Puzzling thoughts:
When I was in Junior High, we had a choice of four languages to take as an elective course. I believe it was mandatory to learn a second language then. We could choose from French, Spanish, Latin, and German. Given my presumed origin (proved later to be false), I chose German. I studied German from Grade 7 through Grade 12, and took enough credit hours in college to have German as my second "major"
Looking back, however, I wish now that I had either taken Spanish or French. Spanish would have served me well in my former International Business position, as I had several clients in Mexico and Latin America. Having lived in Florida and now Arizona, knowing Spanish would be an asset, too. French could have assisted me in my wine career; I represented several French suppliers and would've enjoyed being able to converse with them in their own tongue
Latin? Nope. Never had the urge to study it nor understand it. But today? Yes. Knowing Latin would have made solving today's puzzle so much easier!
17-across. Feles inquisitae?: POLLING CATS. Feles is the root word for feline; inquisitae is the nominative feminine plural for inquiring. POLLING CATS? Was David going for the homophonic POLL/POLE? As in POLECAT? Maybe the next one will provide me some direction ...
23-across. Apes ineptae?: BUMBLING BEES. First off, apis is the Latin for Bee(s). I searched as best I could to find if "apes" is the plural, but to no avail. Ineptae is the nominative feminine plural for inept. BUMBLING BEES? A takeoff on BUMBLEBEE? Moving on to number three ...
37-across. Ursi dividi?: POLARIZING BEARS. OK, this one is so obvious (to me, anyway) that I didn't need to look up the Latin --> English translation. Ursi (Ursa = Bear; think Ursa Minor/constellation) is probably the plural; dividi is probably the nominative feminine plural (for divide); this makes POLARIZING BEARS one of the easier "fits" (POLAR BEAR)
48-across. Cervi dominati?: REIGNING DEER. OK, back to Google Translate! Cervi is the Latin (also, Italian) for deer (singular OR plural); dominati is the nominative feminine plural for dominate. REIGNING DEER (REINDEER) was also pretty obvious once I got the hang of it
61. Porci circumspecti?: HEDGING HOGS. I knew that porcine = pig; circumspecti must mean (duh!) circumspect (unwilling to take a risk), and of course, be in the nominative feminine plural inflection. A female pig is a HOG; hedge = limit severely; HEDGEHOG is, well, a Hedgehog!
I know that as a wordsmith of sorts, I should've been more excited about today's puzzle. But to be honest, it left me "at a loss for words" ... here is the grid ... then on to the rest of the clues and entries
Across:
1. Taylor-Joy of "The Menu": ANYA. In a sort of CSO to desper-otto; I always prefer having a "gimme" at One Across. This took awhile for me to fill as I needed ESP
5. Unimpressed: BLASE. Which is the POLAR opposite of (10-across. "Terrif!":) FAB.
13. Shows the way: LEADS. I am sincerely hoping that someone (in the "comments" section below) "shows the way" to the cleverness of this puzzle, and LEADS us into repartee ...
15. Wee bits: IOTAS. Also clued as: Greek vowels
16. "Odds __ ... ": ARE. I will fill in the ". . ." Odds ARE that some of you will agree with me on today's puzzle, and some won't
19. Work of fiction?: LIE. In a sort of CSO to Irish Miss, this is #2 of 20 (total) three-letter entries
20. Connected, in a way: ONLINE. Does anyone miss this sound of being connected ONLINE?
21. Radio host Shapiro who wrote "The Best Strangers in the World": ARI. I knew this one; I have used ARI and/or Shapiro in one of my published puzzles
22. One side on "The Americans," initially: USSR. I have not watched this show. I think it is streaming on Hulu ...
26. Taxi: CAB. Which somehow didn't intersect with (22-down. Took someone else's wheels:) UBERED. Neither of these gave me much of a lyft ...
