Theme: "And I quote..."
18. Start of a quote : A HEN IS ONLY
23. Quote, part 2 : AN EGG'S
40. Quote, part 3 : WAY OF
54. Quote, part 4 : MAKING
61. End of the quote : ANOTHER EGG.
16A. With 66-Across, author of this puzzle's quote : SAMUEL. and 66-Across. See 16-Across : BUTLER.
Marti here, trying to fill Lemonade's shoes on a Friday. Whoo boy, I sure struggled with this one. I took me almost twice my normal Friday solving time, and even when I finished it, there were some things I still didn't know (LEONA, EGAN, TREME, for instance.)
I believe this is Jacob's debut LAT puzzle, so, congratulations!
Across:
1. City SE of Milan : LODI. BAM! Right off the bat, I get sucker punched. Anyone else enter "Rome?" Map.
5. Station occupant : COP.
8. Extended stays : ABODES. I didn't like this clue. It should have referred to the obsolete meaning of the word.
14. Dept. with a sun on its seal : ENER.gy. Among other things...
15. Dish made in an oven called an imu : POI. Total WAG. But a learning moment. The imu is basically a deep pit, with a wood fire in the bottom that is covered with fist-sized stones. The food is wrapped in leaves (to steam), placed into the pit, then covered with the dirt. A rolled up palm leaf is often used to keep a vent open at the top of the pit.
17. Some museum work : OILS. Anyone object to the seemingly singular "work?"
20. Super stars? : NOVAE. I entered NOVA*, but knew enough to wait for perps before deciding on "S" or "E" for the last letter. Alas, I did not know the perp. Finally wagged the answer at the end and got it right.
22. Sitting setting : STUDIO. Cute clue.
25. "Hear, hear!" : AMEN.
26. Self-obsessed sort : FOP.
29. Grub : EATS.
31. Legal appurtenance? : ESE. Legalese.
32. Barbary __ : APE. Endangered species.
33. Medium : CHANNELER.
37. Rich dessert : TORTE. My house guests from Vienna brought me a Sacher Torte. And yes, they are extremely rich!
39. "Hold it!" : HALT.
42. "... 'Tis a pageant / To keep __ false gaze": "Othello" : US IN. Meaning, "It's a trick, to confuse us."
43. __ coffee : IRISH.
45. They can be wound up : NEUROTICS.
47. Green shade : PEA.
48. Hosp. readout : ECG. I always wonder if the middle letter will be E, K or C?
50. Incentives to cooperate : SOPS.
51. Tee sizes: Abbr. : SMS. Smalls.
52. "It's __!": ballgame cry : A HIT.
58. Goes right, e.g. : STEERS.
60. It sometimes results in a double play : LINER. I started entering LINE drive, but ran out of room. Is it really called a liner?
65. Dominion : RULE.
67. NYC subway overseer : MTA. Metropolitan Transportation Authority.
68. Three-point B, say : TILE. In Scrabble, the letter "B" is worth three points. Hahtoolah and Irish Miss both knew that, though!
69. Shakespearean title character : ANTONY. and Cleopatra.
70. Handy skill for a gambler? : ESP. Yes, indeed!
71. Leave in : STET.
Down:
1. British singer/songwriter Lewis : LEONA. OK, Leona, you're on! 4:39
2. Source of some rings : ONION. Yummm!
3. Probe, with "into" : DELVE.
4. Feds concerned with returns : IRS AGENTS. And a clecho with 5-Down:
5. Pro concerned with returns : CPA. Certified Public Accountant.
6. Expressions of wonder : OOHS.
7. Two-figure sculpture : PIETA. If you see this in person, you will never forget the name of one of Michelangelo's most famous works.
8. Dramatic revelations : ASIDES.
9. Medieval helmet : BASINET. Another variant spelling, this time of "bascinet."
10. Novel that begins in the Marquesas Islands : OMOO. I had the last "O" so it was a WAG.
11. Bug for payment : DUN.
12. Member of the genus Anguilla : EEL. Freshwater eels.
13. Not straight : SLY.
19. Legion : NUMEROUS.
21. Richard of "A Summer Place" : EGAN. Troy Donahue and Sandra Dee also appeared in that film. I mostly just remember the song. 2:29
24. Worry : STEW.
26. Kurdish relative : FARSI.
27. __ nerve : OPTIC.
28. Hammer parts : PEENS.
30. More jargony : SLANGIER.
33. Salty bagful : CHIPS.
34. "Don Juan DeMarco" setting : HAREM. Starring Johnny Depp, Marlon Brando and Faye Dunaway.
35. Bit of checkpoint deception : ALIAS.
36. Organ that may be caught : EYE.
38. Rural-urban transition area : OUTSKIRTS.
41. Sent by : FROM.
44. Missionary's target : HEATHEN.
46. Gem mined mostly in Australia : OPAL.
49. All smiles : CHEERY.
53. HBO series set in New Orleans : TREME. About the residents of the Tremé neighborhood in New Orleans following the aftermath of hurricane Katrina.
55. Greenland native : INUIT.
56. "Ally McBeal" lawyer : NELLE. Played by Portia de Rossi. Never watched it.
