From page 61 of How to Conquer the New York Times Crossword Puzzle, with new annotations in italics:
Early in the week, the New York Times crossword doesn’t strive to lure the solver down blind alleys. But later in the week, particularly on Friday and Saturday, trickery is par for the course.
• Obscured capitalization: Because the first word in a clue is always capitalized, you can’t tell whether that word is a proper name, title, or uncapitalized word. You’ll need to use the crossing letters to be sure you’ve chosen the right interpretation. For example, [Hamlet’s cousin] was a dastardly clue for VILLAGE, lowercase-H hamlet being a synonym for village—but the typical solver likely thought of characters in Shakespeare’s capital-H Hamlet. One-word publication titles are often hidden in this way to clue EDITOR: [Post operative?] and [People person?] refer to a newspaper or magazine employee. Proper names can also be hidden this way: [Frost lines] clues VERSE from Robert Frost. (It seems like I've been seeing more and more of these lately.)
• Phonetics and building blocks: Crosswords are a meaning-rich game of language, but sometimes a clue strips away a word’s meaning and focuses on its individual letters and sounds. [Fan sound] may be the SHORT A in the word fan rather than the roar of a crowd or the whirring of an appliance. [Castle feature?] can be SILENT T, and [Fiddle duet?] could be DEES (the letter D, doubled). This category of crossword entry is relatively new, and may include SOFT and HARD letters, SHORT or LONG vowels, SILENT letters, CAPITAL letters, or the spelled-out names of letters.
• Hidden meanings: Some clues deliberately obscure the intended meaning of a key word. For example, [Refuse visitors] looks like it means “be a hermit,” but in one clue, “refuse” was used as a noun that’s pronounced differently from the verb. Who visits the refuse? RATS. [Hang out] is often taken to mean the intransitive verb, as in “We’re just going to hang out at home tonight.” In another puzzle, the answer was AIR DRY, as in “I’ll hang the clothes out to dry.” (Boy, do I love clues that toy with alternate meanings!)
• Multi-word answers: Unexpected multi-word answers in short entries can be tricky, especially when they include one-letter components (X-RATED, Q-TIP, R AND R), abbreviations (ST PAUL, DR RUTH), or both (MR T). Some short answers are actually three words—A TO Z, SO DO I. (These aren't really tricks so much as possibilities solvers need to be hip to—if you're asking yourself what the heck ATOB means, try adding some spaces.)
• Odd letter combinations: Unusual sequences of letters can make the solver think, “That can’t be right.” If the crossings for [Stylish, square-jawed male model] gave you a *QTY** letter pattern, you might doubt that those letters were correct because that letter sequence isn’t found in any English words. But the entry is actually two words: GQ TYPE, as in GQ magazine, formerly Gentlemen’s Quarterly. (When the letter sequence seems impossible, always check the crossings before you fill in a bunch of squares or erase a bunch of letters.)
• Obscured verb tense: Words like put, set, or read make for ambiguous clues because they could be in either the past tense or the present tense.
• Verb phrases: Because verb phrases can be clued with a one-word verb, solvers need to ba careful about automatically filling in an S at the end of the entry. For example, [Visits] could be STOPS BY, DROPS IN ON, or POPS OVER, none of which end with an S.
• Disguised plurals: Words that look singular can serve as mass nouns, hiding the fact that the answer is a plural. For example, [Raw material] can be ORES; [Hot stuff], TAMALES.
• The two-good-answers trap: Oftentimes two plausible answers share the same number of letters and may even have several letters in common—and some constructors relish in creating these traps. One of my personal favorites in this category is [Georgia neighbor], 7 letters. Starts with an A and ends with an A. Is it ALABAMA or ARMENIA? Don’t be wedded to an answer that seems 100% right but conflicts with most of the crossings—you may be caught in a trap. (Some of these things aren't deliberate traps. Sometimes IRE and IRK or SEETHE and SEE RED would both work, but that's not a clever trap—it's just a pair of related words with some common letters in common. Other times, solvers' minds lead them down the wrong path, through no fault of the puzzle. These wrong turns can be awfully entertaining.)
• The “it” clue: The clue [Put a lid on it] seems to call for a verb like stifle(d) or quash(ed). Occasionally the answer word equates to the “it” in the clue rather than to the clue as a whole—so the answer may be a cooking POT. This is an exception to the usual rule that the clue and answer must be interchangeable in a sentence, with the same meaning both ways. (This kind of clue really bugs some people. I'm on the fence.)
• Hidden -er meanings: Some nouns that end with -ER can be interpreted another way, as a noun made by adding -ER to a verb. For example, [French flower] may be the SEINE River, something that flows in France, a flow-er. [River tower] might be TUG, as in something that tows larger vessels in a river. (This kind of clue infuriates some people. They're not the height of cleverness, these clues, but they're like a little secret handshake for experienced solvers. If you know the "flower" trick already, you don't feel cheated when it comes up. And if you don't know the trick, it just seems unfair.)
Can you think of other constructor tricks that solvers may stumble on?
August 15, 2007
How Constructors Try to Trick You
Thursday, 8/16
NYS 6:04
NYT 3:40
LAT 4:32
CS 2:41
(updated at 8:50 a.m. Thursday)
There's another plus-sized New York Sun grid (15x16 squares) for Pete Mitchell's "Don't Be So Negative!" puzzle. It summons up thoughts of all those words with prefixes that lack non-prefixed opposites. This old New Yorker piece by Jack Winter plays with that quirk of the English language; words and phrases like "sipid," "plussed," and "for some apparent reason" populate Winter's humorous essay. The crossword gives us NOCENT BYSTANDERS, RULY PASSENGERS, MACULATE HEART, and a GRUNTLED EMPLOYEE. Then the puzzle's also jam-packed with crisp and clever clues. [Where one might use a J-stroke] means nothing to me, but it's in a CANOE? Okay. [Cranberries' land] is ERIN, not BOG, because the band called the Cranberries is Irish. Cynophobia is a fear of dogs, so the [Bad choice for a cynophobic cinephile] is CUJO. [Heated competition?] is a MEET, where racers may run in heats. I didn't know the word [Exiguous], which means SPARSE. TASS is the Soviet/Russian news agency, a [Red alert issuer?]. [Fleshy flora] is ALOE, since aloe leaves are thick and fleshy. [Sit in a barrel, maybe] is AGE—if you're wine or whiskey. An AXLE is a Chevy [Suburban bar].
