Horsefeathers

Happy new year, crossword phamily! I phound this to be a great phirst rebus of the year; not too comphounding (phor me) for a Fursday and did not leave me with a phrown. Quite phrankly, I have always phound the mix of fonetics to be quite phascinating, particularly since many fonic quirks of English have resulted from borrowing (or outright linguistic pheft!) from other languages! Having said all that I suspect I’d phind all this fonic mischief much less phun were English not my phirst language! Imagine trying to use these correctly in common frasing and paragrafs… ooph, I pheel exhausted just imagining it! Anyway, fanks to Robert Charlton phor a phabulous grid, and a phond welcome back phor Will Shortz! I wish all my phellow puzzlers a phantastic 2025.

Well *I* thought today’s a great crossword, thank you Joseph! Those old Greek legends are far from my forte, but nonetheless no horsefeathers for me and managed to complete the puzzle ASAP. And gosh just to create one comment sans *that* letter—the forsaken “eye”—be a heck of a challenge! Well done on an entire puzzle!

My gosh this was clever! As a non-American I’m often learning awesome US factoids every day to complete these, but I got usaSOUTHEAST and the Floridian fills (went there when I was twelve, so saw both those sites!), but was then absolutely bamboozled to find NIAGARAFALLS and other non-SE locations came a-cropping up! Read the column with relief that my geography is not as bad as I feared, and that this is instead an absolutely genius puzzle! The layout, trickery, and some great clueing and fills along the way make this a contender for best-ever in my books. I cannot imagine how difficult this would have been, but nary an OREO nor an EMU nor any other convenient gimme in sight to make it work. Phenomenal, thank you!

Fun and fast, I loved it! Great idea and gave me some lols. As an ocean swimmer living in tropical Queensland, I shudder to think of anything brushing past me that feels JELLYFISHISH—and yep, that’s a term I have truly used in real life to describe some marine past-brushings that I’ve brushed past! *shudder* (Luckily it’s usually just a floating clump of seaweed.)

Started this the way I do most Thursdays, with trepidation, and the first pass didn’t yield many fills… but then something clicked and I ended up finishing in 22mins, my fastest Thursday ever by 40mins or more! This despite lamentably not *getting* the starred clues for a shameful length of time. Guess I do seem to be getting the hang of things lately. Still need to look up some of the Americana topics that I just don’t know, but am at least remembering them for next time!

As an academic, my first thought at getting SLACKERS was that at least twenty years ago those slackers weren’t using AI to write their essays. Thanks to technology, students’ writing skills achieve new lows every term...

I learnt a lot of new things today, thank you, especially for Phyllis Wheatley. More look-ups than usual for me, but I enjoyed the opportunity to “read all about it”, which I tried first instead of EXTRA EXTRA EXTRA! (Luckily for my filling and sanity it didn’t fit, as so confident was I that I’d have left it there and done my darndest to fit the rest of the fills around it!)

Today I learnt that ties may be powerful. Now I need to know how to recognise a POWERTIE at work or at conferences so that I may appropriately brace myself or avoid that person! Nice puzzle Adrianne, thank you! And holy mcflashbacks, Gridlady, NANCYDREW came into my head before I could even rationalise the answer to myself. I don’t even think I read one of those books but can see the covers in my head, haha! Would she not be an “undercover girl”? :D

Initially had CASINa for ‘house of cards’, Italian for hut, shack, or hovel. Not knowing the Sicilian Mafia’s ‘thing’, CASa for 10D looked reasonable to my anglophone eyes! Took me a while to twig that house of cards didn’t mean a flimsy structure, premise, or venture, but the more obvious CASINO! Am English—well, originally at least—and used to use ‘prat’ often until I started high school in NZ with a lovely lass surnamed Pratt. I now realise that I’ve rarely used it since, despite not having seen her for near three decades. An excellent and most serviceable word that shall verily reenter my vocabulary.

Lovely! Got the revealer with just one flower against the wall, and this was easy and fun all round but still felt fitting for a Wednesday. No frigging sports clues, large flightless birds (that I saw this morning on the way to work), black white cookies, and only one name that I didn't know. Downside: that darn Disney song on a loop in my head since the first clue! Thanks anyway! 😘

Diabolical. AMI(glad I’m)DONE? RECKONSO.

An interesting one! The origin of the name Thames basically means river, though via interpretations along the lines of dark stream, flooding waters, and others. Whilst there the Romans of course got their oar in (so to speak), Latinising it to ‘Thamesis’.

