Title: The fun is in the pun pun.
4 in the language phrases with "FOR' in the center of the phrase have their meaning re-purposed by clues which change the meaning but keep the same words. I think this is our 7th from MaryEllen but our first since November 2013. I love the concept of using Peanuts the comic strip, but I am not sure the clue/fill for WORK fits the theme as its meaning does not change. The meanings of PASS, WATCH and ROOM are changed. And they are all amusing. There also are some 7 letter fill (and one non-theme 9 letter) to make us work. TYCOONS, SNEAKER, ANAHEIM, EROTICA, XEROXES, FLUFFED, ENVIRON, HAND OFF, ARCADIA, ICED TEA, PERFORMER. I am curious what you all thinks, so let's have at it.
19A. *Assist Charles M. Schulz? : WORK FOR PEANUTS (14). As opposed to chicken feed...anyway the late Charles Schulz will always be best know for Peanuts. The original expression may come from circus animals.(1.5 MM google hits).
32A. *Free ticket given to Target Field players? : PASS FOR TWINS (12). A mini-shout out to C.C. and her baseball team. 25 million hits for the phrase. It is STUDIED and watched....
40A. *Timepiece at a stag party? : WATCH FOR DEER (12). But can they tell time? 47 million hits.
53A. *Law office? : ROOM FOR DISPUTE (14). My least favorite despite the 154 million hits.
Across:
1. Walks, on scorecards : BBS. Base on Balls; with the start of the real season already upon us, this is timely. It takes 4.
4. Rehab hurdle : DTS. Alcoholics often suffer from Delerium Tremens. My math teacher junior year in high school shook like a leaf in the morning.
7. Calm : SETTLE. Calm the flock.
13. "Well, __-di-dah!" : LAH. Back for repeat performance.
14. Deli choice : RYE. Did we have Ham on..last week?
15. Ducks' home : ANAHEIM. Hockey team named from a movie.
16. Some Anne Rice novels : EROTICA. Never read any of these BOOKS. Though clearly all her works have some erotic element.
21. Completely : IN TOTO. Not Dorothy's dog, but Latin.
22. Wapiti : ELK. In the Deer family.
23. ID checker : TSA. Transportation Safety Administration.
24. "__ any drop to drink": Coleridge : NOR. The Rime of the Ancient Mariner.
Water, water, every where,
And all the boards did shrink;
Water, water, every where,
Nor any drop to drink.
26. Surface : EMERGE.
35. Burn soothers : ALOES.
38. Modern reaction to a riot? : LOL. A laugh riot.
39. Group of species : GENUS.
43. Important Philippines export : NICKEL. Are you keeping up on the worldwide GLUT? There should be a plugged nickel joke inserted here.
44. Bros, e.g. : MEN.
45. Fraction of a joule : ERG. An erg is the amount of work done by a force of one dyne exerted for a distance of one centimeter, but I guess you knew that.
48. Not allow to atrophy : USE. Hmm, the dictionary says, "gradually decline in effectiveness or vigor due to underuse or neglect." My optic nerve atrophy is not from underuse.
50. "My vegetable love should grow / __ than empires ... ": Andrew Marvell : VASTER. This odd METAPHOR from To His Coy Mistress is studied.
58. Option play option, in football : HAND OFF. Sort of, but usually it is pitched out.
59. Home of the god Pan : ARCADIA. In Greece. The HOME. PAN.
60. Beverage sometimes served with mint : ICED TEA. That should make almost all of the Corner happy. Sorry Tin.
61. Besides : TOO.
62. Inning trio : ENS. A nice misdirection, as it has nothing to do with baseball, just the three Ns in the word.
63. Botched (up) : MESSED.
64. Model of industry : ANT. The modern story of the ANT.
65. Put into words : SAY.
Down:
1. Failed miserably : BLEW IT. Very modern fill.
2. Industry leaders : BARONS. Very old fill. Clecho, 5SD. Industry leaders : TYCOONS.
3. Fan letter? : SHORT A. The A in the middle. Also, 31D. First of September? : ESS.
4. Meaning : DRIFT. I get your drift MaryEllen.
6. Prepare tuna, in a way : SEAR.
7. Converse, e.g. : SNEAKER.
9. Quaker pronoun : THOU.
10. It may be skillfully created by one who's all thumbs : TEXT. My favorite Clue/fill as the skill my children have texting with their thumbs baffles me.
