Theme: "Past Due"- One word in each common phrase is replaced by its past tense.
22A. Chant by lumberyard workers during a lockout? : LONG TIME NO SAW. Long time no see, which originated in Chinese, right? 好久不见 is literately "long time no see".
37A. Citi Field shortstop or second baseman? : MET IN THE MIDDLE. Meet in the middle.
53A. Timid FBI agent? : CHICKEN FED. Chicken feed.
67A. Bunch of cattle reading menus? : DROVE IN RESTAURANT. Drive-in restaurant.
83A. One evoking yawns on an Alaskan island? : KODIAK BORE. Kodiak bear.
97A. Help when it's time to give up? : LENT ASSISTANCE. Lend assistance.
119A. Provide with surfacing material, as a pool parlor? : GET THE FELT FOR. Get the feel for.
Of
the seven theme entries, two changes happen in the front, three in the
back, one is in the middle. A nice mix. Consistently putting the changes
in front or back are quite daunting, as Paul's choices are rather
limited.
MET IN THE MIDDLE and LENT ASSISTANCE are a bit different, as they themselves are solid in the language phrases.
So many sparkling long fill in the Down slots, Paul!
Across:
1. Make out : NECK
5. Barley brew : ALE
8. Swedish cinematographer Nykvist : SVEN. Unfamiliar to me. Wiki says he was nominated for Academy Award for Best Cinematography for The Unbearable Lightness of Being.
12. Candy mogul Harry : REESE
17. Brazilian berry : ACAI. This Acai Bowl looks amazing. Trader Joe's now carries frozen acai puree packets.
18. Subject for a bar discussion : LAW
19. Pew's place : NAVE
20. Certain Ukrainian : ODESSAN
25. Brunch cocktails : MIMOSAs
26. Scene of sworn statements : ALTAR
27. Finish second : PLACE. Win. Place. Show. We also have 23. Horse race pace : TROT
28. Gothic architecture feature : GABLE
30. You can dig it : ORE
31. Chop off : LOP
33. "Be __": "Help me out here" : A PAL
34. Like real estate moguls : ACRED. Not a word I use.
35. Hit hard : SMITE. Not a word I use.
43. WWII org. that froze food costs : OPA. Googled afterwards: Office of Price Administration.
44. Ring spot, maybe : TUB. Nice clue.
46. Old Nair competitor : NEET
47. "Manhattan" Oscar nominee Hemingway : MARIEL
48. Hound : NAG
49. Anti: Abbr. : OPP. Followed by 50. Adversaries : FOES
52. Advisories : ALERTS
56. Beverage with a lizard logo : SoBe. Short for South Beach
60. Moore of "G.I. Jane" : DEMI
61. Pen : ENCAGE
62. Oft-quoted auth.? : ANON
64. Fall lead-in : PRAT
66. Canadian capital? : CEE. Canadian.
72. Lith., once : SSR
74. To be, in Tours : ETRE
75. It may be raised at a party : CAIN. Raise Cain. I was thinking of toast.
76. Accustomed (to) : INURED
79. Jack of "Rio Lobo" : ELAM. He's a gimme to me now.
81. Narcissus' love : SELF. Ah, not ECHO.
85. Chinese temple : PAGODA. This Giant Wild Goose Pagoda is very close to our home. It was built in 652 to to store the Buddhist scriptures.
88. Bring down : RUIN
90. Flue residue : ASH
91. Church kitchen server : URN
92. Hunk : ADONIS
93. British submachine gun : STEN. We saw this entry a lot in the old Wayne R. Williams days.
95. ER personnel : RNs
96. Crib sheet user : TOT. Cute clue.
101. Hidden : INNER
104. Sarducci in early "SNL" skits : GUIDO
105. Pastoral plaints : BAAs
106. Iowa campus : COE. Coe College.
107. Entrepreneur's deg. : MBA
110. Like Cheerios : OATEN. I like overnight oats. Just can't get into Cheerios.
111. Pays to play : ANTES
113. "Transcendental" Liszt piece : ETUDE
117. Place with care : ARRANGE
122. Fountain treats : SUNDAES. What's your favorite dessert?
123. Sheltered at sea : ALEE
124. Baseball rally killers, briefly : DPS (Double Plays)
125. Hang loosely : LOLL
126. Counter seat : STOOL
127. Lays down the lawn : SODS. Also 95. Tends to a lawn's bare spot : RESEEDS
128. '60s radical gp. : SDS. Students for a Democratic Society.
