Good Morning, Cruciverbalists, Malodorous Manatee here with a recap of today's puzzle by oft-time puzzle setter Zachary David Levy. After substituting for Ch. Moe last Friday yours truly is back in his usual time slot.
Last Friday we were asked to add Oh! to get the themed answers. Today, at five (not the more common four) places in the grid Zachary has commanded us to get rid of you. Or ewe. In its stead we are further bade to substitute ooo as in the cow goes moo. Except for one place where we swap "you" for "oh" (perhaps it was left over from last week). I am still scratching my head about that seeming anomaly.
Let's start with the unifier . . .
67 Across: Pointless, or a phonetic hint to five of this puzzle's long answers: NO USE. But pronounced as in to use your common sense. No yous. No ewes.
. . . and then see how it is applied in order to produce answers to the themed clues. . .
17. Remark from a revolutionary?: THAT'S MY COUP. From That's My Cue. My K-YOU becomes My K-OOO. Revolutionaries stage COUP de Etats.
25. Feature of a broken remote?: MOOT BUTTON. From Mute Button. M-YOU-T becomes M-OOO-T. If the remote is broken then, I guess, this button is MOOT.
35. One gold doubloon?: A THING OF BOOTY. From A Thing Of Beauty. B-YOU-TEE becomes B-OOO-TEE. Pirates' BOOTY.
49. Asset in bartending school?: POUR GENIUS. From Pure Genius. P-YOU-R becomes P-OH-R. Being smart about what/how to POUR. The one that does not quite match the others phonetically. Perhaps P-OOO-F or Winnie the Pooh could have been employed somehow?
56. Nitwits from the past?: FOSSIL FOOLS. From Fossil Fuels. F-YOU-LS becomes F-OOO-LS. Old FOOLS from out of the past.
This is how it all appears in the grid:
The rest of the clues and answers:
Across:
1. "One-Punch Man" genre: ANIME. Unfamiliar with the specific reference but quite familiar with both the use of genre and ANIME as crossword staples.
6. Diving acronym: SCUBA. From Self Contained Underwater Breathing Apparatus
11. Pampering retreat: SPA. Foot massages are good for the sole.
14. Wheel of Fortune setting: TAROT. Hand up for trying to make something related to the TV show work out.
15. Goes the distance: LASTS.
16. Isn't missing: HAS.
19. PC "oops" key: ESC.
20. Serengeti pack animal: HYENA. I was once attacked by a laughing hyena. It's not as funny as it sounds.
21. "I feel seen!": SAME. A bit of I-don't-know-what-kind-of-speak. Seems to mean "You agree with me!"
22. Calligraphy array: INKS. Hand up for PENS.
30. Alternative to seed: SOD. Hand up for SOW (not the pig) but that would have been the verb and not the noun as we were intended to take the clue.
31. Didn't strike out, say: GOT A HIT. A baseball reference.
32. Scare off: SPOOK.
 |
| A Ball HOG |
12. Dijon denial: PAS MOI. "Not me", en français.
13. Way up: ASCENT. What is the worst thing about going up the stairs behind someone? The ASCENT.
18. Office posting: MEMO. The posting bit threw me off a bit.
21. Decide not to retire: STAY ON.
22. Licenses, e.g.: IDS. Used, here, as a noun. Can I say used in this recap?
23. County east of Sonoma: NAPA.
24. Tangled clump: KNOT. What do you call a monkey caught up in a KNOT? An orangutangle.
26. Cry at the end of the week: TGIF. All together, now . . .
33. "Phooey": OH DARN. It took a while to see if it would be OH DANG
34. Elation: JOY.
36. "Great" detective of kid-lit: NATE.
46. Believing, so to speak: BUYING. Are you BUYING what Patti and Zachary are selling"?
47. Sports org. revived in 2022 after a 37-year hiatus: USFL.
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57. Rice University athlete: OWL.
58. __ salt: SEA. PINK HIMALAYAN, EPSOM and CURING were all too long.
59. Tulsa sch.: ORU. Hand up for first trying OSU.
61. Catch: SEE. Last Friday it was Catches = Spots
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37 comments:
Another toughie.
And I didn’t understand the reveal at all until Mal Man explained it (and I’m still not sure I completely understand it.) That’s really all I have to say about this puzzle. FiR, so I’m happy.
Took 11:31 today to finish, but I don't think I'm even going to try to find a way to oose the theme....
