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.
The cake is named after Samuel German, not Germany.
DeleteD-O, interesting. Here on the edge of Pennsylvania Dutch (German) country, there's a little village name Germansville. It's name after the German family and pronounced Grr-mansville with a hard G. I wonder if Herr German in Dallas pronounced it the same way. So maybe we ought to ordering Grr-man Chocolate Cake?😄😄
DeleteFIR. 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.
16:14. Ugh. Not a particularly enjoyable puzzle. Theme was really weak.
ReplyDeleteGood Morning:
ReplyDeleteSunday puzzles are my least favorites and this one is an example why I often don’t bother solving them. However, today’s beckoned to me when I saw the byline. But, I was deeply disappointed and finally asked for help. I don’t understand the title either, and it took me forever to see the gimmick, which required forced and odd cluing, IMO. There were far too many unknowns and questionable fill, e.g., the heretofore never seen spelling of Yecch. I also cry foul on Perms for Curly dos. A Perm isn’t a Do, it’s a treatment. Afros is the usual answer to Curly Dos. These and several more stretches contributed to my not enjoying what I consider a FWH but no satisfaction or enjoyment.
Thanks, Sam, sorry for the negativity, and thanks, CC, for explaining it the best you could.
Have a great day.
Yes, CC, I did see the movie, Mr. Lucky, on TV, years after the original showing. Never watched the TV series. No Cary Grant, no Mr. Lucky!
DeleteRustyBrain-you out there? I’m game for your tennis balls.
ReplyDeleteSo, is this puzzle payback for yesterday’s WITP? This was somewhat brutal for a Sunday. The obscurity level was off the charts.
ReplyDeleteThe themers were actually the easiest part once the first one filled in.
Yecch? Meta.
ReplyDeleteFun theme. Ruined by unnecessary obscure crossings. Hand up I entered SITH and TITI and I stand by that. It would have been so easy to clue one of them in a familiar way.
ReplyDeleteAnd Mr Google has no idea about TCI or PURISM as clued. Such a waste to spoil such a good puzzle.
This puzzle was exhausting, but I FIR on paper, no cheating, and certainly felt relieved to have done so. "Afros" before PERMS slowed me down, and also percentAGE before percentILE. DNK "Outdaughtered" or novelist Martin, and thought fAME was a better answer than NAME, until the perp had to be LENS. Anyway, the theme ultimately helped with the solve, which I enjoy, and was pretty clever. Hats 👒 🎩 off to Mr. Donaldson and to C.C.
ReplyDeleteGood challenge for me today.
ReplyDeleteFinally, my only blank was the 2nd “c” of “yecch” - cuz I didn’t know EEC. And, I guessed right - to finish!
Never seen “yecch” before. iPhone’s autocorrect doesn’t recognize it. AND, I’m discovering - from watching TV’s new “SCRABBLE” game show - there are a lot of “words” that I don’t know 🤷♀️
My thot on theme?: “hardly right” means “not right” (like: “HARDLY!”) — so theme answers are made into something that is “not quite right” and still works in its way - by over-ly or under-ly modifying the word it precedes …. ??
Thanks for the puzzle. Thanks for the elaboration. Thanks for this space and people to share the puzzles with. 🙏🫶🏼
😊🙄 To be clear - there were many things I did not know, but perps always help - oui? - to fill the squares. I love how CC (today) and other bloggers identify “learning moments”. I always have them. Nowadays (I just turned 76) tho, I’m not as good at storing new info for future use 😄. Thx again❣️
DeleteFIW which is fairly rare for me on a Sunday. I stuck with ‘unilateral’ cuz I’m unfamiliar with UNICAMERAL, which made the beer cottonly cold, which I knew was wrong, COMMON COLD didn’t occur to me though I got all the other themers. Oh well, can’t win ‘em all, but I enjoyed trying. Thanks Sam and C.C.
ReplyDeleteEdward in Los Angeles: easy-peasy, cheesy (cheddar) squeezy.
ReplyDeleteSlow and steady solve - agree with WEES about YECCH
ReplyDeleteUsually HG posts before me - so I will note that his home state of Nebraska is the only state with a UNICAMERAL legislature
I am more a fan of Kingsley Amis , Martin's father than Martin as an author
Thanks CC for the blog and Sam for the puzzle
Well, I didn't enjoy this one as much as I anticipated I would, given who the constructor is. Lots of 3 and 4-letter words/abbreviations, 51 4-letter ones and 17 3-letter ones, by my count. I did enjoy the adding of LY to the end of each first word.
ReplyDeleteThe NW stumped me the most; I simply couldn't suss CAF, ON AT, or PURISM, and I didn't know TCI.
Weird how we known some artists by only their first names, such as DANTE, Michelangelo, and Rembrandt, and many by their last names, such as Van Gogh, Mozart, etc.
And if Van Gogh, Van Amstel, Van Dyke, President Van Buren, Mamie Van Doren, Eddie Van Halen, etc, are referred to by their full last name, including the "Van", then why is Van Beethoven referred to simply as Beethoven?
My mind is especially curious today, for some reason.
Good reading all your comments.
I’m with IM today. I just couldn’t get a handle on this CW and TITT. The juice just wasn’t worth the squeeze for me today. Sorry.
ReplyDeleteA DNF today with trouble in the Olympic Peninsula and the Dakotas. I kept wanting to fill 'Go ON TO great length' instead of ON AT, and the TCI cable company was unknown. ATT had purchased Time-Warner Company and I kept wanting Turner something. I should have filled LUG BOLT because somebody took one from DW's Mercedes a few years ago.
ReplyDeleteThe added LY became apparent a few minutes into my unsuccessful attempt to complete the puzzle. It was slow going with unknowns working their way onto the grid via perps and guessing. I can't say I knew any of these as clued-TIKI, LITER, CAEN, ESTELLA, BUSB, SALT PIT, MR. LUCKY, SUMO, ADA Twist, NESS, PURISM, SIKH, DALLAS, SYMS, AMIS,- but I filled them.
SASE- with the cost of postage, you don't see many those from companies that have envelopes with 'No postage necessary'. Now it's an Evite. I got 'save the date' yesterday for somebody's wedding in England. I'm continually getting emails that should be going to two other people using a letter off georgefsimpson@gmail.com. and somebody spells it wrong. One in England and the other from somebody in Vancouver, WA. But that wedding in Brighton be a nice vacation.
"Ness and Sam's Wedding
For: George Simpson
•
We're so excited to invite you to our wedding on Friday the 6th August 2027. The day after the wedding is Brighton Pride, so if you're thinking about staying in Brighton we'd recommend booking accomodation as soon as possible. There are lots of hotels to choose from, but we'd recommend The Old Ship Hotel, Mercure Brighton Seafront Hotel or Queens Hotel Brighton.
Please RSVP as soon as possible. We hope to see you there"
.
Yecch=yuck.
ReplyDeleteWhat a crazy stretch to try to fit things together.
Terrible
The current issue of Atlantic magazine has a short story by Stephen King in which the heroine, and narrator, is working a crossword, and struggling with a nasty clue-crossing of “Thai tidbits” with “Connecticut river.” What we cornerites would call a “Natick.” But she calls them “total pissers .” (Later in the story, it is revealed that the river is named “Niantic” and the Thai tidbits are “ant eggs.”)
ReplyDelete