57. Welcome : GREET.
58. D-Day city : ST. LO.
59. York et al.: Abbr. : SGTS. Sergeant York.
61. Legal org. : ABA. American Bar Association.
62. One of the Poor Clares : NUN.
63. Memorable Giant : OTT. I know his first name is Mel. And that's all I know, other than the fact that he's convenient crossword puzzle fill.
64. Orthodontist's concern : GAP.
Leaving you with my quote of the day:
"If every day is a gift, where do I go to return Mondays?"
Marti
Note from C.C.:
Good luck to all who attend tomorrow's Crossword LA. Do say hello to our Wednesday sherpa Steve.
Note from C.C.:
Good luck to all who attend tomorrow's Crossword LA. Do say hello to our Wednesday sherpa Steve.
81 comments:
A HEN IS ONLY AN EGG'S WAY OF MAKING ANOTHER EGG
--SAMUEL BUTLER {1835-1902}
This quote is from “Life and Habit”, chp.8 (1877)
There are two Samuel Butlers of note.
The later is the one we now quote.
In the late nineteenth century
His views were Darwin-y.
Satire was the form he wrote most.
"Which came first..." a philosopher's heart quickens,
"... the chicken or the egg?" (the plot thus thickens).
Sages through history
Pondered this mystery;
I say, first across the road were the chickens!
A hen is an egg's way of making an egg.
Sam took it further, he upped it a peg.
With steampunk clarity
He foresaw Singularity;
Man is a machine's way of making a machine.
In 1863, four years after Darwin published On the Origin of Species, Butler published an essay "Darwin among the Machines." It compares human evolution to machine evolution, prophesying (half in jest?) that machines would eventually replace man in the supremacy of the earth: "In the course of ages we shall find ourselves the inferior race."
68. Three-point B, say : TILE. That entry sums up my solve; what the heck is it changes to how the heck could I miss it. A whole new feel to the clues, IMHO.
Morning, all!
Ran out of time on this one and had to give up. I normally enjoy enjoy witty quote puzzles, but only if there is some indication in the clue as to what the quote is about or who said it. I did finally figure out the quote and author (even though I don't know who he is), but it was a total slog and not an enjoyable one.
Aside from the impenetrable theme, too many obscurities and/or obscurely clued answers for me to get today.
Did not like, sorry.
[USaTOfe]
Well, it ended better than it began . . . and that quote is one of my favorites. But the outlook was grim (or should I say "GGRIM"?) until "EGG" occurred to me and, then, the quote. After that it was just a matter of letting my fingers do the walking (with a few WAGs thrown in for good measure).
Completely unknown were TREME and BASINET and I had TAFFY before CHIPS. I also wavered between EEG and EKG before settling on ECG (a nice complement to the "EGG" theme).
[15:59]
G'day, all!
This one gave me fits. SLANGIER went in, but came out when EAR went in. Then EAR came out and EYE went in and SLANGIER went back in as well. Then ELATED came out so CHEERY could go in. But in the end, it was a DNF. That makes two days in a row! Unheard of! Absurd! Well, maybe not. It all came down to TRE_E -- I don't get HBO, and I WAGged a C, because CTA sounded good, and the MTA is in Boston. Oops!
I though a BASINET was where you washed baby. And 4-letter Italian city: ROME? PISA? Nope, we're back in LODI again.
Michaelangelo is one of the streets that's misspelled on our new street signs. I now refer to it as Michael-space-Angelo. (One guy put the street name on his mailbox, and he spelled it Micheal Angelo and he lives there!) It crosses Constantine in two locations, and that's misspelled as Constatine. If they were going to misspell one, I wish they would have picked Da Vince (Lombardi?) and made it Da Vinci. That's what they meant it to be way back when, but misspelled at that time. Only in Texas...
d-otto, the baby thing-y is a bassinet with two esses. But I had the same thought as you...
Good luck at the tournament tomorrow, Steve!
This was a worthy Friday opponent which I solved in 40 minutes. (Longer than usual) Very enjoyable solving and write up. I doubted NELLE and TREME, but kept them in. I wondered what TILE had to do with 3 point B. DOH! And I love Scrabble.
Hand up for EAR before EYE.
I took WORK to be a collective noun much like artwork can be a collective noun. These OILS are the work of Da Vinci.
IMU was totally unknown, but having P_I and looking for an exotic dish led to POI. Thanks for the explanation, Marti.
DO, washing your baby in a bassinet would leave him with soppy bedding.
I have heard baseball announcers use the term LINER. A batter may be said to have "lined out" if the liner was caught by a fielder.
I have delayed working long enough. Have a great Friday.
Good morning, folks. Thank you, Jacob Stulberg, for an excellent puzzle. Thank you, Marti, for the equally excellent review.
This one took me an hour and a half. Which is not bad for me.
Well, I tried to get started, but really had a tough time. Got a few here and there all over the puzzle. Got DUN in the NE, then LODI, ENER, ONION, and DELVE in the NW. Then NOVAE became obvious. Finally got that corner. IRS AGENTS fit. That gave me EATS. Used to work near LODI, CA.
