MAR1
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This was puzzle #90 for my daily solving journey (three months). A longtime lover of puzzles and language, I had nonetheless always thought the NYT crossword to be unapproachable, without even having tried. Spelling Bee, sudoku, the Mini, then Connections (can't wait for Strands to be out of beta!), yes yes, yes! But the actual crossword intimidated me. One hesitant New Year's resolution later, and here I am. I am not a fast solver. I have to look things up (especially sports). But man, oh man, it is so satisfying to complete a crossword! To know an answer outright, or to take a guess and be vindicated after more fill, or to just look at a smattering of letters and see the words they could be... Is there a word for that feeling?! I'm not great by any means, but I'm better than I was three months ago. This Saturday solve, though VERY tough for me - especially in the NW - feels like a high note. Spring break is over, I'll be back to my normal work and mom grind. I will keep solving, but I probably won't engage in these comments anymore (not that I would expect anyone to notice). From the short time I was actively engaged in this forum, I just want to say this: Be kind to each other. We're all here because we love words and puzzles. Be helpful, be positive, be charitable. Keep encouraging people to discover and enjoy whatever puzzling they can or want to do. It's the NYT crossword! It's amazing! Thank you constructors, editors, kind commenters, and emus.
Apologies if I'm not the first to say it, but... There are 10 kinds of people in the world: those who know binary and those who don't. . . . . Ε to the power of μ
@Holland Oats Once again I have the impression that this is not a linguistic quibble or a critique or puzzle construction, but a comment purely to express your displeasure with the fact some people exist in this world differently to how you would personally prefer. Queer and non-binary people exist, always have and always will, as anyone who has objectively studied biology, zoology, history, or anthropology can (and has been trying to) tell you. That American cultural vocabulary has only very recently expanded to include terms associated with this vast spectrum of expression, I'll grant. But as word-lovers, trivia hounds, and lifelong learners - which I assume crossword puzzlers to be - shouldn't we celebrate this evolution of language and understanding? Shouldn't we embrace the proportionally miniscule inclusion of "gender theory" clues (as you say, a dozen... among hundreds within the week) as expanding our own personal lexicon? Alas, perhaps it is easier or somehow more satisfying to be angry at a thing without really knowing why.
@MAR1 - Unrelated, but I consider it a sign of a good marriage when I can ask my husband, "Who is the guy who isn't Cat Stevens with the song about the sinking of a ship that wasn't the Lusitania?" And he promptly answers, "Gordon Lightfoot, Edmund Fitzgerald" without skipping a beat.
@sotto voce - this echoes my sentiments exactly. Thank you! I tend to stay away from all things social-media-y because I've learned that, for me, it requires more time than I care to invest - I get too compulsive about checking posts and comments - and it's generally not great for my own mental health. Wordplay and the Commentariat here (I liked that, hadn't seen it before) seemed to be mostly free of the worst that internet anonymity brings out in people. I still bristle at the tone of some comments here, and I wish there were fewer blanket statements, but I find it's really not as bad as much of the internet. I look for the helpers, like Mr Rogers instructed, and thankfully this forum has them. Thanks for being a helper, sotto voce! :)
@Elaine Same! I had it as LIRa and didn't notice my misspelling of SENaCA. I eventually resorted to check puzzle because I was sure my mistake was in the PUE(N)TE/E(N)SO(R)/TABOU(R)ET region. It wasn't! Ç'est la vie!
@Brian LOL, I shudder to think what happens when snowcano erupts while a sharknado roll in! . . . . Please, no tsunemus!
Reading comments from across the pond, I didn't realize "tuxedo cat" was an Americanism, although I understand in England a moggie is more likely to be called tortiseshell-and-white rather than "calico." Here are some interesting cat color facts: domestic felines (and I believe their large wild cousins) may possess both phaeomelanin and eumelanin alleles, the former producing orange (red) pigmentation and and the latter producing shades of brown or black. Tortiseshell coats occur due to X-inactivation—portions of genetic code are inactivated on an X chromosome, allowing non-orange expression from the other X chromosome to get peppered in with orange expression. The pattern of inactivation is random, resulting in the mottled appearance of Torties. Because this requires two X chromosomes, most Torties are female, but Klinefelter males can be as well. Meanwhile, white-spotting is a deactivation of any melanin production. It occurs in early fetal development and has a fairly predictable progression, affecting first the chest, then paws, neck, chin, belly. The top of the head, along the spine, and finally the tail are the last parts affected by white-spotting. The extent of white-spotting is rife with sartorial descriptors: locket, mitts, boots, mask and mantle, cap and saddle, and of course, tuxedo!