11. Rests : LIES. Lie down vs. lay down...
12. Acute care letters : EMS. I wanted ICU or CCU but they did not work with perps.
15. Eponymous skater Paulsen : AXEL. To our skaters, one in the sky this move from a Norwegian SKATER.
17. Ring decision : TKO. Technical Knock Out.
20. One putting on an act : PERFORMER.
25. Home of Norway's royal family : OSLO.
27. Bank holding: Abbr. : MTGE. Mortgage.
28. Carafe kin : EWER. Regular crossword word.
29. __ Tin Tin : RIN. It was big when I was little. This week we learned he really won the first Oscar.
30. Shaggy-tailed bovid : GNU.
32. Lot of trouble? : PECK. Son, you are in a peck of trouble. Dictionary says it has been around since 1545.
33. "A Hard Road to Glory" writer : ASHE.
34. Merrie __ England : OLDE.
35. Plant bristle : AWN. Luckily I had this in February with James Sajdak.
36. French narrative poem : LAI. I did not know THIS.
37. Like some stocks, briefly : OTC. Over The Counter as opposed to being on an exchange.
41. Misspoke, as lines : FLUFFED. I wanted FLUBBED but the F's would not let me.
42. Surround : ENVIRON. Never heard this in the singular, but....
45. Rachmaninoff's "__-tableaux" : ETUDES. JzB one you know? LISTEN.
46. Light-sensitive layer : RETINA. The back of the eye.
47. __ spoon : GREASY. Another old expression.
49. Upholstered piece : SOFA.
51. Fancy tie : ASCOT. Perhaps Steve or Nice Cuppa can give us the British perspective and history.
52. Hotel amenity : SPA.
53. Derby, perhaps : RACE.
54. Some bills : ONES. Or tens.
55. Chances : ODDS.
56. Speck : MOTE.
57. It may be mined : DATA. I think I linked data mining before.
58. Objective reference : HIM. One of the objective pronouns.
A different Friday with Coleridge instead of Shakespeare and mostly doable cluing. I had fun, I hope you did. Thanks MaryEllen and all of you. Lemonade out.
45 comments:
Got it! The SW corner was the hardest, my own fault with DISsent>DISPUTE and AMP>ERG. My final entry was fAirER>fASTER>VASTER.
I actually guessed the first theme entry without a single perp! The other three I had to work for though, and didn't suss the FOR theme until late in the process.
Now ELK and DEER shared a GENUS, you knew,
But what should we say FOR the boviform GNU?
When they have a baby, will it be GNUer?
(Is a sheep with a daughter known as a EWER?)
(Might "ANAHEIM kine" for South Cali cows, do?)
I FLUFFED my scene, I'm sure you knew it.
It MESSED up the act, I really do rue it!
My job as PERFORMER
Is now likely "former".
I was to disarm the bomb, but instead, I BLEW IT!
(It's hard to do the last act when the whole cast is dead!)
Some solvers see meta-clues as a fetter,
Like SHORT-A solution FOR clue: "fan letter".
"September first", the ESS front end.
"Inning trio" the clue, answer: ENS.
Beware meta meta-clues, when the matter gets met-er!
{D+, B-, C}
Greetings!
Thanks, Mary Ellen and Lemon!
Got stuck on ENVIRON. So an unfortunate FIW.
A few things perped.
Have a great day!
Morning, all!
I found this one to be bizarrely hard, especially the clues. So many missteps, too, like FLUBBED before FLUFFED. Thankfully, I got the theme early on and that really, really helped me. Final theme to fall (and the most obscure in my opinions) was ROOM FOR DISPUTE, which let me get ENVIRON, ETUDES, VASTER. Never heard of ENVIRON, but it looked like it could be a thing. And VASTER could have just as easily been FASTER (which is what I had at first). ETUDES? Sure, why not.
XEROXES almost killed me, especially when clued as "Dupes."
Overall, tough, tough puzzle that I somehow managed to finish successfully.
Good morning!