29. Blue area on a map: SEA. OK; I can see this
30. Guitar great Paul: LES. The three letter space immediately ruled out SIMON or MCCARTNEY. Gibson Guitar Company began producing a "Les Paul" model back in the 1950's; here is a list of famous guitarists who play a Les Paul guitar
31. "Welp," quaintly: ALAS. Oddly, this clue could be reversed and be equally sussed
33. Solidified: SET.
35. Ventricle's outlet: AORTA.
41. "Is That Black Enough for You?!?" documentarian Mitchell: ELVIS. In his own words
42. "As __ usual": PER. #6 of the 3-letter entries
43. Water fall?: DRIP. Cute clue
44. Drone regulator: Abbr.: FAA. Federal Aviation Authority
45. Pt. of IRA: RET. Short for RETirement
47. Bagged leaves?: TEA. Cute clue
54. Fencing event: EPEE. Most people associate EPEE with a type of sword rather than the event itself
55. __ tai: MAI. #10 of the 3-letter's
56. Pool unit: ONE LAP. "DOODIE" (aka, PAYDAY) also fit ... see the video:
60. Silly string?: LOL. I'm guessing the clue is for the "string" of words "laugh out loud"
63. Insert: ADD. #12
64. Posts: MAILS. Could be combined with (67-across. Gastropod for gastronomes:) SNAIL, to better describe at what pace cards, letters, and packages move through the USPS
65. Retreats in the desert: OASES. They're not always a mirage, FYI
66. "Are you solving a crossword right now?" answer: YES. Ha Ha! But for this blog, the correct clue would be: "Are you reading the Crossword Corner right now?"
68. Word in many award category names: BEST. Should there be a "BEST" of Blog award, here at the Corner? Who would YOU vote for? My vote goes to Susan ...
Down:
1. Chewy brand: ALPO. I had KONG on the brain. It (KONG) is a well-known brand of chew toys for pets
2. Super bright: NEON. MENSA didn't fit
3. Southern party: Y'ALL. Singular; the plural (parties) is ALL Y'ALL
4. Off the cuff: ADLIB. All of my blog; there is absolutely nothing that I do scripted
5. Popular: BIG. Was this movie popular?
6. One who's likely rooting for the home team: LOCAL. Here's a tune I remember from my youth; the movie? Not so much:
7. Single-button joystick creator: ATARI. A new clue for this crossword entry
8. Pointe shoe material: SATIN. "Pointe" seems like a ballet reference; ballet dancers wear SATIN shoes
9. One of a Mississippi quartet: ESS. What if they were looking to feature the four I's instead?
10. Early misstep: FALSE START. A football reference, among others. Speaking of others, for any of you who are looking to become a sprinter, this tutorial on how to avoid a FALSE START is worth watching
11. Surface: ARISE.
12. Cold ones: BEERS. Unlike the plural of DEER, BEER has an ESS at the end
14. Head space?: SINUS. As someone who used to sell plastic closures, we always took the "head space" to mean the unfilled area between the liquid/contents of a bottle, and the cap. Back in my early BEER drinking days, this seemed quite amuzing:
18. Serious foe: NEMESIS. Interesting that "THESAURUSSAURUS" shows "foe" as a synonym for NEMESIS, but not the other way around ...
24. "Diamonds & Rust" folk singer Joan: BAEZ.
25. Squishy lump: GLOB.
26. Lens __: CAP. I wonder if Picard had any of his plethora of photographs ruined by leaving his lens CAP attached?
27. The Body Shop additive: ALOE. A Friday-ish clue for this crossword-ese entry
28. Diamonds that don't sparkle?: BALL FIELDS. Not the subject of Ms. BAEZ's "Diamonds & Rust"
32. "Macho Man" Randy __: SAVAGE. A way to clue this word without its negative meaning, perhaps? Although to some, the "Macho Man" embodied his name
34. Pointer: TIP. #17
35. Mutually support: AGREE ON. Without sounding too "political", it's nice when our Congress has a bill that they all AGREE ON
36. "Acoustic Soul" artist India.__: ARIE. The "India ." gave it away for me, even without knowing the song
38. "Star Wars: The Last Jedi" director Johnson: RIAN. Here is a list of all of the "Star Wars" directors
39. Square figure: NERD. Does AREA fit this clue, too?
40. Day __: SPA. #18
46. Indie rock band Yo La __: TENGO. I tried "TANGO" at first. You?
48. Pass on: RELAY. As in a "RELAY" race; but no FALSE STARTS now, ya hear?
49. Lyric poem: EPODE. Not a word I often use in everyday language, (50. "That is ... ":) I MEAN.
51. Gymnast Comaneci: NADIA.
52. 2003 rom-com that won seven Razzie Awards: GIGLI. "Razzies" - or Golden Raspberry Awards - are given for the worst films
53. Postop therapy: REHAB. I've encountered a few of these (post-op therapy) and came out unscathed
57. Come up short: LOSE. Kinda like what's happened to my hairline over the past few decades
58. Years and years: AGES. EONS fits, too
59. "Hey, c'mere!": PSST.
