Deb
California
California
@Karen I don't know what your comment refers to, but monkeys are primates.
I was pleased that I remembered the name of the Queen of Jordan. A few minutes later my little bubble was burst when the crossings reminded me that it was spelled NOOR, not NOIR. Interesting, "noor" means light and "noir" means black.
Unlike almost everyone commenting before, I enjoyed this puzzle and thought the theme phrases were clever and fun. Easy compared to my Thursday expectations, but it made me laugh a couple times and that made up for it. I didn't dislike the 'oh, no reason' entry as others apparently did. I don't know what was so objectionable - it's something I might have said when I was a kid (I wasn't a quick thinker.:-)
Enjoyed 'exactamundo' and 'ao dai' but thought the overall puzz a bit too quick and easy (for Thursday.)
I dropped by expecting to see people griping about this puzzle being unrewarding and a slog, but not very difficult (as I did). Instead, I see that most people really enjoyed it, but thought it was quite tricky for one reason or another. The ten or so extra minutes it took me to solve were mostly spent fiddling with the rebus button. I'm glad for the comments because I totally missed that the rebus squares contained an alphabet pangram. Very clever!
Quick solve, and enjoyable. This must've been right on my wavelength, because I breezed through it more quickly than most Saturdays. My thanks to the puzzle-builder.
@Mark I think you may have missed the point of Paul's reply. I loved it.
When I saw the caption "Don't expect to fly through this prickly puzzle" I mentally prepared for a slog, but flew through it prickle-less. A nice contrast to yesterday's pricklefest.
This one took longer than usual for me. I got through most of the theme words before catching on to the theme clue trick, primarily by crossings and thinking of common phrases that would fit. I was stumped on the last 3 because I was stuck on sunscreen and barricade, and have never heard the phrase "old block." Eventually sun block dawned on me, and then all the blocks fell into place. I didn't love this as many seem to have, but didn't hate it either - it was a bit cdd and a bit cbscure.
I loved the math - nicely done! Hated all the names - obscure names to boot!
@Cassidy I had a different experience. After determining that 'Jaguar' was too short, I was absolutely delighted when the 'XKE' immediately rose from some deep pocket of ancient mental throwaway tidbits.
@pmom The first 'e' in silence is the schwa sound.
@Xword Junkie I, too, was hung up on that E/O, and I agree with your comment regarding how amino was clued.
@Calenlass There's nothing "factually incorrect" in saying there's a schwa in the word silence. The schwa represents an unstressed vowel sound that is little more than the sound we emit as we move from the previous consonant to the following one. I agree with you about the "spin" clue. It does seem factually incorrect. But I've definitely heard of stays being an integral part of corsets.
@Michael When I got to that clue I just said, "Alexa, spell onomatopoeia." (I said the same thing when writing this, too.)
@J Same. it was my final letter.
@Barry Ancona When my eyes scanned across your name just now, I read it as "anaconda." I suspect 35A had something to do with that. Cheers
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