@Andrzej Tweety calls Sylvester a "puddey tat" due to his speech impediment. The "k" to "t" substitution (as well as the "g" to "d" substitution) is evidently somewhat common in early childhood for English speakers. My kiddo had difficulties with the "k" sound, and his auntie thought it was hilarious to ask him if he loved kitties (he did) so he would respond that, indeed, he loved *itties. Sylvester also has a speech impediment, namely a sibilant lisp, which I also happen to have. "Sibilant lisp" is a cruel term to impose on those who can't enunciate the "s" sound! How about that for a rebus crossword, replace "s" with "th"? Does Polish have a sibilant "s" sound? (I have a thneaking thuthpicion that some of my comments are lost in the overnight emu ether, so this may be a repetition of an earlier comment)
Thank you, Evan! That felt like a workout ina good way (mind you, my crossword muscles are hardly developed)! I had lots to untangle to get this one done, but my whopping 100+ days of solving is leading to notable improvements in cold guesses, I didn't have to touch TIRE, DENIM, TENTS, ROE, AUTHOR or ARSON after the first pass! MINTjelly held me up for a while, as did trying to figure out how one abbreviates atoll(s), and I knew Cog wasn't mechanically right, but it was three letters starting with a C. Once I had ITS__LANE, all I could picture was Lois correcting people that, "it's MS Lane," (in a "They call me MR Tibbs!!" way) which I guess would be mis-miss-identification. I didn't see discussion in comments below (though, granted, I skimmed), but can someone kindly help me with [Goes down] = SETS? The best I've come up with is if someone SETS a record, then that person [Goes down] in the record books. I have a sneaking suspicion that my mother's (and her mother's) unrelenting correction that set/lay are transitive is preventing my seeing another angle to connect with intransitive go.
@Bruce - I agree with you, but wanted to say that the way I read @L.A. Sunshine's post was not as an imperative "the NYT Crossword must evolve." Rather that they have noticed an evolution, presumably by its incorporation of modern cultural touchpoints and lingo, that leaves them feeling out of the loop, but is nonetheless understandable (and "not a criticism") given business considerations like readership. And of course, like you say, there are ways to compensate for personal zeitgeist holes when solving. "[M]any many decades of Thanksgiving meals" suggests to me that I am probably younger than Sunshine. I would assume that using the word "DISS" and LIP-piercing are probably not too common in older generations. FWIW, corn on the COB at Thanksgiving isn't something I've ever encountered in the wild either (in probably fewer but still plural decades), but it sounds like others have. And I got my lip pierced (some 25 years ago) for reasons I don't think are *too* unfathomable - it was a visual identifier of my cultural in-group (somewhere between punk and goth), and aesthetically I felt it provided balance to my face due to a prominent mole opposite. Oh, and it annoyed my parents ;)
Happy day! I completed my 124th daily solve, my 17th Friday puzzle (not counting some archive practice) with ZERO lookups! And 20mins faster than my average, so the usually-infernal app statistics inform me. I can manage Mondays, many Tuesdays, and some Wednesdays and Thursdays, without the assistance of Sir Google of Instantaneous Information, but it's never happened before on the "hard" days. I feel that if I scroll through comments, I'll confirm my suspicion that today's was a softer, friendlier Friday, so I shan't let it go to my head. But still, I started off with only a couple gimmes (for the French clues) and a couple seemingly okay guesses (same as Deb with _AI for half a rum drink); my fill was pretty sparse after my first across and down passes. Seemed like I was in store for another taxing Friday... Yet I did not succumb to the siren call of the search engine to seek the WNBA star, the rapper, or the morning sunshine drink! I bounced around the grid for a bit and slowly (or I guess not that slowly?) things came together. GAS STATION SUSHI was a big breakthrough (it helps that my husband's truly unfortunate choice of roadtrip snacks is a long-cherished source of teasing). And while, initially, I couldn't remember Pip's love interest or Syd's surname or how the Risk map labels that part of Russia, they bubbled up with a couple letters. ELENA was the best name that fit E__NA, some part of my brain recognized T-PAIN, and ASAHI came from the crosses.