I went through at least half of Alan Arbesfeld's New York Times puzzle, including the theme entries, before I thought to see how FROM / START TO FINISH was borne out in the theme entries. ENDED BART jumped out at me as being a reorganized "bartended" (though it wasn't—it was "tended bar" with just a single letter shifted to the end), but then I didn't bother checking the logic of the theme entries up above until after I was done. "Trust in me" becomes RUST IN MET, "theater of war" turns into HEATER OF WART, and a "Trailways bus" is RAILWAYS BUST. Anyone else solve the puzzle without bothering to parse the theme answers? And did anyone else laugh to see that the [2001 Oscar nominee for the song "May It Be"] was Cruciverbia's favorite songstress, ENYA? I Googled up the YouTube video—yeesh, it's that woeful song from one of the Lord of the Rings movies. (Last Wednesday's Sun puzzle by Kelsey Blakley wowed with a similar theme.)
Updated:
I got partway through Paula Gamache's CrosSynergy puzzle, "Cheers!" and saw a frightfully stodgy quote taking shape. [Start of some advice about resourcefulness], IF LIFE HANDS YOU / LEMONS...ach. Then the rest of it settled into the grid, and the advice ended ASK FOR / TEQUILA AND SALT. (Then you'll have the ingredients for a tequila body slammer.) Oh! That's hardly stodgy.
Nancy Salomon's LA Times crossword has a switcheroo theme highlighting two homophone-rich flip-flop phrases, "all for one and one for all" and MacBeth's "fair is foul, and foul is fair." Her theme entries are FARE IS FOUL and FOWL IS FAIR, and AWL FOR ONE and WON FOR ALL. Neat trick, that.
August 14, 2007
Wednesday, 8/15
NYS 4:04
NYT 3:18
LAT 3:11
CS 3:03
(updated at 10:40 a.m. Wednesday)
Our top story tonight: Guess whose birthday is the 15th? And guess who ate too much at a dinner out tonight (chocolate souffle cake, yum!) and had too great a volume of strawberry margarita?
In other news, Wordplay's broadcast television premiere is slated for October 16 on PBS, as part of the "Independent Lens" series. Check, as they say, your local listings.
The New York Sun crossword, "Animal Pairs," is by Mark Feldman. The theme entries are short—a 9, two 8s, and two 7s, all "animalistic" sound-alikes for words or phrases in which the resulting phrase is a pair of animals. Hair mousse becomes HARE MOOSE; the French wine Bourdeaux becomes BOAR DOE; an old movie I don't know, Dear Heart, becomes DEER HART. My favorite examples were the ones using animals the populate crossword grids: the GNU BEES (newbies) and EWE TERNS (U-turns). As a bonus, NOAH'S ARK is there—although Noah would have gotten in big trouble for pairing a ewe with a tern instead of bringing two of each. I liked [Heathcliff's creator] because it made me think, "Who on earth does that comic strip?" when I really just needed Emily BRONTE. (Wuthering Heights was her only novel—she died of tuberculosis at age 30.) The small theme allows for plenty of longish answers in the fill, though BOTULIN and ARSENITE poisoned the fill a bit with their relative obscurity.
From the New York Times we get Ray Fontenot's crossword. The first part of the quip is clued [Start of a newspaper headline about a workplace mishap], and it turns out to be a play on RECOVERED's double meaning, "healed" and "covered again, as with upholstery." I'm no fan of quip or quote themes, but this puzzle's elevated by the lengthening of the fill—there are fewer 3-letter words than usual. The most obscure word, [Close-fitting tartan pants], crossed the quip and I wonder how many people chose TRETS instead of the correct TREWS (either NOW or NOT could plausibly be part of the quip). What are TREWS? They're form-fitting Scottish men's pants that date back to the time of the Book of Kells—available in knee-length breeches or in, essentially, stirrup pants. Less old is Tycho BRAHE, the Danish astronomer who lost part of his nose in a duel (damn those sharp swords!). Words that may be unfamiliar to crossword newcomers include ESNE ([Feudal serf]); [Soviet news agency] TASS (as in ITAR-TASS); the top crossword neutral color, ECRU; and the old (but current Canadian) gas station, ESSO, with a shiny new clue here: [Brand name that's coincidentally Italian for "it"]. Does anyone much use ELAN, meaning [Panache] or brio, outside of crosswords? "The esne envied how his lord sported his trews with such elan." Favorite clues in this puzzle: [Ignore the alarm?] for OVERSLEEP; [I, in old Rome] for EGO; [Bubble source] for SOAP (and not, say, SPECULATION or POOR LENDING PRACTICES); and ["Go ahead, tell me"] for I GIVE UP.
Updated:
Raymond Hamel's CrosSynergy puzzle has CAKES and ICING and some '80s nostalgia (parts of the the "songs containing AIR, FIRE, EARTH, and WATER" theme, the BRAT PACK movies) to celebrate my birthday! I don't know about the clue for LATE SHOW, though: [TV program for insomniacs]? How many people are watching Letterman because they have insomnia? I'm thinking people stay up to watch The Late Show and its ilk and haven't even tried to go to sleep yet. Crappy infomercials are what's on tap in the wee hours for insomniacs.