Got SGTS and GAP in the deep South. I then had a feeling that the word EGG was a part of the quote. Had WAY in the center. Just needed two letters after it. Finally got FROM. Finally got the quote and the author. Never heard of either, but the quote was very clever.
My last entry was the S in ALIAS.
Some unknowns but perped and wagged them. TREME, NELLE, EGAN, to name a few.
Liked FARSI. That was easy for me, once I had a couple letters.
BASINET fell with three or four perps.
All in all, I really liked this puzzle once I got a few footholds. We don't have quotes too often. Years ago we had many more. I miss them.
See you tomorrow.
Abejo
(rbauyr)
(suirlds)
Hi Gang -
Biggest DNF ever for me. But an even bigger disappointment seeing a quote them. Either you know and recognize the quote, and it's a give away, or you don't, and becomes a major obstacle.
My disdain for this puzzle went all the way to hate at "legal appurtenance." That is simply inexcusable.
The singular/plural screw up at 17A is just baffling.
Have you ever seen or heard the word ABODE used as described? Me neither.
I got this thing about half filled in then threw in the towel. It's just not worth the effort.
Sadly,
JzB
Before I run off to school, I'd just like to say GOOD GRIEF, this one was hard!I just could not get a foothold until the bottom third.Marti, you did a fabulous job with your write up...always brings a smile. Loved your quote.
It is amazing how much I don't know even though I'm grasping onto new facts every day.
Will read later. Have a great day.
comforted by the fact that everyone was challenged and took longer than usual.
Never heard of a sop as an incentive.
Had to cheat,,, no time today...
Stuck in 1A again...
I wonder if Admiral Akbar got 42A...
There once was a chicken from St. Lo... (with apologies to OwenKL)
I don't get this quote?!?!
Would you buy an egg from this market? Stop N Shop was never like this...
Good morning everyone. Marti, I'm with you on abodes.
Very crunchy today, but after several revisits, the solve gave itself up. SAMUEL BUTLER was a WAG, as was the NELLE/TILE cross. Had ear before EYE. (Catch your ear?) LINER usage is ok. I think the Barbary APES are found in Gibraltar.
Good workout today, but I enjoyed it.
Anon G from late last night. Welcome aboard. Visit often.
Have a great day.
YR, thanks for picking up the explanation of "work" as a collective noun. And you are right about "bassinet." It is usually used to describe a baby's bed, but it comes from the French word for "basin."
Anon @ 9:28, a sop (n.) is a thing of little value, given to appease someone's demands. Used as a verb, it means to mop up a liquid, like gravy, with bread. (Yummm.)
CED - fun links.
I'm glad I'm not the only one who had a tough time today. Looking back, there really were only a couple entries that I didn't know at all, but could be easily sussed from the perps. I think it was the clueing that threw me off, as Argyle mentioned.
Same here Marti. Pride or stubbornness kept me at it and I got ‘er done. Whew! The syntax of the phrase was making me nuts (nuttier?).
Musings
-I thought Milan was a CA city and CCR’s LODI was SE but it worked
-I bought that TORTE for Joann last V-day and it was too rich for her
-STEERING was my issue in playing a PS3 racing game with grandson. I was so bad he once said, “Well, Papa, you didn’t come in last in that one!” It was a good lesson for me that students don’t always get things away.
-Yup, it’s called a LINER. Sometimes a CLOTHESLINER! Good base runners make sure it hits the ground before running.
-Antony – “Nice asp, Cleo!”
-I had never thrown away ONION rings until I had them at Sonics
-The PIETA is now behind bullet-proof glass because of this 1972 vandalism
-I have to keep Melville novels separate from Charlie Chaplin’s last wife
-Not straight - _ _ Y. Yeah, I put GAY first
-The Poor Clares and Fransciscans both started in Assisi
-What fun 1963 song contained, “He knew what he was doin’ when he CAUGHT MY EYE?
I finished it with a lot of Googling and even then I had PEENS and TORTE misspelled with an A instead of an E. I also never got ALIAS as I had SML (Small Medium Large) for SMS.
I had to Google because I had never even heard of SAMUEL BUTLER let alone his quote. I wasted time Googling "NORMAN MAILER EGG" and then decided to Google "EGG quote" instead. I also wanted WAIT for HALT and HAMLET for ANTONY. And you're lying if say you didn't think of GAY for "Not straight".
Good Morning:
Although I finished w/o help, it was not an enjoyable solve. WBS and what Thumper says.
Congrats, Jacob, on your debut and thanks, Marti, for your informative write-up. BTW, you give me far too much credit; I thought the Three-point B clue had something to do with basketball. DOH!
Owen, you continue to delight. As do you, also, CED.
Steve, good luck at the tournament.
Happy Friday.
HG, do run that by me again.
Appurtenance does have a definition in law relating to property. Hence this misdirection which i enjoyed.
Appurtenance is a term for what belongs to and goes with something else, with the appurtenance being less significant than what it belongs to. It can be something added, an appendage.
In lexicology, an appurtenance is a modifier that is appended or prepended to another word to coin a new word that expresses "belongingness". In the English language, appurtenances are most commonly found in toponyms and demonyms, for example, 'Israeli', 'Bengali' etc. have an -i suffix of appurtenance.
