google.com, pub-2774194725043577, DIRECT, f08c47fec0942fa0 L.A.Times Crossword Corner: Saturday, Nov 26th, 2011 Barry C. Silk

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Nov 26, 2011

Saturday, Nov 26th, 2011 Barry C. Silk

Theme: Saturday Silkie

Words: 70

Blocks: 27

Lots of proper names made this particular Silkie tough to get started, but a few WAGs and I was able to get a foothold in some places, and go from there. (BTW, foothold was what I wanted for 14D). Four sets of triple-sevens, and two sets of triple 10's, with what almost looks like an "S" (for Silk) in the central blocks....

Onward ~!

ACROSS:

1. It eases tension : ICE-BREAKER - "so, how 'bout those Rangers???"

11. Not kosher : TREF - I can hardly remember this word

15. Online identification : SCREEN NAME

16. Meteorological effect caused by refraction : HALO - here's one of the moon

17. Blue blood : ARISTOCRAT - Mud-bloods are from Harry Potter

18. Kennedy Space Center attraction : IMAX - I had ICBM to start, thought one might be on display there - hey, it is a rocket....

19. Orders : DICTA

20. Certain pilgrim : HAJI - Arabic, one who has completed the HAJJ (a crossword staple), the pilgrimage to Mecca

21. "Our House" songwriter : NASH - I had the wrong "Our House" in mind - generational thing, I must say - this is the Madness song of the 80's that I grew up with

22. Some ER admissions : ODs - I went to the hospital to detox, but not from an Over Dose

23. Campus letters : RHOs - the "P" in the Greek Alphabet, but the "R" sound

25. Must : NEED TO

27. Autos featured in the John Wayne film "Big Jake" : REOs - as seen at :29 of this trailer clip

29. Mine sight : ORE CAR

31. Hurt : AIL - had it, took it out, put it back in

32. Chubby Checker's real first name : ERNEST - one of those "you know it, or you don't" clues, but once I had _ _ ST, it was worth a WAG

34. Bond : ALLIANCE - last to fall; I had "RACE DAY" for 12D - 'fast time' - hey, sounded good, but the last "Y" messed me up

36. Yielding : MEEK

38. Its motto is Latin for "Always prepared": Abbr. : USCG - I had USMC at first; their Latin is Semper Fidelis, which I wrongfully thought meant Always Prepared; the proper translation in Always Faithful; Semper Paratus is "Always Prepared" more here

39. Measure of interpersonal skills : SOCIAL IQ - yeah, my IQ is high, but my SOCIAL IQ is lame....I found this link, but I did not take the test yet [ post update - took the test, scored 20 on the "summary", but the whole report costs $6 ]

43. Like the conjunction "since" : CAUSAL

47. "Bed-in for Peace" figure : ONO

48. Shock : TRAUMA

50. Cap-__: from head to toe : APIE -cap-a-pie, the definition

51. Subsidized grad student : FELLOW - new to me

53. Charge carriers : IONs

55. Subway under B'way : IRT - The NYC subway system, more here - over 100yrs old

56. Hill worker : AIDE - POL, DEM, REP, SEN are all too short

57. Zipped through : ACED

59. Bristles : TEEMS

61. Five-time 1970s Phillies All-Star shortstop : BOWA (Larry) - yeah, baseball, I defer to C.C. (From C.C.: Here is his Fleer 1980 card. Also Phillies' manager 2001-2004. Met him before, Dennis?)

62. Cooking aid : NATURAL GAS - well, any fuel is really a "cooking aid"....

64. JFK postings : ETAs - Standard crossword fill; JFK was Idlewild in Queens prior to what happened Forty-Eight years ago

65. Singer/actress discovered by Mahalia Jackson : DELLA REESE - if one says so

66. Old Dodge : DART - tried OMNI to start, and I had a COLT, too



67. "Next?" : ANYONE ELSE~??