@Andrzej I didn't realize until I read your comments (here and below) that apparently we (Americans? English-speakers? The lazy or forgetful?) *do* have a broad definition of "homonym." While solving, it didn't occur to me that the theme entries would be better termed "homophones," even though I know better and indeed had this email exchange with my mother not two weeks ago: 'School holiday today, but [your grandchild] indulged me in some covert education in pondering the unfathomable mess that is the English language as we discussed the fact that "bow" is a homophone of "bough," but also a homonym (front of boat v. to a monarch), and a homograph of "bow," which is itself a homonym (play a stringed instrument v. a decorative knot) and a homophone of "beau."' Homograph = same spelling, different pronunciation, different meaning Homophone = different spelling, same pronunciation, different meaning Homonym = same spelling, same pronunciation, different meaning But I still think the theme was fun, nonetheless. 🙂
Much mileage variance on this one, so it seems upon perusing the comments. What enjoyment I may have found was tempered by a) having to undo multiple entries, which are all entirely my fault: iDiomS to ADAGES, the SUsIE/UsI tangle, myriad abbreviations of "duchess" (was she a duchess?), pro- to EPIgenesis, RHiNE to RHÔNE, OFFkiltER to OFFCENTER... ...and b) the fact that I couldn't unsee a spider in the grid, probably a Brown Recluse, and I am arachnophobic. I know, I know, it's supposed to be a potato, and it's a very low-res pixel depiction at that, but there are eight legs!! And a phobia is an *irrational* fear, all right?! At least EM DASH was a gimme. Despite an amateur interest in typography, I come at it via coding. For all the emus looking for a character-encoded snack that no one needs nor wants nor asked for: 151 (ASCII) x2014 (Unicode) — (HTML)
@TMD I was stuck in the mindset of the trick-or-treater escort, rather than the candy distributor, and none of it fit: SAY THANK YOU STAY ON THE SIDEWALK WE'LL CHECK FOR PEANUTS WHEN WE GET HOME YOU CAN HAVE TWO PIECES TONIGHT
Puzzle solved with much enjoyment from doubled and even tripled Os, preponderance of Zs, the 70s Ford and the running mate; and also much consternation at my lack of footholds, eventual lookups, and my inexplicable conflation of Twelfth Night and A Midsummer's Night Dream. Quite the RUB, that. Mostly I am left with the fond memory of my grandmother's favorite and oft repeated SPOONERISM involving a flummoxed usher abashedly redirecting a congregant: Mardon me, padam, but you are occupewing the wrong pie. May I sew you to another sheet? Perhaps a chew in the back of the perch? It's just so fun to say! Also, I can never get "heaping scoop" right on the first try. It is frequently a "skeeping hoop" and sometimes a "hooping skeep." I now hoop, skeep, and jump away.
Having grown up in AZ, the SW theme entries were gimmes, and I confidently filled in THESOUTHWEST. I finished with that answer having stayed solidly in place, putting me in the minority of solvers chiming in here, as noted by another commenter. I didn't get the gimmick until I read Wordplay, as evidenced by my increasingly desperate justifications: OLDFAITHFUL in the southwest?! Well, maybe an east-centric mindset that refers to locales east of the Mississippi as "Midwestern" thinks of cowboyish Yellowstone and the Grand TETONs as southwestern?! Moving on... Figured I'd circle back to see how to make Meteor CRATER fit somehow. _FALLS that froze over just once, long ago? Well that sounds plausible for the southwest. But Havasupai doesn't fit... Maybe other falls in the Grand Canyon, Bryce, or Zion... I'll come back... Lots of lightning strikes each year? Oh I'm sure the monsoons have a favorite target, not sure what is though... Wait, what?! Alligators and Crocs? Ok, something really weird is happening... [Time passes] Well fine then, I guess these are all in THESOUTHWEST given a specific reference point. Iceland, maybe. The end. Enjoyed the puzzle nonetheless, and even moreso when I understood the quantum!! I think THESORTHWAST should be the definitive answer.
