“It” is a pronoun, not a noun.
1
Hi Deb, I just wanted to comment that in your explanation for "No one can get in a fight by himself, informally" you've written the answer as IT TAKES TWO TO TANGO instead of TAKES TWO TO TANGO.
OK, I posted an idiotic question, which has not been 'published' yet, and with any luck it won't be. But, just in case....
For some reason I got it into my head that the clue for 47A was 'Universal', which is actually the clue for 49D. I solved everything, including 49D and '(GO)LFGAME for 46D, but was perplexed enough about what kind of '(GO)LFGAME' was called 'Universal" to post a query to these comments.
Just to let everyone know that I'm OK now (I think), and never mind!
1
@Mike
46D? Glad that you AXED.
(Almost OK...)
Ok, do I just put extra gos in as a rebus? I did that and I have an error I just cannot find .
1
@Sylvia Johnson - No, you just leave them "off the edge". They can't be rebuses, because they don't work in the other direction.
3
At the risk of showing my age, this has certainly been a crossword puzzle-a-go-go.
à gogo - Wiktionary
https://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/à_gogo
à gogo; in abundance, galore Synonyms: à foison, à profusion, à tire-larigot.
English · Adverb
1
Where can I find the comments section for the Spelling Bee puzzle? I’ve seen references to it here, but I just see the puzzle, or yesterday’s, or rules of play. Thanks.
@Rosalita
They appear as part of this comment section for the regular daily crossword. The participants have been considerate in their use here by keeping the "bee" comments in just one or two comment groups. You should be able to identify them readily enough -- just keep scrolling until you hit it. Also be(e?) aware that there might not be any for the current day.
Thank you! Thought I was missing a whole other thread somewhere.
@Rosalita,
The thread is (purposely) "recommended" so that it should be relatively easy to find if you scroll through "Reader Picks." It should begin with SPELLING BEE THREAD.
I've finished the puzzle, but I only count 7 "GO"s that are over the edge, and the clue says there should be 8. What am I missing? I have:
GOLDTEETH
CARMENSANDIEGO
TAKESTWOTOTANGO
GOODNIGHTIRENE
AGESAGO
CHICAGO
GOLFGAME
1
Steward,
You are missing GOSLINGS (13D).
5
@Steward
GOSLINGS
2
@Barry Ancona
Oh!!! I had somehow convinced myself that "slings" made sense by itself. Thanks!
10
Can someone explain "babies in a pond"? Slings? I don't get it.
1
@Mark D It’s a theme clue: GOslings. Took me a while to get it!
7
Great puzzle, but I thought 53 across could have been clued more accurately: say, "Like the German article der, in der Donald." Der is the feminine form of the article except in the nominative and accusative cases (Das Lied von der Erde), while der in the masculine paradigm is limited to the nominative.
2
@Fidelio - it's an interesting quibble you raise.
My basic response is that the citation form is the nominative singular; in many languages it is paired with an oblique form, especially when there is a different stem for the obliques.
Der as feminine is only oblique; der as masculine is nominative and thus citation (= dictionary) form, and that is the default for puzzles.
Consider "die" by contrast. It could be a clue for FEM or for PLU, and both would be correct, and both would be acceptable. Neither would be "complete".
The word Männer and the word Männern would both be translated as "men" - but the second of those, being an oblique case, would never appear in an American crossword puzzle.
1
@David Connell
I take your point.
@Fidelio
I actually agree with Fidelio here but to me the larger sin was to claim "it" was a noun instead of pronoun. Try learning French with such misnomers. Ugh.
OK --- If i reverse the order of presentation (earliest first) I get those. But it's still truncated even in that mode.
7:53 PM as I type -- did the comment section get truncated? I cant go back further than 6 hours.
Dr W,
If you "sort by oldest," you'll find most of the earlier ones, but there's a two-hour period that cannot be accessed (at the moment) from either end.
@Barry Ancona
Ahhhhh. Porquoi?
TIL that Diamond is the whole baseball field! I always considered it to be just the pitcher's mound. I don't know why, but that's what I thought. I knew CARAT didn't look good so I thought, well, maybe it is ATBAT and sure enough that's what it was. Fun puzzle! I had to look up the ERL king but oh well, I'll accept that. Never hoid of ERL king.
Jackson,
The four bases are the "diamond," not the whole field.
(ERL king is discussed elsewhere in the comments.)
1
("Diamond" here is a metaphor for baseball.)
@Barry Ancona
Diamond is a synecdoche (my favorite word in the world!) for baseball.
1
Took me a bit to figure out the theme, since I saw bouth "it" ande "GO" missing from 20A, then wondered where I would put an "it" in GOODNIGHT IRENE.
Like others, got confused by SLINGS because I hadn't thought yet about the possibility of themers being scattered in various places.
CHICAGO took a bit of thought too. (Saw that in a previous incarnation in the late '70s, with Gwen Verdun and Chita Rivera.)
Thanks to all for an enjoyable Thursday.
1
@Deadline
..... and let us not forget "The slings and arrows of outrageous fortune "
:-)
1
@Dr W, I was just thinking of the GOSLINGS and Darrows of outrageous fortune...
... along with Gwen Verdon, who was hot, but wasn't French.
2
Draw lots? Please.
2
Fun crossword today. As to the Spelling Bee: guess you've never had to change the innards of your toilet or you would have let me use ballcock.
