Theme: "HARDLY RIGHT" - LY is added the end of the first word in each common phrase.
23. Kinda sorta up for it?: FAIRLY GAME. Fair game.
29. Like a portrait hung by a professional?: HIGHLY LEVEL. High level.
35. How beer is served?: COMMONLY COLD. Common cold.
49. Geeky without shame?: PUBLICLY SQUARE. Public square.
62. Faking trendiness?: ARTIFICIALLY HIP. Artificial hip.
93. Having the wealth of kings and queens?: ROYALLY FLUSH. Royal flush.
98. Like a smart recycler?: SAGELY GREEN. Sage green.
108. Sad, but composed?: CALMLY DOWN. Calm down.
A very consistent letter-addition theme. Adding LY to the first word of each familiar phrase transforms an adjective into an adverb. The noun in the second word becomes an adjective.
Can someone explain the title to me? I don't quite get it. To me, it's just another theme entry.
Across:
1. Sporty wheels: COUPE.
6. Cinematographer's choice: LENS.
10. Hasty: RASH.
14. "Purgatorio" poet: DANTE. "The Divine Comedy" consists of three parts: "Inferno", "Purgatorio", and "Paradiso".
19. Invalidate: ANNUL.
20. Four Corners state: UTAH.
21. Director Kazan: ELIA.
22. Hilo "Hi": ALOHA.
25. First man, in Maori mythology: TIKI. Gimme!
26. Two-thirds of a magnum: LITER.
27. Cable giant acquired by AT&T: TCI.
28. An end to reason?: ABLE. Reasonable.
31. Four-footed Jetson: ASTRO.
33. City on the Orne: CAEN. A city associated with the Battle of Normandy.
34. Ghostly sound: MOAN.
39. Yields to gravity: SAGS.
40. Promise not to tell, for short: NDA.
43. "__ of Girls' Things": poem by Sharon Olds: ODE.
44. "Great Expectations" ward: ESTELLA. Learning moment for me.
45. Actress Spelling: TORI.
46. Marshmallow treat: PEEP.
47. Curly dos: PERMS.
52. Son of Rebekah and Isaac: ESAU. Isaac's favorite son. Rebekah liked Jacob more.
53. "OutDaughtered" family name: BUSBY.
55. Unenviable grade: DEE.
56. "¿Cómo está __?": USTED.
57. Seawater evaporation site: SALT PIT. Also a learning moment.
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59. Sandwich shops: DELIS.
61. "Sure, I get it": AH OK.
67. Astrobiology subj.: SETI.
69. Toyed with: LED ON.
70. Cary Grant film about a gambler: MR LUCKY. Agnes probably saw this movie.
74. OB test: AMNIO.
75. Suffix with percent: ILE.
76. Print media: PRESS.
79. Unpartnered: LONE.
84. Early Mexican civilization: OLMEC.
85. Touchscreen image: ICON.
86. Charged particles: IONS.
87. Layered potluck staple: LASAGNA.
90. One of the orgs. merged in the Maastricht Treaty: EEC.
European Economic Community. The Maastricht Treaty laid the foundation
for today's European Union. Another learning moment for me.
91. Rainbow backdrop: SKY.
92. Burden: ONUS.
95. Baba ghanoush bread: PITA.
96. Bodies of water: SEAS.
97. "Here we go!": IT'S ON.
102. Yokozuna's sport: SUMO. Yokozuna is the highest rank in sumo wrestling.
104. "__ Twist, Scientist": Netflix series with a magic lab: ADA.
106. Caffeinated: AWAKE.
107. Isn't 100%: AILS.
111. Spanish title: SENOR.
112. Many a "Survivor" locale: ISLE.
113. Magazine founder Eric: UTNE.
114. Pitcher's jam: MEN ON.
115. Barely beats (out): EDGES.
116. "Queer Eye" expert Jonathan Van __: NESS.
117. Letter opener: DEAR.
118. "Hello" singer: ADELE. Hello from the other side!
Down:
1. Lunchroom, for short: CAF.
2. Go __ great length: ON AT.
3. Like some parliaments: UNICAMERAL.
4. Perfectionist's creed: PURISM.
5. Beginning to lose?: ELL. The staring letter in lose.
6. Fastener on many European cars: LUG BOLT. I only know lug nut.
7. List abbr.: ET AL.
8. Reputation: NAME.
9. "That's all __ wrote": SHE.
10. Fixed, as shoelaces: RE-TIED.
11. Set straight: ALIGN.
12. One resisting the five thieves: SIKH. Here are the five thieves in Sikhism are kaam (lust), krodh (wrath), lobh (greed), moh (attachment) and ahankar (arrogance).
13. Last-ditch attempt: HAIL MARY.
14. Texas city where German chocolate cake was invented: DALLAS. I know this trivia.
15. "In space, no one can hear you scream" film: ALIEN.
16. Punishment for a Gen X kid: NO TV.
17. "Beautiful Mistakes" rapper Megan __ Stallion: THEE.
18. Viscount superior: EARL.
24. Tall tales: YARNS.
29. Permissible, in some diets: HALAL. Opposite of Haram.
30. Some meditation practitioners: YOGIS.
32. Temperature testers, at times: TOES.
33. Cheddar kin: COLBY.
35. Manages: COPES.
36. Ukrainian port south of Kyiv: ODESA.
37. Informal approvals: YEPS.
38. __ soda: CLUB.
39. Cirque du __: SOLEIL.
40. "How cool": NEATO.