I wonder if I were the only one to ponder taking a pet rock to the vet? This one was nice and easy, and seemed to give a little déjà vu from yesterday, e.g. the ever-convenient SKA. Speaking of convenient, I would not mind if I never saw another OREO again. (Nor would my waistband…)

Not too hard for a Sunday (for me!). Kept going back to the TEN to ONES part as one highlighted the other and I was imagining and contriving some kind of meaning for the D => N trick. None there, and didn’t look at the puzzle name early enough to figure out the hint. Had Lassie for SNOOPY for the longest time, throwing the SE off. Doh!

I am so lost. I thought this was Tuesday—even me, reporting here from the future (AEST), was bloody sure this was a Tuesday. Good grief. Even accommodating as always I must any instances of Americana, this was NOT a Tuesday grid. Never mind, I shall grid and bear it, and a great puzzle it was in its own right! Just… a heads-up next time please? Like, yanno, putting a Wed puzzle on its respective day, perhaps?

Great googly-wooglies. I normally have some look ups towards the end of the week, Thursday onwards, but there were few things here that I understood even AFTER the grid was filled. Intend =/= hope, to my mind. The IRS thing gave me a giggle, but BADTHING was just that for a fill, and quite out of place compared to the more obtuse nature of the rest of the fills. Seeing some of the comments I don’t think I need say more, though I do see both sides of the argument. Me, I humbly HOPE for fewer horsefeathers and just a speck more charity in the clueing, perhaps so that the proper nouns or improperly used Beefeaters or phonetic mischiefs are a safe distance from regional areas I’ve never heard of in Afghanistan!

MERCY-Boo-coop for a fun puzzle! This was an enjoyable one to chew over. Bone apple tea!

Very clever, and although I already had BLACKEYEDPP and EEONDOWNTHEROAD I still for some reason couldn’t get my brain around whatever CeeCeeTHE… was. Gave me a groan to rival that worthy of the greatest Dad joke ever once my head reconfigured its neurons to think properly about it! Failed that IQTEST, didn’t I?

Loved this, thank you! A fun theme and happily I worked it out on the first matryoshka entry and enjoyed figuring out the rest.

A few were very difficult for me to first get, and then understand! Most I got my brain around in the end, but scratch = DOUGH? Very clever clueing and arrangement with the scratching and the itching, the LOLCATS and the STUNTDOGS; I love that some layouts like this give lots to discover beyond the answers!

Enjoyed engaging with this puzzle and, although it took me a little longer than usual for a Monday, my efforts were not futile. Bonus points for the best darn captain ever beaming in for a cameo!

Loved this! Fun and I liked the concept and the distribution of thise ants throughout the grid. (Annoyingly reminds me of my house, little buggers.)

Such a clever puzzle, loved it! Surprised there am was no animation at the end, but didn't see anything either on Android phone or iPad. Very clever anyway, more so than me; I have never heard of SOOST and spent a bit of time there trying to see what I'd done wrong.

This was fun'n'fast, my fatsest in fact. Must say I much prefer the doodles to a rebus on a Thursday! Thanks for ANEW approach to clueing.

Wonderful theme and realisation of this crossword, thank you! Would have loved it even more if Ada Lovelace could have made an appearance too, being such a clever lady with her beloved numbers, but it must be frustratingly hard to make everything fit around the blacks and seeds as it is. She has a great name for crossword construction though… ahem Emus take not pls.

DADJOKE was my last fill and gave me a giggle, until I realised I found myself wearing horsefeathers (again). Didn’t get PEEdoff though, nor even PEEVISH when I figured out my NONSENSE mistake because I fixed it just in the NICK of time to still score a PB. 😤

This was great! Fun and, for me, easy for a rebus-bearing Thursday. Loved the simple but effective stack concept, and interesting to see on a themeless puzzle, well done.

Merci beaucoup!

Fun’n’fast, with a SHARP trick in requiring us to read the basic musical notation literally as it sounded. More Monday-esque than yesterday! Thank you!

Got stuck with SlingYOURSHOT for a while, no idea how, but when repeatedly stumped by the misfitting crosses I did myself a google to find it was actually a phrase! Took getting DISPOSAL for me to realise and dispose of my misfire. Great grid and wholeheartedly agree with the message of 58A!

Clever, loved it! Got the trick right away with IRONLADY but still took me a while to figure out many of the other answers. Thought my filling had gone ALOP with that particular entry so half-expected horsefeathers when I finished, though with a moment’s thought it was easy to interpret.

This was fantastic! So clever and fun. Well done!