6
Great, mind-bending Thursday puzzle. :-)
2
I've been remiss for a couple of days, getting ready for Japanese New Years Party II, for our ikebana class. Did the Spelling Bee thread get moved, or is the software hiding stuff again?
1
@Martin
Funny - it was there this AM when I needed it!
Now I only see it if I look under "Reader Picks". It's number one, BTW.
Good argument for a thread of its own...
@Martin,
It looks like NYT is not displaying all of the comments. Sort by oldest first and you will see the older ones, including the SB thread. I don't know why.
At the moment, there are two hours worth of posts that can't be accessed from either end.
Maybe it's just me, but this felt particularly tough for a Thursday. I have no qualms about the theme (I actually love Thursdays for the way they play with the grid), but many of the crosses seemed to be clued with such difficulty. Even when I knew the fills to 20A and 42A, I had no idea how to enter them (as they don't fit), so they weren't much help.
Overall, though, the fill was good, and even though it took my 20 minutes more than my average Thursday, I enjoyed the puzzle once I (agonizingly) found the theme. I particularly enjoyed the crossing of LEGATO with ERL, as Schubert has a well-known lied based on Goethe's text, so it was a nice musical meeting. Well-done Mr. Mendelson!
3
@Ryan
And there's a composer named Mendelson as well... :-)
Dr W,
Are you thinking of Felix Mendelssohn?
@Barry Ancona
Yep, that one.
Go by the enunciation, please.
Fun puzzle, though I got frustrated when I used the “rebus” function to add “GO” to the edge squares where it was needed, and the app didn’t recognize it as correct. “It” is a pronoun; not a noun, although “it “ usually refers to something that can be named by a noun.
[email protected]
2
@Elizabeth DysonI also used the rebus function to add GO. Aargh.
Kids do not draw lots! They certainly don’t use the phrase “draw lots.” You should not use a clue like that for such an old fashioned answer. V stodgy.
4
I do not think that you will be the last person to protest that a clue is archaic. Old clues are fair game.
Perhaps it should have been "what children used to draw"
3
From the cobwebs of the late 70s - At my brother’s medical school in Pondicherry, India the residence halls are named after prominent modern medical figures - considered LISTER, did not fit and landed on OSLER.
Good puzzle!
4
I tried every combination of rebus entries I could think of for ‘tango’ before shaking my head and moving on.
I finally got there a few clues later, but had to get even further before I could get past being miffed that my ingenious rebusing didn’t work.
Thankfully it was such a clever puzzle that I didn’t really mind!
3
KING me! I liked the way the theme answers were all over the puzzle, but only one puzzled me and that was goLFGAME, which almost ruined my walk through the grid.
5
Neat!!!!
What saved me was memory of repeated browsing forays in stores selling software in kits decades back and seeing those packages of game software with "Where in the World is Carmen Sandiego" labels on them.
Without that I would have been CARMEN and GOing.
4
@Dr W, I won't pretend. I used to watch 'Where in the World is Carmen Sandiego' on PBS. All by myself. As a full-fledged adult. No handy nearby child to front as an excuse. It was quite simply a good show and fun to watch for children of all ages.
3
@Leapfinger
MY close show was Sesame Street ... :-} .... also on PBS.
1
OT: Cute OTter videos have been absent for a while. Here's one from today's rival NY publication (the Post):
https://nypost.com/video/baby-otter-reunited-with-mom-in-adorable-rescue/
2
OT: Another record shop that's GOing out of business. Interesting linkage to the eldest park ranger, too. Reid's gospel. https://www.berkeleyside.com/2019/02/05/reids-records-californias-oldest-record-shop-to-close-in-the-fall
@Robert Michael Panoff
Bob, that was one heart-stopping moment when the baby otter was thrown back into the ocean. I'm guessing it unlikely that it would sink like a stone, but what if the Mom just paddled on away?
Now let's you and me GO up to Richmond to see those septuplet cheetah pups
I always thought the character was CARMEN SANTIAGO. This misapprehension was quite troubling today.
1
I've been interested in the "it" discussions this morning.
The thing is that it is hard to say what it is.
There are things that are not things - have no essence - yet are classed as nouns. Gerundive verbs, for example. Dancing is a thing, tangoing is a thing, but, they are not "things." They are "things." It all depends on what "is" is, or what "it" its, or what "thing" things.
Where's Humpty Dumpty when you need him?
When we say "make him do it" or "let her have it" in connected, unemphatic speech - we actually pronounce the "him" and the "her" as "im" and "er" - people who think they don't are called pedants for a reason. "It" was originally "hit" in English, but the "h" was lost because no one ever actually pronounced "hit" for "it," it was always fluid. In early English, "let him have hit" would have been proper.
Meanwhile, "it" remains the null subject, the empty word, in English constructions: "It's raining, it's pouring", "What time is it?" It's all good.
I'm not sure about my reaction to the clue for it, but I definitely enjoyed reading all the reactions to it.
9
@David Connell
Hi was trying to remember which Dickensian character would say 'hit' for 'it' ('Tell her Barkus is willing?') and looked up Sam Weller even though I knew it weren't him.
Nothing is of no benefit, and here's a couple of the Wellest I found:
*Ven you’re a married man, Samivel, you’ll understand a good many things as you don’t understand now; but vether it’s worth goin’ through so much, to learn so little, as the charity-boy said ven he got to the end of the alphabet, is a matter o' taste.