129. Direction in Durango : ESTE
Down:
1. "The Lion King" lion : NALA
2. Earth Day subj. : ECOL
3. Prominent angle : CANT. Can you give me an example?
4. Capital of Rwanda : KIGALI. Got via crosses.
5. Ring master? : ALI. Great clue as well.
6. Spot for a bulb : LAMP
7. Young female sheep : EWE LAMB
8. Vehicle with caterpillar treads : SNO-CAT. I did not know there's a term for those continuous treads.
9. Healing aid patented in 1872 : VASELINE. Great fill.
10. Actress Mendes : EVA
11. Historic London prison : NEWGATE. Wiki says "The gate/prison was rebuilt in the 12th century, and demolished in 1904.
The prison was extended and rebuilt many times, and remained in use for
over 700 years, from 1188 to 1902."
12. Like some summer school classes : REMEDIAL
13. Spaniard's "that" : ESO
14. "Happy Motoring" company : ESSO
15. Moselle tributary : SAAR. Not ORNE.
16. Bay State motto opener : ENSE. This will appear again. You just need to remember it.
20. Old card game named for the Spanish for "man" : OMBRE. Helpful clue.
21. Fix : DILEMMA. Noun "Fix".
24. Where small animals may be picked up : NAPE
29. Eight, in Essen : ACHT
32. Bugbear : PET PEEVE. Another great fill.
35. Hall of Fame pitcher Warren : SPAHN. This is the original Hartland statue. He was with Milwaukee Braves then. We have a copy made in the 1980s I think.
36. Puff, notably : MAGIC DRAGON. Puff is the only Magic Dragon I know. Chinese are often called "Descendants of the Dragon". You'll see dragon dance in Chinese Spring Festival. "Hoping one's son will become a dragon" is an idiomatic saying, meaning you hope your son succeed.
38. Capone nemesis : NESS
39. 1856 Stowe novel : DRED
40. Beeline : DIRECT ROUTE
41. "I can help" : LET ME
42. Dinsmore of kid lit : ELSIE. Learning moment for me.
43. First word of "The Raven" : ONCE
45. "Buffy" airer after The WB : UPN
49. Rock band known for quirky, viral videos : OK GO. Unfamiliar with the band.
50. Aromatic herb : FENNEL
51. Carbon monoxide's lack : ODOR
54. Wheels : CAR
55. Laissez-__ : FAIRE
57. Alternative : OPTION
58. Stigmatize : BRAND. Oh, I learned a new word from my eye doctor the other day: Astigmatism.
59. Evian, e.g. : EAU
63. Japanese computer giant : NEC
65. Period of the first dinosaurs : TRIASSIC. New word to me also.
68. Sci-fi staples : ETs,. Also 114. Roswell sightings : UFOS
69. Storytelling pseudonym : SAKI. I sure need "H.H. Munro" in the clue.
70. Pharaoh's symbol : ANKH. Chinese emperor's symbol is dragon. All emperors wore dragon ropes.
71. Essence : NUB
72. Flower part : SEPAL
73. English glam rockers since the '70s : SLADE
77. Diamond flaw : ERROR. Baseball.
78. Bad impression? : DENT
80. Alpes sight : MONT
82. Guitar line : FRET
84. "At Seventeen" singer Janis : IAN
86. Slash : DIAGONAL
87. Soften : ASSUAGE
89. With sustained force : UNABATED
93. Pro or con : SIDE
94. 1992 presidential also-ran Paul : TSONGAS. No idea. He lost to Clinton.
98. Positions : SITES
99. 1598 edict city : NANTES. Edict of Nantes. I learned from doing crosswords.
100. Like the Pope: Abbr. : CATH (Catholic).
102. Carol : NOEL
103. Irritate : NETTLE
107. Come together : MASS. I did not know MASS can be a verb.
108. Champagne designation : BRUT
109. New Yorker cartoonist Peter : ARNO
112. Bay Area cop gp. : SFPD
115. Chowderhead : DOLT
116. Agatha contemporary : ERLE
118. Big deal : ADO
120. "Eldorado" rock gp. : ELO
121. Double curve : ESS
Happy Birthday to dear Chickie (Leah), who joined our blog in
2008. So happy to see her stay busy and active.
 |
| Chickie & Bill |
Happy Birthday to Spitzboov's sweet wife Betty as well! They've been married for 52 years. Does Betty solve crosswords, Al?
 |
35 comments:
DNF. Four cells killed me. O?A+S?AHN I knew neither, just put in a random letter; INfER+fETTLE I didn't see from the clues--even with red letters, I tried F,M,T before N; and OKsi+ENCAsE+DRiVE I didn't realize was wrong, since I had no inkling of the band, and the across words seemed okay.