@Nancy - I endorse your trademarked strategy! I did not know offhand about the younger CURIEs, but I figured with a francophone surname and chemistry, it was worth a shot... searched "curie joliot" and lo and behold! Irene was the daughter of Marie! Marie won two prizes, in 1903 with her husband Pierre, and again in 1911. Eldest daughter Irene and husband Frederic won in 1935. And younger daughter Eva married Henry Labouisse, who one the Peace Prize in 1965. Quite the noble (Nobel) family! (apologies for lack of accent markings)
I found it delightful, and made me wonder at the paucity of letters needed to convey meaning! But, might someone say, "uH, NO. EW!"? Yes, yes they might. Do I know how to spell the Chairman's name? No, no I do not. Will I remember it's an O not an U in future? Only time will tell ...
Oof. Even uff da, if you will. I've been doing so well this week (by my standards) and today's puzzle lulled me into a false sense of security when I completed the SE corner on the first pass. Took a loooooong time to get much more than that corner, though. And even longer to finally walk away with my blue star. But I got there, and I didn't *not* have any fun along the way. Oddly, the G in DOGIES was my last letter. Could not for the life of me think of "git along little DOGIES" until after I had the whole word. Didn't help that Cinderella clued to something sports-related. Plus I still think there mere presence of the word "git" switches my brain into work-mode. On that note, I have only encountered "azimuth" in geospatial or aeronautic lexicons... how often does "azimuth" crop up in everyday conversation? Do people use it to mean ARC? I know it's a Saturday and clues are not definitions, but it's an angle, not a path; to me that's like clueing "trajectory" as [aim] or "distance" as [direction]. It makes my nerd brain sad. I had "yaw" for far too long. git status git commit -m "ZOMBIE MOVIES" git push
Quick question about 45A... My husband, of OHIOAN descent, has taught me that, along with millers, mus'mellon, warshing, and cricks, the "correct" pronunciation is uh-HI-uh (with schwas). I didn't want to put the second O in, but I gather one can still pronounce it uh-HI-yan? Lest anyone take this as mean-spirited, it is only jokingly that we play up our respective regional accents. I really do not INTEND to offend.
Inspired by discussion of "baa" vs "MAA," I offer the following game (especially if you need a light-hearted alternative to today's puzzle, or especially if you loved today's puzzle and want to keep the fun going): <a href="https://act.heifer.org/sheep-or-goat" target="_blank">https://act.heifer.org/sheep-or-goat</a>/ P.S. Heifer Intl. is an organization to which I've donated before, and with a 96/100 score on Charity Navigator, I'm hoping I'm not about to learn that it's a problematic group or a scam or otherwise be chastised for linking. P.P.S. My neighbor has three goats (Titus is quite the b*tthead (no idea if that's too crass for the emus), literally and figuratively), so I'm pretty solidly in the MAA camp.
I feel compelled to chime in again (sorry) 57a threw me for a bit, being unfamiliar with Truffaut's œuvre, but also because yesterday I started bingeing BBC's 1986 "The Story of English" docuseries (found on YouTube) and I couldn't get "English" out of my head for the FITB, even though it didn't fit. As a direct result of participating in this forum, not only have I been rewatching that series, I've relistened to podcasts about the Dictionary Wars, reread David Foster Wallace's essay, "Authority and American Usage" (superficially a review of Bryan Garner's "A Dictionary of Modern American Usage") and Bill Bryson's "The Mother Tongue." (Sincere and effusive thanks for inspiring this diversion!) Without casting aspersions, or aligning myself to a prescriptivist or descriptivist camp, I find myself returning again and again to the idea that dictionaries, usage guides, etc. are essentially models of language. And I've long been convinced of George Box's aphorism: All models are wrong, some are useful.