61. Letters for the Queen Mary: HMS. #19
62. Pt. of Hawaii: ISL. #20
Looking forward to seeing your comments below. See you in a couple of weeks, when perhaps I'll be inspired to "Ku" ...
48 comments:
The combination of “Elvis,” “Savage” and “Rian” nearly did me in, but I persevered ( I guess Mr. Presley has been relegated to the ash heap?). As for the Latin, sometimes I had a pretty good understanding of it, other times just the faintest glimmer. I wouldn’t call this puzzle “easy “ although the gimmick was fairly easy to suss. But, anyway, I managed to FIR, so I’m not only happy, I’m relieved!
By the way, although I said “the gimmick was fairly easy to suss”, I didn’t actually “suss” it until I got to “bumbling bees”, just FYI.
The combination of "Elvis," "Savage," and "Rian" did me in -- wasn't familiar with any of 'em. There oughta be a law. D-o put an L where that V needed to go. Bzzzzzt. "Welp" -- just where did that come from, and what is it? D-o was definitely not on David's wavelength this morning. Sussed the theme when BLUMBLING BEES showed up. The themers were cute, but chalk this one up in the loss column. Thanx, David and C-Moe.
Off to get my cataracts evaluated this morning...
Didn't like the theme much for at least three different reasons...
1) Minor complaint: POLARIZING BEARS doesn't follow the pattern of just adding ING. And I'm pretty sure this was the seed entry because it's a clean 15 letters long (which is why we got plural themers, I believe).
2) Not sure the Latin actually works in all clues...? I think "dominati" is literally "dominated", as in the deer are dominated, which is the exact opposite of REIGNING DEER, isn't it?
3) Why even use Latin in the first place? To make the clues look like scientific names? But you don't... pluralize scientific names.
I think the theme could've worked just fine with four themers, without the final S, also removing POLARIZING BEARS and maybe allowing a smoother/slightly more open grid.
I see we're keeping up the LAT tradition of cluing normal words in name-heavy sections as more names (SAVAGE!). That paired with the Fridayization of the ELVIS clue (not making it about THE Elvis anyone would think of first) was maybe too much.
Foreign languages should not be used At all.. that puzzle stinks!!!
FIR, but didn't much enjoy it. Erased anna for ANYA, ira for ARI, rain for DRIP, sends for MAILS, and ryan for RIAN. WAGged SAVAGE x ELVIS, and the guess "V" made me reconsider ryan, saving me from a FIW. For a while, my answer to "are you SOLVING a crossword right now?" would have had to have been NOT REALLY.
Odds ARE reminded me on the beautiful Chances ARE by Johnny Mathis.
When I was a ham, I was a member of the American Radio Relay League. (When you are around folks of my age, you might want to use a different phrase than "pass on".)
Never heard of The Body Shop, but the caps told me it wasn't about cars. That, and "Bondo" wouldn't fit.
Moe, the SLR camera put an end to missing a shot because of the lens cap. But thanks for another fine review.
FIW. Not a very enjoyable CW. I couldn't think of Savage, had no idea on Elvis or Rian, and once again the crossing of proper names appeared. To me this is a puzzle no-no. I found the theme to be a bit of a stretch and not very smooth at all. Overall not much fun to solve.
Does India.ARIE live in an aerie?
Is an oasis part of OASES?
Do the MAILS
Employ. SNAILS?
Do BAGGED TEA LEAVES tease?
Here's one before it gets too late, I'll try to get another up shortly.
At first I was daunted by this. Once I sussed the theme, I liked the puzzle. I got the animals right away. I didn't take the other part of the Latin clue too narrowly. I asked myself what word could precede each animal.
Two bad cells in the west at the Elvis, Savage, Rian crossing.
I see WELP often in novels, never in real life.
Sinus was a gimme. My deviated septum has given me life long sinus problems.
Another gimme was ALOE. I buy Body Shop items as gifts and have received some gifts from there.
I studied French for a few months in HS before we moved to a school where it was not available. So then I had two years of Latin and two years of German. I took a German minor in college because it is my ethnic background. In my senior year I studied Spanish for the needed three credits and an easy A. After I retired I studied several years of Japanese. I know the least of Japanese because I was too old to remember it long term. More German can be dug up from my memory banks. Nowadays I realize I should have taken more Spanish which is very prevalent here.
