Claire

@JM. I am afraid to tell you that they are all very well known indeed. Women were not mentioned in history or English class in our country until the past twenty years, and two of these women are women of color, so very much not mentioned, and States vary in their curricula. If the current zeitgeist prevails, they will be consigned to the dustbin again. You might want to just consult Wikipedia about one or two of them before they vanish.

@ging. I’m glad you are back. This is a place where we can all try to concentrate when concentration seems like a place that has left us behind. that has left us behind. It comes back , like spring after winter.

@Maggie. A Jersey is a major cow variety. a new Jersey is a baby cow. Clever and sneaky use of capital letters.

@logical, I actually found it wittier than usual, which may have made it seem easier,

This word was actually used alot in the nineteenth century, especially under the influence of the PreRaphaelites who tended to paint and write a lot of works romanticizing the Middle Ages, which we today would view as sharply innacurate and overly romantic,but somehow appealing as fairytales are appealing. If you read any nineteenth -century literature, tomantic or not, you may well come across this synonym for ballad, or chanson de geste. It is just sn historical word like any other.

@Morn. It is used a lot these days, in fashion especially, where green is still probably a hard sell, and it adds glamour. Green used to be deemed a difficult color to wear, but it never seemed so to me. “Kelly” green used to be used a lot in the industry, but Nile is lighter and yellower. In Bill and Pete Go Down the Nile, the Nile is not Nile Green, but Bill the Crocodile is.

@William Kash. I do so agree.

@Niall. It was commonplace in Navy chat when I was growing up, but yeeted, gendereuphoria and endrant are proof that I too am obsolete. Thanks to the Puzzle I always get ska. And it has forced me to sample various rap artists. Nothing has persuaded me to get involved with comic book superheroes yet, although I remember Spidy fondly from around the time I was singing about the bounding main.

@lhwp Gosh, I am older, and plastic troll dolls did not exist for me, but an old illustration of Billy Goat Gruff I do remember ( I think the book had been around for two generations). That ogre looked mean, ugly and big, very much like my conception of an ogre.

@Jack Sullivan There are those who wear jodhpurs, and mostly know how to pronounce the word, as well. Perhaps you are not hanging with a sufficiently horsey set. Unless you yourself do hang with horses, and are convinced you are one of three gifted horse elitists in the entire world. And don’t know about India.

@john ezra. I have ickypoo.

@Cody. It is a really interesting concept—I often ask the younger generation if they know of some gimmee, for me, adages, or slang, and find that they have not translated for them. “Me…twice”, for example, I heard from my father and father-in-law regularly, both of whom owned and used saws. One was high-ranking military and one was high-ranking government, but both did simple tasks themselves. On the other hand, I depend on this puzzle to keep me aucourant with rap and slang terms.

@jacob. It was regularly used for at least twenty years in newspapers’ social and arts sections, rhymes with literati, so you have that context, plus a celebrity enhancement. I haven’t seen it recently, but people in their seventies will occasionally use it in conversation.

@Ann. I think you deserve a little nip of Armagnac, or Cognac if you prefer.

Sop to the masses!

@RobertaReally? They were so well done. In my opinion this was an unusually amusing Wednesday.

@Rrose Selavy. One bears a baby in pregnancy. Took me a while.

@James T: There are always a few words that are repeated often in the puzzle, but the creators try to clue them differently. If you look for a clue that seems silly or has question mark, it might be an old favorite, which you will have used twice in a month. They can help with obscure stuff. When I first started, I made a deal with myself to use wikipedia whenever an ice hockey star crossed a basketball star. Revise self-permission for your own particular bete-noir, e.g. like French words ( see “summer abroad”, pal in Paris, etc.). Also, I’m not a New Yorker, but we forget this is a local paper, and NewYorkese is always popping up. As is reasonably-current youth slang, which may as well be Cantonese to mr.

@Grumpy. It was a great surprise, I had every letter but still didn’t get the detail. This didn’t seem gimmicky to me, just very very witty.

@Isabeau. Judging from my Amazon shopping, I believe the problem is that the manufacturers, esp. in Asian countries, are not particularly careful regarding any English translation. They are not employing professional translators, probably using the skills of their neices and cousins. They come up with often hilarious word choices. Nevertheless, I am grateful for my very affordable summer uniform of linen-blend trousers, very cool and surprisingly well -cut.

@Dave S. I heard this in the 60s in Hawaii. There were New Yorkers at my high school, so possibly it was used more there. I’m thinking Jets and Sharks. This is the local New York paper, though Americans everywhere think of it as personally their own. I know I do, now that Bezos has trashed my home town paper.

@Barry Ancona. It took a while for the penny to drop, kept thinking a rebus was involved. When I read that others got it before putting pen to paper, I think the hand of senility is stroking my brow.

@Jerry Ahem.

@Paul. Don’t know what you mean.

@Times Rita. This is my husband’s birthday as well. Only the best are born this day!

@Geophany. Aussie friends of all ages say “Sheila” is a bit outdated, similar to “chick”, but neutral, though it may harken back to a less feminist time. Young people would rarely use it, but no one would be offended by it.

@KK. My everyday children-rearing life only knew mylar as balloons. There may be a lot of us out there, I think it a valid clue. But I also learned from your comment so thank you.

@Barry Ancona. Nice memory.

@Alex. We have many roundabouts, “traffic circles” to some , in DC, Massachusetts Ave. might have the most. No one gets confused or fearful, we save the fear for the Beltway.

@sonnel. The spelling held me up, too.

@Michael. i finished, but it was work. Ultimately rewarding, but not necessarily ego-gratifying, because I kept mistaking the circle in the roundabout for an “o”.

I thought “field” was sufficiently vague to encompass all areas for which he is famous, but that’s just how I read it. They were prominent Arab scholars, it was hinted, but I am illiterate in much too much of this area, field, or general knowledge of Arab scholarship. Indeed it seems he might have been famous in Academia as someone who committed errors in Arab Studies, rather than someone prominent in his English-oriented field. Anyway, I was completely happy to look him up in Wikipedia after. I am retired, so I can take the time, and this puzzle taught me something I didn’t know about at all. So the clue was good for that much.

@Jane Wheelaghan. Usually? Could it be regional? I have seen a different spelling, i.e., eentsy weentsy, but in the US I have only heard and seen itsy bitsy. I attended a British school from age 8 to 12, too late for spidy song, but just in time to learn about the distracting, unimportant skirmisk called the American Revolution over here. But we have this in common: the spider is not a big one!

@Not Mike New to me, also, thanks.

@TinyDancer: I just checked out fashion sites, lots of Nile green there, but they are lots of different shades of green. I have run across it in fashion for the last five years at least.

@richelle Totally agree, but I suppose local sportscasters are where today’s children learn this particular term, and it will be “changed”, we are not allowed to say mispronounced. The trouble is that the original meaning is lost.

@carrielewis. The descriptor refers to the straight result. All-time “au lait” lets “cafe” be implied.

@97Bravo.You are almost certainly a man. i did not say boy, note.

@Marshall Walthew. The Paseo in Veracruz, at least in the late 60s, also took place on a Sunday after church. I think you need a qualifier to call it a night stroll.

@Karen. I did get some dopamine- they were quite clever enough to trigger that for me. Good puzzle, quick can be lovely on a Thursday.

@HeathieJ. Glad you are on the mend. What do you mean by preferring the non-shaded squares? Or by being pink?