Charles Peterson

@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.]

@J *eyeroll*

Love this guy schooling the NY Times on what is and what isn't a crossword [puzzle].

@Will The parts of a sled that slide on the snow = runners.

@Darren wrong It was intentional. For the theme you loved in all caps. Not lazy slop at all.

@Times Rita "Mommy, when I grow up, I want to be an Objectivist." "Well, you'll have to choose one or the other."

@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...

@D you are mistaken It was not a failure. It was intentional.

I find the 'constructor vanity' canard puzzling. Don't we want constructors to be clever? Can one really be 'too clever', or does that just mean 'cleverer than me'?

@Weak It worked both ways.

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'.

@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.

@John k. Grammys "Record of the year" Always has been a single.

@Asher B. Yes, you are a fuddy-duddy. Avoid Thursdays, is my advice.

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.

@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.

@Xword Junkie I'd say wrong on both counts. 1) Means, standard errors, T values, correlation coefficients, etc. were all informally called 'stats' during my scientific career. 'Stat' is simoly short for 'statistic' in any context. 2) Mammals are indeed said to 'molt' their fur if, like seals or ermine, they change coats completely on a seasonal or annual schedule.

@Hanson Try Moby Dick War and Peace Gravity's Rainbow etc. Detailed, long...and art

@Paul OK. Thanks for sharing.

'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!