CrispyShot

@Tom Bantle But what if that castle were built of sand?

@Heidi just wanted to give you props for a thoughtful comment. This one didn’t click for you, and you stated why clearly and without venom. I wish more commenters followed your example.

@John I really don’t understand how you can make that accusation, especially given the constructor’s notes. I can only imagine the intellectual effort that went into constructing this puzzle, which can be solved four different ways and places the geographical features appropriately. Not your cup of tea? Fine, just say that. Don’t assign demonstrably false motives.

@Charles ugh. I wish the emus would start penalty-boxing people for using the L word. But since they haven’t: in my opinion, calling the constructor or puzzle “lazy” is itself a lazy criticism.

@Robin your comment made me curious, so I went looking. If I’m understanding the usage correctly, the clue and Caitlin’s column are correct. Both “stank” and “sank” are the past tense forms of their respective verbs (“The ship sank” or “my shoes stank to high heaven”), while “stunk” and “sunk” are past participles (“The ship has sunk to the bottom” or “these shoes have stunk for years”). So “I STANK AT math in high school” vs. “I have stunk at math all my life.” Or “…what they had in common sank in” vs. “what they had in common has not sunk in yet.”

@Josh I certainly think we should feel free to express our opinion, whether favorable or not. And others can agree or disagree, as long as it’s respectful and couched as opinion and not unassailable fact (there are a few commenters who do that regularly). I draw the line at commenters who question the motives of or outright drag the constructors. Calling a constructor lazy or smug is uncalled for. A puzzle didn’t do it for you? Fine, not all of them will. Just don’t insult the people who worked hard to offer you something to entertain you. Feel free to tell them why you didn’t like it - maybe they’ll craft something more to your liking in the future.

@Lauren how do you avoid “lazy clueing” in the crosswords you construct?

@Margaret I assumed it was a benign “Dumbo” reference. And, if I’m honest, I think the world would be a good bit more interesting if elephants COULD fly. 😊 …though maybe “interesting “ isn’t the right word…

@Jack McCullough I’ll see your RICK DEES and raise you a Casey Kasem AND throw in a Wolfman Jack as a bonus. Of course, none of them fit, but, man, did I try.

@David summer = someone doing sums ( I groan-laughed after I got it)

@Francis This a thousand times.

@Brandon This was absolutely a challenge for me, and I think I’m a reasonably consistent solver, so I hope you don’t get too discouraged by this one. Almost all of us, barring a few savants, have been where you are. It took me lots of reps to build up my solving muscles. I learned standard fill (OREO! EPEE! ORR and OTT!), and how to spot tricky clues (Veiled capitals! Bad puns! Reeeaaal stretches!), and, honestly, when to walk away and come back later. If you find it to be fun more often than it isn’t, sticking with it eventually pays off.

@Asher just wanted to applaud you for how you expressed your reaction to the puzzle. I you gave specifics about what didn’t work for you, and didn’t accuse the constructors of anything. I found it refreshing, and I hope others follow your example. Thank you!

@Mary Hudson I raised an eye, too, at PALACEGUARD. However, re: BIGUPSET… my understanding is that a calling card is/was something you presented when you “came to call.” You gave your card to the servant who answered the door, who then presented it to the person you wished to visit. In that context, it seems to me that it works as a clue here. A Cinderella team announces its presence with a BIG UPSET. (Related: how about them Gophers playing for the WNIT championship today? Sure, it’s not the Big Dance, but they’re tearing it up! SKI-U-MAH!)

@Mean Old Lady His choral works are just stunning! However, I’ve only ever seen it spelled “Pärt,” so that would have stymied me. Could be I just haven’t read widely enough. (Funnily enough, just this weekend I started an email chain with some high school classmates about our upcoming 40th (yikes) reunion, and Neal Peart was mentioned almost immediately. Weird.)

@sonnel I’ll never pass up an opportunity to recommend The Incredibles. IMHO it works on many levels (not just the superficial Pixar-superhero-animated-superhero-feature level, but it excels at that, too) and is definitely worth watching. EDNA MODE is a wonderful character hilariously voiced by director Brad Bird.