*We still leave unblotted in the leaves of our statute book, for the reverence and admiration of successive ages, the just and wholesome law which declares that the sturdy felon shall be fed and clothed, and that the penniless debtor shall be left to die of starvation and nakedness. This is no fiction.
[RIP, Mr Dickens. It's still no fiction, in many ways]
2
I loved this crossword!
I was fairly new to crosswords once upon a time and had never solved any that really break the rules like this one. And I remember working on one--I think in Games Magazine--in which without announcement, the letters in the word THINK were to be entered around the outside of the grid. This occurred at least once on each side. The theme, of course, was revealed by the entry THINK OUTSIDE THE BOX. That was when I became a crossword addict!
May I also pause to reminisce about another truly outstanding puzzle from the past, this one a Shortz-era Times crossword. There were 8 entries at the perimeter (inside perimeter!) whose clues were all distinct, but for which the answer was always BLANKS, like maybe "harmless gun input" or "they're drawn when you forget". The solver was to leave all those squares at the perimeter BLANK. The interior 13X13 grid was a normal, smaller puzzle.
Thank you Mr Mendelson for a great Thor's Day puzzle! My favorite clue was for 47A "What's honed on the range?" Gave it a smiley. Liked 59D too ("Provider of directions to a farmer").
:-c)€
5
Two (n)its to pick with you, Deb. IT should not be capitalized in ITTAKESTWOTOTAN(GO) because the answer to 20A is TAKESTWOTOTAN(GO). And, regarding the wonderful definition for 36A, I'm happy with NOUN for an answer but I think of "IT" as a pronoun and my desk dictionary agrees. So I took the meaning to be, anything that can be called something must be a thing, or in other words, a noun.
3
One ‘GO’ didn’t ‘GO’ from its was designated jumping off spot on the grid. Here’s the culprit; clues about sports are usually in wheelhouse, but this one was brilliantly disguised. I never associated on the range with what Mark Twain described as “a good walk spoiled.” Cowboying and cooking came to mind. Hence, I crashed and burned in the SW. I can also attribute the fail to opting for GOes OVER THE EDGE. That helped to put the kibosh on any hope of a solve...Bill Fields, brag factor off the chart, speaks to the mastery of his 1/4 mile putts during a GAME of GOLF.
https://youtu.be/iLLQ1VGK1wQ
Fore!,
Bru
Today I must pay homage to my dad of blessed memory who was an avid NYTimes Crossword puzzle player. He was also a dentist so I was was completely stumped by the expensive dental clue. I knew porcelain veneers were expensive as well high composite caps. I couldn’t make anything fit and having solved on the fills still didn’t understand the answer until I read Deb’s comments. Oh Dad, you encouraged me to tackle NYTimes crosswords but imparted way too much dental knowledge!
14
@L.A. Sunshine
My first thought for 5D was "implant."
1
Nice nice nice ! I had to use some help, but who cares? Got that was about “go” with it takes two to tango ( worked on ANGO, until I dropped the it) and from then was plain sailing: first tried to bend the words into other lines, then good night Irene I cracked: there is a phoneme in the air which is the start of the next word in the game. Then saw the revealer: aha! And went back making sense of weird solves: gold teeth, she’s ago, golf....I confess I also tried, without success, egggo, goeco, ammettergo, goatbat......goslings? The lack of symmetry or indication where the go were meant to go was great!
Thursdays are our reward for keeping ing!
4
@Laura Rodrigues in London
There you go! :-)
3
Can someone please explain why 'universal' is a (GO)LFGAME? I got it via the crosses, but when I googled 'universal golf game' after I'd completed the puzzle, I got no hits that were in any way enlightening.
@Mike
Were you looking at the wrong clue? 47A reads "What's honed on the range?"
"Universal" is the clue for 49-Down, GLOBAL.
(GO)LFGAME Is 47-Across, clued as "What's honed on the range?"
Which is a brilliant clue.
3
@Mike
Universal, 49d, is only a down clue, free and clear of the cross links.
1
I spent a while trying to turn “ego” into a rebus, but caught on when I couldn’t make “ngo” into a word. And then, of course, I tried to make the “go” in the theme revealer go over the edge, too.
All in all, just tricky enough to be fun!
4
@Rachel Reiss
Same here: rebus attempted before just leaving it off. When the "other direction" just didn't make sense, I decided it couldn't be a rebus.
There is a rather frequent version of the "over the edge" idea that shows up now and again in "A Little Variety" on random Sundays, although it is not always the same stub that hangs over. But at least it gives some mini-practice.
1
@Robert Michael Panoff
Gotta watch those NGOs ....
I especially liked the asymmetry of the theme answers' locations. That made them trickier to find.
2
I am an avid NYT crossword puzzle solver, and it didn't take me long to figure out the theme of this puzzle. However, since I recognized that the "go" letters extended beyond the grid, I wasn't sure how to accommodate them online. I thought the rebus function was the answer, but yet didn't hear the "solved puzzle" music when I finished the puzzle. It wasn't until I read one of the comments that I realized that I had to drop the "go" and rebus from those squares. This needs to be better explained in the general crossword instructions/guide!
1
@Amy24 - In general, the things that are written in have to work in both directions. They don't always work exactly the same way in both directions, but they should work in both directions. So today, any variation on entering "go" wouldn't work in the crossings, but taking "over the edge" literally would work. That's the general idea.