I didn't know today's French lesson (pasmoi), which was compounded by being unfamiliar with sheath dress and not being able to figure out "I feel seen!" for "same".
I also didn't know the WOF connection to tarot, the cacao thing, Drogo, or Jimmy. But, I was happy I knew today's writer (Ibsen).
After these last couple days, I am very much looking forward to a themeless puzzle tomorrow.
FIW, missing aT MOST x BaTTON. I think that had I not spent so much time in Alaska I would have gotten that one too.
In Alaska I had IRA right of the bat, then at the end guessed ATT, which made me guess ANIME, then NAH. I'm ashamed to say that I couldn't think past putting baggage on those poor (pour?) HYENAs to support the safari. I had no idea how TAROT fit the clue until our MalMan 'splained it.
"I feel SEEN" sounds like the reaction of a naturist when they found a peephole drilled into the fence. (Police are looking into it.)
I also hung on to a RED belt until DAN became so insistent.
Aren't there more TWEENs in sixth grade? I think I was 13 in seventh.
The first college to adopt the OWL was Temple. They chose it because many of their students worked in the day and attended school as night OWLs.
Thanks to Zachary for the tough Friday that I was almost up to. And thanks to our MalMan for the fun review. 'Cept I always heard that the applicant's name was "Yackson." Also, there must be a special corner of hell for people who publish puns like ASCENT. (Guess we'll meet up there one day.)
Good Morning:
If you like TLWs (25), obscure references, convoluted cluing, a so-so theme and reveal, plus some green paint-ish entries, then this puzzle checked all the boxes. Anime, Etsy, Drogo, Jimmy, Skiing, Tarot, Luigi's, all unknown, as clued. Head scratching C/As: Isn't Missing=Has, "I feel seen"=Same, "Pass"=Nah. Green Paint: A Fan, and Sly Nod. To borrow from SS again, the juice wasn't worth the squeeze.
Thanks, MalMan, for restoring my faith in the power of humor to overcome disappointment! Your asides and dad humor, once again, tickled my fancy, especially the two ghosts trading transgressions and the Yob/Job-Yale/Jail joke! Thanks, also, for the even-handed, candid review and explanation of the theme.
Have a great day.
DNF. The NW just would not fall. I failed to see the long answer despite getting the theme. Anime simply escaped me and those few squares remained white.
This was a very challenging Friday puzzle. But overall I enjoyed the challenge. There was a way to finish, but I just didn't find it.
I enjoyed this challenging puzzle, in spite of looking up DROGO and ATT. I liked the theme, lose the YOU sound. That is a a typical Friday gimmick. That's my coup, pronounced as COO. That's my cue (for an actor, for instance), pronounced as kyoo.
I puzzled over I feel seen/same. Oh, it's slang.
I didn't care for the shift dresses mentioned yesterday because they looked like wearing a cloth bag. The one on the model looked cute because of the sash. Back in the day, we didn't have sashes. When I was young and slim I sewed a black silk sheath that I loved to wear.
Nate the Great, kiddie lit. A cinch.
I was 11 and then 12 in 7th grade.
Is this your son's key?
He is not MISSING a key. He HAS his.
A personal record could be merely a written note in a diary. "I lost two pounds this week." Record in this sense is not an unsurpassed statistic.
Very impolite: Would you like more coffee?
NAH, I pass.
Does the blog seem to be getting crankier?
Forgot to mention that I had "bible" before DIARY. Folks back in my hillbilly neighborhood used to record all family events (marriages, births, deaths, etc) in the family Bible.
In my glucose diary, I make a personal record of my daily finger stick scores. I am lucky. I can keep my score low and still eat almost anything, as long as it is in small amounts. Eating too much of even so- called "healthy" food leads to high scores. Moderation is the key word.
There are regional differences in pronouncing both poor and pure, so I will give that theme fill a pass.
I pronounce each of the following M words differently. Mary will marry Murray tomorrow and we will make merry. It is hard to remember that our language is not as homogenized as we might think,
Musings
-A bumpy voyage today. No need to gild the lily: Amen, Irish!
-HYENA – I SEE, they don’t carry packs, they travel in packs.
-Anyone else have thoughts like these?
But now the days are short
I'm in the autumn of the year
And now I think of my life as vintage wine
From fine old kegs
From the brim to the DREGS
It poured sweet and clear
It was a very good year
-Fun learning for this non-SKING person
-Thanks MM.
