Where is the Wednesday puzzle? It hasn’t appeared on my iPod yet.
What is the significance of the clue for 21D being in brackets, if any?
How many of you first interpreted the clue for 38D as "What's the *number* of TV shows shown nowadays?"
Re 21D: I believe they're looking for the reaction to the awfulness rather than the awful substance itself.
Ron. Whenever you see "how many" or "how much" the first impress ion is quantity", but very often, as in 38D, that deliberate misdirection by the constructor..
I got the DV part quite early on, but DEVIOUS took a bit of thought. Not usual that I get a bigger giggle out of the revealer than out of any of the themers themselves.
Didn't know the car. No surprise.
Otherwise pretty smooth sailing, except for the unknown ORONYMS. I love learning new words. Now I have to try to work it into a conversation somehow. (In my circles, we're more likely to be discussion VOTER ID, except we don't call it ID.)
Pleasant Tuesday. Thanks to all.
2
Started NW with ADO (Not yet! Wait your turn for the closing!) so this puzzle was DEVIOUS DE NOVO. My solve then trickled down the diagonal; DODGEV was let incomplete, so it was with DEEP_VOICE and DARTH_VADER that I had my AHA'S. ObVIOUSly, I was supposed to think of DEEP_(IN)VOICE and DARTH_(IN)VADER. Finding DEATH up higher just confirmed that illusion, as I was firmly expecting DEATH_(IN)_VENICE. I was all agog to discover the clever reveal that would wrap up this IN joke, esp since DEMO_(IN)VERSION struck me as unnecessarily opaque. I finally had to admit I was TOYing with some devil's INvention, but agree the puzzle was DEVIOUS (IN)DEED.
Miner revisions with DADBODY and ADOPTEE instead of ___ME. Wanted 'Like nylon stockings' to be RUNNY, but didn't have the L'Eggs for it. DENOVO is close enough to DENOZO (of NCIS) to make me happy.
Would suggest, however, that it bodes ill to have a readable column that says I'LL_BITE; ADOPT_ME
Altogether a delightfully Haightful puzzle
P ESS: Never did figure out what was so special about a DODGE Vindshield VIPER
7
"DENOVO is close enough to DENOZO (of NCIS) to make me happy."
And I guess DENOZO is close enough to DiNozzo for you, Leapy?
Can't be too close to whichever way the scriptwriters decided to spell him, BarryA.
He's ADORBS.
1
Understood.
I miss Ziva.
1
Oronyms? New name for me. Any anyone else grow up going to church singing about a unique teddy bear named GLADLY?
You know, Gladly the cross eyed bear. Or as it is written “Gladly! The Cross I’d Bear”?
I crack myself up!
11
Hi, Babs! Are you near Asheville?
1
Babs, missed that one, but I do remember a song about another lovable figure who one Christmas had a head cold so bad that his friends called him Rudolph the red-nosed drained ear.
1
Of COURSE we all love Gladly the cross-eyed bear, but what about Peter Schickele's "Anyone who has been running knows, running knows, ruuuuuuuuning nose ...." (I think it's in an oratorio)?
2
Wanted an abbreviation of homophone to be the answer for oronym. Subgroup? Pleasant puzzle, beautiful photo.
1
My five favorite clues from last week (a day late, my apologies):
1. Kept on the down low (8)
2. Extremely fancy? (5)
3. Digital communication, for short? (3)
4. Toilet paper? (8)
5. Things held in a cannonball (5)
SIMMERED
COVET
ASL
HALL PASS
KNEES
7
Pretty straightforward Tuesday. Picked up on the DV thing after entering DEATHVALLEY and DARTHVADER (whose DEEPVOICE was provided by James Earl Jones). At first, I was fishing in a POND before off a PIER (I don't fish much). Final square was that pesky 'O' but ORONYMS sounded more likely.
By the end of the 1980s, synthpop pioneer Gary Numan was layering on all kinds of studio bells and whistles to his records, in an attempt to revive his flagging sales. Witness 1989's "DEVIOUS" as an example:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=caGgWzhy6Mc
1
I guess Devo was too obvious.
2
Tastes like butter but it's not!
3
Totally caught on that I was looking for DV phrases on the first pass, and the got totally stuck on the bottom right with the "revealer". I scream for ice cream as a reward...