DOWN:

1. Joe Lieberman's middle name : ISADORE - again, you know it, or...and I do know Joe; he is sometimes a guest on WPLR's funny morning show from CT, which we get here on LI

2. 1957 Chuck Willis hit : C.C. RIDER - I'm, uh, just gonna link the song, here

3. 11th-century explorer : ERICSON

4. Letter sign-off : BEST - "All my Best", "Best Wishes", "Give my Best to..."

5. Do a road crew's job : RE-TAR

6. Roxy Music alum : ENO - another crossword staple

7. Linchpin : ANCHOR

8. Waters off Siberia : KARA SEA

9. Key with four sharps: Abbr. : E MAJor - JazzB knows this circle better than I do, I am sure

10. Biometric identification technique : RETINAL SCAN - funny, but this one came quickly - guess it's in my wheelhouse

11. Biblical possessive : THINE - Shakespeare (and AA) - "To Thine Own Self Be True"

12. Fast time for many : RAMADAN - ah, the holiday - see my opening quote

13. Flexible : ELASTIC

14. Front creation : FOXHOLE - military front, not to be confused with the weather front of 45D. It may follow a front : AIR MASS

24. 2004 historical film set in Africa : HOTEL RWANDA - this movie

26. Heath family shrub : ERICA - pretty images

28. Automatic opening? : SEMI - handguns, I believe

30. Actor Gulager : CLU - This guy

33. Defunct defense gp. : SEATO - South-East Asia Treaty Organization - more here

35. Eau across the Pyrenees : AGUA - yeah, I knew it was aGua, but my "C" from USMC was not letting it happen

37. Soul maker : KIA - the car, here

39. Convertible of a sort : SOFA BED - I had _ _ BE _, and WAGed BED from that

40. The least bit : ONE IOTA - Do I care? "NOT ONE IOTA ~!!"

41. Bygone CIA concern : COLD WAR

42. Without a fuss : QUIETLY - easy, once the Q from IQ showed up

44. Eponymous mail-order magnate : SPIEGEL - oh yes, but I was caught thinking about this catalog, since this actor hosted the Dog Show this Thanksgiving

46. "I'm thinking ..." : "LET'S SEE"

49. ___ operation: division calculation in computing : MODULO

52. Numerical extreme : LEAST

54. Gawk : STARE

58. Battle of Normandy city : CAEN - map

60. Part of a CSA signature : - Robert E. LEE

63. Bled : RAN - like clothes in the wash

Answer grid.

Splynter

56 comments:

  1. Hello, brave Saturday solvers!

    This one would have taken aeons had I not turned on red letters at some point. Want to try to go to sleep soon.

    Evil, as usual, Barry. Swell exposition, Splynter.

    Hands up for USMC. No trouble with FELLOW. That's how I got through grad school.

    Part of a name--gee, what will they think of next!

    Thanksgiving was the happiest day of my year! Invited out. Managed to get from car to house holding on to friend and using my quad cane. Not an unkind word was spoken at dinner. Parts of dinner especially prepared for my dietary restrictions! Only sour note was trying to heft myself out of Jaguar sedan after long time sitting.

    Received Evanovich 18 today. Hope it is good!

    Happy weekend!

    ReplyDelete
  2. Hello Puzzlers -

    Way too many unknowns. Way too many bad guesses. Would not have finished without a bunch of red letters. That's a Saturday Silkie Experience.

    ReplyDelete
  3. Morning, all!

    Ugh.

    This one slapped me around quite a bit. I finally had to Google Mr. Lieberman to get a toehold in the NE, and even then it took awhile to get the job done. KARA SEA? Never heard of it. CCRIDER? Never heard of that, either. BEST? Who ends a letter with simply BEST (as opposed to BEST regards, BEST wishes, etc.)? Are there any actual fraternities/sororities that have RHO in their name (I wanted PHIS)?

    The rest of the puzzle was challenging, but doable. I had no idea what a CAUSAL conjunction is, but I got it via the perps. BOWA, NASH and MODULO were additional complete unknowns, but once again the perps came to the rescue.

    I vaguely remembered a shrub named ERICA and was proud of myself for (eventually) remembering HOTEL RWANDA, DELLA REESE and SPIEGEL.

    The clue for TEEMS was downright evil.

    Oh -- and the less said about ELEE, the better.

    ReplyDelete
  4. Good day folks,

    Got my butt kicked around real good by Silkie. Surprisingly, I knew a lot of the proper names. Hell, Lieberman is our State Senator, Chubby I remembered from eons ago , Bowa a baseballer, Elee was a given, (who else from the CFA is ever clued?). Clu, and USCG were not difficult to suss.

    The clues that grabbed me were Kennedy Space Center attraction, Modulo, Meek, Soul maker and the entire NE. Foxhole was clever.

