Watch the Birdies
Good Morning, Cruciverbalists. It's the first Friday of the merry, merry month of May and it is time for yours truly, Malodorous Manatee, to have the pleasure of sharing with you a recap of today's puzzle by Ms. Ann Margaret. Oops, Freudian slip. I meant to say a puzzle constructed by Jay Silverman.
At the (somewhat) traditional four places within the grid, each one marked with a star for our convenience, our puzzle setter has conjured up answers which, when we remove a type of bird, yield an appropriate answer to the clue as worded. Let's start with the reveal:
66 Across: Musical with the song "Put On a Happy Face," and a hint to making four answers match their starred clues: BYE BYE BIRDIE. It might have been clued as Musical with the song "Bye Bye Birdie" but that would lie outside of the traditions of crossword puzzles...even on a Monday.
Here are the places where the theme is applied, and how it is applied:
18 Across: *Promo for long-range basket shooters?: THREES A CROWD. Say bye bye to the CROW and we get THREES AD. A basketball reference. An advertisement for three-point shots. Or, perhaps, something spotted in the local personal ads?
27 Across: *Easy-to-revisit search engine results?: BOWLING PINS. Say bye bye to the OWL and we get BING PINS. BING, of course, is an online search engine and if you PIN something it makes it easy to get back to what you have pinned (saved).
42 Acrooss: *Frilly fabric from the Middle East?: LAWRENCE OF ARABIA. Say bye bye to the WREN and we are left with LACE OF ARABIA.
He's Not Dressed In Lace
But This Did Seem Appropriate
51 Across: *Award coveted by directors Anderson and Craven?: BEST WESTERN. Say bye bye to the TERN and we get BEST WES. The covetous directors are, of course, WES Anderson and WES Craven.
This is how it all looks in the completed grid:
Here, below, are the rest of the clues and their answers:
Across:
1. "I suppose it's true!": MUST BE. The puzzle starts right off with something someone might say. No $#1+ would have fit, and would have been an appropriate answer, but that would lie outside of the traditions of crossword puzzles . . . even on a Friday.
7. Cab opening: PEDI. A wine reference? Something about uncorking a Cabernet? No. Opening, in this case, means in front of. Four letters. Taxi cab? Closer but, again, no. A cab that must be pedaled to get you where you wish to go. PEDI as in foot.
A Pedicab
11. Middle ear?: COB. Not an anatomical reference. An agricultural/food reference. The middle of an ear of corn.
14. Beseech: ENTREAT.
14. Beseech: ENTREAT.
16. Treasury Dept. concern: ECON. As in the phrase that James Carville is credited with having coined: "The ECONomy, stupid."
17. Oft-torn knee pt.: ACL. An anatomical reference and the first of several abbreviations, today. Anterior Cruciate Ligament.
20. Passable grade: CEE. A minor nit. Dee is passing. Cee is average.
21. Girl's name that means "small river": RIA. Anyone know anybody named RIA?
22. Hop back in horror: RECOIL.
21. Girl's name that means "small river": RIA. Anyone know anybody named RIA?
22. Hop back in horror: RECOIL.
23. Teensy bits: IOTAS. Can teensy bits be said to be frequent visitors?
25. Actor Omar: EPPS. Sharif was too long.
29. Title Pixar fish: DORY. Hands up for first thinking NEMO?
31. Tiller's tool: HOE.
32. Give or take: ABOUT. VERBS? Not this time. Sort of. More or less.
34. Bring on: INCUR. On the first day of college, the Dean addressed the students, pointing out some of the rules. "The female dormitory will be prohibited for all male students, and the male dormitory to the female students. Anybody caught breaking this rule will be fined $50 the first time." He continued, "Anybody caught breaking this rule the second time will be fined $100. Being caught a third time will INCUR a hefty fine of $200. Are there any questions?" At this, a student in the crowd inquired, "How much for a season pass?"