IIRC Latin -us (singular) and -i (plural) endings are masculine, not feminine. Anon @6:03, I assume "dominati" is the active "dominating" not the passive "dominated".
Y'ALL as a party wouldn't click, and I couldn't remember the spelling of GIGLI
This one took 7:17 to finish (seeing as I don't know Latin, I'll refrain from trying to make a pun).
Polarizing Bears tipped me off, but "apes" and "bees" were initially incongruent to me.
Luckily, I knew Rian, Savage, Baez, Gigli, Nadia, Les, and, in a shock, even today's actress "Anya."
Not Presley is one thing, but not Costello too? I didn't know that Elvis or the "Tengo" band.
There was a lot of cleverness that went into this construction, which I appreciate, but doesn't it also serve as a good reason to have at least an occasional themeless Friday? (Please.)
Good Morning:
I thought the theme answers were cute and appreciated that they were all animals, but the Latin cluing was too gimmicky for the average solver, IMO. I found some of the cluing clever but some way too straightforward for a Friday. And, once again, I found the number (8) of fill-in-the blank clues excessive. IMO, this shortcut is a disservice to the solver when it’s not necessary for clarity. My only w/o was Rain/Drip but there were the usual stumbling blocks that needed perps, i.e., Elvis, Savage, Rian, Tengo, and Gigli. Thanks for the CSO, Moe, but there were 23, not 20, of the pesky three letter words. 😉
Thanks, David, and thanks, Moe for your painstaking opening analysis of the theme. I enjoyed the Tom Hanks and Sinatra/Kelly videos, but I missed seeing your clever Moe-kus. Maybe next time, eh?
Have a great day.
I mentioned, fln, being stuck in NW. I had LEADS and ADLIB.
ANYA was complete unknown. ALPO,ONLINE and Y'ALL were pure genius
I originally thought IN LINE was a form of connected("Line up! with hand touching person ahead!"
I thought UBERED was ingenious too. Btw, there's only one ELVIS
Re. SNAIL MAIL. VA Correspondence and prescriptions move very quickly
Re. "Chewy". I was trying to think of 3ltr gum(tic tac?)
Is Joan the American Edith
Yes, I inked eons/AGES
FIR. I have no problem with 3ltr clues just obscure pop-cul
SubG, same hear re. BB's
I had great pix taken from a Cobra gunship but messed up putting film in. Aarrrggghh!!!
We were the first 9th grade class to be offered French or Latin. I chose French, had 4 in HS and two more in college.
Had a back operation and while REHABbing subbed in Boston
Lo and behold I was teaching a French course IN French and they offered me the job
WC
BTW, great xword. Clever clues and fun themes
No one has mentioned that all the answers were formed by changing the leading adjective into a gerund, an -ing ending.
When I make a FALSE START to writing a poem
It takes an EPODE to backtrack it back home.
Erato won't share
Where she's going there,
While I wonder where this l'ick will roam.
So many proper names, knew some but not enough. The Latin clues helped me remember my Latin class in high school. Got all the animals. 47 and 61 was probably my favs.
FLN to ATLGranny @2:27 PM
My comment to clue 47A was a reference to Margaret Farrar, the legendary editor of the NYT who finally took crossword puzzles seriously. She did much to define not only the format and rules of construction of crosswords, but also had standards for their content. For the latter she used the Sunday Morning Breakfast Test, a meme which is almost synonymous with her name. It refers to a golden age in our nation when families all sat around the breakfast table on Sunday and solved the Time puzzle together. The rule was that puzzles should never have clues or fill should never contain anything unsuitable for the little'uns. Sometimes we reviewers have to make judgement calls on whether or not to include certain annotations, such as videos, images, or language that might violate this principle, which IMHO Lil Wayne's video most certainly did. A lot of this, and other stuff, is summed up in this classic article by the current Times crossword editor Will Shortz.
p.s. I took the time to reread Will's article and I see that many of the same crosswars issues he talks about therein are still going on here at the Corner.
FLN sumdaze @11:12 PM Thanks for the compliment. Mondays are my off times and I'm blessed to have your delightful reviews. BTW I hope you write an autobiography someday!
As for today ...
Thank you David for a Friday challenge, which "Consummavi iustum" (and thank you Google translate!). I picked up on the theme right away and if nothing else the fact that first word in each phrase was a gerund helped quite a bit.
