Charles Peterson
Twentynine Palms CA
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Twentynine Palms CA
Once I changed SOUPCAN to MARILYN things clarified.
I've read these comments and I find myself amazed and appalled at the number of folks that didn't get or--worse-- can't take a joke. Lighten up, is my advice.
@Scott Their lived experience (ugh) is fact. If one has never heard STU or TRE used (*raises hand*), then...one hasn't. The problem comes in egotistically assuming that one's experience is all- encompassing. [I learned a lesson in my very first comment in this forum, in which I questioned a phrase that (I learned) was common among hip-hop types. Lesson learned: Google before ridiculing or complaining.]
So many hated this one that I felt I had to chime in on Team Liked-It. It took me an hour and a half, much of that time spent thoroughly and pleasantly puzzled. It was mentally stimulating. I made errors and incorrect assumptions, eventually found them, corrected them, figured out the trick (thanks to SHelFP), and solved the puzzle with a gold star and no lookups, even though I don't know actresses or sushi. In short a real Puzzle! Kind of the whole point, I thought.
"Maybe you're a zoological Sherlock Holmes" Why, yes. Yes I am. Taught vertebrate zoology for years, and knew all the themers instantly. I also knew the color of coot eyes the other day and POTOROO whenever that was. Yep. Smells pretty bad in my wheelhouse, but occasionally it pays off with a Sunday PB. (I know you Spelling Beeists knew ACACIA...)
@Will The parts of a sled that slide on the snow = runners.
That bottom third made this the hardest puzzle--for me-- since I started solving around Xmas. Streak-breaker with three lookups AND an autocheck to correct 3 bad squares. Not complaining.
I find it odd how some folks seem to think the NYT Crossword Puzzle needs to reflect their personal opinions. FAKENEWS is an all-too-common contemporary phrase for, yes, media misinformation. It doesn't matter if most accusations of such are accurate or not, nor from where on the political spectrum such accusations originate. The term's fair game and the clue is fine. ART, like many words, is polysemous. It means Da Vinci and Warhol and my daughter's preschool crayon scrawlings and advertising layouts (and even The Deal). What do these A.I. programs produce, then, 'graphics'? (Yes, I know 'slop'.) OK, it's not 'Fine Art', but it's a kind of art, in a way. Clue is fine. Lighten up, is my personal opinion.
@Andrzej I enrolled in cheerleader school and showed up for my first class, Rah 101, but the prof started talking about Sis-boom-bah. I asked if this wasn't Rah 101 and was informed that no, that's a course of a different holler. I guess that's a pretty American joke.
If only there were a word crossing it that could help one decide...
I mean, sure. Define 'desert' as a place with low rainfall--and of course I admit that that is the definition--and Antarctica gets included But if I say 'picture a desert', nobody, not even you definition-pedants, imagines Antarctica. Nobody. Live here in the Mojave long enough and you'll get snowed on, but move away and what you'll remember is 120F in August. The clue is fine.
@Nancy When the work's all done and the sun's settlin' low I pull out the fiddle and I rosin up the bow The kids are asleep so I keep it kinda low Thank God I'm a country boy.
@Matthew I'd help you out, but I'm over here dying on this other hill of 'synch', not 'sync'.
I've read the comments and--oh, fine puzzle but more Wednesdayish to me, and faster than yesterday's actual Wednesday--nobody's flagged all of the plural beverages? WINES (which is fine) DEWS (some y-g sodas? eh) PEPSIS (come on: Pepsi is just one cola in the cola wars STOLIS ( ugh) RYES (clued as bread, but still) Constructor may be a SOT.
@Nick What a--surprising comment. You've also noticed all the French and Spanish lingo? The NYETs and the HERRs and the OROs? Perhaps you can take solace in all those Midi grid swastikas.
Seems most would disagree about the putative 'uptick'. Friday PB for me, e.g.
@Francis And all of these properties (plus others, like surface tension) are due to the transient hydrogen bonding made possible by the dipole. Amazing stuff, water.
@Don H It is, after all, in the top ennead of public unis.
@Jennene It's a mole. Play-by-play announcers say it. "McCutcheon skies one to deep left field..."
@Steve L It was wrong. A 'ho' is not seeking pleasure; rather, money. An immoral pleasure seeker in that context would be the 'john'.
@Jessica It's been covered. You are incorrect.
Does anybody else read the existing comments before weighing in? It's tiresome to see the same points being made--and answered--again and again and again. Do better people! But not on my lawn!
@Bill Thanks! TIL the inspiration for the name of one of my favorite beers, Bell's Two-Hearted Ale (brewed in...Michigan)! Did not know that Hemingway story. Delicious beer.