38. Wild garlic: RAMP. New to this solver. From an online source: "The zesty spring green most commonly known as ramps goes by many names in English, such as ramson (British), buckrams, wild garlic, broad-leaved garlic, wild leeks, wood garlic or bear’s garlic. Known as ‘Bärlauch’ (bear’s leek) in German, the name derives from the fact that brown bears like to eat the bulbs of the plant and dig up the ground to get at them, as do wild boar."
45. Actress Redgrave: LYNN.
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| Lynn Redgrave and Her Sister Vanessa |
46. Eclipse: OUTDO. Did anyone here get to observe the recent solar OUTDO? Oh, used here as a verb. Isn't English a funny, and extremely flexible, language?
47. "The gloves are off!": ITS ON. An idiom for a clue and an idiom for an answer. Another example of things-people-might-say.
48. Some tense periods, briefly: OTS. OverTimeS Neither a reference to societal issues nor a reference to personal stress. A sports reference.
50. Gp. that includes the UAE and Gabon: OPEC. Well, even with the mixed messaging, two abbreviations out of three in the clue should have been enough of a tip off that the answer would be an abbreviation.
58. Totally on board: SOLD. Convinced.
61. Star part: CAMEO. Not a portion of a celestial body. A (small) role for a movie star.
62. Neatens: TIDIES. My ex-wife once remarked, "You think I have OCD when it comes to tidiness, but you are wrong. I just want to clear that up.”
64. Negative conjunction: NOR. Rearrange the letters in NOR Do We to make one word.
65. AI exec, perhaps: CTO. Chief Technology Officer The reference to Artificial Intelligence in the clue leads us to something technology related.
65. AI exec, perhaps: CTO. Chief Technology Officer The reference to Artificial Intelligence in the clue leads us to something technology related.
69. "Not a mouse!": EEK. Didn't they get this one backwards? EKE out a living. EEK a mouse! Oh, I get it. As in, "Please, please, please let it not be a mouse!"
70. Actress Skye: IONE. Three vowels out of four letters. A frequent visitor.
71. Follows shampoo bottle instructions: LATHERS. Not enough room for LATHER RINSE REPEAT. I have always thought that the last step was just a way to double sales.
72. Booze-free: DRY. As opposed to WET. An alcohol (or lack thereof) related idiom.
73. Horn sound: TOOT. BEEP would have fit but would not work.
The Playmates - 1958
74. Dusty or Cody of pro wrestling fame: RHODES. Father or son.
Down:
1. Reading length: METRE. Not the length of a Monopoly game railroad. Not a literary (book) reference. Ah, a unit of length in Reading, England, with the appropriate spelling.
2. Square: UNHIP. What does Huey Lewis have to say on the subject?
August 1987
3. Secure, in a way: STRAP DOWN.
4. Billie Joe Armstrong bandmate __ Cool: TRE. A Green Day reference.
That's Frank Edwin Wright III (aka Tre Cool)