1
On the subject of ORONYMS--
LONDONDERRY AIR.
11
Stephen King did a play on that in at least one of his many novels set in Derry, Maine. ('smell the Derry air' IIRC).
That reminded me of another. Someone mentioned a certain town in coastal Virgina the other day. There was supposedly a popular cheer at either a high school or college located in that town:
We don't drink and we don't smoke.
Norfolk! Norfolk!
5
You mean this song? By Elsa Lanchester. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=d5G0eRlpCYg
2
RiA, you do realize that Norfolk and smoke don't rhyme? (I just caught some of the Don Rickles/Jerry Lewis roast that RM Panoff linked; practically everyone on the dais was smoking...)
The 'Londonderry air' was also a Laszlo special; sometimes it was a 'Dairy air'.
Went to Death Valley a couple of years ago. Got rained on. I DEriVed the theme after finishing the puzzle, which is always a bit of a disappointment.
1
I see that WEN (and possibly others) preceded me in referring to the first-cousinship of ADORBS and WHATEVS. And while I had a little trouble deciding between DENOVO and DENOVA, my perplexity was eased by recalling that DENOVO not only sounded slightly more familiar, but DENOVA sounded too starry eyed for my tastes. But what I really came here to talk about was 15A, which didn't seem to bother anyone else. While 15A and AXIOMs are both truisms, I truly believe that axioms are those things that are postulated as true, whether logical or not. I couldn't find any reference that cited AXIOM and SYLLOGISM as being synonymous. Thus I state my case, even though I'm not all that sure that I am right.
1
A pretty quick solve today. I am happy to learn about ORONYMS and will be thinking of them all day, I'm sure. In the end, an upsetting finish with NRA, the day after a virtual visit to the Port Arthur Historic Site in Tasmania, the site of the mass shooting that made Australians see the light about gun violence. You can go, too, here.
http://escapevelocity.mobi/2018/01/31/house-of-horrors/
4
GOTHIC of course! ORONYMS? Always knew there had to be a name for that kind of word combo. Now I know it -- for the moment at least. Good way to start the day.
4
Two ups in one day. Had onhd vs. INHD. But, I do not have a TV, sniggered dk smuggly.
Greetings from Palm Desert where my PALs and I long for DADBODS. We have what may be known as Jabba Bods. Our pact is to have them gone before our next reunion and we are a tenacious lot.
Fine Tuesday. Thank you Bruce
2
Smooth solve. I didn't know ORONYM, but assumed it would end in ONYM so avoided that issue. Only place I got hung up was the NE. I knew CLEMSON but it wasn't coming to mind. That and some possibly ambiguous answers had me stuck for a little bit until the college finally emerged from the recesses of my brain.
Five theme answers plus a reveal. I went through a few months worth of themed puzzles at one time and when there are 5 theme answers, the arrangement is almost always rows 3, 5, 8, 11, and 13. This one is 3, 6, 8, etc. which adds sort of a triple theme answer overlap in the middle. Then lets toss in those 4 stacks of 7's along the sides. This looks like it must have been quite a challenge to fill. I thought Bruce did a pretty good job of it.
3
Bruce Haight never disappoints. CALLA lilies always brings to mind Kate Hepburn in the movie VERSION of Stage Door. I was a little surprised to see two UPs -- SAVED UP and USED UP. I was reluctant to go with DOSE because I thought the Rx in the clue required some informality in the ANS, but perhaps DOSE is informal for DOSage.
Based on the theme, I give this puzzle a 505 rating. (Get it?)
4
I'm from Greenville, SC, and enjoyed seeing CLEMSON (our major university), DEATH VALLEY (Clemson's stadium) and BMW (a major manufacturer locally) in the same part of the grid. Nice reminder of home in cold NYC!
6
Easy breezy Tuesday with a theme that immediately brought to mind the band that launched Mark Mothersbaugh's impressive career:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=j_QLzthSkfM
1
Another ADORBS puzzle from Dr Haight. Totally RAD.
Misdirected briefly with GOTHIC in the cathedral department and further confused by NOCIGAR.