    But in the end, in order to finish, I had to go to the red letters. Too many ?????????'s.

    So I ended up with the right fills, but it was still a DNF to me because of the Red letter usage. W/O the assistance, I likely would have only finished roughly 60 % of the puzzle, perhaps even less.

    ReplyDelete
  5. Agreement here. ELEE was an early fill, but I erased it 3 times because it wouldn't perp. IRT came out twice. USmc was my first stab too, even though it didn't sound right. But it couldn't be Boy Scout related because I had the U. Dodge was a KCar, a Neon and an Omni before Dart appeared.

    Pencil and paper prevailed without a google, but it was a long slog and there were some thin spots on the newsprint 45 minutes after I started. Still, it seemed like a good workout rather than wasted time. Silkies are always hard and today's was on the upper end of the mohs scale.

    ReplyDelete
  6. Thanks Splynter

    67 Across summed up my feelings about this one quite well - Just too many obscure names, starting in the NW with a quadruple-crosser, to make this a fun run. Spelling Ericson (the only one I did know) with a K did not help matters either.

    A pity, since, as noted, there was very little dull fill. Foxhole and Airmass were outstanding clues/clechos.

    My thoughts turned to Madness, too, at 21A. Thanks for that link, Splynter.

    1 gripe:

    "Modulo Operation" is not division, per se, but obtaining the remainder following division.

    A few groans:

    Did not like Bond=Alliance
    Fellow is normally used to refer to a post-doctoral, not post-graduate student. The latter do also get fellowships, however, so it passes.

    I had only heard of Der Spiegel - that very well respected international newspaper. I'll have to make sure not to confuse them in future.

    Hope you all had a splendid TG.

    Best

    NC

    ReplyDelete
  7. Whew! I was pretty sure today was going to turn into a DNF. First time through the across clues and I had only ONO and IONS. I filled in a couple more with the down clues, but from there on it was noggin' sloggin' all the way. Finally finished with no lookups, but took 13 minutes longer than allotted.

    It didn't help that I had inked PLIABLE for ELASTIC, OMNI for the DART, STLO for CAEN, SETAE for Bristles, and ANYONELEFT for ANYONEELSE. Took quite some time to unthink those. My newspaper is quite a mess today.

    Didn't know this was a Barry Silk until I got here (the Barnacle doesn't print the author's name). It was quite a challenge, but I guess ultimately doable, since I do'd it.

    ReplyDelete
  8. Love the tough ones so I really loved this one. Managed to finish but lots of duress. My first fill was Clu and I remembered that with Saturday Silkies I always need to start in the SE and work my way back up. Thank you Barry C for the workout!

    ReplyDelete
  9. Most people think of Della Reese as a TV actress, not knowing she was a real musical force back in the late '50's.

    Here's Don't You Know from 1959

    ReplyDelete
  10. Good morning. Excellent write up and links Splynter. I thought this one was a little easier than some of Barry Silk's Saturday offerings, probably because of a few lucky wags. ARISTOCRAT, HAJI and (wag) REOS gave me enough to fill the NW and work my way out from there. Hand up for USMC, although I was almost sure it wasn't right. AGUA corrected that.

    BOWA was a total unknown, but the perps were solid. I did the same as most and went through a lot of Dodge nameplates and finally settled on DART as being the most friendly for a bottom of the grid entry.

    A friend of mine had a Dodge Dart. After the front fenders rotted away he got a front end assembly from its sibling, the Plymouth Valiant, and joined them. We could never figure out whether he had a Daliant or a Vart, though.

    ReplyDelete
  11. Good morning Splynter, C.C. at al.

    You showed remarkable restraint at 2D, Splynter. (Insert polite applause here.)

    It took me forever to come up with an ICE BREAKER to start this one, but I loved seeing that as the first entry. In each quadrant, there were at least one or two knowns, so with a bunch of WAGs and a couple lookups (ISADORE and ERNEST) I finished this bad puppy.

    Avg Joe, I cracked up at your “mohs scale” comment – what a perfect way to rate crossword difficulty!

    ReplyDelete
  12. Sally Rand’s fan dance was famous for showing just enough to keep you interested but not so much to make you think she was a pushover. That was also true of this fabulous Saturday Silkie!