On Drums
5. Suds: BEER. Obviously, not a cleanliness reference. Slang. Do beer puns make you hoppy?
6. Float past: EASE BY. Huh? Thanks perps.
7. Endangerment: PERIL. As in "The PERILs of Pauline".
8. Reason to boil water: E-COLI. Giardia used to suffice for a reason. Can you say tetraglycine hydroperiodide tablets?
9. Stock market name: DOW. Clued this way it could have referred to any listed stock.
10. Part of Roy G. Biv: INDIGO. Mnemonic for the colors in a rainbow.
11. Arizona roadside sights: CACTI.
12. Antarctic, for one: OCEAN. From the specific to the general.
13. Word after a sneeze: BLESS. Why Do We Say This?
15. Fajita-like fare: TACO. Okay, but quite imprecise. The Differences Between Tacos and Fajitas
19. Slow moo-ver: COW. Cute cluing. Cute song.
24. Runs: OPERATES. Not as in a foot race. As in she OPERATES the machine. See 28 Down.
 |
| Shirley Muldowney |
26. Moment of unpleasantness: SOUR NOTE. An idiom with a musical genesis.
28. Drag org.: NHRA. Not cross dressing. A Drag Race reference. Again, not that kind of drag race.
30. GPS option: RTE. A Global Positioning System might show you a RouTE.
32. Everything: ALL.
33. Baffin, for one: BAY. Again, from the specific to the general.
34. Post-ER facility: ICU. A medical reference. Emergency Room Intensive Care Unit
35. Gain: NET. A bit imprecise. NET income, for example, can be a subset of gain (as in capital gains NET of taxes).
36. Mark Kurlansky book subtitled "A Biography of the Fish That Changed the World": COD. New to this solver.
37. Vehicle for E.T.: UFO. A pretty standard crossword pairing.
39. Ran away (with): ABSCONDED. The Dish ABSCONDED With The Spoon?
40. Mine, in Milan: MIO. Today's Italian lesson.
41. Hook's nemesis: PAN. Not a boxing reference. Not a golfing reference. Not a musical reference. Not a fishing reference,
Peter Pan and Captain Hook
43. Winning margin: NOSE.
44. Tear: RIP.
49. Cheap: TWO BIT. TWO BITs are a quarter of a dollar. The derogatory expression dates from the early twentieth century. With inflation, the expression should be updated to, say, five dollar.
50. Sign of poor service?: ONE BAR. Not at a restaurant or a retail store. A cellphone reception reference.
51. Covertly added to an email: BCCED. From the days when we used the stuff, Blind Carbon CopiED.
52. Foodie website: EATER. EATER serves as a local restaurant guide offering reviews and news.
53. __ quartz: SMOKY. New to this solver. Smokey The Bear retains the E and there was not room for him.
54. Memo taker: STENO. Memorandum STENOgrapher
55. Lhasa locale: TIBET. Not where your dog hangs out.
56. Big name in frozen treats: EDY.
57. Cambodian currency: RIEL. In my experience, the US Dollar is the de facto currency of Cambodia.
60. __ the part: DRESS
63. "Star Wars" bad guys: SITH.
67. Teo __ of "Past Lives": YOO. This might have been misleadingly clued as "German-born Actor".
68. Pi follower: RHO. A Greek alphabet reference.
Well, it's time now. Say Bye Bye, Ann.
_______________________________________________________
28 comments:
After l got the reveal, I went back and looked at the themers again. Sure enough, the “birds” were in there and, sure enough, the answers made more sense without them, although I think it was a “stretch” in some cases. (Best “Wes,” anyone?) Anyway, FIR, so I’m happy.
Thank you, Jay Silverman, and thank you, Malodorous Manatee.
MUST BE Friday. The theme answers were hard to correlate until the reveal was solved. Then they each made sense.
One blunder. I got the reveal mostly through perps. I had BYE BYa BIRDIE. That incorrect A was from RIAL, the basic currency of IRAN. Of course the clue asked for the currency of Cambodoia. I should have spotted that error. BYE BYE. D'OH!
I don't think I've ever seen BYE BYE BIRDIE, but I think I may have heard the song.
My suds was soap before it was BEER, and I kept trying to come up with a word for beseech that would fit in a down answer. Oh, across. Duh!
I liked the joke at INCUR. There's one in every crowd. Here, it's mostly Jinx.
"Rearrange the letters in NOR Do We to make one word." I first saw new door, then new odor and finally one Word.
Good morning!
Yay, d-o read the reveal, found the birds, and suddenly the themers made sense...except for THREE SAD. D'oh. Hand up for NEMO; that really slowed things down in the Cascades. INDIGO got Plutoed, and is no longer an official rainbow color. Thanx, Jay and Mal-Man. (Nor Do We -- cute. I do have a nit with your comment on "passable." It means adequate, so a C it is.)