Often appurtenances are applied to place names. But to me applying –ese to LEGAL to form LEGALESE is not too much of a stretch and quite clever.
I'd score this a "D."
It was nice to see a quote, for a change. But, an unknown author (not anonymous, just too obscure) with a not so witty quote was a let down.
Misdirection can be fun; deceit is not. Abodes?
BTW, Misty is still having browser problems but she sends a hoot and a holler to all her Corner cronies.
Well the good news, the puzzle was neither a definition puzzle, not one using some tricky format where the letters were upside down backwards etc.
I am not a quote person for puzzles, but that is me. This was a workout for anyone, I would guess, starting with the ROME/LODI, anyway, it was like peeling an Onion but I did not cry.
Well the Crystals and I must Da Doo Da Ron
I would have to say this was the hardest FRIDAY puzzle of the year. I finished, but I had to IMDB a word or two LEONA & TREME). The cluing was was tough.... right? I think the NYT would have been easier!
According to the Free Online Dictionary abode as an extended stray is legitimate.
a•bode1 (əˈboʊd) n.
1. a place in which a person resides; residence; dwelling; home.
2. an extended stay in a place; sojourn.
[1200–50; Middle English abood a waiting, delay, stay; akin to abide]
One thing I like about doing crosswords is that answers are chosen from many types of language, such as, obsolete, slang, informal, regional, poetic (like many “a” words), sports, sciences, etc. And many of the answers are much more common in the written word than in the spoken word.
“During his abode among the aborigines….”
I had never heard of this author or his quote, but wags and perps made that unnecessary. I like piecing quotes together that way.
Hi Y'all! This was beyond a groaner for me. More at whimper stage. The NE had only DUN in it when I was done everywhere else. I had to red-letter almost every #%@ square to fill them. What Marti said & WEES. Thank you, Marti, for being our hero.
I could see LEONA Lewis in my mind and hear her voice, but the link was the first time I understood the "bleeding" words.
Legion meant NUMEROUS? Surprise, surprise!
Organ that can be caught? EYE? Well, I was thinking something lower.
Anonymous at 9:35 p.m. last night: I thought Windhover was too hard on you. You seem like a shy, kind person who must get along with mild children. Thank you for your kind comments. Windhover, BillG and Manac were right about annoying one's children. Mine sometimes are annoyed at the way I breathe.
Not a fun nor particularly clever puzzle.
DNF, didn't want to.
Had to look up EGAN, LEONA and NELLE because the clue for TILE still means nothing to me. SAMUEL BUTLER was pure WAGs.
If I can't say anything nice, I have nothing to say. The quote was kind of a hoot once it finally fell, but I never did like this style of puzzle even back when we got them regularly.
Hi everybody,
I finished the puzzle but I haven't read the comments yet. This was really hard for me. I liked the quote OK but it didn't help at all with the solving and I found the clues for the fill to be challenging. I'll read everything in a few minutes but here's the math puzzle as promised.
Start with any number. If it is even, divide it by two — if it’s odd, multiply it by three and add one. Continue this process. What happens? For example, start with three. Since it’s odd, multiply by three and add one to obtain 10. Since that answer is even, divide by two to get five. Multiply by three and add one to get 16. Divide by two to get eight. Divide by two again to get four, then two, and finally one.
Try it with various starting numbers. Use a calculator. Do you always end up at one? Some starting numbers go through many gyrations before ending at one. Can you find a starting number that takes lots of steps before ending up at one? How many?
BillG my friend, I graduated from school many, many years ago. Lately the extent of my math problems are when I try to figure out how many beers are left in my 12 pack if I have already put back 7.
Windy posted last night? Yep, I checked. He said he was a non-theist! Who knew?
Thumper's review (:11)
Thanks OwenKL for the explanation.
Only good thing was the IRISH Coffee.
Cheers!!!
A nicer complement to the EGG theme at 48A would be EKG, which would be correct, rather than ECG, which is incorrect. EKG comes from the German "Elektrokardiogram." It is the only abbreviation for "electrocardiogram" appearing in my medical dictionary, and it is the abbreviation still used by most medical professionals.
This is at least the second time we have found "ECG" in this puzzle, and it is such authoritative repetition that corrupts the language. We need more puzzlers crying "Foul!"
Hello, weekend solvers (it came early)! Excellent expo, Marti, thank you and congratulations to Jacob Stulberg! If this is his debut, we're in for some good ones in future.
WYRS. What Yellowrocks said. I enjoy these misdirections because it forces me to DELVE into (my first fill) the nuances and unfamiliar meanings of words and I love words!
If I had heard of the quote it was too long ago to recall though SAMUEL BUTLER seeped out of memory once I checked on him. So did Richard EGAN very, very slowly seep out.
Believe me, this was no sashay, but ultimately doable because the vocabulary is known, just clued differently. DNF at NELLE. It has been too long since Ally McBeal for me and don't have HBO so TREME is an unknown and had to look it up.
Count me in the camp that dislikes quote puzzles but for me, it's a challenge I'll take.