@Joan Personally, I consider it a learning opportunity rather than a "cheat." I cannot remember when/where I saw the tip, so I cannot provide grateful attribution, but I will add "-crossword" to my (not infrequent) google searches so I'm more likely to find sources that require some reading and thinking rather than just a quick answer. But, hey, if you want to add " crossword NYT ," go for it! Who am I to say that one way of acquiring new knowledge is superior to another? I also search answers after the fact, because rabbit holes can lead to interesting destinations! 😄 TIL that the literal English translation of many Germanic and Nordic words for "bat" (the mammal) is essentially "flutter mouse." And I shall henceforth be using that delightful term to greet my mosquito-eating friends!
@CaptainQuahog Hear, hear, Clam-Man!! (I hope that is an acceptable moniker, I wouldn't want to offend any non-existent clam ears.) @KK I, personally, feel that more encouragement is needed around here. I absolutely relate to your frustration, and it seems that many veteran solvers (which I am not) and puzzle-lovers (which I am) had mixed feelings about today's offering. I keep trying the Fridays and Saturdays, and I've done some from the archives as well, because sometimes I glean some useful information about how the tricksy clues give themselves away, or maybe I pick up an odd bit of trivia. I won't lie, sometimes it feels like a slog when I'm looking up every other answer or revealing squares; it's not always a perfectly or even mostly rewarding or satisfying experience. But the longer I've been doing this, the less frequent becomes the frustration and the more frequent become the a-ha moments of "I get it!" or "That's a good one!" Keep at it, for sure! If you want to, that is. It's not that you aren't good enough or clever enough or gritty enough - that sentiment is rubbish. It could, very simply, be "not a thing you enjoy." But if you want to chase those a-ha moments, keep at it and you'll catch them!
When the geometer head to visit the lavatory on her flight, it was a hypotenuse. Thankfully, she washed her hands at the sinc afterwards.
@Cat Lady Margaret, elf owls are certainly worth a diversionary trip to your nearest image search! They are palm-sized and approximately 97percent eyes! They frequently nested in saguaro hollows in our neighborhood growing up, and hooted their chuckling little hoots at all times of day.
Back from a weeklong work trip, I was looking forward to leisurely puzzle time with my coffee and lapcat this rainy Saturday morning. Unfortunately, having finished after nearly an hour and a half, I'm feeling about as gloomy as the weather. I couldn't break in until I looked up Bond's gun, which I learned was originally a Beretta until someone complained to Fleming that it was a "lady's" gun and not masculine enough for our dear 007 🙄 WALTHER PPK is a combination of letters I would have second-guessed even if I got it from the crosses. I was not helped by Manx instead of GAEL, sun instead of EYE (Ra's symbol is a sun disc!), CLing instead of CLUMP, hOOch instead of BOOZE. And as I sat beneath a framed print of a moonlit Saturn V, my 5-letter choice for NASA's rocket was Delta before it was ATLAS, due solely to personal familiarity with the former. And I was really hoping for something cheeky for the Ikea assembly answer, like WITH SWEARS or KINDA WONKY or DESPAIRING or A SCREW LOST. It wasn't an unfair puzzle, nor a poorly constructed one, so I can still appreciate the constructor's and editors' efforts. It just wasn't the puzzle I wanted it to be. Womp, womp.
I grew up in Phoenix. My parents liked to assign household tasks like piecework to presumably keep me and my siblings out of too much trouble during the summer school breaks. In 1990, the task was renailing or replacing roof shingles at $0.10 apiece. My brother and I were up on our tar shingle roof, in full sun in the middle of the day when the temperature broke the record at 122F (50C). That was not a pleasant day. I can't say I'm a huge fan of 90-degree temps with 98% humidity either, now that I live in a different climate, but even when IT'S A DRY HEAT, I find anything in the triple digits is just plain painful, and Phoenix hits 100+ degrees at least a hundred days a year. Some two dozen years of that was enough for this certified non-desert rat! However, many regions of Arizona are temperate and mild and Flagstaff, AZ is one of the snowiest cities in the US with average snowfall of over 100 inches! It's a wacky state!