OUTDO: Yes, we drove 100 miles to view the OUTDO. Very nice. Good thing it isn't today. The Peach Creek bridge is still open, but the waters are rising. The cops expect to close the bridge shortly, isolating our little town until the waters recede. We're expecting another 2"-3" this morning on top of the 7" yesterday and 7" Sunday. [Slosh.]
FIR, but erased (hand up) nemo for DORY, and iona for IONE. Guess I've been schooled on that one.
Today is:
NATIONAL SPECIALLY-ABLED PETS DAY (not much cuter than a Corgi rolling around in a specially-designed wheelchair)
NATIONAL SPACE DAY (salutes the extraordinary achievements, benefits, and opportunities in the exploration and use of space. Husker Gary will enumerate in a later post)
NATIONAL GARDEN MEDITATION DAY (nekkid?)
NATIONAL TEXTILES DAY (for when it’s too cold to be nekkid outside)
NATIONAL SAN ARCHITECT DAY (Storage Area Network (SAN) Architects perform the thankless job of making your data available to hackers)
SCHOOL LUNCH HERO DAY (no, no, no. Not the delicious sammich. This day is dedicated to lunchroom workers)
NATIONAL PARANORMAL DAY (is it not eerie that I have a crush on Gillian Anderson, even though I’ve never seen an episode of X-Files?)
NATIONAL RASPBERRY POPOVER DAY (meh)
NATIONAL CHOCOLATE CUSTARD DAY (better)
NATIONAL LUMPY RUG DAY (this has got to be the dumbest “today is” entry of the year)
NATIONAL TWO DIFFERENT COLORED SHOES DAY (guess I was wrong)
I'll bet that Duran Duran changed RIA to Rio by poetic license. She did, after all, dance across the Rio Grande, which would make the name Spanish, and feminine. (Anyone remember that the openng line is "Moving on the floor now, babe, you're a bird of paradise," fitting right in with today's puzzle theme.
All she has to say is "how tired are you" and ITS ON!
I probably mentioned that a chum from my high school days became a multiple-year champion in NHRA Pro Stock. One of his cars is enshrined in the Don Garlis Museum of Drag Racing in Ocala.
We eat fajitas with knife and fork. Had I wanted a burrito or soft-shell taco, I would have ordered a burrito or soft-shell taco.
Anyone who thinks CEE is passable wasn't raised by my parents. Due to grade inflation, B is the new C. (Except in grad school. There, a B instead of an A was likely to get you the dreaded, crossword favorite, note to SEE ME.)
Thanks to Jay (another bird that wasn't eliminated today) for the challenging Friday puzzle that even my dumb mass could get. And thanks to our MalMan for yet another clever tour.
12:18 was needed today to claim that I conquereD OVEr the white squares.
I failed the foreign-based test this morning: the Cambodian currency, the Greek letter, & the French valley, or mine in Milan.
I also didn't know today's actress (Lynn) or "Yoo", nor have I heard of Ria as a girl's name.
FIR. The theme was clever and when I got the reveal I went back and saw the birdies. Nicely done.
This was a fun Friday puzzle and quite enjoyable. Several unknowns but the perps were kind to me. Never heard of the garlic ramp?
The only nit I have is with metre. How would we know that this was an English spelling? As a result the NW was the last to fall. I spent too much time second guessing everything in that section. Then just took a leap of faith and went with it.
A clever themed puzzle from Jay today. I FIR but couldn't figure it out until BYE BYE BIRDIE was filled. First thoughts were THREE and LACE but the extra needed letters just didn't make sense when it came to the clues.
I use the BING search engine but the term Bing Pins was unfamiliar. I have my 'favorites' and 'favorites bar' on both Bing and Chrome.
RAMP was a total unknown for MOI. So were YOO, EATER, and TRE (and Billie Joe Armstrong).
I knew RIO is the Spanish word for river and guessed RIA for 'women's river'.