    Musings
    -After 40 trips to KSC, I went through every venue to think of a unique attraction down there. Turns out it was one you can see lots of other places.
    -Our House was the theme of my daughters’ sorority
    -I enjoyed REO, HAJI, CAUSAL, FOXHOLE, AGUA, et al cluing
    -Found in Perpville – TREF, KARASEA, MODULO,
    -Fats Domino’s real name last week and now Chubby’s
    -We had CAPAPIE on a Sunday months ago and the constructor came here to proclaim it was a perfectly fine word and for solvers to quit complaining (with tongue in cheek). Was that Barry?
    -There was some effort to rename a state after JFK in mid 60’s
    -The eponymous Sears catalog served a major ancillary function too!

    ReplyDelete
  13. Hello.

    11/26/65 was a Friday and the day
    Jill and I were married.

    Finished 18 late last night. Very
    funny as usuall.

    Off to buy a new printer.

    eddy

    ReplyDelete
  14. Mr. Silk:

    "Since" should never be used as a causal conjunction (see "Elements of Style" by Strunk and White).

    Only use "since" when referring to order-in-time.

    If you wish to convey causality, use "because."

    ReplyDelete
  15. Good morning to all. always enjoy your write-ups Splynter. I got the southwest corner first, then icebreakers hit me and it was just that. I always find Mr. Silks puzzles challenging and so it should be on a Sat. To fermatprime I'm so glad to hear about your thanksgiving day everyone should try to get out when they can. I recently{Nov.1st had a below the knee amp. and we went out with family, party of 12 for our turkey day. Hobbled around with my walker, but soon to get a prosthesis,and looking forward to getting back to normal after fighting a foot infection for the last 10 years. To all have a great Sat. and rest of your holiday weekend. RJW.

    ReplyDelete
  16. Checking to see if I am still blue

    happy for you ferm

    good luck Ron

    happy anniversary eddyb

    ReplyDelete
  17. SINCE VS BECAUSE
    "Non Errors from Washington State U."
    Intersting. There is such a thing as too picky.
    Because VS SINCE text

    ReplyDelete
  18. Loved this "Saturday Silkie" (catching on to the blog lingo) and Splynter's write-up. Took one look at this puzzle and figured I'd never get anything in a million years. But slowly it came together except for one embarrassing blip ('plastic' instead of 'elastic').

    Also had lots of false starts including USMC and 'cap-a-ped' instead of cap-a-pie. (Too many crossword pis yesterday, and apple pies the day before, so I guess I was pie-shy today).

    I always sign notes either 'love' or 'best' depending on formality (who writes a 'letter' anymore?).

    Love,

    Misty

    ReplyDelete
  19. Anon at 11:15, I think HeartRx will be happy to note that ICE TEA is listed as non-standard in that same reference.

    ReplyDelete
  20. Okay, darn it, I may be overly sensitive about it but I get very irate when somebody else is given the credit for doing what I did first. In this case, using Mohs hardness as a metaphor for xword puzzle difficulty. Yesterday I posted, "Nice hard puzzle today, but I found yesterday's to be much harder. I guess the Mohs scale of xword puzzle hardness depends a lot on one's individual upbringing, interests, and experiences." However, I'm glad Avg Joe's usage of that term today gave pleasure.

    ReplyDelete
  21. Splynter: Thank you for explaining my Rated 'X' DNF Ink Blot.

    First pass through I had NASH, REO's & ONO.
    Eventually that SW corner fell.
    Hand-up on USmc before USCG.

    Happy Anniversary Jill & eddyB.

    Congrats to Hahtool (LSU) and Husker & Avg.Joe
    (Big Red) on your wins yesterday.
    My USF & Miami both lost. Tears ...

    A 'toast' to all at Sunset.

    ReplyDelete
  22. Fun, tough Saturday. Learned a lot of new stuff, the problem is I'll forget it all tomorrow. Thanks, Mr. Silk and a nice write-up as always, Splynter.

    Oh dear, the great Barry G Googles? What's up with that? Too much in a hurry to get the first comment in to slog it out? :)

    @ the causal usage anon - I shudder when I read these "works of reference" which are totally subjective anyway, and only serve to stifle creative use of the language.

    @Blue Ant - thanks for the POSH link yesterday!

    ReplyDelete
  23. Hello, Splynter, et al.

    Tough, tough Silkie today. The South was quite doable but the North gave me a headache which even an ICEBREAKER could not relax. I could not let go of ARISTACLAM which I was convinced was some kind of New England delicacy.