WBS, except that I knew ENVIRON.
I never learned to tell an AXEL from a Lutz from a Toe Loop. As a kid I wore hockey skates. I could go really fast, but couldn't do anything fancy.
AXEL is the only leap I can recognize, because it's the only one taken while skating forward, the others take off while skating backwards.
Portrayer and envelop before performer and environ.
I wanted "lets on" for dupes.
D-N-F
Yup, when I "Did-NOT-Finish" ... I don't hem & haw about it ... I just state it outright!
As "God-is-my-witness" I was absolutely sure that 60-a, Beverage sometimes served with mint was SCOTCH'S.
That you can get (without the mint) at Villa Incognito.
(...and for an ICED TEA you would have to go elsewhere. LOL)
Cheers!
Seemed easier than most Fridays. DTs went in first after a couple too many last night. Silkie tomorrow?
I like to work puzzles top to bottom and got hung up at the first because I didn't get the DRIFT and the SHORT-A was slow in coming around. Luckily WORK FOR PEANUTS was an easy guess, although Schulz has been dead for a while. The rest was smooth sailing with one change, GOLDEN Spoon to GREASY Spoon. VASTER and ENVIRON (ment?) are words I've never seen but easily understood. LAI is another one, but there was no ROOM FOR DISPUTE, that they were correct.
Have a nice weekend everybody.
Hello Puzzlers -
This one went smoothly and quickly once Environ emerged and Flubbed got straightened out.
What D Otto said 6:53. I didn't learn to skate until I was about 14, at which point in life a straight boy didn't dare be caught wearing figure skates. Thus I never learned to do anything except hockey. Nowadays, I'm darn curious what it's like to skate on blades that have those tricky teeth at the front!
I suppose other hockey players have wondered too, as shown in this clip. 0:30
Speaking of GREASY, Lemony; does Oo know you still maintain a profile on PlentyofFish?
Good morning everyone.
Fairly hard but doable puzzle today. Seemed to be on Mary Ellen's wavelength for most of the puzzle. NE was a hang fire until I grokked XEROXES. In the SE I could not get VASTER until I finally SETTLED for ENVIRON. Seemed awkward somehow. Only white-out was I had yak for GNU.
BBS - In a Naval Order of Battle, BBS would stand for battleships.
Have a great day.
Again another Friday DNF because I had to use Red Letters and a few alphabet runs. Did I mention it was Friday.
Interesting theme that Lemon explained well. I eventually got it.
I'm not like the kids of today who can text rapidly with their thumbs. I have to use my index finger, a stylus or use the microphone option. I prefer the latter, but sometimes the voice recognition S/W comes up with some interesting and sometimes embarrassing words. I also dislike the spellcheck feature on my IPhone when I'm texting or sending an email. I guess you can turn that feature off, but I never figured it out.
I did want JULEP or MOJITO for the mint drink, not ICEDTEA (or is it ICE TEA.) I also tried SPEAKS vs SNEAKER, but it didn't fit.
In looking at the grid after it was filled in, it looked very reasonable and doable, but getting there was a bear.
I'm off to the Pacer clinic to get my pacemaker checked out and to get the bedside monitor set up that came by FedEx yesterday. Once it's set up, ET can phone home and they (whoever they are) can check it out remotely.
Have a great day everyone.
Good Morning:
Except for one or two tricky spots, this was a quick solve for a Friday. I have never heard anyone say they "fluffed" their lines; pillows, yes, lines, no. But the perps quickly took care of flubbed, so there you have it. The theme was clever and the solve was enjoyable, so I'm happy.
Thanks, Mary Ellen, for a fun Friday and thanks, Lemony, for the guided tour.
I have to go to a bridal shower tomorrow at 11:00 am. Is this practice a regional one, or do other parts of the country follow this pattern. Years ago, showers were evening affairs but in the last several years, they have been held in the late morning and usually the meal is a brunch. Personally, I prefer the evening setting. Oh well, times change, don't they? (I guess a Bloody Mary or two will liven things up! 🍹 🍹)
Have a great day.
Irish Miss
I've enjoyed "Having a shower with the Bride" on many occasions ...
Nothing beats "Good, Clean Sex !!!"