3
Good morning, Deb,
I certainly would *not* have taken the 18A clue "Low point for Americans" at face value in 1975. Watergate indictments, Ruby Ridge, Weather Underground bombings, 9% unemployment, two Presidential assassination attempts, Jimmy Hoffa goes missing, Patty Hearst gets found, the fall of Saigon and the wreck of the Edmund Fitzgerald? Not a great year.
9
Don't worry, Barry. This year is working hard to catch up.
(And don't forget 1968.)
1
I was so positive that Duke was an Ivy League school that I left it there past the point where it was painfully obvious that it wasn't. (Anybody out there from Durham?)
I've often been bleary-eyed. Never knew it was caused by BLEAR.
So is an imitation Oreo cookie an OREONYM?
Enjoyable Tuesday. SORTA.
4
Heh heh, Andrew!
When I was a child one of my aunts referred to Duke as an Ivy League school. Eventually I realized it wasn't, but she insisted that it was as least as good as. And it looked like one. And it was a private college. So there.
2
Duke was built as an Ivy wannabe. The buildings were built to look old, and they even carved coats of arms of various old colleges -- Ivy and English -- to give the appearance of antiquity.
1
I thought there might have been a couple of you out there. (hehe).
Back in my student days, I attended a music "camp" in Maine and met a fellow student there from Duke University. Towards the end of camp her boyfriend came to visit, and to this day I have never seen a taller person in my life! That is when I learned about US college basketball culture and Duke's place therein! And I'm still sure she told me it was an Ivy League school...
Very nice touch that Clemson intersects with Death Valley (the nickname of the football stadium)
9
Also basketball arena?
Catpet, basketball area at Clemson is LittleJohn Coliseum
ugh. sat for 11 minutes scanning the puzzle for why i didnt get the happy music. stuck with two works I didnt know "oraAnyms" and "denovA". I finally had to come here and look for the answer. even then it wasnt obvious. so, i got my stupid gold star.
1
I had the same thing - A instead of O. I didn't spend that much time on it though - when scanning through all of the entries, I looked at that crossing and thought, yeah, I don't know the word ORANYM, so it could be a different letter and entering the O completed the puzzle. I'd never heard of DE NOVO personally, but it sorta made sense and that it could be O or A.
Same issue as well, but as it was the last square I completed, it was a quick find.
Same here -- the O at the crossing of ORONYMS and DENOVO. I simply guessed that it might be an O and got my gold star.
What is the significance of the clue for 21D being in brackets, if any?
How many of you first interpreted the clue for 38D as "What's the *number* of TV shows shown nowadays?"
Blear?
2
-y eyed.
As in, "My sleep-bleared eyes were cleared by the morning coffee".
No? Yeah, I never heard of it either. But if there is bleary, there must have been a BLEAR to begin with?
4
The important bit in Wen's post is - to begin with. Blear came before bleary. Bleary survives (minimally) while blear is now mostly gone. Not the only example of this phenomenon, where a side-formation has longer legs than the original word.
Hoary is much more useful and widely used than hoar, to cite a closely-related example.
David, your post motivated me to find out if dreary had a similar story. Here it would seem that the word drear, (not that I have ever heard that word used!) came about in the reverse fashion. It was a poetic shortening of dreary. Of course the original dreary was the real survivor in that case.
1
An attractive, Tuesday level puzzle with an insufficiently devious, Monday-ish theme.
It was sad to be reminded of the OSLO accords. I HOPE[d] SO much that they would be properly implemented, but they turned out to be an unmarketable DEMO VERSION.
12
Amitai - me too.
4
This went very well and I quite enjoyed the solve. Grokked it out in reasonable time without any lookups. Nice clues and fills overall.
Also it is great to get obscure (well, at least to me) references to old movies/stars/teams/songs from the crosses! This puzzle to be sure, didn’t have many such, and gave me a fair chance to crack it, and I’m happy...
6
Hello and welcome! Someday I would like to visit Chennai.
5
An easy solve, that introduced me to 'ORONYMS' (I looked it up afterwards) and the slang ADORBS and DOPE (can somebody please explain that one?).
I don't see any posts yet in ANS to your question yet, David, so I will step UP, but I expect answers have been submitted but not yet posted. DOPE is (although I don't know if it still is) just a slang term for terrific used by a younger generation than mine.
1
DOPE explication! (Literally, literally.)