41. Baseball Hall of Famer Jeter: DEREK.
42. Mimicked: APED.
45. Immune system component: T CELL.
46. Muscle training method: PUSH PULL. As in the popular Push/Pull/Legs workout split.
48. Genetic change: MUTATION.
50. Creative development: IDEA.
51. Covey member: QUAIL. A group of quail is called a covey. We also have 100. Group of pals: GANG.
53. Small amount: BIT.
54. Gas or elec.: UTIL.
58. Abbey figure: PRIOR.
59. Hullabaloo: DIN.
60. Sylvia of jazz: SYMS.
63. Makes a false show of: FEIGNS.
64. Runs in place: IDLES.
65. Last name of filmmakers Ethan and Joel: COEN.
66. Atty.'s billing units: HRS.
67. Noisy kiss: SMACK.
68. Relish: ENJOY.
71. Fall apart: COME UNDONE.
72. Joints with caps: KNEES.
73. "Ew!": YECCH.
74. "The Information" novelist Martin: AMIS. Son of Kingsley Amis.
76. Says grace, e.g.: PRAYS.
77. Tabula __: RASA.
78. Airline that doesn't fly during the Sabbath: EL AL.
81. Like a fuzzy navel?: LINTY. Not orange.
82. "If it isn't my nemesis!": YOU AGAIN.
83. Online finance firm: E LOAN.
84. Bozos: OAFS.
88. Twinkle: GLIMMER.
89. Sleep aid brand: NYTOL.
92. Edmonton NHL team: OILERS.
93. Big Cup candy brand: REESE'S.
94. Like some questions: LOADED.
95. Black tea grade: PEKOE.
96. Hawks: SELLS.
98. RSVP convenience: SASE.
99. Blown away: AWED.
101. Ascend: RISE.
102. Quench: SATE.
103. Funny bone neighbor: ULNA.
105. USMC truant: AWOL.
108. Ruminant's mouthful: CUD.
109. Peruvian legend Sumac: YMA.
110. SSW reverse: NNE.
C.C.
There were some
ReplyDeletequite obscure proper names.
Nevertheless, I got through it.
FIR, so I’m happy.
A double dip of Subgenius to start the comments appropriately echoes my sentiment.
ReplyDeleteSam. Donaldson. Is an old pro but this took a long time. Enjoy the last day of May all.
Good morning!
ReplyDeleteIt took me a long time to get down to the abasement, struggling all the way. As it turned out, I'd failed early on with SI_H crossing TI_I. Entered SITH, because I thought it might be a Star Wars thing. TITI looked possibly Maori. Bzzzzzt. Tough one. Thanx, Samuel and C.C. (Your illustration for Mr. Lucky is from the 1959 TV show. Cary Grant starred in the 1943 movie.)
D-O got that right, I do recall watching the tv series with John Vivian and the future partner of. James West, Ross Martin
ReplyDeleteI don’t remember a single episode and I am not sure it is streaming anywhere
Methinks the best part of that TV series was the theme song, written by Henry Mancini.
DeleteI'm sure you know that the early TV episodes used the original instrumental version of the song, but in later episodes chorus singers were added to the arrangement.
DeleteEEC crossing YECCH did me in.
ReplyDeleteI've never seen two C's in Yech. Is that a common thing or a crossword convenience?
C.C., in answer to your query about today's puzzle title, "hard right" can mean a couple things. Originally, it just referred to making a non-gradual right turn, as when driving a car. Now it has also come to refer to the political extreme right.
ReplyDeleteAnd by adding the "-ly" to "hard," I guess you could infer that the message might be that the extreme right is not exactly correct.
ReplyDeleteAgree with Anon 7:12. Thoroughly distracted by the crossing of the unknown-to-me native group proper name, the abbreviation, and the made up non-word. Ironically, I ended up getting that section right, but was so fixated on fAME, that I stupidly left LEfS in there for the movie-makers choice, so FIW anyway. FWIW, left turns are much more dangerous than right turns.
ReplyDeleteUnless you are driving a truck or an RV. A lot of those drivers will make three lefts to avoid making a right.
DeleteC.C., As you noted, LY is added to the right of the first word in each common phrase.
ReplyDeleteParse it as HARD LY RIGHT. For this puzzle to be consistent, there is a HARD rule that LY must be added.
HARD in this case means firm. Set in stone. Certain. Not subject to change, as in "We have a Hard stop at 4:00 PM."
CC, TIKI was not a gimme to me. I’m afraid I left the K off. So DNF. Otherwise, with some effort, filled the rest. The theme became obvious pretty quickly. My big erasure was antisocially for ARTIFICIALLY and I held on to -age too long til I knew IDLE had to be right so finally entered -ILE. Farther down we had ISLE.
ReplyDeleteLots of unfamiliar names, but perps came to the rescue. I’m not familiar with this Cary Grant movie. YECCH is a weird one.
I did ENJOY this puzzle.
Thank you CC for your review.
FIW, missing ESTELLe (as in Getty) x HALeL, and like D-O, SItH x TItI.
ReplyDeleteHuey Lewis let us know that it's Hip to Be SQUARE.
DNK ADA Twist, but the Resident dermatologist I saw last year was the gorgeous physician Dr. Joanna Twist. Reminded me of the old-time mystery novels where "this twist walked up to the bar and asked me to buy her a drink."
I'm surprised that German chocolate cake was invented in DALLAS, not in the heavily German Hill Country.
"Fall apart" reminded me of Canada's Guess Who performing Undun [sic].
Canada's Edmonton NHL team has the rest of the season off, as do the Habs.
Thanks to Sam for another fun Sunday challenge, except for all the A&E stuff. And thanks to CC for another fun narrative.
FIR. Whew, what a workout! After an easy Saturday one doesn't expect a Sunday to be this difficult. And the amount of proper names seemed really over the top.
ReplyDeleteIt took a while to get the theme. I had to work my way down to the bottom of the puzzle to get a foothold and find the "ly" gimmick.
Overall a so-so puzzle.