Wonderful Wednesday! I very much enjoyed the clueing today with favorites at 11d and 18d. I over-thought 34d, recalling an old (non-crossword) rebus of "read between the lines," but ELI also appears in "lineline" so I was okay. I misread 52d as "Dead Zippo," but only briefly pondered short synonyms for "flameless" before my eyes/brain rebooted. As someone who involuntarily shudders whenever I hear "to lay" used intransitively instead of "to lie," I appreciate LAIN at 36d. Also chuffed with ERSATZ and NAUSEATED (not nauseous). And TIL how much a PECK is. What about a bushel? A barrel? I'll have to look that up... Also IROC. I was/am a vintage Mustang gal, myself, but a friend of mine had a '72 Camaro (in the 90's) that he named Lenore. Pro tip: do not choose a famously deceased person as your vehicle's namesake - Lenore spent much of her time inoperable.
And that delightful Monday puzzle (plus other great suggestions from commenters)will kick off my playlist for work today! It is very much a Monday, though, as I had gMAN first, making 6D gHAN__. I regret to report I very nearly entered gHANdi. I know very, very little about the Marvel Universe, and my Monday morning brain was prepared to overlook the obvious misspelling and entertain the thought that Gandhi was the arch nemesis of superheroes, what with his pacifism. Yikes. 😬 Have a great week and happy eclipsing! May your moon be ever obfuscatory!
@Roberto I also love inferring the ways people's brains work from the comments here! The "DL" here stands for "down low," and when someone tells you something "on the DL" or "on the down low," it's meant to be kept secret, and perhaps they shouldn't be divulging it in the first place. Thus they are telling you SLYLY. Hope this helps! Que tengas un buen día!
@MAR1 Ok, trying to reframe my mood and puzzle experience with some positivity... It did conjure a fond memory of the absolutely massive stack of discs that comprised the Harry Potter BOOK[s] ON CD. Back in my Delta-adjacent days, well before the advent of Audible and Libby, a visually-impaired coworker possessed Books 1-5 on CD (I don't think 6 or 7 were published yet) and was happy to lend them out. The incomparable Jim Dale was my companion throughout many, many, many hours of coding. He is truly a master of narration. If it weren't for audiobooks, I'd never be able to consume as many books as I do, being at a stage in my life when a couple hours of quiet leisure time is hard to come by; but I can "read" while I drive, walk the dog, cook, wash dishes, do the laundry, grocery shop, etc. Also, shout out to public libraries and Libby for providing an inexhaustible catalog of audiobooks, free of charge!! That set of Harry Potter on CD, circa early 2000s, would have cost hundreds of dollars!
@Andrew - I also parsed K_NGRAT as one word, and tried various endings to SHERR_! At one point I even had KyNGRAd because that seemed like a plausible place name 😂 Meanwhile, I do know White Christmas (and the earlier movie in which its eponymous song originally debuted, Holiday Inn) and now have 🎼"...three meals a day, for which we didn't pay...Gee! I wish I was back in the ARMY"🎶 running on loop as I prepare to boot up my UNIX-based (Linux) VM. It's the hap-hap-happiest Wednesday since Bing Crosby tap-danced with Danny ****ing Kaye!!
(ran out of characters!) I must thank Eli, Joel et al, for my milestone experience today. Even better than achieving a no-lookup Friday, it was super fun and engaging the whole way through! P.S. Having actually typed out the word "shan't," looking at it askance, and then spell-checking it... shouldn't it be "sha'n't"?
@Strudel Dad Little did Mr Webster suspect the endless fodder he would provide to future generations of grammar nerds as he macheted his way through the English language. Or maybe he did, the Dictionary Wars were pretty crazy even in his time! Perhaps USonians nixed the "e" in "story" to emphasiZe that we also brought the first level down to the ground. You don't need stairs to get the first story, so why would you need an extra letter in there? I'm always game for good-natured ribbing about our crazy language(s?), but I'm especially grateful to you for teaching me how to spell Canadian "sorry"!!