    FOXHOLE never entered my mind and TREF is completely foreign to me.

    Googled ISADORE and won't forget it as I have a lovely friend named Sister Isadore. She is now 92.

    ELEE? I had RLEE and TREMS. Didn't even notice.

    But thank you, Barry, for the challenge today. Now I'll go bake an apple PIE as my daughter is cooking another T-day dinner.

    Happy anniversary, Eddy.

    Have a super Saturday, everyone!

    ReplyDelete
  24. Thanks to Anon at 1115, I now realize that I have been speaking non-standard English for the last 50 years. So, Boo-haa, phooey, bah humbug and all that. Fortunately, my job 'needs' in the sciences and math have been long standardized and don't have to rely on the vagaries of 'usage'.

    To those of us who are Catholic, an interesting side show is the recently re-translated Roman Missal - prayers said during Mass.

    Please note, what follows is a comment on a particular religion. It is MERELY a COMMENT , ON LANGUAGE, not meant as criticism, or a tool for proselytizing !!!

    The Vatican has put forth an edict ( literally - ) over the prayers to be said during Mass, following today. In an effort to make it more 'awespiring' and 'poetic', words such as, 'consubstantial', 'non-oblation', 'unvanquished', and 'pro-ignominy' have been introduced, - to parishioners who don't even solve cross word puzzles. (sigh).

    to be continued.

    ReplyDelete
  25. Cap-a-pie was used by John Lampkin on Jan 2, 2011. Yes there was great wailing and gnashing of teeth at the time, to which the constructor finally replied:

    John Lampkin said...

    Geez, I've never seen so much whining and grumbling about a $20 word in my life! C'mon slackers, toughen up! CAPAPIE is a wonderful word, one that my HS English teacher Vern Wolthoff made us learn in 1963 for the SAT exam. Here is the pronunciation guide-- it's cap-uh-PEE.

    http://dictionary.reference.com/browse/cap-a-pie

    Practice saying it over and over so that you can amaze your loved one over dinner tonight by cooing, "Gee honey, you look great, capapie. And that reminds me, I have to go to the bathroom."

    One of the fun things about the english language is the controversies about usage. It seems that for every "expert" that will tell you to never do something a particular way, there's another "expert" that will tell you it's just fine. Remember the argument about pluals of words ending in s?

    ReplyDelete
  26. Hello everybody. Wow, what a hard puzzle. I had to look up a lot of it or would not haved been able to finish it.

    Fermatprime, I'm glad you had a happy day yesterday.

    Grumpy1, that was funny about the Dodge Vart :) Reminds me of when my grnadmother's Valiant was repaired with Comet parts. She got all pretend-upset when we called her car a Vomet.

    ReplyDelete
  27. Catholic Abcderain (Contd.)November 26, 2011 at 12:43 PM

    Continued from the above -

    Regarding the newly sanctioned, neo-poetic Mass prayers, I sense an opportunity for Fri. and Sat. constructors to add to their (already - ) commendable arsenals, 'fresh' words, now freely sanctioned by the Vatican.

    Among others, 'deio-incarnate' and 'proto-thelmatic', may come to mind. Here's your chance to wreak havoc on the unsuspecting word bumpkins ! ( provided you can get past our savior, on this earth, Rich Norris, first - ).

    Among other 'changes', in the Mass liturgy, is a sentence made up of ( more than) 70 words (!). Most of the parishioners will probably come up with just as many themes, by the time the sentence ends. Hopefully gratitude to God will be one of them.

    Our Savior, who art in heaven, have mercy on us.

    ReplyDelete
  28. EddyB, congratulations to you and Jill on your 46th anniversary.

    Ron Worden, sorry to hear that you had to go through an amputation but hope that ends the infection problem and that you adapt well to the prosthesis.

    ReplyDelete
  29. This puzzle gave me NATURAL GAS! aka AGITA. ANYONE ELSE?

    Strangely, my first fill-ins were TREF, RAMADAN, THINE but messed up by sticking in hail. Wanted NASH, but had no idea why.

    QUIETLY was easy so thought it was wrong. CLU came because years ago, I was fascinated by this name--kept wanting to call him Glu Culagher.

    I slapped in RLEE which made as much sense to me in the bristle clue as the right answer.