And thank you MOE for your candid review about the difficulties of this puzzle. Between highschool and college I studied French, German, and Italian, none of which I achieved fluency in (WYB they were chosen solely so I could listen to Opera in the vernacular!). I have the same regrets as you about not studying Spanish. But given that French, Italian, and Spanish are all really just dialects of Latin, and German uses the same basic case structure, it was pretty easy to suss the meaning of each themer.
Just a few favs (we're headed out the door soon to see an old friend in assisted living):
31A WELP. Read this as WHELP and was looking for something re birthin' animal babies.
68A BEST. Tough call MOE on the bloggers, but I'd have to agree with you that Susan is supreme.
3D YALL. The light bulb went on after I changed 1A ANNA to ANYA.
WSGS re ELVIS crossing SAVAGE. Both names, and only a V in the middle made sense.
Cheers,
Bill
Unlike Subgenius' comment "The combination of “Elvis,” “Savage” and “Rian” nearly did me in," it 'did me in'. FIW. All three were unknowns and I guessed L for ELLIS- but got RIAN correct. And IMHO there's only ONE Elvis and his last name isn't Mitchell or copycat Costello.
Good morning. I guess I'm the REIGNING chump today. A slow start with a sea of white. After many a FALSE START, I figured out Mr. Williams' game at HEDGING HOGS. I started filling ING and S (missed it on DEER) on the CAT, BEAR, and Cervi fills. That opened up the rest.
'Welp" and ALAS- no idea. Never heard of 'welp', only WHELP.
TENGO- the question is "Why would anybody know any 'Indie' band?" They're indie because nobody has ever heard of them. Ditto for GIGLI- never heard of it either.
Square YARD before the NERD took over. ANYA was a perp.
BAEZ- easy one for me. I have 'Phony Joans' 'Diamonds and Rust' album.
ESS- Mississippi has four S and four I, Alabama has four A's, and Tennessee has four E's. That area has the vowel market cornered. Illinois misses by one I. Mississippi stole it.
"latin complaints". You learned the taxonomy of Kingdom, phylum, class, order, family, genus, and species if you took the zoology classes I took.
Musings
-After a blast of “huh?”, the Latin names for animals hit me!! Fun.
-Southern party was Y’ALL and not BALL. :-)
-German was taught here because of who settled this area. The church just north of town held services and had a newspaper in German for 60 years until WWI.
-I remember this odd word WELP (not a dog) from a few Saturdays ago
-ELV_S/R_AN was a potential Natick. Elvis was not Presley or Costello
-TV camera drones were in great use at The Masters
-I still remember the mnemonic of how to spell MISSISSIPPI. I struggle with Massachusetts and Connecticut
-Poirot and Captain Hastings have traversed the Atlantic on the HMS Queen Mary in some episodes
Well,
If it was not for "Ursa," I would have been totally lost...
Thank you (I think) for putting in "are you doing a crossword right now = yes"
My 1st thought (after smiling) was "an auto fill?" What? Are crosswords now going to be more like sudoku?
But, after reflection, I think it was more a dig by the constructor at our intellect...
Ok, ya got me, I will accept the challenge, and try to learn Latin, in the same way I have been introduced to all other foreign languages. "Stercus accidit"
As an addendum (is that Latin?) to last night,
Todays almanac states that on this day in 1910, Samuel Longhorns Clemens, better known as Mark Twain, died in Redding, Connecticut, at age 74.
Also on this day in 1926, Queen Elizabeth II was born...
I had fun with this puzzle. I thought it was whimsical and different from the usual fare. Yes, there were some unknowns, but somehow I managed to get them right, so, no complaints.
Unlike our esteemed Chairman, I had a few years of Latin, most of which I’ve forgotten.
D-O @ 5:43. You’ll be joining the club this morning. Good luck on your surgery.
It’s the Latin I’ve forgotten, not the years, although some of those have become blurry.
Seeing the “ing” in POLARIZING BEARS and HEDGING HOGS made the going easy. Two years of high school Latin helped but without it most clues pointed to English; Feles = feline, Apes = Apian, Porci= porcine, etc. and the common word associated with each animal was obvious.
Where I grew up people often called skunks POLECATS but wiki states that they are two different animals.
Did not know ELVIS, RIAN, TENGO or what Welp (ALAS) meant, but knew SAVAGE, GIGLI and remember ANYA from “The Queens Gambit”.