FIR on paper, no cheating! The first corner was the last to fall, as the ANIME cartoon and TAROT card were unknown to me. In the case of THAT'S MY COUP, the reveal actually helped with the solve and let me fill that NW corner.
MalMan did a great job explaining and gave me some laughs along the way. I loved the ghosts in jail, and the not-so-sweet smell of ASCENT.
I'm a little stuck on the PURE pronunciation of POUR vs PORE vs POOR. But close enough. We dropped the PEW sound.
Thanks for a great puzzle, Zachary and Patti! Thanks for solving, MalMan!
Two days in a row, I agree with Irish Miss.
May I propose we add a new acronym to the list: JWWTS
(Juice Wasn't Worth The Squeeze...)
FIR, but definitely a challenge with many unknowns. I always appreciate the deciphering, but manatee, I had zero issues with records for diary as I felt a diary ‘records’ your personal thoughts. But iAd major issues with “I feel seen” = ‘Same’!!! What planet does that come from? Crossing it with Has and Pas moi made the NE difficult. But the NW was last to fall as I had no familiarity with one punch; specific tarot cards, or Etsy’s theme. And as a skier, I have never once heard pizza and fries! Pretty arcane unless you have tots learning. But enjoyed the challenge and save my biggest issue for the whacked out “same”!
Had to really work at this one to arrive a my triumphant FIW! Done in by the Southeast corner. A lot of unknowns (for me) but some very clever misdirections. Had to check the calendar, as I had a feeling that I somehow skipped to Saturday. All in all an enjoyable outing, with a great recap by MM.
I liked the yoo/oo theme and four of the five theme entries, especially FOSSIL FOOLS, but the pure/POUR sounds didn’t quite match the theme and the unifier was a letdown. MalMan came up with better ideas for the unifier, which offset that dreadful pun elsewhere in his write-up. He must have told that joke to the hostile hyena.
My FIR came down to an educated guess for the French term PAS MOI, crossing the unintelligible “I feel seen” clue for SAME. I don’t speak French, so it’s rather galling that my limited knowledge of French helped me more than my knowledge of current slang.
Two entries that were bound to be unknown to most people were the Game of Thrones name and the skiing term. Only about half of all Americans have EVER skied, and fewer than half watch HBO, with not everyone in that subset keen on Game of Thrones. Of all the subjects we complain that we shouldn’t have to know, Game of Thrones tops my list.
Like YR, I was 11 during the first few weeks of seventh grade. Most seventh-graders are 12 when the school year starts, so I thought the clue was fine.
SLY NOD was lame. I wondered if that was an example of “green paint,” and was pleased Irish Miss confirmed that it was.
However, I enjoyed the puzzle overall, despite its reference to USFL history, a reminder of where I first encountered the existence of a particularly memorable (and obnoxious!) team owner.
First time commenter here so be gentle. Had a rough time with this one. I was confident with the 3rd letter of the unifier being U and then catch led to either get or net. That meant __u_t had no other answer than blunt.
Greetings! Another day of: filled most of it; looked some up; then came to the Corner to finish. Not my favorite way to go, but satisfactory.
The theme was so obtuse as to lack any fun in deciphering it. You're amazing to have explained it, MalMan.
The best part of today’s outing was the Blog. Thanks, MalMan. Your comments, jokes and observations were much enjoyed.
A bit of a struggle again today as it took me 28:48 for the FIR w/o help, a couple minutes faster than yesterday. DNK PASMOI or SHEATH (as clued) so the NE was saved by perps. Also unfamiliar with JIMMY or DRAGO, I surprise myself that I can even get these done sometimes, I think a lot of solvers give up too early because answers aren’t OBVI from the clues, noticed a couple instances of this yesterday. There were four words from yesterday’s puzzle that, if clued differently would have been easy, ARC, DRESS, SILO and DESI, but late week clueing is always more obscure and I can appreciate that. Anyway, thank you Zach for the challenging grid today!
MM ~ thanks for your superb run down today. I tend to agree that POUR as pronounced doesn’t exactly jive with the long double O sound of the other themers whereas POOR would’ve. Poetic license I guess.
Yellowrocks ~ the crankiness in the comments seems to increase as the week goes on, culminating in a rant filled Saturday, and it does keep the Corner interesting. 😂
I made it through in one piece but, as usual with pronunciation themes, I had trouble parsing the "you" sounds. The more I say them to myself, the more off if get. It didn't help that initially I thought the theme was "no U's", and a couple answers had a "u" in them which didn't make sense.