Doug Peterson's LA Times crossword's theme entries are phrases that begin with PURSE, SACK, SATCHEL, and CASE. Hey, if you like cloth bags better than leather, or if you like the idea of choosing your own combination of fabrics for a one-of-a-kind bag, check out 1154 Lill Studio. I get a ton of compliments on my Lill bags, and I'll bet Linda does, too. Twisty clue: [Shot in the arm?] for AMMO, arm meaning a weapon rather than a limb here. One-letter-off trap: [Works like a dog] is MOILS, not TOILS, as a bad actor may HAM IT UP, but to my knowledge nobody has ever been said to HAT IT UP. [Sheen, to the Queen] made me think of Charlie Sheen and Martin Sheen, thanks to that capital S; turns out to be the British spelling, LUSTRE.
August 13, 2007
Tuesday, 8/14
NYS 6:19
Tausig 4:02
Onion 3:58
CS 3:07
NYT 3:02
LAT 2:54
(updated at 11:30 am Tuesday)
Cha-ching! Ring up another Patrick Blindauer deposit into my "great puzzles" stash, this time the Tuesday Sun. I'm not sure why it's a Tuesday puzzle, even in the tougher-than-the-Times Sun, but there you have it. It's got a Friday-tough kick to it, plus something extra. So put on your thinking fez and and match wits with Patrick B2 before you read about the puzzle below.
The New York Times crossword by C.W. Stewart hits the thesaurus for a colorful theme of [Doofus] synonyms. I know the NUMSKULL, DUMBBELL, and BIRDBRAIN, the NINCOMPOOP and DINGALING—but NOODLEHEAD? I can't say I've heard that one. If you use your noodle or use your head, you're no doofus, but if you combine the two, somehow your cognitive skills dwindle? Nice swaths of 7-letter Down answers in the grid to show that C.W. Stewart is no noodlehead. The crowning grace of the puzzle is that YOU is clued as [A person who is not a doofus]. Old-school crossword answers for newbies to make note of: ARETES are [Craggy mountain ridges]; ETD is an [Airport stat.], estimated time of departure; an ALB is a [Priestly vestment]; [Wry Bombeck] is ERMA, and while I read her books when I was a kid, I suspect she's not well-known among younger folks; an ERG is a [Work unit] in physics; and ADAR is a [Hebrew month].
Okay, moving along to Patrick B2's New York Sun puzzle: Patrick rarely makes a crossword without some sort of twist to it. His first Sun puzzle had a connect-the-dots star in the grid, and this 15x16 grid contains a WORD SEARCH PUZZLE. The words that are hidden are made up of DOWN CLUE STARTERS, or the first letters of each down clue. Reading down the list of clues, we see "Find these six words: TIME, STORY, TREE, HOT, FOUL, ASSEMBLY." Sure enough, after you fill in the crossword, you can find those words in the grid, word-search style: TIME goes up inside 11-Down, STORY goes up diagonally from the bottom right corner, TREE is inside 30-Across, HOT's in 64-Across, FOUL heads up at an angle from within 69-Across, and ASSEMBLY climbs up from 47-Down. The puzzle's title, "Go to the Head of the Line," ties the word-search words together: assembly line, timeline, etc. (What? No conga or telephone line?) So the gimmick's awfully nifty, and the restrictions on what each down clue could start with produced some interesting clues. [Opposite of bianca] is NERA, Italian for black (as used to describe pope-picking black and white smoke—I heard about this smoke during the last papa go-round but didn't learn the Italian terms for it). CPR is [Hospital administration?]. ["Two Girls at the Piano" and others] = RENOIRS and ["Farewell to Thee" is its translated title] = ALOHA OE. [One involved in match play?] is a PYRO. [Lisa Simpson, to Patty and Selma Bouvier] = NIECE. From th Across clues: George Bernard SHAW won an Oscar for Pygmalion and a Nobel prize for literature. [Eton john] (for LOO) evokes Elton John. I think I've seen [It may bring out the kid in you] before as a clue for CESAREAN, but I still like it.
Updated:
Ben Tausig's Ink Well/Chicago Reader crossword, "Q and A," has four Q.A. entries, excluding quality assurance, which is one letter too long. My favorite theme entry is the colloquial, quasi-Brit QUITE ALRIGHT, and I do like the Q action. Favorite clues: [Place to score, if you're not out] for HOME; [Noted krautrock group] for FAUST, a German rock band I've never heard of; [Collective with turf] for GANG (hmm, I suppose the Gangster Disciples might be considered a collective); and [Caesarean section?] for I CAME.
Tyler Hinman's Onion A.V. Club crossword tells a traveler's tale of woe with a whopping five 15-letter entries. His flight was DELAYED TWO HOURS, assorted other indignities transpired, and eventually he said, "Forget flying, I'm HITCHHIKING HOME." There are some very good answers and clues in this puzzle. I like "YOU SWEAR?" and the five-sixths consonants SCHISM, AXE deodorant body spray "cutting through" ODOR, and the assortment of pop culture. Two words that don't usually make it into daily crosswords: ANAL, clued as [Micromanaging, say], and NAUSEA, [Roller coaster upshot, possibly]. My favorite clues: [Bugs, for one] for TOON; [Ball ___] for HOG; [Weird Al's "Yoda" parodies it] for LOLA (that link is a clip of Weird Al performing the song live); and ["You are the ___" (phrase often heard on Maury] for FATHER (Maury Povich's show does big business in paternity testing).
Randolph Ross's CrosSynergy theme has probably been done before in some form, but it's done well here. Five theme entries offer methods of "Going Up" that hinge on words that mean "a thing you use to go up": ESCALATOR CLAUSE, ELEVATOR SHOES, SPIRAL STAIRCASE, CAN I GET A LIFT, and CORPORATE LADDER. Granted, the only upward movement involved in getting a lift is stepping from the pavement to the car, and elevator shoes don't hoist you too far, but that's close enough for me. I like the double "Going Up" sense the theme entries offer. Each of the 9-letter Down answers links three theme entries together, too.
Jack McInturff's LA Times crossword groups four 15-letter phrases that end with words that fit into ___way, WAY being the defining entry at 73-Across; e.g., CANDLESTICK PARK and parkway. The other ways are beltway, roadway, and freeway.