4
Thanks. I have never heard dope used that way. Kinda DOPEy, if you ask me...
3
An easy solve that introduced me to 'ORONYMS' (I looked it up afterwards) and the slang 'ADORBS' (ugh!) and 'DOPE' (can someone please explain that one to me?).
43A---the mount is ETNA, but isn't the insurance company is AETNA?
3
In Italian the mountain is Etna, but the old Latin name for both the mountain and the insurance company is Aetna.
David,
What's the British schoolboy (New) Latin spelling?
In case you weren't sure, we agree completely about the unfortunate mangling of Caesar's pronunciation. Or what we believe Caesar's pronunciation was.
BTW, Davidia is one of my all-time favorite trees. The appearance of one in bloom -- of being draped with handkerchiefs -- always makes me smile. It's like it TPs itself.
Another oronym?
4
and Elke
Sorta busy, but want to contribute to the Daily Verbiage from Delightful Vancouver (hometown of Seth Rogen of Dadbod flowchart).
Am wondering whether DADBODS, in order to be able to BRAG, DINE on a Voluptuous DOSE of Daily Viagra.......
Back to other chores. Found only one 'aight'- in ORNATE .
ADORBS puzzle.
4
A "DAD BOD" is schlumpy? I can't imagine the uproar you'd have with a similar clue for "MOM BODS".
7
DADBOD refers to a particular male body type. It doesn't mean or imply that it applies to all men with children.
MOMBOD isn't in the language, but we do have MOMJEANS, which refers to a particular (unfashionable) style of jeans. Again, it doesn't mean all women with children wear them (few do, in my experience), but that is what they are called. I would say the female body equivalent of DADBOD is "matronly", as in "She had a matronly figure". I personally wouldn't have any problem with it being clued that way.
2
The women's *rough* equivalent is MOM JEANS, in my opinion. But if you say MOM BODS, yes, it tends to become...sexual.
My understanding is that "dad bods" implies smexy. Without it, it just means "pudgy." The idea isn't just that the guys are slightly overweight and look like they might be (or are) the dad of a couple of kids...but that they wear it well and it comes off as attractive in a non-magazine-cover way.
"Matronly" doesn't do that for women; nor would "mom bods." There is a readily available slang term for attractive women who might be somebody's mom, and I think you all know it, whether you want to or not...
1
My day was going pretty good until I had to enter ADORBS. The feeling was that of fingernails on a chalk board. Some words are inherently irritating that way. So sorry to see it enter the vocabulary of crosswordese. I’ll get used to it but I’ll never like it.
Other than that, a solidly entertaining Tuesday puzzle.
13
Totes entertaining. *runs*
12
I hope you were not on vaca when you had to enter ADORBS.
5
Brill! (Not the Building.)
4
I believe, Deb, there's a typo in the clue for 46D. It should be "ice cream" (not ice scream).
Another relatively quick solve with a few wrong choices at first. Had no idea about an American car name (though, come to think of it, BMW was a gimme). Had gothic before ORNATE, and rebbe for 4A and logic for 15A.
7
Yep, noticed that typo, too! Please fix! Love that Dad Bod and Adorbs are answers.
It's that way in the paper, too, if the "newspaper version" PDF can be trusted. But no matter, "ICE SCREAM" works just as well as "ICE CREAM."
1
Thanks for that, eljay! I'll let the editors know.
1
I like the fact that there are so many phrases in this one that somebody with a DAD BOD would say, like NO CAN DO, I'LL BITE, and SAY WHEN. It's SORTA RAD, dare I say pretty DOPE, to see a handful of slightly (or not so slightly) out-of-date slang words. This puzzle was really ADORBS today. (Gotta say, I've never actually heard that last one, though.)
3
You haven't been reading Wordplay comments enough - there were 2-3 rounds of ADORBS in the last year or so.
And you'll see that Deb used in her response to Mike R. the soul mate of ADORBS - TOTES (no, not the NPR/PBS giveaway), as in, "that was TOTES ADORBS."
No one really talks like that? Yeah, but I know people who do (well, at least one person). WHATEVS!
Yeah, I'm totes new to Wordplay. Only been hanging around here since Thanksgiving or so.
4
I've never heard a real person actually say "ADORBS," but perhaps that's because they were all stuffing their faces with OREOs.