Thanks to ZDL for his Fri. Challenge. TGIF!
FAV: TOO OLD because of the 3 O's in a row.
I FIR because I first thought the gimmick was "no U's" so I thought we were replacing "OU" with "OO". That helped me sus the themers then I just needed to change two "O's" back to "U's" to get the FIR. Yes, I was scratching my head as to why that would be allowed.
= )
Thanks to MalMan for his excellent explanation of what was actually happening! LOL at sole, HYENA, hide, and yob!
Thank you Zachary for the Friday FIR. I'm not playing tomorrow, as we've got a lot to pack for our vacation, which starts on Sunday. Plus Saturdays are just too hard and it's hot as Hades in this neck of the woods. Sniff.
Thank you MalMan for the recap, and the funny stuff, and for trying to explain the theme. I kinda' sorta' got it. Maybe.
A few favs:
14A TAROT. I've never watched Wheel of Fortune, but I was a TAROT shark in a former life.
20A HYENA. Had CAMEL for awhile until I realized that they are SAHARA pack animals. Actually I think explorers use jeeps and tour buses in the Serengeti, as you might run into scary critters like lions or wildebeests there.
22A INKS. Hand up for PENS.
25A MOOT BUTTON. Favorite clue. MOOT would have been a good reveal too, but it was too short.
29A DAN. This term is also used to rank Go players and uses free stones to handicap uneven players. A buddy of mine and I played it for about 2 years and then decided to join the JHU Go Club. The first game I played was against a player who was ranked 1 DAN. He gave me 9 handicap stones and then proceeded to cream me. When he told me that a 9 DAN American player was equivalent to a 1 DAN Japanese player I threw in my stones. However I believe that the reigning world champion is now a computer program called AlphaGo.
65A MDS. Coulda' been RNS.
32A SPOOK. That's really SCARY -- wait until you see next Thursday's puzzle.
37D GRAN. NANA->GRAM->GRAN.
Cheers,
Bill
Anonymous @11:53 AM Welcome aboard! You have nothing to apologize about. This crowd can be pretty hard on constructors (and the editor!), but we cater to all levels of solvers. Hope to see more of you and hear more about you. Oh and you're in the in crowd when it comes to understanding the theme.
Puzzling thoughts:
MalMan => wasn't it "ewe" who commented last week about being happy it wasn't your turn to blog?? I give you coo-does for being so even-handed in your review today, as I probably would have reverted to my 1 to 1-1/2 star rating
Also to MM => as you recall, Ms Margaret and I own a Subaru ASCENT. I will need to check out the exhaust to make sure it's OK to follow ...
Irish Miss @ 8:12 => I had a bet with myself today that if you came to comment, the lone word in your post would've been "Thumper" ... I lost the bet, OBVI, but for all intents and porpoises, you posted Thumper's thoughts
This was 29:08 of more or less torture. I am beginning to wonder if I might be a masochist
I'll make an attempt at tomorrow's puzzle but am not going to hold my breath
Thanks for your recaps. A few good Friday laughs today.
Moe @ 1:00 ~ Kudos for knowing me and Thumper so well! I normally defer to Thumper when I feel so negative about a puzzle, but I guess I was too cranky this morning to not speak for myself. Of course, I'm sure that everyone understands and appreciates that we all have different opinions and reactions to the daily puzzle and, by extension, the right to express ourselves without judgement. You know the old saw, "One man's trash is another man's treasure!" Thumper sends his best, Moe!
Hola!
Late again! it took me way too long to finish this, even with help from ALEXA since I had no idea about DROGO and completely blanked on SCUBA! I can't believe it!
In my youth I used to love wearing SHEATH dresses. Sometimes, like YR, I sewed my own
POUR BENIUS was completely out of my wheelhouse and I let BEER GENIUS stand for TOO long. AP CHEM never made it. Thank you, ALEXA.
NATE the Great is also what we call my grand-nephew, Nathan. That little tyke is married? I can't believe it! It seems like I just went to his kinder graduation.
I used wite-out so much that my grid looks like a neon-lit street. But thank you for the challenge, Zachary.
Have a wonderful day, everyone!
Oh, no! POUR GENIUS, not bENIUS.
Thank you Agnes for producing the exact thoughts that I had. No need to write any further.
YR, is the any difference in the way you say 'bird word herd heard turd'? It's 'absurd'.