Cartoons and crosswords
Have you seen the latest Pixar animated film, Ratatouille? My family and I all loved it. Funny, sweet, and with a heartening take-home message: "Anyone can cook." That was the motto of the late, great toon chef Auguste Gusteau and the title of his fictional cookbook. In the movie (and this is hardly a spoiler for anyone who's seen a single ad for Ratatouille), Remy is a rat who has a gift for cooking.
I think the same philosophy holds true for crossword puzzles. So many people say, "Oh, I can't do those things." They'll skim the list of clues for a crossword, see little that jumps out as something they know, and they'll put it down. But I do believe that anyone who has a modicum of intelligence and takes an interest in crosswords can learn how to kick cruciverbal butt. They may not all be able to triumph at the American Crossword Puzzle Tournament, but honestly, I think average Janes and Joes can teach themselves the tricks of the trade.
Of course, plenty of people just don't care about crosswords one way or another. But really, a tool like my book can help a new solver crack the code if he or she is motivated to try.
There are so many words and names that are woefully obscure to most Americans, but always on tap for crossword junkies. Sure, we all had a first time. We weren't born knowing that Charlie Chaplin married Eugene O'Neill's much-younger daughter, Oona (that name is the Irish version of her mom's name, Agnes). We didn't know that Uta Hagen taught acting. We didn't know that a seed coat is called an aril or that there's a group of arum plants. My book (like several others) includes lists of common words seen in crosswords. Study that vocabulary list and it won't much enhance your conversational skills, but it'll help you with crosswords.
Paying attention to the letter patterns of words is also helpful. If there's a longish answer lining the bottom or right side of a crossword grid, it probably contains the sort of letters that other words end with, for example. Like S and E and R and D.
Learning how to extract all the information from a clue is also key. Sometimes it's tricky and you can't tell if a noun like fish is plural or singular, or if a verb like put is in the past or present tense. But more often, it's obvious what part of speech the clue represents, and the answer will play the same role. Experienced solvers wil remember this convention, and it will help keep them from falling down the rabbit hole of dead-wrong answers.
The next lesson (a.k.a. book excerpt): The Top 10 Ways Constructors Try to Trick You.
August 12, 2007
Monday, 8/13
CS 4:12
NYS 4:08
NYT 2:48
LAT 2:46
(updated at 10:55 a.m. and 4:30 p.m. Monday)
If you're like me and you wish every book had not only a table of contents but also a finely crafted index, and you have a copy of How to Conquer the New York Times Crossword Puzzle, then feel free to click on this picture to enlarge it, print it out (it should print out in the right size even though it's huge on the screen, but not crystal-clear), and tuck it in the front of your book. (Thanks to Harris for the technical assistance. Unless it doesn't work, of course.)
I may be taking a short vacation and skipping blogging Monday and Tuesday nights, with Al Sanders and John Farmer filling in for me. However, my son's come down with an ill-timed fever, so we may not be going anywhere tomorrow after all. We'll have to reassess his status Monday morning.
The Monday New York Times puzzle is by Andrew Ries. His name is familiar to me—if this is the same Andrew Ries whose name I've seen during my years of editing pulmonary medicine papers and a crossword constructing debut, then congratulations to Dr. Ries. If it's a different guy but still a debut, then congratulations to Mr. Ries. If it's not a debut, then hey, I liked your puzzle, sir. The theme is fairly beefy for a Monday, with four long answers ending with SUN, STAR, POST, and TIMES, all of which can be a DAILY (5-Across) PAPER (72-Across).The fill contains a couple Xs and a Q for extra SPICE. However, what on earth is SEXY doing clued as [Like a Playmate of the Month]? Not everyone finds PhotoShopping and silicone to be sexy. How about a little equal access, e.g., [Like Brangelina]? If you don't like Brad, you might like Angelina. Today's old-school crossword fill: EWER, EDA LeShan, IVOR Novello, AGATE clued as a [Playing marble] (Does anyone still play marbles? Is anyone unfamiliar with the quartz variety called agate?), and the crossword direction ESE (not to be confused with the slang esé).
Updated:
The kid tossed and turned feverishly for hours—in Mom and Dad's bed. Ben awoke refreshed, but his folks are feeling plumb tuckered out. Sure, it's nothing compared with the sleep deprivation attendant on caring for a newborn, but we've grown soft since Ben's baby days and need our sleep.
Hooray! Another CrosSynergy crossword from Bob Klahn. In "Heart Association," the theme entries start with kinds of hearts: ARTIFICIAL, HEAVY, PURPLE, and BROKEN. As I'd expect from Klahn, many terrific clues: [They may get hot under the collar] for NAPES and [It holds its head up] for NECK; [What the Saints come marching in on?] for ARTIFICIAL TURF; [They're barely brown] for ECRUS (a good clue can redeem a lame word); [Result of many a union grievance?] for BROKEN MARRIAGE; [River whose name is Celtic for "river"] for AVON (did you know that? I didn't); [Prepare a dotted line, perhaps] for PERFORATE; and [Joint chief?] for WARDEN. Usually a theme like this would include straightforward clues for the theme entries, but here, two are tricky question-marked clues. EFILE (used here) and e-mail may be the only e- terms I hear people use. Other crosswords recently have given us the EDATE, EZINE, EMAG, ETAIL, and ENOTE, which I don't use (nor do I e-use them). What e-words do you use?
The theme in Fred Jackson III's LA Times puzzle is hard to label. Three-word phrases in which words 1 and 3 start with D and word 2 is short? He includes DULL AS DISHWATER, DEAR OLD DAD, DIME A DOZEN, and DOLLARS TO DONUTS. Dollars to donuts, I'll bet most dads wouldn't like to be tagged as dull or a dime a dozen—not that the crossword is thus slandering them or anything. AFROS is clued as [Big hairdos]; lately, I've been noticing more AFRO clues that reference the hairstyle itself rather than its purported outdatedness. Fros may have vanished in the '90s, but they're back now to a degree.