3
"62D: I’m still not comfortable making jokes about the N.R.A. like “Org. that sticks to its guns.” Your mileage may vary, of course."
Last Wednesday's clue for IDI was "Mean Amin." That clue, or one nearly identical, has appeared over a dozen times in Shortz era puzzles. One time, it was "He was Amin guy."
According to the Idi Amin Wikipedia page, the dictator may have been responsible for the deaths of anywhere from 80,000 to up to 500,000 people.
There have been 534 occurrences of NRA in the puzzle; 215 during the Shortz era. Some have been clued punnily; most have been straightforward.
The NRA is a legal group whose agenda I heartily disagree with. I hope the NRA falls into oblivion one day soon due to lack of interest, because their political power to stonewall common sense gun control laws is probably doing great harm to this nation. But that's just my opinion; as they say, your mileage may vary.
I doubt that NRA members actually cause much of the gun violence that we have suffered lately, but they may bear some responsibility. However, they are a legal organization, and they have, sorry to say, the right to exist. What's more, they probably are not at anywhere near the Mean Amin level of human devastation.
Why no quibble with a mean Amin, but the NRA is a problem? Not defending the NRA, but I like the pun; the NRA does stick to its guns literally and figuratively.
14
No quibble with a mean Amin simply because I forgot to include it.
2
Steve L - your comment struck a chord with me. Crosswords are a diversion, a happy place. Let’s leave politics out if it.
4
There have been 1,446 gun related deaths in the USA so far this year, so I find a humorous reference to the NRA does not belong in a crossword puzzle. I also found the jokey reference to Amin unpleasant and said so. I'm not saying avoid all unpleasant fills, just don't clue them in a cute way.
7
loved Howard's End. Jemma Redgrave played EVIE. Great cast: wonderful Emma Thompson as Margaret who marries Henry Wilcox memorably played by Anthony Hopkins. Best of all was Helena Bonham Carter who meets her nemesis Leonard Bast at a Beethoven lecture while thinking about the goblins and the trio of elephants!
4
A fine puzzle, with no obscure (to an Old Guy) pop culture references or neo-slang clues to look up. As for Bruce's last sentence: DENOVO is fairly common in legal and technical writing, and ORONYMS was easily solved from the crosses. No need to regret either entry.
1
I struggled with ORONYM and DENOVO crossing so it was interesting to see that Will called that as a tipping point to Tuesday-ness.
Good fun and a clever theme!
3
You may have been first to type, Tom, not first to be posted. :) With the comments messed up who knows the direct correlation between "submit" and "show up."!
ADORBS only because there was a whine fest here (I admit I was part of it) in WordPlay recently.
4
Nice Tuesday. Fun with a thin crust to give it a little crunch. Could really do without ADORBS.
6
ADORBS would lose all of its super ficial cutesy if it ADsORBS another ESS.
2
I’m first!
Nice puzzle.
I’m going to start working on a puzzle with the letters reversed! Chlamydia anyone?
2
Provocative idea, Tom. But I would aVoiD it.
1
In one way Valentine's Day would be an appropriate date (or entry) for that puzzle. In another way, not so much...
3
Really enjoyed the puzzle, but can't we at least wait for Memorial Day before the DAD BODS come out?
1
As a lifelong student of place names, I think of "oronyms" according to the antique meaning of the word, names of mountains. The new coinage was not something I recognized, though the phenomenon is certainly a feature of language as it is spoken and heard.
As a lifelong pollworker (paid and volunteer), I can't say anything about "voter ID" except, sigh. Two steps forward, two steps back.
8
I thought the combining form for "mountain" was famously OREO. It was the only way the word was used (and was indeed used frequently) before Shortz made brand names legal.
Except for one time, when Maleska allowed this clue: Mountainous cookie?
Oreo- is an exceptional variant form for a "mountain-" prefix. The normal form is "oro-"
orogeny
orogenic
orogenesis
orology
oronym(y)
The only reason that "oreo-" appeared in Saint Margaret's and the Maleskan crosswords was that they refused to admit that real people eat oreo cookies all the time and have done so for over a century, whether crossword solvers like it or not. It was never a proper prefix for "mountain."
As the Spanish prospector said (or should have), "There's ORO in them there hills."
2