Cheers!
PS I concur that "A Bloody Mary ... or three will liven things up!"
A very worthy Friday test! The top yielded quickly (except SETTLE for SERENE) but the SE bedeviled me for a long time. DEBATE, ICE and ENVELOP had to go to the bench and ARCADIA, ENVIRON and ETUDES finally made it in from the bullpen.
Musings
-“Why does the state have those DEER cross at such busy places?” ☺
-BB’S make young boys’ games interminable
-The limit on the number of XEROXES a teacher can make is a hot topic in every school
-GENUS for us
-Despite doing this while strapped down, astronaut muscles do atrophy in weightlessness
-ENS, SHORT A and ESS are fun literal fill
-It is said that if you give everyone on Earth the same amount of money, the BARONS and TYCOONS would get most of it again anyway
-I wore those CONVERSE in 1961 and now every schoolgirl does 55 years later
-A famous LIES quote
-Candidate/PERFORMER – tomayto/tomahto
-GREASY Spoon – Anyone else a fan of Diners, Drive In’s and Dives?
Not my cup of tea
XEROXES- Beasts of burden to a modern generation?
I know I don't comment very often but I just had to tell you all how much I loved and enjoyed this crossword! It was so much fun to solve. My favorite fills were Work for Peanuts and Watch for Deer.
Hardest corner was the SE. I struggled with faster instead of vaster until the light went on and I saw environ - another great word!
I'll look forward to the next puzzle from MaryEllen.
Cheers, and everybody have a great weekend. Don't forget to finish your taxes!
Xeroxes for dupes?? Come on now, who asks the lady at the FedEx store for some "dupes" of a document? The best of Luck
DNF today due to some bad WAGs,
that I was sure were legit.
42D Surround is not envelop?
7A Calm is not serene?
Did enjoy getting the theme though.
WEES especially WBS. It took me almost two cups of coffee to wake up to the theme then I laughed. Hand up for the same errors, FAIRER, FASTER, VASTER; SERENE, SETTLE; THEE, THOU, FLUBBED, FLUFFED. But overall a quite doable puzzle which required some out of the box thinking. Thank you, Mary Ellen Uthlaut. I recently solved another of her puzzles in my puzzle book.
I enjoyed the misdirection though it took a toll on my eraser!
Thank you, Lemonade; I so like your detailed analyses.
Have a fabulous Friday, everyone! Mani-pedi day!
Cute, Jerome!
Hi Y'all! Interesting puzzle, Mary Ellen.
VASTER, all perps. Vegetables? Good grief! Lemon, after scanning that lengthy link, I was afraid to click on the next one. And no one can call me a prude. Thanks for all you do except that link. That blogger do go on. And on. I grew vegetables. Never found them so erotic.
Didn't know BBS so NW corner was pretty white 'til last. Last fill: SHORT A (meh!). I had FOR PEANUTS with the first "O" and "K", lOoK? bOoK? WORK! Duh!
I figured out the "FORs" pretty quickly which helped with the rest.
Did better on the east half. First fill was ANAHEIM, then THOU, then PERFORMER.
ENVIRON was not ENciRcle.
ETUDES is easy for anyone with a piano teacher mother.
After six weeks in a wheel chair, I was the poster girl for ATROPHY. Slowly regaining what was lost.
Yes I do.
PK, I did not read the entire article about vegetable love, but I link things that I find either very interesting, or that I know nothing about. Thanks for sticking with it for a bit.
The whole thumb thing has me baffled; I just cannot do it but my 45 year old colleague has no problem...
I did have fun with this one. I didn't mind the slight inconsistency among the theme answers--in that "WORK" didn't flip its meaning, as did the other opening noun/verbs. I didn't give that slip much thought, as I was focused on phrase familiarity as the essential link.
I see that some of my regular colleagues had trouble with this, but I was lucky. Most of my early guesses worked out, so it seemed to solve itself for me. It may have helped that I knew the Marvel poem, and the Ancient Mariner. My only do-overs were LAY for LAI, IOTA for MOTE, and FLUBBED before FLUFFED--all easily correctable.
Like PK @1:12, I could have been the poster boy for 48A back in 2012. Most of the unused portion returned to full service.
