Got a good start on the words, which was fortunate for me as there were a number of very interesting words in the quote that would not readily come to my mind. Was amused to see KREBS; I have fond memories of watching Dobie (with a B) Gillis with my brother when we were kids. Also had TRANSEPT, GELATO, EM FORSTER, IMPROV, and NUMBERS; a guess at ...DESK. Looked up a couple, THRIFTY, NATIVE SON, and saw, but couldn’t remember the Sayles film title. Not an easy quote, but was fun to put this together. Enjoyed PEEKABOO.
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Another acrostic triumph. Just enough crunch.
I've never seen the TV show that had Maynard G. KREBS, and now can't remember its name, but the character's name came up somewhere -- the XWP part of Wordplay? -- just a few days ago, so it became a gimme.
Few others though: E.M. FORSTER, NATIVE SON, IMPROV. Had thoughts, some correct and others not, about other Words, but getting started was slow today.
Until, that is, the MAVENS in the middle revealed itself (after I got rid of HAVEN'T). Then it was MAVEN SHMAVEN and the door to the quote was unlocked.
Ashamed it took me so long to remember IZVESTIA.
Thanks, as usual, for a really enjoyable acrostic.
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The show was called "Dobie Gillis". I remember watching it as a child.
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‘the many loves of dobie gillis’ by max shulman is a very funny collection of short stories from a much more innocent era, and which served as the basis for the popular tv series of the same name. the parents were played by a pair of skilled character actors named florida friebus and frank faylen, while newcomers like warren beatty, tuesday weld, and sheila kuehl (zelda!) rounded out the cast. maynard g. krebs (bob denver) had a considerable influence on many young people caught in the transitions from conventional straight arrows to beatniks to folkies to hippies.
this was the second acrostic in a row that fell fairly quickly, a strange and enjoyable experience for me, but appreciated even more for bringing up some warm memories.
I think I set my all-time speed solving record for this one, with 12 Gimmes (PEEKABOO, INTERVAL, KREBS, EVOLVE, TRANSEPT, NUMBERS, ARCADIA, E.M. FORSTER, IZVESTIA, NATIVE SON, CHRONICLE, AND TAOISM to get me going. Had "Pinker" and "The Language Instinct" fairly soon and the whole thing zipped along from there. Only error was NEWS ROOM for NEWS DESK - and even from the start, I suspected it was wrong because NEWS ROOM is really one word. Fun quotation as the pay-off.
An amusing acrostic, not easy but fun to solve.
Although I had more gimmes than usual and caught on to the Yiddishisms early, the unusual citation with all the lacunae made the sentence structure hard to figure out.
Gimmes: NEWS DESK, TRANSEPT, EMBARK, NUMBERS, ARCADIA, GELATO, E M FORSTER iZVESTIA.
Near gimmes: NUMBERS, THRIFTY, NATIVE SON, TAOISM.
Bad guesses: NOMINEE before HOPEFUL, DESPAIR before ANGUISH, SNAFU before GAFFE.
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I had a bunch of gimmes--KREBS, TRANSEPT, EMBARK, ARCADIA, GELATO, EM FORSTER, IZVESTIA, and NATIVE SON--but felt like I should also have had some of the others. I looked up LONE STAR and THRIFTY when I wasn't able to make much out of what I had. And even with that, it took me a while. I thought KIBBITZERS only had one B--and autocorrect just changed it to one B--so I was stumped at what else that word could be.
NUMBERS, SEASIDE, EVOLVE, TAOISM, NAMELESS--all such simple answers, and none of them came to mind, either immediately or after some pondering. But I liked the quote!
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Not bad. No lookups. Six gimmes: NEWS DESK, KREBS, TRANSEPT, E M FORSTER, IZVESTIA and CHRONICLE. I thought the correct spelling is KIBITZERS, which delayed the solution. SHMAVEN was nasty.
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Is the online version of the Acrostic NOT working for anyone else but me? Starting to feel like MAYNARD G. KREBS...
It worked for me when I did it, but that was Thursday evening.
I held off on filling in "numbers" for "Mathematician's fascination" until I was forced to enter the letters in order to complete the puzzle.
Folks, you might want to meet some mathematicians! The field is so, so much wider than numbers.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ubpRcZNJAnE
It's the other horn on the beast I meet when people say, "I don't do Sudoku because I'm bad at math."
Loved the Pinker quote, he knows what he is talking about.