5
@David Connell
Not to mention, the revealer was GO OVER THE EDGE.
2
Canadian clue:
13D Ryan's daughters
5
Very od!
2
@Andrew
Hope someone is keeping track of your best Canadian clues of the week/month/year. This one would certainly be in contention.
Also, given that he first came on the scene (I think) with the movie The Notebook, Ryan Osling sort of relates to yesterday’s puzzle as well, at least if the puzzle were viewed as a subliminal ad: “[see (The) Notebook]” “[see (The) Notebook]” . . .
Sorry, I might have stretched my hammy with that one.
1
@Puzzlemucker
Of course another "Canadian" clue could have been 69A OSLER. Sir William Osler was a Canadian, educated at McGill University where the Medical Library is named in his honour.
Comment about "It takes TWO TO TANGO."
I recognize the phrase whenever I see it but when I hear it, it always registers as "It takes TWO TO TANGLE."
2
@Henry Su That's how my dad always said it, usually when my sister and I were trying to convince him that the other one had 'started it.'
Very nice to have two GO's per side and to have them asymmetrical, to add to the puzzle's bite. GOOVER is a DOOK! And... REAR is a logical followup to yesterday's ARSE.
Sometimes when I'm trying to come up with themes for making a puzzle -- something I find very difficult -- I try to find a reveal or a gimmick that will enable me to put letters outside the grid. One such puzzle that is still seared in my brain is the brilliant DOCTORS WITHOUT BORDERS puzzle of 1/7/16 by Andrew J. Reis. Me, I flounder and flounder to come up with a good justification for coming up with this type of puzzle. And here, today, Morton does GO OVER THE EDGE -- so perfectly perfect and obvious. Such a delicious morsel of low hanging fruit that has just been waiting for some constructor to see and pluck -- and great credit for Morton to be the first to do so. Bravo, sir.
2
@Lewis -- I'm sorry about the repetition of the second paragraph. This finally came up about four hours after I initially posted it, and I suspect it was axed due to the last word in the first paragraph. Now -- poof! -- it appears, not too long after I reposted the second paragraph.
@Lewis,
I see the emus just released the first version of your comment. I think I see why this version might have gotten a BUM rap.
4
GOLD TEETH!!!!!!!!!!!! Duh.
4
Veddy nice. I got TWOTOTAN(GO) early on, after puzzling (sic!) over __TEETH that became _DTEETH. At that point I was still thinking GO had to fit in both directions. (GO)ODNIGHTIRENE cinched it for me, but I still got surprised with some of the others, like (GO)SLINGS and (GO)LFGAME. Well played, Mr. M!
4
@Michael Dover
Thanks for clearing up (GO)slings for me!
7
@arkady157 Me too
1
GOOD NIGHT, IRENE! indeed! Thank you to my Granny, who knew all the old songs and taught them to me over endless games of Russian Bank (a double solitaire game you shouldn't miss!)
That was my entree into the puzzle's trickery, and thank GOodness, because I had entered all sorts of words backward into the grid. For 'Diamond datum' at 61A I thought CARAT, and entered ATRAC...(yes, I know, and it took me a good long while to notice that it was scrambled--my weak visual-spatial skills are showing!)
I was upset about the LF-- at47/48A because I was sure of LEGATO and FROTHS (and I knew Wm OSLER for sure)...
In short, this puzzle had me in a FROTH, all aBOIL, but happily IRENE threw me a lifeline and all has ended well.
One tiny little nit: we BASTE *before* we SEW, and NO, it's not the same thing at all. I have just basted a king-sized quilt sandwich (about 4 hours of hard work, and it would have been much longer and harder had I not used an adhesive spray. Hah!) Will and Joel please note--Modern Times plus precise terminology.
Congrats to MJM on his fun puzzle!
5
@Mean Old Lady
I've never heard of Russian Bank. I hope it is nothing like Russian Roulette!
1
@Andrew -
https://www.pagat.com/patience/crapette.html
The French name of the game might get me emufied...
@MOL
I remember the song from the late 1940's when I first got my own record player and half a dozen discs. And -- this is most interesting:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Goodnight,_Irene
Although I grew up with The Weavers and owned all their albums, I confidently plunked down toNIGHT IRENE at 32A -- thus not seeing the terrific rebus for an additional couple of minutes. Sorry, IRENE!! You were always a "good girl" and I apologize for besmirching your good name and questioning your virtue. I really do know that you went home that night. Pete, Ronnie, Lee, and Fred all said [GO]ODNIGHT to you -- and I believe they all left. And we know that it takes at least TWO TO TAN[GO].
(I have no idea what LD TEETH are (5D), but the clue makes clear I can't afford them -- whatever they are.)
The revealer is perfect. Absolutely perfect. A puzzle with great construction and quite a bit of humor. I loved it.
2
[GO]LDTEETH
1
@Nancy
If you can't afford GOLD TEETH, you might just have to stick with OLD TEETH! (Save yourself at least one G.)
10
@Andrew et al
A slight mislead that -- gold is mostly for the crowns and inlays, not the whole tooth.
I can swear to that......
2
Od grief, Mr. Mendelson. A very od Thursday puzzle. I didn't think I was ing to get it but it all turned out for the od. Od ing.