‽!?‽ ACRED ‽?!‽
‽ ENCAGE ‽
Overall, a good puzzle. Weekends are expected to have a dusting of obscure entries. I even enjoyed the puns in the themers.
But I didn't get the gimmick until well after I'd finished (including using red letters to locate and correct those 4 errors). Three or 4 of the 7 themers were fine by me just the way they were, and even with the title clue (despite the Mensa site mangling it), the tense change didn't register with the rest of them.
My apologies to Paul, but I'm afraid I'm going to rail against this theme as being poorly executed, just as the rest of you did Thur and Fri!
SVEN was an old farmer in KODIAK
Who couldn't find a wife to share his shack.
With land he was well-ACRED,
His bed cover was well-furred,
And town was only a day away by SNO-CAT!
A whole new lawn is what Mr. REESE needs.
But INURED to brown patches, he just RE-SEEDS.
U.F.O.S park on his grass
To hear his ETUDES in brass --
The E.T.S like to follow Reese's pieces!
ELSIE caught a MAGIC DRAGON, sleeping in shade.
"To keep people safe, the dragon I'll ENCAGE!"
Even his name filled her with DREAD,
And so next day, out by the shed
She grabbed a tool, and with a spade she slayed SLADE!
{B+, A-, C+.}
Thanks, C.C. and thanks for the poem, Owen. Haven't been here in a while, so I've missed them. I have to ding myself somewhat on this one since, as C.C. notes, two of the theme entries can be past tense phrases on their own - METINTHEMIDDLE and LENTASSISTANCE. I tried hard to avoid this, but it turned out to be difficult finding common phrases that can turn past tenses into nouns in sensible ways. Two of my favorites that didn't make the cut were:
Kurosawa's sequel about a warlord who buys the closed down lumberyard? RANOFTHEMILL
What the minstrel who can't sing does? TELLSALAY
but in building crosswords, you need to find theme pairs of matching lengths. The exception can be a middle one, of course, but I'd already used DROVEINRESTAURANT, my seed phrase, which I think is pretty funny.
Good morning!
Took some time to glom onto the gimmick, but it was smooth sailing the rest of the way. STEN reminds me of the days when ADIT appeared in the cw almost daily. COE was a gimme; our radio studio was just down the street from the campus. Even more obscure would be Cornell College in Mount Vernon, Iowa. That'd make a great Saturday entry -- "Liberal arts school at Mount Vernon." Thanx for dropping by, Paul.
CC said, "This will appear again." I take that to mean we can expect the clue/answer combo in one of her waiting-to-be-published puzzles. She's always got a raft of 'em in the hopper.
Happy Birthday, Chickie and Betty.
Paul, thank you for stopping by; I agree DROVEINRESTAURANT may be the best but thought LONGTIMENOSAW and CHICKENFED were damn funny.
More unknowns than most Sundays: Nykvist : SVEN; Rwanda : KIGALI; and viral videos : OK GO come to mind.
I liked seeing ANTES and NANTES in the same grid and had forgotten about PAUL TSONGAS.
Very Happy and healthy birthday wishes to Chickie and Betty.
Musings
-Challenges everywhere and wonderful puns! I can even forgive ACRED.
-Thanks for the info, Paul. MET IN THE MIDDLE got a big laugh here!
-No clue but got OKGO, SAKI, SVEN (duh!), SLADE, ARNO
-Betting Secretariat to PLACE in the 1973 Belmont would have garnered you 40¢
-I like to trim, DW wants to LOP. I hauled a pickup load away yesterday
-Raising Cane in our town opened Tuesday
-The RN’S had to start over to get blood from me on Thursday
-A hilarious non-DP umpire ERROR (1:21)
-All the bulbs we buy for our LAMPS now are supposed to last longer than I am
-Summer classes seemed to be more punitive than REMEDIAL
-Since Ness didn’t get Capone on murder, bootlegging, extortion, etc. for what crime did
Al go to jail?