Mani-pedi day for me. Have a fabulous Friday, everyone!
WEBMd dictionary offers both EKG and ECG as abbreviations.
Tough puzzle !
Thank you Jacob Stulberg. After almost an hour, I was about 50 % complete. Had some crossing letters throughout the quote, but not enough to get any of it. Also didn't have either part of the author's name. Finally turned on red letter help. I had frEt in lieu of STEW, and UpoN instead of USIN. Took out those 5 bad letters. Still took awhile to get the right answers, but knowing what they were not really helped.
Earlier I removed revenuers at 4D when I got ONION and DELVE, leading to ENER and OILS and NOVAs(E). Then chucked at myself for putting in revenuers in the first place.
Went to work for a few hours and came back with a cleared and fully awake mind. Didn't take that long to complete.
Thank you Marti. Had some of the same thoughts as you conveyed in your writeup, esp ABODES By the way, just how rich are your friends from Vienna ? :>)
Funny that I did not think of GAY at 13D for "not straight", but I did think of lesbian at 56D. Portia De Rossi is Ellen DeGeneres' wife.
Desper-otto, that's so funny about your street signs. Present your city council with a "Measure Twice, Cut Once" sign. No wait, better yet, present them with an honorary Bill Engvall "Here's Your Sign" sign.
TTP, you got me! Well, I meant that Sacher Tortes are rich, but my friends aren't exactly church mice...
G'Afternoon All:
WBS. Thumper...
Perhaps my brain was not in gear, but 50% of this puzzle stayed blank even after a few Googles.
LINER is fine. I've heard "That LINER had a bannana in the tail..."
Fav was HEATHEN - esp. proximity to NUN.
Cheers, -T
..
Yes, congrats to Jacob Stulberg. This was a doozy!
I love the quote from Mr Butler. I'm a sucker for any such shifts away from our usual perspective.
I have to say that as rich as the Sacher torte is, it can't compare to the price of the Sacher's rooms! My wife and I once arrived in Vienna to learn our Amex agent had mistakenly booked the *Presidential Suite* for us. The staff were ALL turned out to GREET us. Needless to say, they were not happy when they learned there had been a misunderstanding involving several zeroes. Happily, we all made up, and we got to stay in the Tosca suite--for far fewer Schillings (but still a hefty tag).
This was a tough egg to crack, and honestly would have been a DNF if I hadn't accidentally (!) spotted part of the quote, causing me to change 40A from "LAY OF" to "WAY OF." That error made all the difference.
OK, all you Stratfordians and/or fans of Hank Cinq:
It's Oct 25, and
"Today is called the feast of Crispian...!"
So how are all my fellow puzzlers planning to celebrate?!
Bill G.
I started with the number 1,987,654,321.
Seems like I'm about 50 calculations in so far.
Not really sure, I got bored counting the number of times I multiplied an odd number by 3 then added one; and the number of times I divided an even number by two ...
I haven't gotten to 1 yet but the number is getting smaller ...
Then I just noticed the "Sun going over the yardarm".
I'm going to join Bud on "calculating the remaining beers" ...
(And I started with "A case" ...)
Cheers!!!
Not familiar with either the quote or the author, but I typically find quote puzzles interesting. And this was no exception. I thought it was both Crispian crunchy.
It did take forever to get started and took the better part of an hour. First fill was Dun, 2nd CPA and 3rd Delve. Finally had it all except the NE and finally gave in and googled genus Anguilla. That gave me enough to complete the rest, but a TDNF nonetheless.
Had no problem with appurtenance, but that certainly qualifies as argot. Thought the clue for tile was clever once it became clear. And yes, it was very tempting to put a G in the upper right hand corner, but I held out til it was eventually proven otherwise. Luckily a friend called me just the other day to recommend Treme, or I'd have never gotten that one.
If there is no grid posted in the write up, was there even a puzzle at all?
I was thinking of a different reason for commemorating Crispin Crispian:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=P9fa3HFR02E
Hello Puzzlers -
I'm going with what JzB said at 9:18. This was a hard rascal. I started out in the manner of filling a swimming pool: bottom upwards, and very slowly. Then the water ran dry about two-thirds up.
Thanks for bringing your wit today, Marti!
I'll help you out Keith:
St. Crispin's Day Speech (2:14)
We Band of Brothers ...
Hey Marti, I'm glad you didn't say this was a 'speed run' for you. I had trouble is most of the same places. Yes, the word 'liner' is used in baseball all of the time. Treme is an interesting show on HBO though I dunno if it is still on. There are too many plots stories to keep track of but the background music is really good.
Say, on your 'other' Banana puzzle yesterday, I enjoyed it. Do you know why it was that Rich didn't choose to run it?
{poopster}
Anon @ 12:19,
Dude(ette), you've got to stay up late to compete in this venue.
And by self identifying as a non-theist, I wasn't renouncing my divinity, although in actuality I'm only a demigod. ;)
Thanks for caring, though. It means a lot. It really does.
And PK, no such thing as too hard.
But I really wasn't dissing your critic/admirer (too much), just Anons in general.