19
Sometimes when I'm trying to come up with themes for making a puzzle -- something I find very difficult -- I try to find a reveal or a gimmick that will justify putting letters outside the grid. One such puzzle that is still seared in my brain is the brilliant DOCTORS WITHOUT BORDERS puzzle of 1/7/16 by Andrew J. Reis. Me, I flounder and flounder trying to come up with a good ploy. And here, today, Morton does GO OVER THE EDGE -- so perfectly perfect and obvious. Such a delicious morsel of low hanging fruit that has just been waiting for some constructor to see and pluck -- and great credit to Morton for being the first to do so. Bravo, sir.
8
"I, Flounder": inspired by a fish who found fortune not a fluke.
4
@GrumbleGritz,
I haven't gotten to the end yet. Does the fish ultimately get sole rights to her inheritance? How? I hope the book gets to the bottom of that issue.
4
My five stages of Thursday puzzles: False Confidence, Bafflement, Despair, Awakening and Joy. There is a sixth stage, Cloud of Smug, but that blows quickly by when I get to Letter Box.
27
@Audreylm
This has book potential. Brilliant!
(That’s why I skip the Letter Box. I don’t want to leave my Cloud of Smug)
5
Audreylm,
Elisabethkr would be proud!
2
@Audreylm
What is Letter Box?
This was such a good puzzle, but my brain was badly misfiring and I had to cheat to finish. I got 'takes two to tango' immediately, but didn't fill it in because I wasn't sure what the trick was. That held me up for a long time because I just wasn't getting a lot of the easier clues. Then, once I figured out the theme, I didn't think to apply it to a lot of the clues. I stared at the grid wondering what 'ld teeth' and 'slings' in a pond could possibly be for several moments.
2
Very clever puzzle but not my day. In the end I was left staring at an unfinished grid and wondering, 'where did I GO wrong?"
Turns out that there was a simple answer to that question: speed-reading the reveal. Once I got too "or a hint to" my brain filled in 'the theme answers' and I moved on and never looked back, perhaps taking a hint from LOTS wife.
And I did eventually get the reveal and what I thought were the three theme answers. I'd had 'TWOTOTANGO' in mind when I read that clue and that was my start. ODNIGHT followed soon after. CARMEN was the toughest one. I had lots and lots of crosses before that finally dawned on me.
After that I was just hung up in multiple places. It wasn't just the theme answers - there were other things that weren't dawning on me - but whenever I got close to working out an area I was always left with something that just made no sense at all and I would back off from my first guesses.
The most frustrating game of mental ping-pong was centered around 55d and trying to see if there was some way I could fit EVITA in there. Ah, well. Don't cry for me - next time maybe I'll remember to read the reveal in full.
Two enthusiastic thumbs up! My only beef was it GOing too fast because I was enjoying it so much.
Don't GO away for long, Mr. Mendelson!
6
Clever and fun, and quite challenging for me. 42A brought back memories of my kids playing that computer game over and over. And now the music is in my head. Do you hear it too? "Where in the world is Carmen Sandiego?..."
2
@archaeoprof
Never played it so had carmensanTiAgo first. . .
2
Letter Box
Today I had D-Y(9),Y-H(5).
I'm tempted to clue it in one word, but it might be a bit of a spoiler.
@Phil P
I had T-D(4), D-Y(9). Pretty confident we have the same long word. We just built off it in opposite directions.
HINT WARNING:
poor skeeter eater!
@Liane
You're right, and I'm always looking for economical answers, so I should have seen your solution, but I started with my second word.
Since we're cluing hints, my hint was going to be simply: (WARNING)
nymph.
@Liane and Phil
Rough day and thanks for the hints. I got both answers.
Better luck tomorrow maybe!
good puzzle! My usual rebus-angst had me enter all the GOs as rebuses and I had to go back and fix them to get the happy sound. nice one though.
can't wait to see Deb do this one on Facebook today. I don't know how new solvers can deal with a Thursday as an introduction!
2
@Patrick, same here. I couldn't figure out why I wasn't getting the happy music. Once I took out the GOs, there was that happy tinkly sound.
@Jill J.
I always hear that happy tinkly sound when I GO!
5
TMI!
3
This puzzle broke my streak. GO figure.
1
ugh. that's a shame. well, on to the next one!!
Somebody help - the clue is "powerful checker" and the answer is "king". So... all I can think of is chess. But a king, though important, isn’t that powerful in chess, and it can’t check the other king. Gah! What am I missing?
2
@Michael Hayashida
Not chess but checkers
8
Misspent youth!
3
Sorry to complain, but doing the puzzle online was a challenge because even though I figured out the theme, I put all the "GOs" in a Rebus box each one's next letter, and the online checker read them as incorrect. When doing a puzzle online, how is a solver supposed to enter letters which fall outside the grid? I assumed Rebus was the correct way. Is there another way to do this?
You don’t enter them as a rebus online, for this puzzle. The GO is simply dangling out there and doesn’t get entered in the grid at all.
3
@Francis DeBernardo - having the same annoying problem. Entered the GOs as Rebuses (Rebii?) and my app didn’t recognize the puzzle as complete. Then took them out, and still incomplete. Would hate to see a streak broken because I can’t figure out how to enter this in to the app. It’s my one gripe with the clever/cute puzzles
1
@Dave
Since the GOs don’t actually go in the puzzle (e.g., TAKES TWO TO TAN), if you have removed them and the app indicates you still have not completed correctly, then there must be a problem elsewhere. As Henry Su suggests, “flyspeck” the puzzle by carefully inspecting your across and down answers to find the error(s). It can help to for a walk first.