Update #2:
Jeremy Horwitz's New York Sun puzzle, "Mercury Records," features three songs I've never heard of ("COLD TURKEY," "COOL JERK," and "WARM IT UP") and one for which I have hardcore junior-high nostalgia. Foreigner's "HOT BLOODED" has dreadful lyrics, but hey, it fits the temperature/song continuum. (And no, Ben's fever did not evoke those lyrics because his fever maxed out at 102.9°.) Several standout clues: I like [Post-alpha bits?] for BETAS because it's clever and because I loved-loved-loved Alpha-Bits oaty orthographical breakfast cereal goodness when I was a kid. [It might be filled with pot smoke] is a fun mislead for KILN. The COFFEE BEAN is [Part of the morning grind?]. The Biblical-sounding ["Exodus" scribe] clues novelist Leon URIS. [Nickel and dime] means the COINS and not the adjective or verb. TALL can be defined as [Like Magic?] Johnson. Favorite fill: PB AND J, PAY PHONE, and the words containing those 10 instances of X, Z, J, or K.
August 11, 2007
Sunday, 8/12
LAT 9:21
PI 8:39
NYT 8:33
WaPo 8:28
BG 7:31
CS 3:13
(updated at 10:50 a.m. Sunday)
You know, after I reviewed the galleys of How to Conquer the New York Times Crossword Puzzle last spring, I figured the publisher would add the table of contents in the next stage. They didn't. I typed one up for myself today—will have to figure out if there's a way to upload a printable version here. In the meantime, if you'd like it in MS Word, feel free to e-mail me (orangexw is my gmail address).
The Sunday New York Times crossword this weekend is by Cathy Millhauser. The "Lightheaded" theme is signaled by TO THE MOON at 52-Down. The other theme entries all begin with words that can fill in the blank in "___ MOON": NEW AGE MOVEMENTS, HARVEST HOME, QUARTERSTAFF, BLUE LAGOON, PAPER TIGER, CRESCENT ROLL, WAXING SALON, FULL METAL JACKET, and (at 38-Down) HALF A LOAF. Hey, look who's down there in the right corner of the grid—EMILE, the ["South Pacific" role] played by Ezio Pinza. (Do remember these names, because you'll be seeing them again if you continue doing crosswords.)
There were a smattering of obscure words lurking in this puzzle (not counting words like ARIL and OONA that are familiar to longtime solvers). The ROWEL, a [Wheel on a spur], and the weapon, the QUARTERSTAFF, both date back to medieval England. Also in England, we have ENFIELD, the [Northernmost borough of London], where the Piccadilly Underground line terminates at Cockfosters and yes, I giggled when the train announcer said the train was going there. I didn't recognize the [Elongated marine fish] known as an EELPOUT—"Oh, don't pout, sweetie. You're not really an eel." The [Capital of France's Aube Department], TROYES, is where Louis the Stammerer received the imperial crown in the year 878. Crossing the Spanish border, there's also LEON, a [Province NW of Madrid].
There's plenty of skiing going on in this puzzle's moonlight: While living on MST (Mountain Standard Time), you and your SKIS might take the ROPE TOW to the top and SLALOM your way down. There's a double hit of Latin, with LATIN clued as [Exempli gratia, e.g.], and the Latin NOMEN ("name") clued as [The "Claudius" in Tiberius Claudius Nero]. Clues I liked: [Break-even enterprise] for WASH; [Root canal, in dentist-speak] for ENDO (always like it when dental and medical terminology pop up here); ["Ta-ta"] for TOODLE-OO; [Attorney William after whom a stadium is named] for SHEA (did not know that!); the groan-inducing [Burn at the end?] for CREMATE; and [Centaur's head?] for SOFT C.
Patrick Blindauer's Washington Post puzzle, "Patron Saints," pretends that various words and phrases that start with ST are saints. So the [Patron of drinking buds] is ST ALE MATE, and [Patron of young rhymers] is ST RAPPING LAD. The unwashed get ST ICKY FINGERS, and the conger catchers turn to ST EEL TRAP. Each theme entry is fun to figure out, and Patrick B2 has also wedged plenty of lively fill into his grid. There's a BIG MAC, some ROTH IRAS, KITSCHY, sweet RIESLING, ALRIGHT, PRIE-DIEU, SUSIE Q and the X-MEN, and a few other words containing a Q, Z, or X. Favorite clues: the great [Toonsmith?] for ANIMATOR; [Column part] for VERTEBRA; [Turkey toucher] for IRAQ; [Mandy's "Princess Bride" role] for INIGO (here's a video clip of Mr. Patinkin as Inigo Montoya, saying his famous line); [Don't sit] for ACT with [Stand] for GET UP; and [A concha tops it] for APSE (the concha is the half-dome seen here). Thanks for an entertaining crossword, Patrick (and editor Fred Piscop)!
Henry Hook's online Boston Globe crossword, "Take the Train," adds EL to certain phrases to generate the theme entries. Vows of silence become [One I and two Es?], or VOWELS OF SILENCE. Woman's Day magazine yields WOMAN'S DELAY, [Result of long restroom lines, traditionally?]. And the [Wearer of half an eagle?] is a SEMICOLONEL. Favorite clues: [My brothel's keeper?] for MADAM; the never-saw-it-before word [Famulus] for SECRETARY; [Pre-Copernican center] for EARTH; [Spot check?] for LEASH; [Cambrian] for WELSH; and [1955 newsmaking passenger] for Rosa PARKS.
Merl Reagle's Philadelphia Inquirer crossword is called "Baseballese." You know what? I've learned plenty of baseball from crosswords over the years, but most of what I've learned are shorter words. Merl's got 11 baseball terms, 10 to 15 letters apiece, and I've only heard of two of them. SHAKES OFF A SIGN is one I picked up from Bull Durham, and SUICIDE SQUEEZE, well, maybe I read that in crossword clues, or maybe I actually gleaned some actual baseball knowledge somewhere. The other nine phrases are a mystery to me. Well, baseball junkies are sure to love this puzzle.