ONE BAR only rang on my phone after OPEC, BIRDIE, LATHERS, and RHODES were filled.
TTP- I also didn't know if it would be RIAL or RIEL.
Nailed it! Missed the theme until MM explained it.
Thanks Jay and MM for your tireless toil in creating and resolving today's offering.
Service is best received with a smile.
Antidote.
Good Morning:
I finished in normal Friday time but hit several stumbling blocks along the way: Metre, Tre, NHRA, Smoky, Yoo, and Eater, which I have never heard of and thought for sure would be Eataly. I also tripped over Beer/Foam and Rial/Riel. I never saw the theme until the reveal and, even then, it took a minute or two to see the birds. I was parsing the first themer as Threes A D, which made no sense and while I readily saw Bing Pins, Lace of Arabia, and Best Wes, they all seemed forced and clunky. This type of theme, although creative and edgy, isn't a favorite of mine, nor were the pesky 26 TLWs.
Thanks, Jay, and thanks, MalMan, for the grand tour. I have a niece, Maria, whom I sometimes call Ria, but I seem to be the only one who uses that diminutive. Your photo of the sweet little Lhasa Apso made my day.
Have a great day.
DNF. As I stumbled down the puzzle looking for toeholds, I found BYE BYE BIRDIE right off, but I still missed the theme. Only LAWRENCE OF ARABIA and BEST WESTERN made sense to me. And I just didn’t see the birds.
In addition I encountered far too many unknowns or the opposite many clues with a multitude of posssible answers like 1a.
Thank you MM for your spirited review. I’m daily grateful for this site and its adherents and reviewers for helping me understand what I miss.
Lousy weather this morning.
My son (aka Arizona Jim), a crossword aficionado, frequently approaches a puzzle by first attacking the area where the theme/reveal seems to be residing. That strategy certainly worked for me today.
I'm quite familiar with "Put on a Happy Face," sung by Dick Van Dyke in "Bye Bye Birdie," so I figured that if there were any birds in the four long starred clues, their days were numbered. Sure enough!
Incidentally, Dick Van Dyke is still alive! Speaking of which, the great Eva Marie Saint turns 100 in two months.
As for the puzzle, the NW slowed me down the most, what with such aberrations as METRE, which I trust pleased Canadian Eh. TRE was also up there in the NW. But useful perps rescued me, including good old Omar EPPS.
Overall, Jay, I feel that you concocted an entertaining Friday challenge.
Musings
-A brilliant, fun puzzle! Even I_NE/S_O succumbed to a good guess
-Did Mr. Silverman just have a bird jump out at him from a phrase around which he built a puzzle or did the possible theme set him off searching for four gimmicks?
-Put a spring in your Friday step with We Beseech Thee
-CEE has not been an average grade for years due to grade inflation. Normal curve be damned!
-A four-letter plant starting with RA made me think of RAPE seed grown for canola oil
-Local high school track star Juan Gonzalez has eclipsed the state record in both the 1,600m and 3,200m events this spring
-When my wife starts to TIDY, there is no finish line.
-My hometown was DRY on Sundays so my alcoholic father hit the road
-The Dusty Rhodes I remember
-Anyone else think of Aunt EDNA strapped down on top of the Family Truckster?
-Neil deGrasse Tyson says INDIGO does not exist in ROY G BIV but Newton was fascinated by the number 7 and put it into the spectrum
-Jinx, every day was space day in my classroom! :-)
TITT. Today's clues were just not on my wavelength. Lost interest about halfway down, did not pass go, and proceeded directly to MMs expo. Aaah...much better!
Having just returned from several days taking photos of birds, my eye was trained for these, with help from the reveal -- but the basketball term at 18 across is still a mystery to me.
Thanks, Mal Man, for Huey Lewis's take on whether or not "square" is UNHIP. I also listened to your clip of Ann-Margret singing BYE BYE BIRDIE, which sounded like "bye bye BIRhee" to me. No D at all. These days, no one pronounces T in the middle of a word. Maybe she started the trend.