BIG was a fun movie; an adult fairytale. Always happy to see Tom Hanks.
SNAILs (escargot) used to be a favorite but I don’t think I want them anymore.
David, interesting puzzle and the write up was very informative Moe!
Off to a poor start, with an actress I never heard of from a movie I never watched. Managed to get through it, but only with red letter help, and alphabet runs. Definitely a fun sponge for me. Has RMS for 61 down, thinking of the ocean liner, but HMS would be correct for the battle cruiser Queen Mary built in 1913.
Hi All!
I shot myself in the foot inking ACAI from The Body Shop thinking I was clever. Then not remembering Randy SAVAGE (buddy in HS was a wrestling fan) nor knowing RIAN nor ELVIS (as clued - YES! Castello @8:38a)... DNF :-(
Thanks David for the interesting puzzle and thanks C. Moe for the salve, er, review.
WO: bLOB
ESPs: ANYA, GIGLI, TENGO, [see: DNF]
Fav: SNAIL under MAILS... In the age of email, the post is SNAIL MAIL.
{B+} {A-}
I don't remember if I was offered any language but I had to take Spanish. Heck, I barely "get" English. It was the only HS class I ever got a "D" in (and I tried!, I really did!).
//I nearly always got a D in spelling in primary-school. I guess I got by on charm ;-)
Good luck w/ the Dr., D-O.
CED - no mention of Halley's Comet in Twain's death?
Y'ALL have a wonderful Friday!
Cheers, -T
Greetings! After an initial attempt, I thought maybe a second look would help me finish. Nope, DNF.
I echo that I am not a fan of esoteric 1A clues, so off to a bad start followed by a plethora (6) of unknown pop culture. A bunch of blanks for those.
But for the parts I did finish, eons -> AGES. ESP: EPODE, and more familiar with a totally different word: whelp than welp, a lame, IMHO, expression.
I thought the cluing for Y’ALL was unrelated to the phrase. Even the explanation seemed a stretch to reach aha.
Thanks, C-Moe, for cheering me up after this un-fun puzzle.
Hola!
WEES. This puzzle was not much fun and I solve puzzles for the fun! Thank you, Moe for the analysis. That helped.
After finishing and looking it over, I see the puns but that still does not endear it to me.
At the airport I have seen SAVAGE on a t-shirt and wondered why? Now I know! I guess.
YO LA TENGO. Now you're speaking my language! However, I took two years of Latin and some of it crawled forward to solve this puzzle. Also, when I first entered the Convent we prayed the Divine Office in Latin and much of the wording stuck with me.
SATIN pointe shoes bring back many memories of buying them for my daughter and my grand-daughter. Neither of them pursued ballet as a career but I believe the discipline helped them with self-control and poise. My daughter really wanted to dance professionally but, ALAS, her short stature kept her from it. I still mentally see her in the dance line kicking as hard she could in the middle of all those tall girls. However, she formed some lifetime friendships.
Silly string, LOL, made me laugh!
Bagged leaves? TEA, is also amusing.
Have a fabulous Friday, everyone!
GIGLI, I believe, was an effort by Ben Affleck and Jennfer Lopez during their first connection. I'll have to look it up to make sure.
WELP, today is the day I BUMBLed and had one FIW square. I questioned RIAN and ELVIS but they were fine. RIAN I had seen before so it looked OK. My downfall was assuming REInNING DEER was the way to dominate DEER using reins so I never doubted it. Not knowing the name SAVAGE my version SAVAnE didn't send off alarms. I had already changed EL"L"IS to ELVIS because SA"L"AnE seemed unlikely. Oh well, tomorrow is another day.
Thanks, David, for the challenge. I haven't studied Latin but the themers were possible to figure out. And thanks, C Moe, for the helpful review. As second language, my small high school only offered two years of Spanish and I continued in college, ultimately minoring in it. It has come in handy, for example today in YO LA TENGO.
I understood "Southern party" to refer to a group of people, needing the plural form Y'ALL. One person we refer to as YOU. I admit I needed some perps to get this clue, and that's when my ANnA changed to ANYA.
Hope Y'ALL have a perfectly wonderful start to the weekend. TGIF!
Chairman Moe is on duty, doing a fine job of escorting Mr. Williams' PZL.
LATIN? I dunno, folks. The English theme answers turn out to be amusing in themselves, with a play on standard phrases & with suffixes inserted between he first and second words. Why was it necessary to Latinize them?