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Today's Universal puzzle by Ed Early is called "A Question of Love." Reader Kristi tipped me off to it—the theme entries read MY HEART IS YOURS, I'M CRAZY ABOUT YOU, WILL YOU MARRY ME, and SAY YES. Anyone know the story behind this proposal?
Robert Wolfe's syndicated LA Times crossword, "Doubles Match," is tougher than the day's other Sunday-sized puzzles because the eight theme entries have no apparent link when you study their clues, and having eight short answers clued [Word with 15-Down] or [Word with 23-Across], say, doesn't give away any other hints. Eventually, with the help of a zillion crossing answers, the theme emerges: phrases that follow the "___ AND ___" model, teamed with a short word that can go with both halves. Thus, 92-Down, BALL, is paired with 23-Across, HARD AND FAST (hardball, fastball). The other combos are FIRE AND RAIN with STORM; WATCH AND WAIT with LIST; BED AND BOARD with ROOM; NIGHT AND DAY with LIGHT; LAW AND ORDER with BOOK (book order? order book?); WAR AND PEACE with TIME; and BLACK AND BLUE with BIRD. I don't get a couple of the "doubles matches," but I like the intricacy of the theme. Eight longish theme entries linked to eight shorter theme entries, all obeying traditional symmetry rules, surrounded by fill that doesn't feel particularly forced. Favorite clues and entries, in no particular order: [HI his] for ALOHAS; the racehorse BARBARO; [King's realm] for CNN, home of Larry King's show, and [King of the stage] for LEAR; BAWDIER and HEINIE; [Season opener?] for PRE; and the inclusion of the [Goat god] PAN and those [Part-goat creatures], SATYRS, in the same corner.
Thomas Schier's themeless CrosSynergy crossword played like a Wednesday puzzle only without a theme—that is to say, pretty easy. One solitary Scrabbly letter, an X, amid fairly ordinary words. (Play this little game: Look for forms of REASSESS in the bottom row or rightmost column of crosswords. You won't see the word often in other parts of the grid, but all those Ss come in handy for the endings of the crossing words. Here, it's at the far right, but I know I've seen it parked in the bottom of plenty of other grids.) Playful clues: [Holdup man?] for ATLAS and [Curly poker?] for MOE of the Three Stooges.
August 10, 2007
Saturday, 8/11
Newsday 5:11
LAT 5:05
NYT 4:50
CS 3:02
(updated at 10:15 a.m. Saturday)
Rejoice! A Saturday New York Times puzzle by Karen Tracey! And it's so thoroughly enjoyable! Well, I liked it, anyway. Karen's style does appeal to me. What in particular pleased me? First off, there's all the Scrabbly deliciousness: FLORENZ ZIEGFELD ([Biographical subject of the Best Picture of 1936]), EZIO PINZA ([Co-star of Broadway's "Fanny"]), [Mideastern news source] AL-JAZEERA, and [Fictional salesman of '80s ads] JOE ISUZU all have a couple uncommon letters. Then there's the smidgen of world geography, ADDIS ABABA, [Where the African Union is headquartered], and the shoe brand ADIDAS (pardon me, the [Sportswear company whose logo is three parallel stripes]) that sounds related. Adidas Ababa? Then there are great words like SYMBIOSIS ([Mutualism]), WOLFSBANE ([Monkshood]—read up on it and see if you think it will turn you into a werewolf or fend off werewolves), and the nutty SPEEDEE, the [McDonald's mascot before Ronald]. Favorite clues: [Whole ___] for SHEBANG; [What goes around] for ROTATOR; [Gain or loss] for football YARDAGE; the verb [Shrink], not the noun, for COWER; [Place for a clown] for RODEO; [Jambalaya] for both GRAB BAG and OLIO; [Some defenders: Abbr.] for ATTS (lawyers, not athletes); [Number of wives for Enrique VIII] for SEIS (Enrique = Henry, seis = six); [Sex therapist's suggestion] for VIAGRA; [One held in an orbit] for EYE; [Patrick with a Tony] for Patrick MAGEE; and [It may follow convention] for GOER (as in convention-goer). One name I didn't know at all: [Science fiction author Greg] EGAN. And I'd never heard of SPEEDEE, who looks like this:
Well done, Karen (and Will)! A most enjoyable crossword.
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Patrick Jordan's CrosSynergy puzzle has a "Bar Exam" quip: WHAT BEVERAGE DID / THE ATTORNEY / GET AT THE PUB? Answer: A SUBPOENA COLADA. Does that put you in the mood to listen to "Escape (The Pina Colada Song)"?
Myles Callum's LA Times themeless puzzle includes my tag within ORANGE PEELS...directly opposite WICKED WITCH, clued Ozzishly with [Western villain?]. EMO PHILIPS gets promoted to the first/last name combo, with one of his jokes in the clue: "The other day my nephew's computer beat me at chess. But it was no match for me at kickboxing." DARLING LILI and NO, NO, NANETTE make a nice mini-theme of musicals that end with women's names and include doubled letter pairs (NO NO and LILI).
Daniel Stark's Newsday Saturday Stumper contains plenty of straightforward words with blah clues. INTENTS, ENTAILS, CEREALS, ENDINGS, ENSURED, CONFERS, HOOTING, HINTING, WHITER, SHARPER—what do these words have in common? Very few uncommon letters, lots of -ING, -S, and -ER endings, lots of IN- and EN- prefixes. In a standard themeless puzzle, 72 answers is the upper limit for word count. That means the grid ought to be less difficult to fill than a lower-word-count puzzle is, which should mean there's more flexibility for colloquial phrases, fun words, and words with high-Scrabble-value letters.
One of the most interesting chapters in Matt Gaffney's Gridlock is "Are Humans Necessary?" There, Matt writes about the sort of crossword-entry databases Peter Gordon and Frank Longo have, and the way those constructors will have a computer fill the grid. It's easy to let software fill a grid, but more control and more tweaking are required to make a computer-generated grid include livelier words—and Peter and Frank generally do insist on higher-quality words in the fill. In that chapter, Matt and Byron Walden produce similar crossword grids with interesting and unusual (but not obscure) words, but relying on their brains rather than finely honed databases.