After reading the Corner, I am feeling bad about my experience with this puzzle. It is Friday and I had very little trouble. I never had to make a letter run of the alphabet; only help was an occasional red letter so in my mind a DNF. I saw the quote fairly quickly and remembered the author, so I actually enjoyed the puzzle.
I never do very well on Friday puzzles, but this one was an exception.
I did not understand SOP, so thanks for the definitons.
It's a beautiful day in MT as the leaves have about reached their peak of color, but the only color is yellow.
Montana
Keith, I roared when I read about your Sacher experience. The Austrians are all so obliging, aren't they? I have never stayed there, but I do make it a point to go for lunch just to have a pair of weiners...they make even a lowly hot dog seem elegant!
Bill G., I started with the number 10, and it took 10 calculations to get to "1." Is there a pattern to the number of calculations it would take?
The "other" puzzle was accepted by Rich. It was the Tribune higher-ups that asked him to replace it with something else.
Marti, there is no pattern. If you start with 10, you would get 10, 5, 16, 8, 4, 2, 1 (seven steps).
Starting with 11 is manageable; 11, 34, 17, 52, 26, 13, 40, 20, 10, 5, 16, 8, 4, 2, 1. Starting with 27 will take a while.
Marty- why didn't you mail it to Will Shortz?
G
Marti, you mean that even the Crossword Editor has to answer to a higher power? Ridiculous!
Keith, it took me a while to snap to the fact that it wasn't a Monty Python clip.
Avg Joe, that was exactly the song that came to my mind. I remember it well, because our radio station didn't get the normal complimentary copy of the 45. The Chicago stations were playing it, and we were swamped with requests for it. We finally had to go out and buy it. Can you believe it -- a radio station actually having to pay for a record?
Bill G., I think I made up my own rules for the math puzzle. I forgot that the odd numbers should be multiplied by 3 and add 1. Sheesh! Let me try that again…
The reason I don't like to submit rejected puzzles to other venues is that I hate the rejection, twice over. But George Barany and friends are a great group to work with. I also like the rapport that Rich provides. He gently guides his constructors to polish, re-write, and re-work grids in an encouraging way, until they meet his standards.
University of Utah has a director of ECG services.
Link ECG
I learned this Luke 8:30 Bible verse in Sunday School:
King James Bible
And Jesus asked him, saying, What is thy name? And he said, Legion: because many devils were entered into him.
Being a word geek even then, I looked it up.
Is anyone still wondering about TILE? In the game, Scrabble, the TILE with a B on it is worth 3 points. I was completely chagrined not to understand why TILE fit because I am a Scrabble fan. Have you played Up Words, a type of 3-D Scrabble where you place tiles on top of tiles? It takes a completely different type of strategy.
My mind has been scrounging around all day for the baby bath unit, bathinette, which sounds like bassinet, a little bed.
Hello everybody. Was very much on Marti's wavelength with this very hard puzzle, as I stumbled in many of the same places and ways as she did. Lots and lots of Googling was required, and I used up more eraser today than in the last 6 months!
I didn't think of putting a G in the upper right corner because I had already put an S there, on the (correct, as it turned out) assumption that the answer was a plural.
I totally insisted on PIG for the imu dish, not only necause I already had P for the first letter, but also because every reference to imu I found on the internet specifically said the imu is typically used to cook a pig. Not a single reference to imu mentioned poi. On the other hand, references to poi do mention that the taro root is cooked in an imu. I learned a lot about kalo and kālua today.
In fact, I learned a lot about many things today, things I didn't know at all such as NELLE and TREME and BAS(c)INET and what the heck the genus Anguilla is.
Owen, great reference to the machine! Best wishes to you all.
Montana:
If you finished this you should feel triumphant instead of bad!
Well, now it's official. I'm forgetting my birth tongue, i.e., Spanish and ANGUILLA de mar means eel!
Oh boy, I'd call this a dreaded Stulie, if it were a Saturday puzzle. Actually, it should have been a Saturday entry, but I suppose the theme prevented that. At least it's a relief that you found it tough too, Marti, and so did many others. In retrospect I'm surprised by how much I actually did get in the end. It helped that we watched TREME, when it was on TV, and that once I got BUTLER I figured it was probably SAMUEL, though I've never heard of the quote. Once I saw that I was going to have double GGs in two entries, the HEN that popped up in the beginning of the quote made sense.
But I couldn't believe ABODES was right even after I got it. And I couldn't believe LODI was right either. On the other hand, I thought PIETA was cleverly clued. And as an Austrian, I of course got (and love) SACHER TORTE (well, until my hyperglycemia kicked in and took sweets off the menu).
Finally, I hated ESE. An appurtenance? Give me a break! I first tried WIG (having recently watched a British show about a woman barrister), then ESQ, even though Esquire isn't an appurtenance either. Sheesh.
Irish Miss, thanks for passing on my message--my browser is better today.
Have a great Friday, everybody!
Desper-Otto - No, not M. Python, but Olivier's old film (1944) carries us back to the time that the Phython circus so loved to satirize! ("By Jove, it's that time of war when what we need is a Futile Gesture!") Still, I maintain that this version of HENRY V was the *best* propaganda put out by any side in WWII.