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I also held off entering NUMBERS, David, but after repeatedly eying it, and getting the U, I relented. Fascinating things in mathematics are too numerous to count!
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At least the clue for NUMBERS didn't have anything to do with anesthesia.
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Ha! I knew the quotation solution sounded familiar as I was solving. I used a different quotation from the same book, THE LANGUAGE INSTINCT, for puzzle #27, "Let's Talk," in my May 2017 acrostic book, CynAcrostics Volume 3: You Don't Say?
The book was so fascinating that instead of scanning it for quotations, like I sometimes do, I ended up reading the entire thing. Hence, I have a pretty clear memory of the quotation, and as soon as I saw MAVEN SHMAVEN pop up in the grid, I knew where it was going.
As for the puzzle itself -- this one might've been tough, but thank goodness I knew all the literary and film clues, plus there were a few gimmes up front that gave me a good toehold. I can't judge the difficulty of the rest of the clues, because once I knew where the quotation was going it was smooth sailing from there.
Loved the clue for RED LIGHT, and also thought the clues for HOPEFUL and THRIFTY were excellent. I had to pause a bit and think before any of them came to me, and isn't that the best part of an acrostic puzzle? I love both the big and little "aha" moments. :)
Thanks for another great puzzle, EC and HR.
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Great minds, Cyn.
And I'm thinking I should read the book.
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Miss Thistlebottom is rolling over in her grave.
Et in Arcadia Ego.
Otherwise, fun Acrostic.
got quite a few gimmes: KREBS E M FORSTER GELATO NEWS DESK IZVESTIA. should have had more like PEEKABOO TAOISM and ACADIA. got a breakthrough with THEMSELVES and KIBBITZER. It still took a half-hour to reach the end!
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I seldom decide that a puzzle was just too easy to be challenging, but that is what I have to say about “Loose Ends”.
However, #9 made me laugh out loud, and #10 made me laugh a little with the image it conjured up.
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some were too easy I agree like SEVENTH and EVENT and URBAN and BURBANK. Others made me think longer especially when I made a bad guess to start. I thought one answer would be ECHO and stayed with it far too long. eventually I zeroed in on ACRONYM and then quickly saw CRONY! Others like ATTIC and LATTICE took a little thought.
So if language is a matter of consensus, will we devolve into a culture of textspeak? I still rankle at the misuse of "begs the question" as if it means "raises the question." But that's become so widespread that, doubtless, it is considered accepted practice by now. Next will be "just between you and I."
Clearly we have to have some order and consistency to language, or else we cease to communicate. Popular consensus is one thing, but it should proceed from a knowledge of current practice, and then adapt to changing needs. Change through mass ignorance seems wasteful and corrupting. Learn from the mavens, keep what works, and change what doesn't. Anyway, that's the humble opinion of this screwball nudnik kibbitzer, which is to say in the standard language to come, IMHO.
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I also have always felt that "begs the question" was a strange way of saying "avoids the main point here".
And yes, it seems that it is evolving into being used more and more in the more logical sense that you stated.
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Begging the question isn't about avoidance. It's a form of logical error, a circular kind of reasoning which assumes the truth of a proposition or question during the course of trying to prove that same proposition or question, thus invalidating the proof.
Question: Does God exist?
Statement 1: Trees exit.
Statement 2: Only God can make a tree.
Therefore: God exists.
In this example, Statement 2 assumes the existence of God, and thus begs the question.
The colloquial use in the sense of "raises the question" usurps the original logic-based meaning, when there was already a perfectly good way of saying the same thing (i.e., "raises the question"). But I guess that ship has sailed.
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I fear you are right, Alan, that that ship has sailed. But I doubt it will ever cease to grate on my ear.
Like "impact" ...
[SPOILER ALERT]
My only gimmes for this one were KREBS, ARCADIA, CHRONICLE and IZVESTIA (because PRAVDA was too short).
The literary and movie questions required searching, as did TRANSEPT.
I initially resisted putting in NAMELESS because it looked too easy and I incorrectly scented a trap.
I first had NOMINEE instead of HOPEFUL, and it is impossible to believe that it was not intentional misdirection.
I also had COPY DESK instead of NEWS DESK.
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Also noticed PRAVDA was too short, but didn’t know the other, it eventually filled in. I was pleased to finally think of HOPEFUL, that was my “breakthrough” moment. :)