-UNABATED to the quarterback (:37) is now a football term
-HBD Chickie and Betty!
Hello Puzzlers -
Put me down for a DNF today. Spahn and his neighbors put me in the dirt. Ok Go was, and still is, an unknown. Had encase instead of engage, so that part was doomed.
Part of the problem was having to use LAT again - Cruciverb was snoozing, after having been somewhat reliable in recent days. Large Sunday grids are especially annoying to solve at LAT because of the jittery interface.
Morning C.C. Thanks for 'splaining!
Nice challenging puzzle, Paul! So nice of you to drop in.
I had to Google Rwanda's capital and then the top left fell into place. Another problem was thatI had encase instead of encage which didn't make sense with the rock band.
Thanks for explaining SoBe, C.C. Your expos are always interesting and illuminating.
I wish you all a great week with good news coming from the political front.
Good Morning:
For me, this was an unusually difficult Sunday offering, mainly, because it took ages for me to figure out the theme. (Drambuie doldrums, perhaps?). Of course, I was my own worst enemy with holding on to Fend before Neck for too long. I blithely entered Fala, mixing up FDR's dog with Disney's lion, Nala. On top of that, I misread healing aid as hearing aid and spent forever trying to come up with the name of those thingies (ala CED) that people used to hold up to their ear~I still can't come up with their name! Another misguided entry that goofed me up was Spa instead of Eau for Evian. I finally finished w/o help, but it took way more time than normal which is okay because I enjoyed the challenge.
Thanks, Paul, for a tough but doable stumper and thanks for dropping by. (All is forgiven for "acred.") Thanks, CC, for a detailed and informative review. My favorite dessert is potato chips and homemade onion dip! Old fashioned style Popcorn, I.e., non-Microwave, smothered in butter, runs a close second.
Happy Birthday, Chickie 🎂 and Happy Birthday, Betty. 🎂 Hope you both enjoy your special day.
Have a great day.
Happy Birthday Chickie and Betty, and good day to all!
Too many unknowns to mention, but the punny theme made for an enjoyable solve nevertheless. Like Irish Miss, I spent much longer than usual with today's puzzle, and finally turned on red letters to find that I needed to ENCAGE rather than ENCAsE, which gave me OKGO, one of the many unknowns. Favorite clue/answer was "Crib sheet user" for TOT. I also thought "Lays down the lawn" was cute for SODS. Thank you, C.C., for the expo, and thank you Paul C. for stopping by and sharing about your creative experience.
Enjoy the day!
Sunday Lurk say...
I can't let this stand. The corner must know of OK GO. Here it Goes Again [their first breakout] and, this one is visually stunning, I Won't Let You Down. The videos were shot in one take.
{A-,A,C}
Thanks Paul for stopping by; funny puns. C.C., thanks for all the cool pics in the expo.
HBD Chickie & Betty!
Cheers, -T
Hello everyone.
Happy Birthday to Chickie.
Thanks for all the good wishes for Betty. She really appreciated them.
Fun puzzle. Not too hard. Clever theme. Must have been hard to cobble together sufficient examples of the theme..
Favorite fill was CHICKEN FED.
NETTLE - A stylized nettle leaf is the Coat of Arms of Holstein, and is on the flag of Schleswig-Holstein. Holstein was the northernmost territory of the HRE - Holy Roman Empire.
I caught the theme early at LONG TIME NO SAW but for the third day in a row it was a DNF because of the cross of two unknowns- OMBRE (HOMBRE I would have figured out with the lead off H) and GABLE.
Other unknowns were SVEN, SLADE, OK GO, Peter ARNO- all four I'd never heard of- and ELSIE, CANT & SOBE.
TRIASSIC, JURASSIC, CRETACEOUS- the three periods of the Mesozoic Era
SPAHN and SAIN and pray for rain. They had no other good pitchers.
H.G.- Raising Cane's serves only chicken fingers, all cooked after the order is placed. Cane was the name of the owner's dog.
Anon-T,,,Sorry to inform you but I'd never heard of either OK GO or SLADE
Where's TTP ?
Hi Y'all! Lots of unknowns in the puzzle, but got 'er filled. Thanks, Paul. I liked the theme which was thought provoking and chuckle-worthy. I googled Kigali to start when I came up empty on the first across & down clues. I consider that research not cheating. Couldn't remember that lion's name to save me.
Not jurASIC but TRIASIC which I'd never heard of before. I'll TRI to remember that.