    Once again, I really didn't get going until wonderful Splynter gave me ICEBREAKER and SCREENNAME. As soon as I saw CC, knew what that had to be. (My SIL used to sing it ad nauseum.) Then gathered momentum.

    Guessed ISADORE because I had REOS and OBS. Oops, erase that! But that's why I went to the emergency room.

    Thanks, also for SOCIAL IQ which I still don't get. (One must either have it or not.)

    My next Kindle buy will be Evanovich 18. Always fun!

    Fermatprime and Ron Worden, your determination is inspiring! Glad you had nice times to savor.

    - PK

    ReplyDelete
  30. PK, what kind of Kindle do you have? I've been thinking of getting one, and have looked at the Kindle Fire, but I'm not sure its glossy screen would be conducive to comfortable reading as I imagine the black on white Kindle screen would be.

    ReplyDelete
  31. For Mr. Worden: Since I read your post I`ve been castigating myself for my petty complaints. My admiration to you for your upbeat spirit!

    ReplyDelete
  32. @Ron, I too want to add how happy I am that you were able to be out with family for Thanksgiving. Something to be thankful for!

    ReplyDelete
  33. Vatican Spring anyone?

    Might it not be time for Catholics to contest the infallibility of the pope--a doctrine that didn't get set until the nineteenth century, if I'm not mistaken? I know so many people who loved the liberalization of the Church in the 1960s only to have it go back to the old archaic and despotic ways. It's hard to believe a gentle and humane divinity wouldn't support less pedantic and stringent Vatican policies.

    ReplyDelete
  34. ANON @11:15
    The point of my post was that in many cases either is acceptable and neither is non standard, except for a few, such as the over-correction, "I feel badly"
    Link ice tea/iced tea

    ReplyDelete
  35. Good afternoon, folks. Thank you, Barry Silk, for occupying a good portion of my day. Tough puzzle, but fun once it was done. Thank you, Splynter, for the informative write-up.

    This was one tough puppy. My first answer was CLU. I believe someone else said that, too. I spread from there, but with errors I had to fix later, such as USMC/USCG.

    Never knew there was a car called a SOUL.

    SOCIAL IQ took me awhile.

    Got Cap A PIE with perps. However, I do remember that word from the past.

    I tried to put in ST LO for 58D, but eventually settle for CAEN.

    I had to look at my globe to find the KARA SEA.

    I have some work to do around the house, so I will be exiting. Looking forward to the Sunday puzzle. I just purchased the paper to get it.

    See you tomorrow.

    Abejo

    ReplyDelete
  36. Graham NASH made the puzzle...which reminds me - anybody here like Neil Young?

    Fermat′ - no offense, but I wish I had the "displeasure" of sitting in a Jaguar for too long...

    Barry G, I guess every RHOS has its thorn.

    Marti, nice shout-out to Boomer!

    Crosswordgirl, don't be sad...

    Lucina, ARISTACLAMS just might be the next Disney movie! Or, the profit of a recording label...

    When ISADORE not a door? When it's AJAR.

    Cop-a-plea, not a feel.

    Religion is a touchy subject, as you should well know, Catholic Abecedarian.

    Because I can, I might. Since I know, I don't.

    ReplyDelete
  37. Hi, again. The apple pis is baking and the sweet aroma is permeating throughout the house.

    Hey, cap-APIE was the least of my troubles as I remember it from the past; now I know where. Thanks, Grumpy.

    catholicabcderian:
    Don't sweat it, my friend. Changes come and changes go. The pendulum will swing again. I have it seen it so in my seven decades of living. Remember, all the liturgy was once in Latin!

    ReplyDelete
  38. OOh! That's a terrible typo! Apple pie.

    ReplyDelete
  39. Random Amusings:
    I love your wit. Go blue!

    ReplyDelete
  40. Ron, I was sorry to hear about your past foot woes but I am impressed with your attitude and spirit. I hope I could do as well if I had similar circumstances. Best wishes.

    I was doing a WSJ crossword from a couple of weeks back and came across the clue, "Teammate of C.C." I was going to put DON G but alas, they were looking for A ROD. Rats!

    Interest article including "Because vs Since." Lots of good stuff there. Being a fogy, I usually opt for the traditional rather than the newer non-standard usage because the latter is usually because something has been used incorrectly so often that it's now included in the language.

    ReplyDelete
  41. nope, not blue, not even sad!

    I love to laugh, (one reason I check comments here)

    I almost started by saying I like Saturdays cause I like em hard....