3
SPELLING BEE!
29 words - 115 points - 1 pangram - no bingo
Ax2 Bx9 Cx7 Kx4 Lx4 Wx3
4L 5L 6L 7L 8L 9L
A - 2 - - - - (2)
B 4 3 - - 1 1 (9)
C 2 3 - - 2 - (7)
K 2 2 - - - - (4)
L 3 - - 1 - - (4)
W 2 1 - - - (3)
13 11 0 1 3 1 (29)
Nothing really unusual today, though it's a struggle finding which compounds are accepted and which are not.
24
thanks for the grid. you're up early!
@David Connell
A very "doable" QB today for all, I think, with your caveat about random acceptance and rejection of perfectly acceptable compound words.
What we know is that the Beekeeper has never fixed the inside of a toilet, is unfamiliar with black grouses, and despite taking the 7 L L word (which I, though owning many have never considered a compound word -- TIL), does not know the term for returning mistakenly produced evidence or money. Alas. If you got those, count them towards your QB status!
5
@Liane - ah, yes, I remember not too long ago learning about the stopper in the toilet water tank - well, what the thing was called, I knew what it looked like and have done repairs on it.
One word which I think ought to be accepted - M-W has it as "Mainly British" and in two words, is CLAWBACK. It's been used in the news a lot, especially since 2008 but earlier than that too. Mainly about getting money back that was paid to some CEO that has since proven undeserving (sometimes criminally so). Might need to write the M-W people again.
6
A great puzzle for a theme lover with 8 theme answers.
Although I had the NE corner filled in very quickly I didn't understand SLINGS at 13D, and made a note to ask about that.
I got the theme with GOOD NIGHT IRENE, the only tune I ever learned to play on the piano. Sadly in spite of its record stay on the Hit Parade, it was no longer popular by the time I mastered it.
Back to the puzzle, AGES AGO made me realize there were shorter themers, and then the reveal let me know how many to look for. It still took me a little while to go back up and realize that I needn't ask about SLINGS.
What fun!
10
@suejean
SLINGS was my last stumbling block. (GO) figure.
3
Even after I completed the puzzle, I was missing one GO and I couldn’t figure out what SLINGS was until just now when I read your comment.
4
suejean,
Here's your song from the Hit Parade:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MSDyiUBrUSk
4
If you're going to give part of Goethe's poem title in English, then the missing part should also be in English. Thus, "elf" not "erl." The clue should have read, "Goethe's 'Der __-König.'"
8
@Tim Nelson - the poem, and the musical settings of it, are most often given in English as "The Erl-King" - due in good part to the fact that "elf" does not now convey in English any of the proper menace.
6
@Tim Nelson I would tend to agree with you. I had "Elf" written in for the longest time, but as "FFOTHS" at 48D just did not work... Actually, "Erlking", "Elfking" and "Erlkönig" are all found in about equal numbers (in English usage), and perhaps the proper German form (note the lower-case "k") more in music than in literature. But, ok, I'll grant that the online Brittanica version "Elf-King" probably has the most authority. I can live with it. Meanwhile, I am wondering how "ffoths" can become the centerpiece of a new rebus puzzle... :)
@Tim Nelson I would tend to agree with you. I had "Elf" written in for the longest time, but as "FLOTHS" at 48D just did not work... Actually, "Erlking", "Elfking" and "Erlkönig" are all found in about equal numbers (in English usage), and perhaps the proper German form (note the lower-case "k") more in music than in literature. But, ok, I'll grant that the online Brittanica version "Elf-King" probably has the most authority. I can live with it. Meanwhile, I am wondering how "floths" can become the centerpiece of a new rebus puzzle... :)
Was I the only one that confidently wrote in VENEERS for expensive dental work? It stubbornly stayed there until I got the theme
@Adam
All dental work is expensive.
1
and Elke
So sorry- my solve went off the rails with 5D- at my age it is
OLD TEETH for "some expensive dental work" and so I could not figure out what to do with that "O". Or anything else.
But what a clever puzzle.
Andrew- Canajun connection :69A - Sir William OSLER.
Ok gumshoes, I suspected the GO outside the box early on with TAKES TWO TO TAN. Confirmed with more evidence from IRENE. Where in the world is CARMEN SAN DIEGO? Found after much fun at the NYT.
5
I’m embarrassed by how long it took me to get 32A (didn’t help that I also had “unum” initially), given the frequency with which that song was sung at me when I was growing up.
13
@Irene But what a lovely song to have your name in it! Mine was "Bess you is my woman now", which I found rather difficult to appreciate as a young child. No offense intended to Messieurs Gershwin.
8
@Bess
Lovely, indeed. Have you ever listened carefully to, or even read the lyrics of, Good Night Irene?
Makes ODNIGHT kind of apropos.
All I got was "Little David, play on yo' harp" all day.
1
Great puzzle! Minor quibble: entered the GOs as rebii and the IT **ds would not anoint it.
4
@Jason that’s because they aren’t rebuses — they don’t *ahem* go with the perpendicular clues
4
I hope you were *both* joking: entering GO as a rebus would not work in *either* direction.