SOBE? Don't think it gets trucked out here. Don't think I want to drink something with a lizard on it anyway.
Thanks, C.C. Always enjoy your infusion of Chinese culture. Until you 'splained, I couldn't understand how diamond flaw could be ERROR. Duh!
Thanks, AnonT, for the OKGO clip. Who knew they could do a tread mill drill team? Fascinating. Bet that didn't GO OK the first time they tried it on those tricky little machines. I won't get on those things even standing still.
Happy Birthday, Chickie and Betty! Hope you are both healthy and happy!
I liked this puzzle. I ran into my natick at the cross of SPAHN and OPA; had to do a red-letter run to get that P. Laughed out loud at CHICKEN FED and smiled at LONG TIME NO SAW. Never heard of OKGO and will probably forget by tomorrow. Wanted FREE before PRAT, DOG before NAG, and VALSE before ETUDE. Good puzzle, Paul C, and thanks for stopping by.
Interesting about "long time no see."
One of my favorite desserts is bread pudding. LW and I also like a good tiramisu. (That sure looks like a Japanese word, not at all Italian.)
I can't give you a good example of CANT, but think of the leaning tower of Pisa as being so canted as to be at risk of toppling over.
So, C.C., do you have astigmatism? Are you going to need glasses?
Good wishes to you all.
Well, this was a Sunday toughie for me, but so was the Friday and the Saturday puzzle, so that's nothing new for me. But I got most of the south, and enjoyed the very clever and funny clues like CRIB SHEET for that TOT, and CEE for Canadian capital. I knew that one wouldn't be a city, so I figured it had to be money but the only thing I could think of was a "loonie" or something, didn't we have that in a puzzle a while back? The capital letter of the title never occurred to me until the 40 down filled it in. So, fun Sunday puzzle, Paul, and many thanks for checking in with us. I always learn a lot when constructors explain their challenges. And I always enjoy your thoughtful write-ups, C.C.
Happy birthday, Chickee and Betty--loved the pictures!
Have a great Sunday, everybody!
Happy birthday, Chickee and Betty!
Boy, oh boy, I just never get tired of hearing Dudley complain about Cruciverb.
How many times have others offered alternatives such as Mensa or even printing a hard copy from any site and solving on paper. No, he rather ignore suggestions so he can come here and complain that Cruciverb is down and how he dislikes the LA times interface.
It's groundhog day all over again. ..
DNF, Once I confidently entered ROOF for 75a I was done. Even though I knew NEC was right for 63d. Funny how a stubborn fill ruins the chances for a whole section.
I once estimated mostly because of thirty-five years of business travel I have read about 4,000 books but I know very few authors. Plays and poems much much fewer probably almost as many movies and TV shows. But neither the poet, the playwright nor the director ever makes much of an impression. Do most Crossword solvers just know this stuff ? For a science major I consider myself well read, good in History and Geography. But unless your creation resulted in an advance in Physics, Math (or sports) I am baffled. "quirky band"???? Did anyone know that ???
Irish Miss, the words you are looking for are ear horn or ear trumpet.
Anonymous G
Ladies and gentlemen...I give you, SLADE.
Greetings all!
I am comforted to see I made all the same mistakes as everyone else. I laughed at the themes and the vision of cows reading menus but didn't get the tense-switch until I got here. And although this was a toughie, I happily (albeit slowly) made my way through with red letters, no google. Well done, Paul! And thank you, C.C.!
I have heard OK GO but wouldn't have come up with them if my life depended on it. I wanted to fill in DEVO even though they are definitely pre-viral age. I had seen the treadmill video, Anon-T, but watched the whole thing anyway. Then got sucked down the rabbit whole and found I Won't Let You Down. Thanks for sharing!!!
SLADE is not in my wheelhouse either, but here's Far Far Away (1974) for your viewing pleasure.
Happy Sunday!
t.
C.C., I just looked at the pictures you posted again--they're great!
Hi everyone. I know I'm late to the dance but I was just wondering if "Narcissist's love" would have been a better clue for 81A. That way, you avoid all the mythology. But then, that might make it too easy.
Among the staff of the OPA during and after the war was one Richard M. Nixon. Being a Quaker, he was not designated for a combat role. It was his time at the OPA that engendered his hatred for government bureaucracy.
Richard Nixon served in the US Navy Reserve. Active duty 1942 - 1946. Inactive duty 1946 - 1966.