@Rahul there was a Hannah-Barbera cartoon character on television in the 1960’s named Atom Ant whose battle cry was, “Up and at ’em, Atom Ant!” Or was it “Up and atom”? Now I’m not sure…

@Mean Old Lady I’m thinking of books for toddlers with flaps that you lift to reveal a bunny, or similar.

@Desert Dweller hard disagree. This was my favorite clue of the puzzle. “ whenever we see Denver, we understand it is a stage name?” Of course not. It’s a clue for this puzzle. And a really clever one at that. Also, “actor/Colorado” makes no sense in the context of the other clues.

@Oliver I read Bob T’s response as a reference to the other comments Moira had made regarding the L(s) word, and Bob T inferring that it was important to Moira. I can see where “die on that hill” might seem a rather extreme expression; it’s pretty common in the US, but I don’t know if it’s used as much elsewhere. In any case, I interpreted it as mild humor. I didn’t see his response as p/a, but maybe I’m naive.

@Foster One of the core ideas in R. F. Kuang’s “Babel, or the Necessity of Violence” is the tension inherent in translation, and the novel has some wonderful discussions about what translation is and what translators do. It’s a beautifully written book.

@Bill A fellow chorister once told me of a conductor he sang with who, when asked about what some score marking in Italian meant, said, “They all mean the same thing: LOOK AT ME.”

@Stephen Blythe There’s a term for that: RAS syndrome, where RAS stands for “redundant acronym syndrome” 😊 (I may have made this comment before, but it really tickles me because a) I work in IT, a field infested with acronyms and initialisms, and 2*) my team is the Research Administration Services team, so I say RAS a LOT.) * shout out to Paul Reiser. IYKYK.

@Roberto in the show, she dons the jacket when she decides she must “go bad” (18D) to get the guy; she’s also blonde (33A). So while the jacket might relate to 4D, I don’t think it needs to for the photo choice.

@Warren I held on to NNE for way too long for exactly that reason. I think it’s a wrong clue, but I may be attributing more precision to “center” than it deserves. I would have felt less annoyed with “middle.”

@Tess oooohhhh… I did not think of cake pops, but now I want one. They are indeed very popular (with me). Pop goes the emu?

@CrispyShot Should have mentioned the clue: 4A. Also should have mentioned that except for that and the VERGEINYEAH/YAMA crossing, for which I had to run the alphabet, I really liked this one!

@Darren it’s getting late, so I don’t know if you’ll read this, but I encourage you to reconsider ascribing such motives to the constructors. If the puzzle didn’t click for you, that’s fine. But that doesn’t mean the constructor was out to make solvers look like fools, any more than it means that you’re deficient in some way. It’s a puzzle, not a judgment.

@Mark wishing you good luck and sound sleep!

@Francis Re: actors who play characters with the same name - Roseanne Barr, Lucille Ball, Jerry Seinfeld, and Ray Romano all come to mind. I’m sure there are others.

@mcmax honest question: in what way do you find it offensive?

@dutchiris Happy birthday! (And what a wholesomely sneaky way to crank up the comment count! Well played!)

@Cat Lady Margaret my whole family would raise their hands if they could.

@Susan E while I love the nuanced, informed responses that followed, my original comment was entirely based on the mnemonic I learned as a child, more than 50 years ago: “A, E, I, O, U, and sometimes Y and W”.

@SBK thanks for checking up on us. The last 24 hours have been very jarring, and I look at all of it with growing fear. I continue to cling to my hope on the basic decency of my fellow Minnesotans.

@Tommy The preposition "to" signals the AT in the answer. If it were "Talk too shrilly," the answer could simply be YAP.

@Bill I, too, have never heard of a “pull-down day,” but my clue (iOS app) reads “Muscles worked on a ‘pull day,’ informally”. That I have heard of. Don’t know if the text was corrected in the two hours between our comments. ¯\_(ツ)_/¯

@PuzzleDog I'm reminded of people on Amazon or TripAdvisor who respond to questions about products ("What are the dimensions of the box?") or destinations ("Are children under 5 welcome there?") with, "I don't know."