@Milo "Showing off". I don't understand why complainers go there.
'kipedia: "Onomatopoeia is a type of word, or the process of creating a word, that phonetically imitates, resembles, or suggests a sound that it refers to." WORDs. I suppose you mean KAPOW? Perfectly cromulent for anyone who used to watch Batman.
Which part? 'Left-wing'? Given that fascism is the extreme on the right, seems apt. 'Protest'? Sez 'anti' right there, seems apt. 'Group'?? I mean, it exists, as more than one person. OK, it's not organized as a unitary entity...but come on. That clue is Politically Correct, literally.
@Gareth Baird It is a thing. You're on the internet...you could look it up.
@Ms. Billie M. Spaight I doubt Axl is much of a guitariat.
We call them 'valves', not 'keys'. Traditional bugles have no valves, but these days marching drum & bugle corps wield bugles with one or two valves. Bugles, flugelhorns, and cornets (and french horns, euphonia, etc.) are derived from hunting and pistal hirns of olde, and are characterized by conical tubing that increases in bore diameter throughout. Trumpets are derived from straight herald trumpets of yore and have constant-bore cylindrical tubing until the bell flare. Modern cornets and trumpets converged on identical three-valve designs in the late 1800s, around the same time Adolph Sax invented his family of saxhorns (including the model for today's flugelhorns). They also differ in how the tubing is 'wrapped', with lots of variation among cornets. All this, plus mouthpiece design, can affect the sound produced. I play a 1950 cornet and double on flugelhorn in jazz bands, and still use my trumpet for reggae and R&B horn section work. I mostly practice on a cute little double-wrapped 'pocket trumpet'.
@Bruce Sorry for your loss. I'll bet Socks was a joy to you.
@Craig Which there was.
@Flamingo G.I. Joe made the drop many times!
@Add At a football game, the large-scale halftime entertainment is usually called a 'marching band', it's true. But at basketball games there's a smaller and less mobile ensemble that is indeed called a'pep band'.
@Jen What, are you a FINEMIST?
@heironymous Both Bilbo and Frodo were BAGGINS, my first shot.
Fun. As an ex-scientist I got a kick out of finding T-test. Now I need to construct a puzzle just to sneak in ANCOVA.
Let me find my pearls. So I can clutch 'em.
@Francis Better than Sondheim, you mean.
@Nancy "Doesn't every film try to appeal to the Oscar voters?" Huh? No! Of course not! The vast majority of films try to appeal only to numerous ticket-buyers. 'Oscar bait' refers (I think) to self- consciously Serious Drama, often replete with period costumes and/or Serious Actors portraying the Differently Abled. It's a specific genre.
Agreed: SONOROUS is woody. Not at all tinny.
@Cheyenne For game animals the 'sportsman's plural' has become conventional. One elk, two elk. One trout, two trout. One quail, two quail. But nobody says "I saw three sparrow" or "a pair of mole". I would venture that conventional use of the sportsman's plural does not make it 'wrong' to apply the usual pluralizing rules ('elks'). Just uncommon.
@Cliff Shaw Bar bets "outdated"? Ever been in a bar?
Good-hard. I haven't gotten a haircut in >35 years, so I thought maybe BARBErS typically perch on stools??? The not-famous jazz drummer is discussed elsewhere. Not complaining.
Fun puzzle, quck Sunday ( a few seconds above my Sunday PB, thanks to flyspecking UnLIT, amd I know my birds! grr). A nit I will pick, however: 21A. I don't really mind the clue (although you'll never hear the movie commando say "align watches!"). It's the 'word' itself that has bugged me for years. The 'ch' in 'synchronize' is not really 2 letters, it's the latinization of the Greek letter Chi (X). Therefore the short form should be 'synch'. I will die on this hill. Thank you for your attention to this matter.
What did the snail riding on the shell of a turtle say? "Wheeeeee!"
@Tim In Southern California, churros are very Mexican. Very. It was only TIL that they originated in Iberia.
@Bill My baloney has a first name. It's Oscar.
@Susan Hoffman Yes, that's cool! STEEPLES and GABLED also juxtaposed.
@Tobias Deggans Yeah, that section of the column would generally be better titled 'Clues I feel like mentioning'.
@Calig G**gle sez: GMO vs. GEO While often used interchangeably in popular media, scientific and regulatory bodies differentiate them:GMO (Genetically Modified Organism): A broad term that can describe any organism whose genes have been altered, including via traditional selective breeding or modern genetic engineering.GEO (Genetically Engineered Organism): A more specific term reserved for organisms modified using modern molecular biology techniques, such as recombinant DNA (transgenics) or gene-editing tools like CRISPR. A nit not worth picking imo.