What sorts of entries spice up a crossword? Last week's Stumper by "Anna Stiga" ("Stan again" Newman) had entries like "YES INDEED," TWERP, MASON JAR, and "IS IT ME?"—but not a ton of other zestiness in the grid. The July 21 one by Doug Peterson featured a pair of 15s (including MANDARIN ORANGES), POSTDOC, NANCY DREW, PREPPIES, a GREASY SPOON diner, and TRIX and SNAPPLE brand names—see, now that sort of grid fairly shouts "I started with a couple 15s and then put some fun stuff in there." The July 21 LA Times puzzle by Karen Tracey had SIT BACK AND RELAX crossing MASQUERADE PARTY—that says "Here's where I started, and how fun is it to build a puzzle about phrases with Xs and Qs in them?" Last weekend's CrosSynergy Sunday Challenge by Martin Ashwood-Smith had two triple-stacks of 15s—the obvious starting point for the constructor is those triple-stacks—and the July 29 offering from Bob Klahn (he of the swoon-inducing cluing) threw in DIXIE CUPS, SHE LOVES YOU, and the P-packed PINEAPPLE/PLATYPUS/PARK PLACE corner. Today's Stumper has no obvious seed entries that the constructor thought it'd be fun to see in a grid.
Memo to Stan Newman and his team: More question-marked tricky clues and clever misleads in your themeless puzzles, please! In today's Saturday Stumper, ENDINGS is clued as [Denouements]; why not something like [Parts that may be spoiled]? SNIPE is [Marsh bird] here; why not play around with the verb? For CEREALS, throw in a manufacturer name and clue it [Post boxes?] rather than [Supermarket displays]. Dull words can often be pepped up with oblique clues that bend the solver's brain.
There may be solvers who prefer to contend with more ordinary words and more straightforward clues, but the world of easy crosswords is keyed to that preference already. When it comes to a crossword that is presumably intended to stump the solver, though—and it is called Newsday's "Saturday Stumper"—it'd be nice to see more adventurous grids with zestier fill and more inventive cluing.
August 09, 2007
Friday, 8/10
NYS 7:26
NYT 6:24
Jonesin' 3:55
CHE, LAT, CS, WSJ, and Newsday—all done, but not timed
(updated at 12:30 p.m. Friday)
Ben and I spent the afternoon tanning (him) and freckling (me) in my sister's pool, and drove home as the sun set. We passed downtown Chicago on the way and grooved on the low clouds in the skyline. The top of the Aon Center (formerly the Amoco Building, née the Standard Oil Building) peeked out above the misty scarf of cloud wrapped around at about the 60th to 70th floors. About the top 20 floors of the Hancock building disappeared into the clouds, too.
So, we get home, and eventually I settle in for the evening's crosswords. Oy! Katie Hamill had already plowed through the New York Times puzzle by Patrick Berry in tiptop speed, so I think maybe the puzzle's not so hard...and then pow! The unbearable wrongness of guessing. My cruciverbal instincts lapsed. Let's see: Which of the 64 answers did I initially flub? 1-Across is supposed to be BANANA SPLIT, but I figured the [Oblong dessert], singular, was LADYFINGERS, plural. [Congressional output] was LAWS instead of ACTS. The long one at 6-Down I figured was ALEUTIAN something, crossing UNSALTED ([Suitable for hypertension sufferers]); eventually I realized it was ALASKAN crossing SALT-FREE; still later I removed that N for ALASKA PENINSULA. ["G'bye!"] had to be ADIOS, making 14-Across end in an A, so it be something-something-NBA—nope, it's SEE YA crossing BASKETBALL TEAMS. 25-Across, the [Kind of dish], was a mystery the whole time I thought ALASKAN belonged in the middle column; finally the SOAP dish washed out. Who's the [Early "astronaut"] at 29-Down? Obviously a non-human, LAIKA the dog—whoops, it's supposed to be a CHIMP. For 43-Down, [Highlands weapon], I put down SNEE rather than DIRK. The [Square dance partner] starting with G had to be GIRL...except that it was GENT. 44-Down's [Soft rock?] had to be TALC (or possibly LAVA)—whoops, no, it's SAND. If you managed to avoid all those wrong turns that sunk me, give yourself a cookie and a pat on the back.
My favorite clues tend to be the ones that stymie me the most, so I did enjoy most of those clues. I had recently looked up mushy PEAS, the [Mushy ___ (British dish)], to see if there was more to the goop than just mushed-up peas; apparently yes, there's...something else in there. I forget what. I don't like peas. Other good clues: [It reveals who's on first] for LINEUP; [Long known for playing football] for HOWIE Long; and [White sheets] for ICE FLOES. There's plenty to eat in this puzzle besides the BANANA SPLIT: CAKES AND ALE, GREEN TEA ice cream, SORBET, and BABKA, all close enough to SALT-FREE for the folks watching their blood pressure. Patrick's also assembled a beautiful grid, hasn't he? Sort of a big backwards S with chunky corners of white space firmly fixed to the stacked-up long answers at the top and bottom.
Jim Page's New York Sun puzzle probably isn't all that tough either, but I did it after blogging about the Times puzzle, and apparently freckling is hard work. I "rested my eyes" a few times while working through this crossword, so I haven't got much to say about it. The "Switcheroo" theme switches ER for OO and vice versa, so a tattooed lady is a TATTERED LADY and a herd mentality becomes a HOOD MENTALITY. Many delectable Xs in the grid—five in the top third, in fact.
In Matt Jones's Jonesin' crossword, "The Most Evil" (which I did earlier) the theme entries begin with synonyms: LOW, BASE, WICKED, and ARCH (the latter in the ARCH DELUXE burger). The theme doesn't do much for me, but I like how Matt included eight 9-letter words and phrases in the fill, along with a good smattering of pop culture.
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My son's done with day camp and doesn't go back to school until after Labor Day, and also is not fond of being neglected for hours while Mommy sits at the computer, solving crosswords and writing about them. So I printed a bunch out and sat on the couch with him.