Friday workout today but if you don't USE it, you lose it. Thanks MaryEllen and Lemonade.
Hand up for Serene before SETTLE. Didn't know ENVIRON is a verb. XEROXES clue would have been better as "duplicates" not "dupes" IMHO. I was misdirected at 7D - oh the sneaker not the speaker! Smiled at LOL clue.
I hope 27D is not referring to any bank holdings in Panama!
I still don't really understand the OTC cluing and I have seen lots of OTCs over the years. Stocks (not on an exchange)meaning stock on shelves could be anything ie. groceries, home hardware. Nothing in the clue to indicate drugs. Can anyone explain?
Of course you all know that NO bills in Canada are ONES; we have Loonies. And I say Ice Tea not ICED TEA but we have discussed previously.
Have a great day. We woke again to snow on the ground.
OwenKL@5:46am - I had to read verse one several times to get the full enjoyment but would give it much higher than D+.
It's not so much ENVIRON as a verb but surround as a noun.
Thanks Lemonade and MaryEllen
I finished it without Google, but did need to check a few words. I have never heard "ENVIRON" as a verb, but it is in the dictionary. I agree that dupe and Xerox do not go together, but then I don't Xerox anything anymore - I scan documents and make a PDF file on my computer.
"Et in ARCADIA ego" is an early chapter title from "Brideshead Revisited" (Evelyn Waugh), which remains lodged in my RAM brain (what's left of it anyway), when Lord Sebastian and Charles were young and fancy-free (before the DTs set in).
As invited by Lemonade: the ASCOT tie is alive and well in the U.K. and Commonwealth, and worn with MORNING DRESS (classically the long-tailed single-breasted cut-away jacket with striped trousers (pants) and waistcoat (vest), now mostly seen at daytime WEDDINGS, as well as posh events such as the eponymous Royal ASCOT (horse race). The jacket derived from a design used in horse-riding, and I would guess that the greater width at the neck encouraged the use of a wider tie such as the ASCOT, typically with a wing collar. It also seems to be derived from the CRAVAT, a loose-fitting single knotted tie worn UNDER the shirt for sporting activities.
It is not de rigeur to where an ASCOT with MORNING DRESS: in fact, in an instance of snobbery, because MORNING DRESS with wing collar and ASCOT has become so popular among the "lower classes" – who typically rent them from the same place, giving a uniform appearance – POSH shops that sell MORNING DRESS to the "upper classes" now discourage wearing an ASCOT, lest it makes the outfit look like a cheap rental set.
In the U.S., I gather that men typically wear a TUXEDO (black/white tie, in this case a a bow-tie with a short jacket and silk-edged trousers) at a daytime formal wedding, but this is considered exclusively EVENING-wear in the U.K.
C Eh, the clue refers only to exchange traded stocks not over-the-counter drugs. You can read about OTC here.
NC, thanks. I still get confused with morning dress being so formal: striped pants and cutaway jackets, which we called 'tails' when I saw them on tv or old movies.
The Oxford Dictionary acknowledges dupe as an abbreviation of duplicate:
verb & noun
Short for duplicate, especially in photography.
[AS VERB]: how to dupe 35 mm slides on to 35 mm film
[AS NOUN]: black-and-white dupes.
.
Hi All!
DNF and a FIW! I FLUFFED the spelling of DeSPUTE and ENVelOp stayed. ApT look'd apt @64a and I haven't the foggiest where Pan lived; just he had a flute (I think). So, my blank square is 45d xing 59a. I MESSED (up) a bunch.
MaryEllen - U presented a challenge today. Thank you for the puzzle - lots of fun and I had to WORK FOR it. Lem, thanks for putting this thing to Rest :-)
WOs: It'd be LIES if I didn't just SAY "too many to count." E.g. ALOES -> balmS (to get bur at 35d) and back to ALOES; OED @58d; lArgER b/f VASTER; GNU -> (scribble) -> GNU; I ran out of squares for Sanguine @7d; et.al. My only clean corner is the NW.
My favorite WO is WATCH FOR DoEs... That's what I'd be doin' :-)
XEROX - do they even make copiers anymore? They're mostly a services company IIRC. Step-dad #1 (who got me into BaseBall) worked for them in SPI in the '70's & '80's.
