Love "Split Decisions"...Also, wish a 3-D puzzle would appear soon. Please!
I came here to find out if NITER/NEWER was really correct. I've never heard of NITER, looked it up after I finished the puzzle. It is a word, but seems too rare to me. SCHWAS was tough too, but I have actually heard of that.
Sometimes the simplest are the toughest. I spent almost the same amount of time on ZERO/ZEST as on the rest of the puzzle. For the life of me, I could not conjure a word ending in "RO".
Split Decisions is great fun and I look forward to them with much anticipation.
2
THANK YOU - I could *not* find that. Kept stopping before z...last one to finish, too.
My toughest get was _ IT/EW _ _ _. But when it happened, it opened the rest of the northwest.
Spoiler, a bit:
The MULLAH/MULISH crossing with SCHWAS/SCHUSS was truly devious, and masterful. And note the timely crossing, of FEDERAL and DEFICIT!
3
Viv, I was stuck in the NW corner and drawing a complete blank after trying what seemed to be everything, so came to the blog hoping for a clue to just one of my three missing words and there it was in your reply, SPOKEN/SPLEEN. I somehow never thought of starting with 2 consonants. The next two followed quickly. I also thought THEIRS/THESIS was quite clever; it took me quite a while. In general I solved the right side of the puzzle much faster that the left. This was a particularly good one as has been noted by most everyone. Well done, Fred.
1
I thought the MULLAH/MULISH - SCHWAS/SCHUSS crossing was masterful.
Had a hard time with NITER/NEWER, but once I had that it enabled the whole northwest.
Anybody notice the FEDERAL and DEFICIT crossing? How timely!
I am a huge fan of Split Decisions and have worried recently that the quality had not kept up - perhaps all the good words have been used up, I thought.
What a pleasure to encounter this one, the best in years. Fully four word pairs earned my "exclamation point" in the margin. I've never had more than two of those on a puzzle before, including all of George's.
Bravo and many thanks to Fred. You put some real spin on this wonderful puzzle.
3
Throwing in a smattering of Latin in SPLIT DECISIONS was crafty.
This is my only my second try at split decisions, both successful. I didn't realize how much fun they could be.
My favorite pair in this one is SCHWAS/SCHUSS. There was a long discussion of SCHWAS on Wordplay very recently.
1
Amitai, I haven't completely finished so have only read your comment. I'm glad to see that schwas and schuss are correct though, as I'm having trouble in that section. I'm going out shortly so won't get to until tomorrow probably, but only a couple more to get.
suejean, I thought of you while solving Split Decisions - I remember how much you like them. I found this one very hard at first, but, as usual, after cracking a few, they started to flow. A most enjoyable romp. My favorites are the pairs that are most unlike, different parts of speech, different contexts. Like THESIS and THEIRS, or SPOKEN and SPLEEN. My first entry was ZEST/ZERO. Last: INGEST/ICIEST.
Amitai, I'm glad you're getting into these. I knew you'd be good at them.
Viv. Puzzles with no proper nouns! How can I not love them. I'm only sorry that got to them too late.
Whirlpool is always one of my favorite “middle” puzzles.
[MAJOR SPOILER ALERT]
My gimmes were DESILU, CELINE, WON’T and SILENT.
I had to search for BEATITUDES because I originally expected the top line to be GET LOST, and then realized that it was seven letters. I was left with the feeling that probably I was the only person who had to search for BEATITUDES.
I also searched for BASIL.
Knowing nothing about the game of Clue, I got ROPE only from the crossings.