Mark

@Andrzej Your wife has it exactly right. Nice work on her part! I am always so impressed with your solving. Amazing! Thanks too for sharing your experiences and insights with us here. Mark

@John “Never” is a long time and I have certainly heard and used HOLESOUT to refer to the final putt on a golf hole.

@Fungase I am amazed at how you and others can finish these so quickly! Well done!! My best time (for a simple Monday) is 7:30 and I felt like I typed it in nonstop. My best Wednesday is 16:42 and today’s was 26:47. Average is 42:41. I guess I’m just slow 😝 That said, my streak is now 1,215 🤣 Mark

@David Pearce My Merriam-Webster app shows “milestone” as one word, and that agrees with how I’ve seen it. So o think the clue is OK. Mark

@Shari Coats A runway’s identifying number is its magnetic bearing (direction), rounded to the nearest 10, with the last digit removed. So a runway that’s oriented at 93° magnetic will be runway 9. The number used for the same surface in the opposite direction is 27. Letters (L, C, and R for left, centre, and right) are added for multiple runways oriented the same. This system helps pilots easily choose the best runway for the prevailing wind (it’s best and safest to take off and land into the wind … this minimises ground speed and hence the length needed) and one can quickly confirm by checking the aircraft heading when aligned. Mark

@Petrol My note here has nothing to do with today’s puzzle, but when I saw your location, I had to reply. In June 1970, at the age of 15, I spent a month with family friends in Ferney-Voltaire and I have nothing but fond memories of it. Cycled all around, discerned the French signage using my newly learnt Latin skills, and overall had a wonderful time. One of my assigned tasks was to ride into town each morning and fetch a baguette, which cost 1 franc. Thanks for rekindling the memory!! Mark

@Okanaganer Deb may have said that, but today the words came from Sam Corbin, the wonderful and talented author of early-week columns. Just FYI! Mark

@Oikofuge This is tangent on my part, to be sure, but I also distinguish between wh and plain w, and your comment made me think of another modern pronunciation annoyance: the addition of an H sound to “str” (pronouncing “street” as “shtreet,” for example). This seems to be a thing among younger folks (say, below about age 40) and it’s very common now even among professional speakers such as news reporters. And it drives me nuts! Please, folks, str has no H sound!! End of rant 🤣 Mark

@NewsNerd I provided exactly the same feedback using the link provided in the new “me” section. The bars should all use the same scale so it’s easy to see relative differences. I also suggested that they can show this week, average, and best simultaneously in the new format. No need to have the toggles. Glad to see others agree so perhaps they’ll change it. Mark

@Mike R Agreed. PRE as it is customarily used serves no useful function here since “recorded” is by definition completed in the past 🤣 Kind of like “preboarding” as used by airline ground personnel. Yes, those of you who wish to board before you board may approach the gate now. Mark

@Andrzej LIE refers to the position of the ball on the turf. A bad lie, where the ball may be deep in the grass, or otherwise difficult to hit, is challenging at least for a duffer like me 😊 Mark

@Paul It’s not “fourth.” It’s “home” and that fits. Mark

@Chil “The runs scored each inning sum to the total for the game.” Reasonable? Mark

@Jane “I forgot my wallet so I was in a jam (bind) when the bill came. “

@Steven M. SNAP is short for “snapshot,” a now little-used term from the 50s-60s that means “casual photograph taken with a handheld camera.” I’d consider it synonymous with today’s “pic.”