@William Schrader The PLAYWRIGHT'S WRITE RIGHT RITE?
@Oscar Pansy I got ABE on the first pass through, but then was flummoxed by the second clue for $5 slang - I've never heard of FIN! What's the etymology there? Generational or regional colloquism?
@John Well, that's a bummer. I enjoyed the discussion while it lasted, at least. :( :( :( c'est la vie d'emu?
@Clare Darn! Your father missed the opportunity to teach you that in the hands of the sufficiently desperate or irate handyperson, *every* tool is a hammer! My husband and I discovered, upon combining households, that we each had an identical socket wrench set in an olive green metal case, handed down from our respective grandfathers. We still have both, for sentimental reasons and also because, of the sockets lost, neither of us had lost the same two and together they are a complete set. May your toolbox ever expand in utility!
@MAR1 HA! Of course these comments are parsed as HTML. Maybe sanitize your inputs, guys! & mdash ;
@Al in Pittsburgh Sometimes too much niche knowledge is a bad thing. While tumbleweeds were still blowing through that section of the puzzle, I considered butts and dados (dadoes?) but it wasn't clued as plural... dowel, scarf, Knapp (this one I only know because it is etymologically related to my husband's surname, never made a Knapp join in my life)... MITRE (nope, that's elsewhere)... . . . Do emus have dovetail joints?
@PuzzleDog I was married to "spouse" at 54a for far too long. *groan* That made WAVED*P pretty puzzling. I can't remember how/where I came across it recently (tried googling, halfheartedly), but it was a whole bit about NASA's joke in sending Juno (the probe) to check up on Jupiter, whose moons are named after the lovers and progeny of mythical Jupiter/Zeus's many, many alduterous affairs. The "angry wife" trope was difficult for me to shake today.
Well, friends, YMMV indeed. Today's puzzle was technically easier for me (especially compared to yesterday), with no direct lookups and very few post-facto lookups (I thought the fish was a namesake of the Greek letter, but indeed has a doubled T like the crosses told me). Had some wavelengthy entries with REM and BJÖRK, basically the soundtrack of the 90s for me. Theme was clever. But... meh on the enjoyment level? I'd like to think, as a Python coder, Spencer had something else in mind for Git originally. To me, it is a software configuration management tool, though I am also familiar with other interpretations, as lexicographically detailed in Torvalds's own documentation of the tool: <a href="https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Git#Naming" target="_blank">https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Git#Naming</a> Maybe I'm lackluster because it reminds me I must git back to work tomorrow, and there will no doubt be many git commands involved. Alas. Thanks, nonetheless, Spencer! Ta-ta for now!
@Nancy I love the mental image you have conjured with the idea of asking "GOT A SEC?" to see what the cat is up to... It *is* a little too quiet now that you mention it...
@Jeremy - yep, like a parenthesis. I've seen "PARENs" used "for short" when we're talking about the pair, so I suppose PAREN is the singular shortening. And emoticons, unlike emoji, just use characters - a smiley face emoticon uses just the one parenthesis :)
@HeathieJ I owe you thanks! If it weren't for your comment yesterday, I wouldn't have gotten KASEM so quickly today, or I would undoubtedly have spelled it wrong. @G And I owe you thanks for reminding me of Bread and Jam for Frances, a childhood favorite of mine as well! badger, badger, emu
@Mean Old Lady - it sounds like Charlotte has quite the distinctive coat and lovely fashion sense! And yes, wink wink, I know what you mean - last November we adopted a family of four: momma is black and white (not named OREO) but her (adult) daughters are tortie, dilute calico, and torbie (tortiseshell tabby), so I know her gentleman friend must have been orange, and I know every hue of clothing I wear belies my crazy cat lady status. Hooray for cats who enjoy belly scratches ( at least for a limited time and completely on their terms)!
@Katrina S. Thanks so much! I love it when nerds nerd out about their nerdy specialty! And do so with evident glee! . . . I probably need to feed the emus some olestra
@MP Rogers TIL the group name for NARWHALS is a "blessing." How great is that?! . . . . Emus are just a "mob." They are a blessing and a curse.