Neat puzzle, Jay! Challenging, but I was able to FIR. Thanks to Patti for editing, and Mal Man for blogging.
A difficult but interesting puzzle JS, and thank you MalMan for explaining BING, LACE, WES and the stretch to get THREES AD. When BEST WESTERN appeared I thought it might be motel/hotel related. BYE BYE BIRDIE was an easy get, and I saw the CROW but thought it was going to be crown. PEDIcab was unknown and I couldn’t remember what I used to know about Roy G Biv. Ah me, so confusing!
West Virginia has RAMP Festivals in communities throughout the state in April and May. They are celebrations of food that was available to early Appalachian settlers after long winters. Most events are fundraisers for churches and non-profits. Like the usual meno for a St. Patrick’s Day dinner, the traditional meal would include ham, cornbread, fried potatoes, and ramps both cooked and raw. Ramps are like scallions on steroids. If one is offended by the smell of someone who has eaten garlic, the smell of ramps will make you run for the hills.
NHRA was unknown, but Shirley Muldowney, a very successful and famous race star from our area was a much admired celebrity in her day.
Happy day, all!
As was the case Thursday, I filled in the puzzle and then figured out how the unifier worked. It was fun filling in the puzzle, but I felt the theme only sort of worked. Lace of Arabia and Best Wes made sense, but Threes Ad was lame and the second part of Bing Pins invoked technology that too many people would not know. Or maybe it was also lame. So I liked the concept of the puzzle, and if even three of the four starred entries had rung true, I would have CROWed about this puzzle instead of merely calling it OK.
The unifier was the first thing I noticed, and I knew the answer, so I worked from the bottom up. I enjoyed finding ENTREAT, RECOIL, INDIGO, and especially ABSCONDED. RIEL and PEDIcab brought back memories of a visit to Indochina 20 years ago. On the minus side, I knew RIA as a river but not as a first name; I knew RAMPion from “Rapunzel” trivia but didn’t know it as merely “ramp”; I thought ATO was too techy and represents a firm with too many “chief”officers; I didn’t know the Green Day band mate or Teo YOO; and I thought Reading was a confusing example of a place where the metric system is used, because Reading, Pa., is the first Reading that comes to mind.
And, by the way, apparently, “alright” is so universally used that “all right” is passe. I give up. I do NOT give up on the letter T and the young-uns’ pretentious, wannabe-Harlem glottal stops eliding past that letter when it precedes a vowel-n combo. Thanks NaomiZ for joining me on that battleship.
Nevertheless, I won’t RECOIL when I see a puzzle by Jay Silverman, or when I encounter a Malodorous Manatee. Thanks, MalMan. And now to see how long it takes for other Cornerites to wax nostalgic about 1954 World Series hero Dusty RHODES, whose pinch-hitting lifted the New York Giants to a huge upset of the 111-43 Cleveland Indians.
NaomiZ, did you originally hail from Bal'more? Or perhaps Toron'o?
I give this puzzle 3 D's
Delightfully Diabolically Difficult!
A Friday level puzzlement indeed...
I would like to say F.I.R., but I'm having a hard time finding the birds in what now looks like a giant ink blot .
Thanks MalMan! You pointed out a lot of stuff that went right over my head. I had no idea how to make sense of the first themer without a crow. (Not something I would normally crow about...)
PSA:
How to find ramps the 2 minute version
-or-
How to avoid the multiple poisonous lookalikes the 5 minute version might save you a trip to the ER.
Puzzling thoughts:
First off, MalMan, you OUTDO'd yourself today; one of your best. Only "nit" was that you misspelled Margret in your opening sentence ... you must've been thinking about my better half ... ;^)
Second, I FIR but had a write/over in IONE/YOO
Third, who better to provide us a puzzle about birds than a constructor named Jay?