    (Sorry Santa, you can erase)

    ReplyDelete
  42. RandAm@2:34: Reminds me of Clinton`s answer when asked "Why?" concerning The Monica. His answer: "Because I could."

    "Absolute power....

    ReplyDelete
  43. Jayce, I have to gray screen Kindle my kids gave me last Christmas before the Kindle Fire and other updated ones came out. My favorite things about it are:

    1. Ability to enlarge the type for ailing eyesight,

    2. Don't have as much pain in arthritic hands with the Kindle of lighter weight than print books.

    3. Don't have to buy a bigger home to accommodate my books.

    I've had a few glitches occur which were easy to resolve without cost. Since Feb. 28 when it went on line (after I finally bought a computer for the WiFI) I have read 59 books on there. Amazing capacity. I've gone back and picked up earlier works of some of the authors I really like and read up to date.

    I read a lot of mysteries. Tried Dickens "Tale of Two Cities" which was free, but kept wanting to edit and rework his sentences. Gave that up.

    Let me know what you try. Have wondered about KFire, but probably won't buy it unless this stops working. It looks like it's bigger and might be harder to hold.

    - PK

    ReplyDelete
  44. Chutzpah:

    A little old lady sold pretzels on a street corner for a dollar each. Every day a young man would leave his office building at lunch time and as he passed the pretzel stand, he would leave her a dollar but never take a pretzel.

    This offering went on for more than three years. The two of them never spoke. One day as the young man passed the old lady's stand and left his dollar as usual, the pretzel lady spoke to him for the first time in over three years. Without blinking an eye she said: "They're a dollar and a quarter now."

    ReplyDelete
  45. PK, thank you.

    Bill G, that was funny. Thanks for posting it.

    ReplyDelete
  46. Jayce, a hundred thousand apologies for the unintentional slight to your erudite comment comparing crossword difficulty to the Moh's scale yesterday. But I am glad that you steered my misguided soul in the right direction by "gently" pointing out the error of my ways. ;-)

    I have to confess, that I have been crazy busy lately - I had eight women over last night for book club ("The Thirteenth Tale" - great read), and did not have time to look at all the posts yesterday. Tsk, tsk, shame on me!

    Just know that I usually do read all of your posts, even when I might skim over others...or, is that "scan"? (See Anon's link @ 11:15).

    The good news is, on Saturday we have quite an elite group who (that?) post (s?), so not too many will see my faux pas! All this proper English is giving me a headache, so I am just going to go QUIETLY, while I still have some semblance of sanity...

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  47. And since I was complicit in this slight, let me offer my apology as well. While I do read your posts Jayce, I don't devote a lot of hard drive space to any precise comments made by anyone, so while I'm guilty of plagiarism, it was unintentional.

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  48. hello, crosswordgirl.

    No erasure but a check mark on my list, my special list. Ho, ho, ho!

    My song to you. Clip.(3:59)

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  49. Am I the only one who totally disagrees with "bristles" defining TEEMS??? "Bristles" ALWAYS means a lot of EMOTIONAL, EXCITED activity. Come on, Barry!!!

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  50. Good evening everyone.

    Ron Worden, I surely wish you well with your prospect of a prosthesis. Your great down-play of your problem is wonderful. Congratulations.

    Happy anniversary Eddy.

    Got four, count 'em, four correctly today. Wowee.

    Cheers

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  51. Am I the only one who totally disagrees with "bristles" defining TEEMS???

    Yep.

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  52. a romantic grammarianNovember 26, 2011 at 5:30 PM

    In regard to proper usage, the ONLY way to end a sentence on a proposition is:

    "Love of my life, will you marry me?"

    ReplyDelete
  53. Thanks to you all for the well wishes. I have a great family and lots of support, and I am so glad to be making friends on this great crossword blog. I was a transfer from the P.G. website and am tickled to pieces to be here now. Thanks again, RJW.

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  54. It's probably too late for this but in the discussion of Kindles - I have an iPad (1) with a Kindle app, as well as iBooks, so it's easy to compare prices (Amazon usually wins) and it is much larger than the Kindle. With the proper case you can prop it up so the weight is not a problem. I think it weighs one pound. I have over 60 books read and archived, am reading Evanovich Eighteen now and have a couple of other new ones waiting.

    P. S. this puzzle kicked my rear!

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