@Pani Korunova I too started with fAA for the same reason but the F just wasn’t working so I engaged “crossword mode:” any other possibility for the meaning of towers? Aha: tow-ers, things that tow, and AAA fits that. Mark

@Xword Junkie “Lowest mean elevation” and “flattest” are not synonymous, to me anyway. Flattest suggests least variation of elevation across an area. I have no idea which state is flattest but I can’t see how the state with lowest mean elevation is automatically flattest. Just my .02! Mark

@Air I’m American and I had DUI too. I think DWI is much less common, even in the US

@jules But a “lead off walk” as commonly used can also refer to the first batter in any inning reaching first base via a walk, not just the first batter in the lineup. Mark

@Andrzej Regarding LTR, my first thought was that few outside the US will have any chance at this. Conversely (and sadly), few Americans will know about A4 🤨 Mark

@Mike As another data point, I’m now age 70 and have never heard of CHARLIXCX. But I breezed through this one in well under half my average Friday time with no lookups. Streak preserved at 1497 😝 Which isn’t to say I didn’t struggle a bit. Took me a while to recall J’accuse and I wasn’t familiar with the dog treat and the Nintendo avatars, amongst others. As a result, the NE was the last to fall. But for me this was much easier than either Wednesday’s or Thursday’s puzzles this week. Mark

@Ann You’re not alone. Meteorologists also refer to June-July-August as “summer” in the Northern Hemisphere, based on temperature … and the other seasons are adjusted from their astronomical periods also. Mark

@Pezhead Crack me up!! 😆😆🤣🤣 Mark

@Mark Cousins Sam, my apologies. I missed that you posted a link. Sorry for the noise from my side! And thanks as always for your great columns. Mark

@Geoff Offermann As Caitlin mentions in the column, a clock as a gift is bad form in Chinese culture as they believe it’s a message to the recipient that their demise is at hand. (In some/many Western cultures, giving someone a knife is similarly bad. This is worked around by including a coin with the gift; the recipient returns the coin to the giver and therefore has purchased the knife, not received it as a gift.) (And I steadfastly refuse to use “gift” as a verb!! Yuck!!!) 4 in Mandarin sounds like the word for “death” in the same language so it’s considered an unlucky number. It has a similar connotation in Cantonese, Japanese, and Korean. Mark

@Anand My numbers are almost exactly the same! Average 66, today 31. No lookups and got the music on the first try. I’m working to get the average below one hour but it’s tough due to long history. 1980 puzzles solved and current streak is 1251 😝 Fun one today! Mark

@Stephen Do you mean that you solved today’s puzzle in 7 minutes 58 seconds? I am an experienced solver with a current streak of 1399 and my MONDAY PB is 7:30, which is about as fast I can type. My Friday PB is 25:34 and today’s time was 50:10. Amazing … Mark

@Andrzej I’m always so impressed with your ability to tackle these puzzles and solve them!! It’s “shortstop”, one word, and it’s the name of a defensive position in baseball. The shortstop plays between second and third base and so is “off base” although he/she may need to cover second base depending on the situation. Mark

@Laura Stratton Agreed. The loop of a padlock is its shackle. This is looped through a hasp on the item to be secured. Hasp: a slotted hinged metal plate that forms part of a fastening for a door or lid and is fitted over a metal loop and secured by a pin or padlock (from Google)

@Divs I believed you meant that you were not “fazed” by YAMA 😊

@SuzyQ My understanding is that the phone keypad layout was deliberately reversed so that proficient adding machine operators wouldn’t “dial” faster than the system could handle. Behind the scenes, DTMF (dual-tone multi-frequency, aka TOUCHTONE) was/is an analogue audio signalling system used over comparatively low-bandwidth sometimes noisy lines, so don’t press those buttons too quickly 😊 Mark

@The X-Phile I assume you meant “you’re” …

@Paul I’m no defender of Fahrenheit but there is logic behind its scale. 0°F is the approximate melting point of sea ice and 100°F was thought to be normal temperature for humans at the time. 32° and 212° are after-effects of this scaling. Having lived and travelled overseas I have switched my brain to Celsius. My mental trick was to memorise the 5s … 10°C is 50°F, 15°C is 59°F, etc (and 5 Celsius degrees equals 9 Fahrenheit degrees), then interpolate as needed. Now it’s pretty natural to just think in Celsius directly. Mark

@Rolando I spelled (spelt) the 37A entry that way instinctively then reali(s/z)ed later that it’s the British form. Had to adjust to get the music and the correct DOSAS for the crossing. Mark