Jinx @ some ungodly early hour ... I think that NATIONAL GARDEN MEDITATION DAY is just to calm oneself down before NATIONAL NUDE GARDENING DAY. Now that I know that, I plan to meditate in the garden before tomorrow
Speaking of tomorrow, it's the "run for the roses" (aka, Kentucky Derby). My picks (will check back with y'all on Sunday or Monday) are: CATCHING FREEDOM, FIERCENESS, SIERRA LEONE, TRACK PHANTOM, and either HONOR MARIE or FOREVER YOUNG for the 5th spot. Choosing 5 out of 20 is about the best I can hope to do ...
In an interesting way, this puzzle sort of took me back to my late teens, with that handsome Peter O'Toole playing LAWRENCE OF ARABIA and with all my friends (THREE'S A CROWD) and me having fun together. We loved playing with our BOWLING PINS, and watching the BEST WESTERNS on TV along with CAMEOS, and singing BYE BYE BIRDIE. Those were the days! We were all a little scared we were going to end up as STENOS when high school was over, but thanks to the help of parents and teachers we ended up doing a TWO BIT better. Wish and hope many others could and did as well as we did.
Have a great weekend coming up, everybody.
Aw, Misty, I thought for sure you were going to say that you and your friends were worried that you were going to end up as TWO BIT (from Wednesday) HOES.
Jinx, I will infer from your post just above that at least one person recognized the restraint that I exercised at 49 Down.
MalMan, what is this "restraint" of which you speak? Sounds interesting. Can I buy some on Amazon?
A slightly different topic. I once rode a chairlift with a person whose family had been in the tack (as in horse riding gear) business and she told me how that business, based in San Franciso, had changed over the decades. A memorable chairlift ride.
Greetings! Well, it took me three sessions to get as far as I got, but the NW was still mostly blank when I left it.
I had to look up the musical. I was sure it was going to be either South Pacific or The King and I, but it quickly became apparent it was neither one. I’ve never seen Bye Bye Birdie. I also looked up DORY. I tried our frequent friend NEMO, but that didn’t work either.
The only RIA name I know is RHEA Perlman
ESP for RHODES, YOO
MalMan, you rose to the challenge & gave us an A-One review. The theme made no sense to me. Thanks for explaining it, but even then, I felt it was too much of a stretch. I’ll be interested to read the comments to see if that’s only my take. My hat’s off to those who made it through.
A very enjoyable and informative write-up, MalMan. Thank you.
As for the puzzle, I found myself muttering "Wha?" several times while solving, even after the answer filled. Speaking of fill, I liked ENTREAT, LATHERS (I had REPEATS at first), OPERATES, RECOIL, and ABSCONDED.
BEEP changed to HONK which then changed to TOOT. Hand up for filling TAXI before PEDI and NEMO before DORY.
MalMan asked, "Anyone know anybody named RIA?" My answer: nope.
I concede that DOW is a name associated with a stock market, but it not the name of a market.
I love COD fish. (Also tilapia, catfish, red snapper, and above all, salmon.)
My dad used the term "TWO BIT" often to refer to things he deemed to be too cheap or beneath him. He also liked the derogatory term "penny ante."
Good reading you all.
Thanks to Jay for giving us a tough Friday challenge! I solved it by first getting enough perps to suss out the bird. Then I removed those letters and stared at the remaining letters and empty boxes until I came up with an in-the-language phrase that only remotely matched the clue. Whew!
FAVs: BEST WES and Sign of poor service?
I can promise you that COWs can mooove very, very quickly.
Thanks to Mal Man for walking us through this one! I needed your help understanding how METRE and NHRA fit.
FAVs: I feel pretty and Glueboy (rough name!)
Jinx, if I had any idea at all what TWO BIT HOES are, it's quite possible that I could be worried. But I think I'm probably better off not knowing, and just having fun playing with all the puzzle words. I can live with that.
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