I suppose it was only to place more distance between us and the fills, as the amusement value seems nil (to me, anyway).
The NE corner was easiest for me. I filled it completely before venturing elsewhere.
This must be the 28th time ARI Shapiro's name has appeared in our Corner. I dunno why I always think his name is IRA.
45A I had REP, thinking "IRA" was the Irish Republican Army. There's IRA again--my downfall.
Others?
~ OMK
____________
DR: Three diagonals, on the near side.
But what a predicament! The overabundance of vowels in the main diag (only 2 consonants) means that the flanking diags are nearly void of vowels.
In search of a likely anagram, my eye catches the popular acronym "LOL" in the bottom diagonal, so I settle on that line to see what exactly is laughable today.
And the remaining vowel, an "E," gives me a choice.
We can laugh at them, the corps, i.e., the...
"PRESS--L.O.L.!"
or the guy they regularly cover, the...
"PREZ--L.O.L.!"
Take your choice!
Lucina - wait, the what? If it's not too long, post (if it is, eMAIL me). What is the Divine Office prayer?
I agree about Ballet. My girls have poise, grace, and confidence. And they know team-work. But, dang!, those pointe shoes were NOT cheap.
ATLGranny - re: Y'ALL: Like you said, "party" (when referring to folks) is plural. YOUSE would be a Northern/East-Coast party :-)
//I still like HG's "'BALL' for the Belles" fill.
Cheers, -T
Well, I got the solve.
But no thanks to a constructor who’s obviously So Proud of themselves.
Numerous proper names…clues in Latin…shows no one watched…
Ugh, what a poor excuse for a crossword….cannot blame the author though, the editor is at fault.
Yet Again.
It's a very minor quibble but I would argue HMS are letters for a Queen Mary but not for the Queen Mary. She was an RMS.
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/RMS_Queen_Mary
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/HMS_Queen_Mary
Thanks for your puzzle, David. I had to make several logical jumps to finish it -- which is what I think you were going for. The INGs helped!
FAV: Southern party
Can you believe I watched "The Menu" last night but still did not know ANYA? I even looked her up on IMBd afterward and saw that she was in another movie I liked called "Emma". Good grief!
Thanks for your edifying tour, Moe! I thought Latin for "pig" was "igpay". (I can't believe I beat CED to that one!)
Waseeley@10:19. That read would be a real "silly string"!
I was never in the convent, Anonymous T, but I do pray the Divine Office -- or Liturgy of the Hours. It's the public prayer of the Catholic Church...I pray it in English.
At my Catholic high school, Latin was a requirement...so I chose it for my language in college, too, to make life easier! I enjoyed the theme entries in this puzzle -- all five of them, which I imagine was a challenge for the constructor. And the long fill certainly didn't suffer -- FALSE START and BALL FIELDS are very nice. Thank you, David, for the work, and kudos to the Chairman for a wonderful write-up.
CED @10:38 AM I take it that the announcement in 1910 was not the one that was greatly exaggerated.
Apropos of GIGLI, it may have been a rotten film, but Beniamino GIGLI was a great tenor, as demonstrated by his Nessun Dorma.
-T @ 2:05 PM Since Lucina recited it in Latin, and I recite it in English I'll tell you about the latter. The Divine Office, also known as the Liturgy of the Hours (LOTH), is a rather longish (4 volumes) set of prayers, hymns, readings, psalms, canticles, etc. recited daily by priests, religious, and laypeople throughout the day. The major hours (the one's I pray anyway) are "Morning Prayer", "Evening Prayer", and "Night Prayer". Depending on the vows taken by priests and religious, they may pray others, such as the "Office of Readings" and "Daytime Prayer". The structure of the LOTH is rather complicated (but logical and well documented) and actually ties into the daily Mass readings. See this Wiki for a soup to nuts description.
Kelley @3:42 PM What a blessing to find another adherent of the Divine Office. I hope I didn't steal any thunder. I composed my comment offline and only noticed yours as I was about to post, it.
Kismet. Nothing but Kismet...
A side-link of a video I was watching lead to a side-side-link and I'm all down the rabbit-hole into the Eurythmics' back-story. [ TL; DR; video 26m].
Nothing but '80's and MTV.
And then!, this. [screen capture].
YO LA Wha???
The universe is wickedly funny.