HeartRX - I spent many months on and off in my student days in a pension on Buchfeldgasse, so it was a long held dream to actually stay in the famous Sacher.
Yes, the restaurant service was splendid. This trip was back in my wife's smoking days. While waiting for a course, she tapped out a cigarette from her pack, and before she could get it to her lips, the waiter had shot across the room with a lit match. It wasn't until we were on the way out that we noticed we were in the "No Smoking" section.
I'm not sure what the precise moral of this should be. Either the waiter was so intent on service that he ignored his own rules, OR, given the frown on the face of a solo woman at the table nearest ours, Austrian waiters prefer Americans or still disrespect the rights of single Frauen.
Lucina 12:59 pm, Yellowrocks 3:50 pm, re ECG/EKG: Thank you for helping me make my point. When there are no longer any standards, there will no longer be any language.
Jazzbumpa 9:18 am: Right on.
-It’s bad enough to do late week puzzles, now I have to look up “steampunk” from our brilliant resident laureate ;-)! Limericist? Limericker? Limerologist?
-Clever answer to CAUGHT MY EYE song, Argyle!
-That St. Crispin’s speech sounds like it would work for a pep talk for a football team.
-Old Hank V makes staying home seem worse than dying for “This England”. That shows he is a serious, or delusional, ORATOR, and, oh yeah, he had a pretty good script writer:
And gentlemen in England now a-bed
Shall think themselves accursed they were not here,
And hold their manhoods cheap whiles any speaks
That fought with us upon Saint Crispin's day.
-Win one for the Cripper?
Avg, Joe,
Here's the song that popped into my mind due to the clue at 10D: Novel that begins in the Marquesas Islands: CS&N Southern Cross "...Off the wind on this heading lie the Marquesas..." They had great harmony.
Jayce,
re: the genus Anguilla. By that point, I had red letter help on. I had the E, so I tried ELM, then ELK, then EMU, then ELF ! Yea, I was so desperate that I actually tried ELF !
Bill,
I read that there are three kinds of people in the world. Those that are good at math and those that aren't.
TTP, I think I am the third kind...
Bumppo - Nah, we can always go back to communicating in squeaks and grunts, like the typical Anon.
TTP, Re: CSN&Y, they still do.
Husker Gary,
Yeah, I think this is the granddaddy of ALL pep talks. Not only does ol' Hank say that civilians will envy them, but he promises bragging rights for their wounds!
"He that shall live this day, and see old age/
Will yearly on the vigil feast his neighbors/
And say 'To-morrow is Saint Crispian.'/
Then will he strip his sleeve and show his scars,/
And say 'These wounds I had on Crispian’s day.'”
And, wait there's more!
They will also be bonded with the king himself:
"For he today that sheds his blood with me/
Shall be my brother. Be he ne'er so vile/
This day shall gentle his condition."
They were far outnumbered. It sorta makes Americans think of the Alamo--except the Brits had a happier outcome. Henry even points out that anybody who doesn't want to stay for the fight can have a free passage home and extra spending money for the journey. His attitude is "Gedaddda here!" (Nobody's on record for taking him up on that.)
Almost 600 years ago today.
Marti, me too !
Windhover, D'OH! My news of their demise was premature. Tense, like punctuation, can make a world of difference. "Let's eat grandma" v "Let's eat, grandma."
Bumppo:
It has been posted a few times on this blog: language is fluid and changing. Simply consider, for example, Shakespeare's English of 500 years ago; it's English but not as we speak it today. Spanish has evolved the same way. 15th & 16th century Sp. lit is as archaic as the above referenced Shakespeare. Classical Greek, as I understand though I'm unsure how far back, requires a special dictionary to read it.
Language evolves, changes and is molded to the generations that use it. Even Latin, though no longer extant, evolved into the Romance languages by merging with the local parlance of France, Spain, Portugal, Romania and Italy.
Language lives on because people use it and use it their way.
Difficult puzzles add to the joy of posting, you have been quite entertaining. Thanks.
SOP also has come to mean a bribe.
Lucina @6:26, you're a gal after my own heart. I just now checked in to say what you just said so eloquently. At what point do we freeze the language? For some it seems to be in the school days of their youth. Instead of bemoaning the changes as a corruption of English, I look on them as the evolving of the language.
Have to say this one is not on my top ten list. An unknown quote from an unknown author left it flat for me. That and some really obscure cluing. But... To each their own.
"SOP also has come to mean a bribe."
So sayeth the shepherd, so sayeth the flock.
Keith, I had some tortilla chips. Is that crispy enough to count as a celebration on Crispian Day?
YR, after posting I sorta remembered the biblical use of legion. I'm trying to put your verse in perspective with the American Legion. The American Numerous doesn't quite have the same ring.
Windhover, right as usual.
Whoops, forgot to put my name on at 7:29 p.m.
Tough tough tough tough and tough. Could never get a foothold. Although I finished, it did take forever. LOTS of unknowns.
Gary, I love that song that the Crystals sang about a guy whose name was Bill.