1
I see you guys have minor quibbles with my minor quibble. Well, I have minor quibbles with your minor quibbles with my minor quibble*... ;-)
Adding the third letter of the string to the rebus causes the across answers to make perfect sense. Also, horizontal and vertical parity is not required for rebii**. There is a great precedent (and one of my favorite xwords of all time) for both of these points: the 1 1=5 puzzle of April 1, 2018. “WANDA”, entered as a rebus for 115A, was anointed by the aforementioned IT **DS for that fine day. Truth be told, for 104D, that rebus entry was really a fish out of water.
*“we need to go deeper” - Inception
** I made up this word and fully accept all quibbles with it. Major and minor.
1
Whenever I'm asked who is my personal physician, I'll say William OSLER or Dr. Semmelweiss to see if the questioner is conversant with prominent figures in medical history. Besides, why would they need to know? Maybe I'll try Dr. Kevorkian next.
11
@GrumbleGritz
If it's Dr. Kevorkian, it may be the last time you use that answer.
5
@GrumbleGritz
You'd have to say Dr. Kevorkian with a deadpan expression.
12
@GrumbleGritz They probably ask because they're looking to find a new doctor? LOL
2
Mr. Mendelson's puzzle almost drove me OVER THE EDGE because I had URU instead ECU at 37A and I had foolishly assumed IRE at 34D was correct (because I was solving across and hadn't read the clue). Yes, STUM at 29D did look odd but I thought to myself, "well, I guess I don't know much about pipes, ... sooo okaaay."
Thus, when the timer didn't stop, I proceeded to add GO to each of the themers as rebuses but that didn't work. I then went back to URU, IRE, and STUM, and straightened things out.
Always look both ways at crossings (especially with late-week puzzles).
1
@Henry Su
ECU is a stretch of an abbreviation, and looks awfully weird, but it is the Olympic country code, so I suppose it passes muster. (Not that you see it a lot on the telecasts, except during opening and closing ceremonies.)
I guess they got tired of cluing it as European currency unit or an old French coin (e.g. "Bit of old French bread"). It's never been clued as Eastern Carolina University, however.
2
@Steve L
That would be East Carolina University, with no -ern on the stern. Home of the Pirates, my alma mater, the school so nice I went there twice (undergrad and grad studies). Thanks for the shout-out. I noticed the points you mentioned when the special "What is that?" article about RPI appeared the other day, and someone mentioned their joy at seeing their alma mater's frequent use in the crosswords. I went looking to see how ECU had been clued over the years, and saw that ECU had been used nearly 200 times over the years, but had never been clued to the school.
I'd love to see ECU clued to the vibrant and (around here anyway) well-known institution of higher learning that it is, rather than to an obscure and obsolete French coin, an obsolete European monetary system, an obscure French word for a shield, or a "stretch of an abbreviation" for a South American country. "Pirates of Greenville, NC" maybe.
3
@Alan J
My bad. And since I have a house in the Outer Banks, double bad.
Highly entertaining, and very well designed. I confused myself in many places: MOJITO for ZOMBIE, JEAN for JEEP, UNUM for ORDO. I also couldn’t remember if the song title was IRENE GOODNIGHT or GOODNIGHT IRENE.
I finally cottoned (SATEENED?) on to the idea when I got to 47 Down, because the opposite of “staccato” had to be LEGATO, even if it put the L next to the F in FROTHS.
I’m used to seeing themes like this showing up in four places in a puzzle. Extra style points for accomplishing the feat eight times!
15
THANKS Henry, Olivia and Eric!!!
3
Well, "it" is a pronoun, but the clue works because when you call something by a name (a box, car, or puzzle), that name is a NOUN
4
I count only seven entries where "GO" is outside the edge.
1. GOld teeth 2. 3. Ages aGO 3. ChicaGO 4. Takes two to tanGO 5. GOodnight Irene 6. Carmen San DieGO 7. GOlf game
The theme clues says there are eight. What is the eighth?
@Barb McAulay,
13D - (GO)SLINGS
7
@Barb McAulay GOsling
GOslings.
1
Side note, in response to the column:
The motto that stands on U.S. bills, "novus ordo seclorum" (shudder: "new world order"), uses the same orthographical convention that raised so many hackles last week in regard to "cesarean sections." Saeculorum = seclorum = of the ages/of the world-as-we-know-it. Caesarean = cesarean = of good ol' Julius Caesar. The substitution of e for ae/æ is attested for hundreds of years. It comes down to esthetics...or aesthetics, depending on one's humors, or humours.
Takes Two to Tan:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oB-RS000NLs
13
@David Connell,
This is O.T. but I just read an article in The Economist entitled "Mistakes are the engine of language's evolution," https://econ.st/2CWQoQ8, and I thought of you because it retells the mistakes that turned "napron" to "apron" and "nadder" to "adder." Also, somebody's bad French turning "la munition" to "l'ammunition."
The article closes with the following observation: "But modern English is deformed Old English and degenerate Middle English. In other words, like any living language, it is 'error' all the way down."
Enjoy. (N.B. - as you may know, The Economist requires registration to read for free.)
6
@Henry Su - the underlying truth is that mistakes are the engine of _all_ evolution.
8
@David Connell
Reminds me of the nuclear vs nucular "controversy". Secular should properly be seclear - from seclorum. But - usage is everything. Spelling just "follows"
6
Idea has been done a few times before, but this one is well executed. CARMEN SANDIE[GO] gave me the clue for the gimmick - that the GOs were STASHed away. That was followed by TAKES TWO TO TAN[GO] and the rest followed.
