea for a puzzle - what word did I type that was mangled by Autocorrect into something else. At one point, I worked with a gentleman whose last name was “Hamiter.” When I typed his name, autocorrect came up with “hamster.” Considering he was about six feet five inches tall, that did not fit at all…

@Teresa Not a library section, one who might be expected to be a frequent library user. An autodidact is self-taught, so the library would be one place to go for “lessons.”

@Apurv I also thought that End Game was the last of that sequence, so I looked it up. Apparently, Spider-Man: Far from Home was a part of the Infinity Saga and was released after End Game. It would have to be included as a part of the series in order for there to be 23 movies in it (End Game was number 22). In looking it up, I also found there are a LOT of people obsessed with the MCU. Sometimes a little scary

@Elyse and that’s just limiting oneself to states. The United States of America also includes various territories (Guam, American Samoa, Puerto Rico, and others), which are often ignored but still a part of our country. Including them makes the directional bias even greater.

@Pani Korunova Side note: a decade ago, Ari Shapiro was the London correspondent for NPR. He also sings with the band Pink Martini.

@Walj I was told (North Carolina is NASCAR country) that the area in which race cars get quick service was initially an actual pit or trench that would allow access to the underside of the car. That tended to go away with the advent of efficient hoists and jacks.

@Nora I did re-read the clue again (a few times). It still reads as though ENDS is the word to combine. Using BOOK is a logical deduction, but not dictated by the clue’s directions.

@Dan Agreed. I would have preferred it clued as “Outlet supply”

@T At the risk of inciting an irrelevant discussion, I find A&W much superior to Barq’s.

@Steven M. Same issue for me. Took a few minutes of staring at every square to finally figure out “it” referred to “tag.”

@Times Rita Do it the other way - translate SASSON into English. Depending on the translation program, you will get “happiness,” “joy,” or maybe “rejoicing.” Just as there are multiple words in English that could be taken to mean the same thing, other languages do the same.

@Andrzej If it helps, I grew up in the US and now reside there. I had never heard of CARAMEL DELITE until today.

@Helen Wright Something I know only because I looked it up, a BOX SOCIAL is apparently a gathering at which box lunches are auctioned off as a fund raiser. Never heard the term before, nor have I ever encountered or heard of such an event. I probably need to get out more

@Divs You should read some Pauline Kael reviews while you’re doing the looking up. She had a way with the language.

@Bill in Yokohama Only real problem I had was an error somewhere in the puzzle (failed to get the successful completion indicators when the grid was filled). Normally in that situation, I scan the across and down answers to see which entries don’t appear to be actual words. With almost none of the down answers being real words, it took me a while to work out where the mistake was.

@Nora The NYT crossword app on my iPad shows my best Sunday time as 4 minutes. I have never completed one in less than about 12 minutes, so I’m pretty sure the app is confused (or deranged). While I do not concentrate on maximum completion speed - with only one NYT crossword a day, one should savor it - the fact that I have been doing crosswords for about 60 years means they generally go quickly. Practice, you know. If you must keep score, the app says I took 8 minutes and 44 seconds on this one. However, see above comment about possible schizophrenia in the app.

@Joseph Having worked environmental issues most of my life, I knew the name of the aquifer immediately. Could not remember how to sort all the a’s and l’s.

@SrBruno If you’re using the app for the crossword, investigate the archives. Saturday puzzles a decade or more ago were more difficult by a lot.

@David Pearce The other Curie daughter, Eve, was a journalist and writer. Her husband was the UN representative that accepted the Nobel Peace Prize for the creation of UNICEF. Imagine being the underachiever in the family because you didn’t win a Nobel Prize.

@pnk My orals were in defense of my dissertation at the end of grad school. The sequence was (1) course work, (2) qualifying exam, (3) presentation of research topic, (4) preparing dissertation, (5) oral defense of the dissertation, and (6) corrections, edits, or additions to the dissertation based on the orals.

@Reuben I actually was semi-excited to see ROENTGENS defined correctly as a unit of x-ray exposure, since the unit only applies to ionization per volume of air (defined as “exposure”) and not dose (defined as absorbed energy). Unfortunately, the system of units was updated years ago and there is no longer an official unit of exposure.

@Tom My architect friend tells me that a porch has to have a roof and open sides to be called a porch.

@John By far. I spent an inordinate amount of time trying to make Nile fit in five spaces.

@Andrzej When I was in school in a small US town in the ‘70s, the experience didn’t resemble today’s offerings, either. Many things offered to our son (he graduated high school in 2006) made me jealous of the experience.

@Andrzej On the other hand, having spent a number of years in a military band, PARADEREST was obvious to me. Never heard of PERETTI.

@Oikofuge I also hadn’t heard the term, but looked up its usage. Appears to date from around 1655, according to one source. Doesn’t say whether it has ever been used since then.

@Margaret All I could come up with is that it’s the first question to be answered on a math test. I did an Internet search for the phrase and got one link to some song I’d never heard of from 2012, but otherwise nothing seemed to match that phrase.

@Ms. Billie M. Spaight And, not particularly related, AK is Alaska, which is often confused for the postal code for Arkansas.

@Bruce In the sense of “rapidly depart without explanation,” the phrase appears to be mostly used in entertainment in the 1940s. Previously, it had been used in the sense of “take medicine” a few hundred years before. Seems to have disappeared quickly in the 1950s.

@Matt According to my Star Wars geek friend, “Ren” was the title of the ruler of the Knights of Ren, a group that supported the dark side of the force. So, perhaps it wasn’t actually a name, but an honorific, as in Kylo the Ren. However, that is WAY too obscure for the 95+% of the population that are not graduate students in Star Wars mythology. Concur with the judge’s decision to allow the clue.

@Grumpy In the Bay Area, the team is almost always referred to as the Niners. Rarely are they called the Forty-Niners.

@Nick I still don’t understand. Ash is, of course, a product of fire, but I still can’t see the “goes down” part. The volume of ash goes up during a fire, and a significant percentage of ash particles are of small enough aerodynamic diameter that they float away from the fire, so may not go down locally. If the clue is merely saying that ash settles after a fire, I agree it is weak.

@FC Never heard of the album, and generally avoid any Elvis recordings, but I grew up in the vicinity of Memphis and knew the recording studio was either Sun or STAX, and only one fit.

@Jeb Jones I had a different first impression as [TR]I-PLEA. Could not figure out how one pled three ways, or to three indictments, or whatever. Got to the right break after a short patch of confusion.

@Steve L Actually, in Detroit we don’t call them “Coney dogs,” either. All of the shops selling them say “Coney Island.” Hence, my first guess was CHILI dog, until it wasn’t.

@Steve L This threw me at first, because I didn’t remember his service as President Pro Tem in the Senate. That would definitely place him higher in the Presidential succession order than any of the cabinet members I first considered. By the way, he is buried in a rather plain grave in the National Cemetery of the Pacific near Honolulu. The marker notes his Medal of Honor.

@MC I always disagreed with using the term for heating in a microwave because the actual reaction occurring with radio frequency waves involves molecular vibration, which doesn’t have an effect on the nucleus of an atom. “Zap” I can agree to use for microwave heating.

@Jane Wheelaghan I, on the other hand, knew the University of California at Irvine because it was home to five Nobel Prize winners: four in chemistry and one in physics.