Laura Whitaker

@Cathall “Get the joke, or don’t get the joke. There is no try.” - Gandalf

@Mean Old Lady next time I drive across the Potomac on the highway I pledge that I SHALL ALLOW A MOTORIST TO ENTER MY LANE AND USE THE PHRASE “VERGE IN, YEAH” as I tootle through the Commonwealth. That will manifest an actual usage and I hope will make you smile :-)

@Ken Burk I can’t parse the boot/accessory divide, but surely a [cowgirl’s boot] can withstand your critique? The cowgirl can possess a boot (cowboy boot or other) and not find herself totally erased, no?

@Lewis fun! Here are a few with my notes: HARPYEAGLE (I am a birder and would love to travel to Central or South America and see one of these) CANARYEGG (must be tiny!) ROTARYENGINE (I have a wisp of a Monty Python line teasing my memory about this one) EASYELEGANCE (think Lauren Bacall or Gwyneth Paltrow) EMERGENCYEXIT (what I’m using now to keep this activity from consuming my entire morning)

@Barry Ancona I’ll see you in Mauna Kea/Loa!

@Rachel the word [Lines] in the clue indicates its plural … ergo AXES :-)

@Janine many condolences on your loss. It sounds like your mother’s legacy will truly live on as you stay mentally engaged via puzzles at the same time you mourn. Hang in there 💚

@Esmerelda your explanation is very understandable but the tragedy is that “hone in” has incorrectly become the broadly used expression when it should be HOME IN. The word “hone” is kinda related (you’re sharpening something literally or figuratively, so it’s getting closer to what is ideal and what you want) but the correct “home in” refers to getting closer to home (and therefore your target) as exemplified by a “homing pigeon” or “homing beacon”. The (mis)use of “hone in” has gotten so widespread that it even infected your logic on that clue :-( Anyway, now you know! 💫

@BonnieS I would have loved the animated army too but the best I can offer is 🐜🐜🐜🐜🐜🐜🐜🐜🐜🐜

@Nancy enjoyed reading your journey with respect to 43A … though as I’m on my own journey to read through a multi-book (55!) backlog this year, I think that TEXTBOG might actually be a handy term for me!

@B fwiw I really enjoy using “posts up” — it carries more agency and intentionality to say “I’ll post up at the Starbucks while you wrap up your work then we can head out” versus “I’ll hang out at SBUX” … the latter sounds like you are loitering idly, whereas the former suggests that you’ve established a mini-residency and may even have pulled out a laptop charger to really get in gear. So I hope you’ll reconsider the BAD RAP you’ve given that term 😎

@Robert Schwartz your historical context is useful … but using “stereotype” in the clue allows us to quickly go to the most cartoonish portrayals which must (by pirate law!) involve the phrase “avast ye scurvy dogs” QED or walk the plank 🏴‍☠️

@scott the usual phrase would be “Where to begin?” … so the altered version “Square to to begin” helps us to map the letters “SQU” to phrases that typically start with a W (or (WH)

@Judith Nelson … but (if I may Commentersplain) OLIO is *not* what your Dad would have been complaining about with regard to food rationing etc,; rather, that would have been OLEO!

@John Jardin is also the Spanish word for garden, so you’re just off by one Romance language there 💐

@Dakota the correct entry at 107D is ESPY which means … well, to have eyes on. It’s a version of “spy” in the sense of “I spy with my little eye ____”

@Seymour B Moore That is to say, you really got it in GEAR?

@John Carson I enjoyed the fact that all of the answers work as everyday lower-case words which also happen to fit the theme 🪨

@Rob I think an argument can be made that “Three-in-one” *IS* a number followed by a hyphen … I mean “three” is a number, ne c’est pas?

@The X-Phile but **in the clue** it literally says “(twice!)” To me this makes it clear that it’s to be treated differently, ie applying the trick 2x

@Helen Wright may your dental recovery and future procedures be EASEd by more fun puzzles from the other side of the SEA. (And pics of groundhogs ofc)

@Ldc puzzles can engage multiple parts of our brains, tiger!

@Avatar while I kind of agree with this take, I’ve always used a “rule” that when limited to 3 letters, AAH is more “eek!” while AHH is more “niiice…” 😘

@Tyler S 8-yo me loved it! Somehow on a road trip my younger brother and I, typically deprived of all the pleasures of unhealthy youth (sugared cereal, soda pop, fast food) inveigled our way to buying two cans of Crush: one grape, one orange. They came chunking down the chute of the vending machine, cold and then sweating in the summer heat of wherever we were driving (maybe Nevada? Utah? Anyway!) We proceeded to drink them and then rode *the wildest sugar high*, shriek-laughing at everything and bouncing around the back seat for about 100 miles. My parents may have regretted giving us those quarters and carte blanche, but my brother and I still remember that episode gleefully 🤪

@JohnWM almost stood up and applauded in my dining room 👏👏

@Katie POT LIQUOR?

@Grant Monitor Lizards and their friends Komodo Dragons are not to be messed with. Remember when Phil Bronfman got bitten by the latter at the SF Zoo? Classic! I was at the KD enclosure at the National Zoo years ago and a little kid was raptly watching one slowly walk around and he finally asked his mom, cautiously, “does it … breathe fire?” She replied “no” but I caught his eye and silently nodded with a wink. His eyes went so wide. 👀

@Ioana come on, don’t you remember the wacky scene with Frances McDormand in headscarf evading the Republican Guard?

@Michelle your cats all have handy Xwordese names! 😻

@John it’s funny, I’m parallel-solving the archive and the 1994 puzzles are lousy with trivia!! Film directors, newscasters, international political leaders from a very specific era. Not a complaint! Just noting that at least in these timeframes, trivia dos just as much to hold the solve together as ye olde crosswordese.

@Dave “learned sardines” will make me smile for the rest of the day!

@Nancy agree it’s an engaging puzzle! INERT is a reference to certain elements (eg Argon) that are chemically unlikely to create bonds with other atoms, aka “unlikely to join”

@Steve L I didn’t fall for the Saab trap because I was aware, as you’ve described, that it’s a defunct brand. Ah, but I loved my Saab, while it lasted :’-( As for “informal” car references, I think it’s just because it’s a shortening of the full name Alfa Romeo. Like calling a Mercedes “a Benz”.

@yankeefan 100% your interpretation is correct. One doesn’t spend the night at a PITSTOP … maybe a truck stop?

@Helen Wright sorry about your tumble! You may be comforted to know that the dish is correctly spelled FLAUTAS (aka “flutes”) and as such should not evoke flatulence and thus ruin your appetite 💨

@Mike he was born in Virginia which was decidedly a colony at the time of his birth!

@Chris surely some long explainer by ESPN can provide details, but my understanding is that the outsized $$$ available to college (“amateur”) teams is super-concentrated in a few conferences, and the biggest of all is the Big 10 (which has like 15 schools in it … ¯\_(ツ)_/¯ ). So some of the heaviest hitters from the erstwhile Pac 12 chased that payday to the “Big 10” and there weren’t enough Pacific Coast teams left for a viable league, and hence Stanford and Cal ended up in a league headlined by UVA and Clemson and Duke.

@Jeff Z Agree. Runts are *not* for kids, Runts are to be held by the (adult) purchaser and consumed until the splitting sugar headache reminds you why you don’t eat them, then the remaining Runts end up at the bottom of your backpack. Repeat every 2-3 years to reinforce the learning.

@Mean Old Lady eh, there are mentions in wild (eg Ariana Grande’s signature high pony)