TRIO Themelets that DAWNed ON ME:
Food - liked the EGG, EDAM and HAMS. Sounds like a good sub to down. So much PROTEIN (better to chew with yer GOLD TEETH.
Weather - last week was SNOWY, WIND (check the VANE!) and ICE. Yesterday, it was practically BOILing.
Nobility - REGAL, KING and THANE.
Computers - EDIT MENU, PC LAB and NTS (does anyone still run Windows NT?)
All in all, I DARE SAY it was great fun.
4
The current Windows operating system is essentially updated veneer. Look under the bonnet and the pcs are still running Windows Nt.
It should be possible to install and run any/most software that was made for Windows Nt on Windows 10.
1
@Wen I'm running Windows XP Pro.
And I have to go feed my dinosaurs.
4
Yeah, I know that the current Windows versions are descended from NT. Was it XP or one of the later versions that basically merged the NT version with the non-NT version (i.e. Windows 3, 95, etc.).
There is no shame in running XP Pro - XP was good. But I'd upgrade if only for security reasons.
After I finished Wednesday's, I said it was one of the best puzzles I've ever solved. Thursday's makes it two-in-a-row! I love puzzles that you can look over and admire their cleverness. (Themeless puzzles don't do that for me.)
13
worked it out ok. but for some reason I'd ROIL before BOIL - and i had no idea how a JAR could be dug...
1
@Dan
I fell into the same trap.
Ended up having to check the answer key to see where I had screwed up.
1
The southwest corner had me stumped for a while. Can a GOOD NAME be honed on the range? I thought so for a long time!
3
I tried [GO]OD GAME but couldn’t make the crosses fit. Erased the SW and did a look up on Goethe to finish.
The way 20A was clued I was wondering if TANgle was how it was supposed to end, but then when I figured out how OD NIGHT IRENE was placed the gimmick became obvious. The rest of the puzzle filled in relatively quickly.
One small nit… I would have preferred the clue for 13D to read: "Babies on a pond" rather than "in a pond". Air breathers don't do well under water.
7
@JayTee
In a pond doesn’t have to mean submerged. Do you swim in a pool or on it? In or on the ocean?
5
@JayTee,
Good point. Before I had the theme, I was thinking tadpoles, efts, fry, etc. and SLINGS made no sense at all.
4
@Steve L
I agree with your point, except that babies IN a pond tend to be things that generally don't spend time on the surface, like Henry mentioned. My first thought was tadpoles or their ilk. Some aquatic birds take a while to transition from being in the nest most of the time to actually spending time in the water.
Yikes. Great puzzle.
Od night, gotta
to bed.
11
excellent puzzle! cottoned on with OD NIGHT IRENE! one of my first ear worms, before there was such a phrase!
2
Hey, Deb,
If I can remember all the way back to the Stone Age when I was a lad in school, I seem to remember that "it" was a pronoun in those day, not a noun. Who knows? Things may have changed. As a pronoun, "it" can stand in place of a noun. So if you don't want to say the noun-word, you may call the noun-thing "it." That's how I read it, anyway.
I figured the gimmick pretty directly from TAKES TWO TO TAN.... But for the life of me, I could not recall a musical named CHICA, but it sounded like an intriguing title. How did such a popular musical so completely escape my notice? (Duh, and All That Jazz!) I had to see the solution in XWord Info for the light bulb to pop on.
10
@Alan J
I also flew right over CHICAGO until reading ur comment...
@Alan J, I so sympathize about CHICA. Read that and actually said out loud, rather huffily, "Never heard of it." Figured I must be totally uncultivated (I mean, 2nd longest running..... and I never heard of it??), then had the aha moment when I began looking for 8 answers... duh.
@Alan J
I was thinking it might be Evita early on.
Notes (or nits) on the column:
IT is not a noun; it’s a pronoun. (The clue doesn’t make sense to me.)
SLASH with a capital letter isn’t in the name Guns n’ Roses. Even if it is the name of its lead guitarist. So the clue proposed wouldn’t make sense, either.
The entry is TAKES TWO TO TAN(GO). No IT here, pronoun or otherwise.
2
(The clue doesn’t make sense to me.)
Steve,
I read "What you may call it?" to mean "What is the part of speech you use to identify a specific object?"
5
@Barry Ancona
I thought about that, but didn’t see it as passing muster.
I guess it’s supposed to be like the clue/entry Beat it!/DRUM. But I don’t think it is.
@Barry Ancona
More likely Alan J got the intended sense: What you may call “it” is a NOUN. You may call a table or a pen “it”.
1
Got my first hint of the theme with GOODNIGHT IRENE, or at least the NIGHT IRENE portion of it. Thought at first it was a rebus on GOO, but when the Utah park was nonsense with GOO in it, and CARMEN SANDIEGO didn't fit and ended with only a GO, I put my ideas on hold. Then the revealer showed me that there was an EDGE to go over. So it was not especially difficult, but it was interesting.
And there were eight theme entries! LF GAME was particularly tricky for me, as I had not yet realized that there were shorter theme answers. FROTHS in, FROTHS out, FROTHS back in again when I realized what was going on.
For 36 A "what you may call it"--I just figured that one was looking at a thing--an object--and that was a noun. "It" being a pronoun, as it were. But pronouns are sort of nouns. But not quite. Be still, my inner pedant!
9
@Liz B
Had the same FROTHS I/O activity...
I thought TAKES TWO TO TAN was going to take the theme in an entirely different direction.
(I know; don't GO there)
15