And now I know the [ever notice that now is only a K short of knowing?], the Divine Office. I think St. Joe's & Ursuline High failed me a bit. Both schools were pretty chill on the rote-rite side of Mass.*
Thanks waseeley & KellyC. For filling in for what the Nuns didn't.
igpay - love it!, sumdaze. That's how I felt about every Themer clue.
Cheers, -T
*Remind me to tell the story (if I already haven't) how Sister Mary made me think; turned me into an agnostic, she did.
AnonT
Sorry, I did not see your post until now and I see that two people have explained the Divine Office. I'll just add that in olden times, i.e., when monks, primarily, then nuns, began to recite the Divine Office they woke at the designated times, 2:00 A.M. and 4:00 A.M. to recite them. Some orders, likely the Trappists and Benedictines and perhaps Dominicans, still do. Some of the hours are prayed in the afternoon and others in the evening.
The D.O. is chanted in a kind of monotone sing-song manner. It sounds quite beautiful and some are available on CDs.
The D.O. is a group of psalms in praise of God.
To add some detail, Matins are the first (matutina: morning) followed by Lauds (praises) Prime, Terce, Sect, None. Vespers is an evening prayer.
When I was in England during one of my visits my group entered a church in one of the towns and a group of lay people (laity: not clergy) was reciting the Divine Office. I can only assume it was a traditional practice going back hundreds of years from the time that England was Catholic.
WEES.
It's fascinating to learn that some of you here are devotees of the Divine Office. Kudos to you!
Thanks, Ch. Moe for the great recap. I especially enjoyed how you let us follow the evolution of your sussing out the theme, step by step.
An now, if my Friday partner-in-crime will allow me:
Form English gerunds
From David and Patti's clues
To solve the puzzle
Channeling Moe for a Joe-ku?
Looks like I've been CENSORED again!
And for NO good reason, NO decent cause.
I merely noted in my report on our XWD's diagonals, that the paucity of vowels led to few options for anagrams, and that among these were LOLs at either the PRESS or the PREZ.
No party was mentioned, nor was there the name of any actual person.
It was a completely apolitical observation.
But the CENSORS struck again. And they wiped out my entire posting.
These nameless souls are often excused by transferring blame to an automatic algorithm, applied by an AI Bot. But behind any such operation there are always human beings--ultimately, at the top of the pyramid so-to-speak.
And to them, I cry FOUL.
~ OMK
Nancy Mason from MAINE was the person who got me involved with the pleasures of the Internet. She was the administrator of a bulletin board that eventually morphed into The Fence and then Swiftnet. My wife and I took her up on an invitation to visit her back in Maine. I enjoyed her hospitality very much. I haven't heard from her in years. Is she still around? Also, there was a Swede named Magnus. Still around?
Bill G.
How wonderful to see your post and hear from you! Please post more often. I miss you!
MM @ 5:54 --> thanks for the Joe-ku!! 😀😂
And thanks to all who solved and responded to my recap. Cheers!
Thank you!
Good to see that my complaint (@6:09 PM) was met by a positive response & action. My earlier posting (@1:38 PM), which had been CENSORED, was restored in full.
It must have been OBVIOUS that, although it contained a glancing reference to the Presidency by informal title ("PREZ"), it was not a political message.
I appreciate the restoration, although I am sorry it came so late in the day that it had to be missed by most afternoon readers.
~ OMK
Old Man Keith, I looked at your yesterday's comment that was deleted and that was later approved. Probably because you used the word escorting.
Can't be certain though. Blogger doesn't tell us. Sometimes it's obvious. Pure spam. Like one that's in there now, "best samsung mobile service center in bangalore"
Some times it can be determined. For instance, HG's May 30,2016 comment was filtered. A site he linked back then has now been determined to likely be hosting malware. My browser warns: "The site ahead may contain harmful programs" so it's likely a legit filter.
Other times, no clue. There's a Jan 2015 comment in there from Abejo. It's one word. "Testing". No links. Why ? Who knows. Another in there is a rather lengthy comment from Dash T. Seven paragraphs. No links. But he used WTF, so maybe that's it.
Maybe what we need is our own AI that can be here 24 7 and monitor Blogger's AI actions...
As a reminder to all, if your comment gets published and then disappears almost as quickly, there's some content in it that Blogger doesn't like. So reviewing and rewording would be appropriate.
This isn't a paid gig for me, and I'm not asking to be paid. I'm here on strictly a volunteer basis, and I'm not here 24 7, so don't wait for me.
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