Yellowrocks ~ I pronounce Mary, marry, and merry all the same, Murray totally different. I think I may be in the majority.
Yellowrocks’ discussion of regional pronunciation differences—a favorite topic of mine – brings to mind actor/dialogue coach Robert Easton’s discourses on The Tonight Show – especially the one involving the pronunciation of “stark,” as in “stark naked.”
He set it up by presenting a list of five words, which, it turned out, represented various accents: stack (New England), stock (New York), stalk (the true South) stark (Midwest and West), and stork (Texas and its neighbors). By the time Easton got to “stork,” it was hilarious.
RIP Kinky Friedman
November 1, 1944 - June 27, 2024
Kinky Friedman - Sold American
The earlier comment had been posted by me but was missing both my "handle" and the link.
A bit tough, but still a delightful Friday puzzle--many thanks, Zachary. And Mal Man, I always enjoy your commentary, but your pictures today were a special treat, so thanks for those too.
Well, it was hard not to hear a lot of U's in this puzzle, and still fun (notice the U) even if you don't know how to SCUBA, and if you don't have a MOOT button on your computer, or if your sense of BEAUTY has never really considered a BOOTY. Well, okay, I'm not a PURE GENIUS (okay, maybe a POOR GENIUS) but I do know how to POUR drinks. And, I'm not a fossil FOOL, either, even if I'm approaching my eighties. Well, it's NO USE for me to go on any longer, so I'm going to get out my DIARY and sound off all my complaints there.
Have a fUn weekend coming up, everybody.
I had to look up Cricket Wireless, Jason Momoa, and that revived sports org in order to complete this puzzle.
CRIME --> ANIME.
PRNDL --> SCUBA because I read "Dive" as "Drive".
POD --> SOD.
PIG --> HOG.
ETSY --> EBAY --> ETSY again.
GRAM --> GRAN.
GET --> SEE.
It took all perps to fill the unknown-to-me as clued TAROT, SAME, SKIING, and AFAN.
Because I read the clue Move furtively as More furtively, filling ---ER held me back from getting SNEAK until YALE and KEG came along.
Wheel of Fortune setting: TAROT made my nose wrinkle because Wheel of Fortune is one of the TAROT cards, not the setting in which the TAROT is placed. (2 minutes later) Oh, I think I SEE it now, maybe.
At least I knew Jimmy Wales. I donate to support Wikipedia, so I have received his solicitations and his thanks. I also knew Henrik Ibsen, from whose name the comedian Henry Gibson (of Rowan & Martin's Laugh-In fame) derived his nom-de-stage.
I thought Cold, hard cash: COIN and Serengeti pack animal: HYENA were well clued.
Yesterday was a busy day for DW and me so I didn't do the puzzle, but because waseeley's recaps are always well worth reading I am now going to go back and read it.
Malodorous Manatee, I very much enjoyed reading your write-up today, of course, as always.
Well, I just went back and read waseeley's recap, which I enjoyed reading, and I took a glance at the puzzle. Now I'm glad to have been too busy to do the puzzle yesterday.
Hand up this was really tough. Hand up CLINK before CLANG. Never heard of CACAO as clued. Never figured out why HAS or SAME made sense. Glad to come here and understand why TAROT and HYENA made sense. Hand up struggled with fully grasping the NO USE theme, but I kinda got it. FIR so I guess I am good with it.
Interesting to learn how people pronounce things. I can't imagine how "marry" sounds the same as "merry". Must be regional.
Here is my short drone video set with my friend Virginia last week after our hiking ASCENT above Santa Barbara.
We were on the Saddle Rock Trail. On the third clip you can see something that looks like a saddle on the little ridge below us. Virginia very kindly came down from San Francisco to photograph our Solstice parade.
Picard ~ maybe it is regional, but in my neck of the woods Mary, merry and marry are homophones or homonyms, words spelled differently but sound the same.
In Hazard, Kentucky "fought" is a homophone of "fit," and "fire" is a homophone of "far." Probably a lot of others, but it's been a while since I lived there. I found it to be amazing how different life was there, less than 100 miles from Lexington. At the night spots, country music was universal. "Rocky Top" and "John's Been Shucking My Corn" were the big hits then. And THE breakfast side was grits, while in Lexington, hash browns ruled the day.
The first new friend I made there was telling me about his wife, and how he had to tiptoe around her feelings. I asked if she had a temper. He replied "Temper? Her hair (sounded like 'har') is far engine red."
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