ESPs: too many for a quick scan - I wish one was the home of Pan.
I still don't getPECK for 32d. Can someone help?
Fav(s): TEXT & LOL c/a's. Runner up: 9d's c/a THOU made me think of Amish Paradise (Weird Al).
IM - A Bloody Mary is the best way to start a relax-day; to hell w/ NOR a drop to drink...
OKL - Sparkley today {A-; A; C+}. I enjoy your muse.
Tin @9:31 - re: Bridal Showers: LOL.
Cheers, -T
peck of trouble, a noun phrase
Much difficulty : Looks like that young fellow got himself into a peck of trouble (1535+)
The Dictionary of American Slang, Fourth Edition by Barbara Ann Kipfer, PhD. and Robert L. Chapman, Ph.D.
Copyright (C) 2007 by HarperCollins Publishers.
Lem - Just re-re-re-read your PECK expo. Like a bushel & a PECK. V-8 ++ pennies falling. Thanks again. C, -T
I'm getting better at Friday and Saturday puzzles, I guess. I enjoyed solving this one. Sometimes it is obvious that the cluer has deliberately gone to some length to make a clue hard; an example today is "Dupes." I find such instances to be a bit clumsy. On the other hand, a clue like "Model of industry" is clever. Just my opinion.
Hand up for FLUBBED --> FLUFFED.
Best wishes to you all.
Husker @10:25
Diners, Drive-Ins & Dives is a wonderful "kill a half-hour" TV Show.
They have done quite a few at some of my favorite eating establishments here on the West Coast of Florida.
Being a "Retired, Beach-Bum" they are "My-kinda-places!"
And I leave you ALL with the knowledge YOU WILL BE TOASTED at Sunset ...
Cheers!
Anyone know how to communicate with the American Mensa LTD WEB site?
The sheet where I usually print the blank puzzle has gotten skewed to one side so that the left side of the puzzle does not print completely. No way I can see to adjust it.
There is too much margin on the right hand side of the page and too little margin on the left hand side of the page.
Thanks
OLD SAGE IN VIRGINIA BEACH
Merriam Webster says environ is a transitive verb with definition surround, encircle
and environs is a noun with definition of surroundings, vicinity. Who knew!
Thanks for the learning moment Lemon re OTC stocks. I guess my professional mind jumped to the other meaning.
Not I.
Thank you, Lucina.
I'm sure C.C. will be okay with this... the New York Times crossword blog, Wordplay, has some very short, but wonderful comments by Editor Will Shortz on constructors and solvers and what we experience. It is perfectly said. You can access the site through Cruciverb or Googling Wordplay.
Terrible plumbing problems starting last night and still not finished. Turns out part of a sewer pipe needs a new liner or sleeve or something, at a huge cost of course. The guys have been working all day and are still not finished. But it all could have been even worse, so I mustn't complain.
As a result I was so rattled in the morning I couldn't even start the puzzle. But as the day went on I worked a little here, a little there, and slowly things started to fill in. It helped that I got the FOR structure early on. Didn't think I'd finish it, but did in the last hour, and I turned out to be totally correct--with a Friday puzzle. Can't believe it! Thank you, Mary Ellen, and Lemonade for giving me a good moment on a stressful day.
Owen, you work really hard on those poems--many thanks.
Have a good weekend, everybody.
Good Friday level challenge. ARCADIA came fairly easy, having just seen that wonderful Stoppard play in Glencoe. Those in the Chicago area should try to get over to Writers Theatre's new venue, designed by Studio Gang, to see it.
In case anyone ever returns here. First, kudos to the Limerick er. Loved'em.
OK. I'm all thumbs when it comes to putting up TEnTs so I thought I'd come across a new word: ZEROnES. As in 'Those ZEROnES erected the tent backwards. I had angliced LAI to LAy and somehow found a product called SYSKEL. Simply left out the C but meant Over the Counter (stocks). Used to buy them all the time, ergo I'm poorer than I should be today.
Glad inning didn't have three OUTs, cuz it has six.
The deception re. DUPES made the puzzle, IMO
Well WC, here I am 4 years later. you never know
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