YR, you always have interesting things to say about the evolution of language. But are you equally approving of the evolution due to common mistakes? What about the constant confusion of I/me or lie/lay? What about 'ain't'? Disinterested/uninterested? What about a person's writing that includes mistakes with their/they're/there or your/you're or its'/it's or plurals with apostrophe's? How would you deal with those if you were interviewing people for a job that involved dealing with the public? How about if you were teaching a high school English class and grading their essays?
Bill G:
Ok since I consider a computer an overgrown calculator (except for these iThings), I wrote some code to solve.
n<20: 18 had most calcs @20 and 15 got as big as 160
n<100: 97 had most calcs @118 and 27 got up to 9232
n<10,000: 6171 had most calcs@261 and 9663 went all the way to 271,144,424 before comming back to 1.
I could go on. It seems multiples of 3 carry the day.
TTP - There are 10 types of people in the world. Those who understand binary & those that don't :-)
On language, I enjoy it shifting and changing. Eventually the world will bend to my dyslexia :-)
Cheers, -T
Hmm, after my contributions at the start here, I was expecting more discussion of steampunk (speculations on "what a world would be like with robots and such, but before electricity?"), the singularity (the merging of of humans and computers into transcendence), the Matrix or Skynet (computers dominating/exterminating humans) or Darwinism (the context of today's quote, which Butler seems to have been ambivalent about).
Thanks Jayce for acknowledging it.
Husker, I wondered what you found when you looked up steampunk, so I looked it up on the free dictionary site, and without explanation was redirected to "cyberpunk", practically an antonym! That's like googling for "carriage racing" and getting redirected to "formula one"!
YIKES! Out of curiosity, I just tried to look up carriage racing. Essentially I got "Not found suggest you try Motor vehicles"! I'll never trust that dictionary again!
OwenKL:
I ran to the library to find the book I have on the Singularity that, IIRC, it was on AI. It basically said at the rate of technology, in ~50 years humans will be obsolete. I wish I could find it (it must be three deep back on the shelf) so I could tell you the title. It's non-fiction.
I, for one, welcome my robot overloards :-)
Steampunks is interesting. I've heard the term and now that you've explained it, it makes Wm. Gibson's cyberpunk (I think it was him, he did coin cyberspace in Neuromancer) sensible.
As far as as Cybernetic singularities, outside of the brain, we are almost there. I see the prosthetics made for the vets and it is a matter of time that we incorporate that technology into us (or to augment us). Sad that it takes war to advance the science.
Cheers, -T
Owen, I did make a cursory search for steampunk just because I had never seen it or heard it before. Dang, you wordsmithing is fun.
Nite all!
I had a tough time with the puzzle, and came here to get the rest of the answers.
But, I read all your letters and Mr. Fowlers reference to St. Crispin (Crispian ? ). day interested me. I googled it, read up on Henry the 5th, and Henry the 4th and the hundred year wars etc. .... glimpses of English history. And here's my take on all this.
To the Victor go the Spoils. !!!!!!!!!
The English always fought the French, over the past centuries, and they won most, almost 85% of their battles - since time immemorial. So it's no wonder they remember the battles so keenly. Plus they had the giants in the English language, like ole William and Churchill and Kipling etc. to memorialize all their victories....
This enabled them to concoct the most marvelous stories and most memorable speeches. What's not to like ?
Who knows what Henry 5 really said ? Once the battle was won, William could use his oratory genius and the sympathy of his drama audience in his plays to write just about anything he wanted.
The ends justified the means, the battle was history and a fact. So a brilliant speech just makes it more exciting.
I wonder if Shakespeare would have written anything about the American battle of independence ( if he had been alive, that is ). What inspiring words would he have had Lord. Cornwallis saying to his troops - 2 days before he surrendered. ?? Huh ?
To celebrate some ignoble day, for a battle that was undone 30 years later, because of some hypothetical speech .... Is in my mind, .... Just ridiculous. That's just me. BTW, I had crispy chicken nuggets tonight. It what I've been eating for the last 3 nights. No offence meant, Mr. Fowler.
P. S. To my above message ----
Regarding Lord Cornwallis' surrender at Yorktown, Mr. Cornwallis was such a f---- coward, that he used an excuse of 'not feeling too well', .... so he would not have to hand in his sword, personally, to. George Washington during the formal declaration of surrender.
Instead, like a lousy nobleman, that he was, he sent his assistant Brig. Genl. Charles. O'Hara to surrender, on his behalf.... And face the ignominy !!!
In turn, Gen. George Washington, made sure to send HIS assistant, Gen. Benjamin Lincoln to accept the surrender documents and the sword, from the British.
This is all 100%. history and fact, and you can look it up. (as I did -). Wikipedia would be a good start.
Mr. Fowler, without meaning or intending this to be personal attack .... what sort of speech do you think Shakespeare would have written to explain all this.? And what sort of saintly day, would be commemorated in this memory, in England, ?
Bill G @8:47 PM. I believe that all linguists view the examples you cited as mistakes. I did not accept them from my students, No one is saying that there are no standards.
But. there is the possibility that long after we are gone from this world, some of them will become acceptable English. You would be surprised that some things you accept without question today were once viewed as corruptions of the English language
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