Kerry_in_Carefree (AZ)
Greetings!
Thanks to Paul and CC!
Fun theme!
Happy birthday Chickie and Betty!
Got 'er done today. Spent way too much time on Word Solitaire last night!
Hope to see you all tomorrow!
A fine puzzle. Thanks Paul and CC.
Today was a relief from the A/C installation noise and hassle. Really nice weather too. If the weather was always like this, I would never have bothered. But the really unpleasant hot spells have become much more frequent.
Happy birthday, Chickee and Betty!
Jayce, I'm A BIG fan of bread pudding too. But then you probably could have guessed that. :>)
Re: ENSE: I'm surprised no one has translated this.
Ense petit placidam sub libertate quietem
Pronunciation:
en'se pe'tit plä'ki-däm" soob lē"ber-tä'te kwē-ā'tem
en'sē pē'tit plas'i-dam" sub lib"ə-tā'tē kwī-ē'tem
Translation 1: With the sword she (Massachusetts) seeks tranquil peace under liberty.
Translation 2: Through battle we seek peace, but only with liberty.
Is it coincidence that a puzzle based on past-tense should contain ENSE, (t)ense past-T?
ESO next to ESSO was also a nice juxtaposition.
Found an interesting site on the coming eclipse you might want to look at at Time magazine.
Chuck L- you probably know a lot more authors than I do. I've never cared to read other peoples' fantasies. Suffering through the required English Literature courses in college certainly didn't stimulate me to ever care about what they wrote 300-500 years ago.
Chameleon- I listened to the SLADE link. I give them back to you..
Tawnya- The short member in the center of SLADE singing looks like Davy Jones of the Monkees. I listened to both songs and can truthfully say that I had never heard either of those song before. The band reminds me of Salieri vs. Mozart; no talent vs. true talent.
I got ENURE and INURE mixed up. And with the writing over of JURASSIC I misspelled CRIASSIC. There's always something.
Thank heavens CC alerted me to TENSE and I altered DRIVE and sussed OKGO. I had trouble, naturally, with ACRED. I actually thought the reference was to ACCREDited.
HBD to Chickie and Betty. My wife's a Betsy.
Paul, your cluing was nefarious. In xworld that's a kudo. Do you folks know your MARIELS from your Muriels? Except I see that the sister was Margaux(who do we know by that name).*
First word of Mass motto? How about last word of NH motto. ?**
The Boston Braves (1948) actually had a pretty good 3rd pitch in Vern Bickford to go with spahn and Sain.
I kept trying to resurrect NEWGATE. I would do ten minutes, drive, then get back to it. And of course everyone knows the Edict of NANTES which doesn't rhyme with ANTE.
WC
* I met an old friend who's a Neitzche nut
** Live free or DIE
Oops forgot Owen. I enjoyed both of them.
WC
Big E. I'm not disappointed you didn't know it... I didn't mean 'must know' as in "Of course, you gotta know this..." but as in "you need to know...let me show you; you's gotta see this." I'm not a huge fan of OK GO's music (I own 1 CD and like it OK); I do, however, love their visual-artistry/creativity. I'd only be disappointed if you didn't watch the link.
Tawnya - I knew Chameleon's SLADE link but not the earlier (from the '70's) number you posted. Thanks.
Here's another OK GO video for Rube Goldberg fans.
Cheers, -T
Anonymous @ 3:34 ~ You may not see this late response but thank you for solving my dilemma. Ear trumpet is what I was trying to recall!
For a Quaker, he sure dropped a "s*** load of bombs on Cambodia, Laos and Haiphong. Dad, three Uncles (one dead, one wounded) all in combat called him a convenient Quaker.
I know..politics but since its a day late no one will read it
Spent way too much time on this and was very unhappy to FIW in the NW due to really unfair crosses. SPAHN/OPA no way. The P could have been almost anything.
LONG TIME NO SEE I always took to be a (somewhat insulting) imitation of how a Native American would speak. Thanks, CC, for the learning moment that it is literally how it is in Chinese.
ELAM/SLADE crossing also utterly unfair even though I did WAG it correctly. Never heard of either and no reason why I would have. OKGO also a total unknown, but at least the crosses were fair.
Only know COE from these puzzles. BRUT, ARNO unknown. Had TOE before TUB as ring location. MESH before MASS.
The theme was amusing. But the unfair crosses really spoiled the fun.
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