Patrick Berry is all over the bylines today. The Wall Street Journal and the July 27 Chronicle of Higher Education crosswords are his. The WSJ theme has four pairs of "Name & Name" companies intersecting at the ampersand. They sort of seem like linked pairs, too: BRIGGS & STRATTON and BLACK & DECKER are both hardwarey, and MARKS & SPENCER and LORD & TAYLOR are clothing-heavy retailers. MARTINI & ROSSI and BAUSCH & LOMB both...sell things in bottles? That's pushing it a bit. And BARNES & NOBLE and CRABTREE & EVELYN are both...often found in the same malls? Hmm, maybe all they have in common is being companies named after "Business Partners." There's a [Green cheese in Switzerland] called SAPSAGO, apparently; looks like it's cheaper than Piave, my favorite other mystery cheese. Favorite clue in the WSJ crossword: [Show stopper?] for V-CHIP. My kid is not a fan.
Berry's CHE crossword, "Dubious Honors," features fairly heinous academia puns. Best clue: [Keeper of the children's quarters?] for ARCADE. Best fill: JOE PISCOPO, because it's fun to say, and COSSET, because it's a word I should use more often. Mystery answer: MICMAC, an Algonquian [First Nations tribe] of New Brunswick, Newfoundland, Nova Scotia, Quebec and Maine. Not to be confused with Melmac, the home planet for the '80s sitcom alien, Alf, the Big Mac, Tic-Tacs, or a mishmash.
Today's CrosSynergy puzzle is "Move Up the S," by Stella Daily and Bruce Venzke. An S moves from the beginning of the second word to the end, so Radio Shack becomes RADIO HACKS, [Cab drivers who love their Sirius?], and [Ambulatory pests?] are WALKING TICKS. Pretty Scrabbly fill, too.
James Sajdak's LA Times crossword plays with the Boston accent, eliding some R sounds to create theme entries like CROSSING GOD and an ANNIVERSARY COD. I didn't feel very wavelengthy while solving this puzzle, and it felt tough. Favorite clues: [Genesis creator] for video game company SEGA, and [It has banks in Switzerland] for the AARE River.
I don't usually write about the Newsday puzzle outside of Saturdays, but Merle Baker's Friday Newsday crossword, "The A List," has a gimmick with a fairly loose theme. It's the kind of gimmick I tend to like, though—letter restriction. The only vowel used is A. Also, every answer has at least one A, so there are no 3-letter abbreviations with only consonants. The theme entries are famous people with A-happy names, but they don't seem to be linked by anything but that orthographical happenstance.
August 08, 2007
Thursday, 8/9
NYS 5:22
LAT 4:15
NYT 3:37
CS 2:43
(updated at 9:15 a.m. Thursday)
This week's Themeless Thursday puzzle in the New York Sun comes from Patrick Berry. It's got a fairly low word count—64 answers—but it is quite low on the "roll-your-own word" front, includes many interesting and lively words and phrases, is moderately Scrabbly, and features four delicious corners of wide-open white space to be filled in. The entries I liked best: tasty TAPAS BAR just across the border from Portugal's AZORES; "WAIT A SECOND"; the ZAPRUDER movie; ODYSSEAN; "Be sure to drink your OVALTINE"; and the abutment of 90210's BRENDA with King SARGON, the [Akkadian king who conquered Mesopotamia]. Favorite clues: [Additions to an account?] for FIBS; [Local growers] for FLORA; [It most definitely is not fast food] for ESCARGOT (my kid, oddly enough, is interested in trying snails, though we keep passing up opportunities to order that when we dine out); [Hexagram] for STAR OF DAVID; [Italian vermouth brand featured in "Breaking Away "] for CINZANO; and [X, for Washington] for ROLE (Malcolm X, Denzel W.). Is [It can be a drag]/BUNT about bunting in baseball? Where does the drag fit in?
Tyler Hinman's New York Times crossword is a delight, too. No Thursday-style gimmick—just three guys whose names rhyme:
A bozo named STEVEN SEAGAL
Was jealous of one MARC CHAGALL
He thought Marc was French
And swung a steel bench
At PrésidentCHARLES DE GAULLE
In this left-right symmetrical puzzle, the finest Scrabbly letters pop up in the top two rows, in QBS, JAX, and SHOW BIZ. Other highlights in the grid: the BAHA MEN of the ubiquitous "Who Let the Dogs Out"; JARGON and the X-FILES crossing that JAX; ARUGULA (because I had an arugula salad for lunch on Monday, after years of thinking I hated arugula—I merely needed to see a plate of it to recognize it as a green I actually do like); the great phrase A BIT MUCH, clued as [Too-too]; and the PAC-TEN athletic conference spelled out in full, rather than as [___-10 conference] cluing PAC. Favorite clues: [Where to see a crown] for PAGEANT; [The Engineers of coll. athletics] for Tyler's alma mater, RPI, and the related [Beer, often] for CHASER; [Blew (through)] for SPED; and ["That's what I'm talking about!"] for AMEN. [Star near Venus?] is a great clue for SERENA Williams, as it sounds astronomical. So do three other clues: [Moon and Starr, for short] for QBS, [Space] for ROOM, and [Rockets' and Suns' organization] for NBA. I can scarcely believe ARUGULA wasn't clued as [Rocket].
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Randall Hartman's CrosSynergy crossword, "I Think We're in Trouble!" includes a bubbly foursome of synonymous theme entries: a fine KETTLE OF FISH, PANDORA'S BOX, a HORNETS' NEST, and the ever-popular STICKY WICKET. Best clue: [Bring up the rear?] for MOON. That upward hoisting is a key part of car- or bus-based mooning, of course.
Vic Fleming's LA Times crossword slices some TATERs in the theme entries, STATE REVENUE, DAKOTA TERRITORY, and the wee TOYOTA TERCEL. The theme entries are hooked together by some great longer fill: STIR CRAZY and HOT TO TROT.
