Theme: None
Total blocks: 31
Total words: 70
Do you know the shortcut to calculate the total words? You add the number of upper-left corners (the numbered squares that form the starts of two entries), and then add that to the grid's highest number. So, in today's grid, the number of those upper-left corners is 7: BRIGADES/BLACKLIST, RIBALD/RESPECTERS, WEBER/WOODSHED, RSO/RATIONALES, SAUK/SOLAN, CGI/CEDER and CMDR/COOGAN. And the grid's highest number is 63 (Across). Therefore, the total word count is 70. Learned this trick from Patrick Berry.
I struggled with this puzzle. Felt like a snowflake falling into Hades. So many abbreviations. I would prefer "Gesture of obeisance" over "Gesture of respect" for CURTSY (19A), as RESPECTERS (9D: Those showing deferential esteem) is an answer in the grid. But is RESPECTER even a word?
I think I've had enough Josiah Breward/Willy A Wiseman (aka Wayne Williams, our editor) puzzles.
Across:
1A: Military units: BRIGADES. So their commanders are called Brigadier Generals, I presume?
17A: Suffered anguish: AGONIZED. And ATE CROW (33A: Suffered humiliation). One painful puzzle.
23A: Beer buys: KEGS. I wrote down ALES, which are not really beer, right? I've never had ale before.
24A: Unit of magnetic flux: WEBER. Named after German physicist Wilhelm Eduard WEBER, a total stranger to me. I was thinking of TESLA, which is surprisingly related to WEBER. It equals to one WEBER per square meter.
25A: Sides of a cube: SIX. OK, a cube does have SIX sides. Why did I think it should have eight sides?
27A: Brit. quartermaster: RSO. Regimental Signals Officer? Not sure of this answer. (Addendum: RSO stands for Regimental Supply Officer).
29A: B.C. fuzz: RCMP (Royal Canadian Mounted Police). I did not know that "fuzz" is slang for cop.
32A: Letters on a GI's letter: APO
37A: Like peekaboo fashions: SLITTED. Like this ?
39A: Source of hyoscyamine: HENBANE. No idea. Maybe hens know. Dictionary says HENBANE is of the nightshade family, having sticky, hairy fetid foliage and greenish-yellow flowers, and possessing narcotic and poisonous properties esp. destructive to domestic fowls." This word 'hyoscyamine" does sound very toxic.
40A: Computer mavens: TECHIES. I was shocked to see Microsoft/Intel laying off such a high percentage of their employees, very spooky.
43A: Hebrew letter: YODH. No idea. It's the 10th letter of the Hebrew alphabet. I only know the first letter Aleph. The first letter of Arabic alphabet is Alif.
44A: Pub. submissions: MSS (Manuscripts)
45A: Karachi's nat.: PAK. Have never seen Pakistan abbreviated this way before. She is my favorite PAK, a young LPGA Hall of Famer. Her name is acturally (Se Ri) PARK, a very common Korean surname meaning "simple". Baseball fans probably know Chan Ho PARK, a new Philly.
46A: PC pic: CGI. Computer-Generated Imagery? I got this from the down fills.
53A: Singer Gibb: ANDY. Here is his "I Just Wanna Be Your Everything". Not a familiar ANDY to me. I like him.
54A: "The Kid" star Jackie: COOGAN. I googled this kid. He looks intelligent.
58A: Canonical hour: COMPLINE. Stumper. It's "the last of the seven canonical hours, or the service for it, originally occurring after the evening meal but now usually following immediately upon vespers."
Down:
1D: Exclude: BLACKLIST. Ostracize has 9-letter as well.
2D: Household novel: ROGUE MALE. Here is the book cover. I've never heard of the book or the author. I thought "Household" is just a "household", and ROMANCE does not fit.
3D: Like noncarbon-based compounds: INORGANIC. I found the best organic whole cashew (raw) in a SuperTarget store a couple of months ago. So sweet and fresh. Much better than the Trader Joe's ones.
7D: Suffix in linguistics: EME. As in morpheme. I misread the clue as "Suffix in language", so my answer was ESE.
8D: Grasslike plant: SEDGE. I can never commit this swamp SEDGE into my memory. I think my brain is full.
13D: The king of France: LE ROI. Louis XIV is called LE ROI Soleil. Why would he want to dress that way?
14D: Start of a rehab program: DETOX. "Start"? I thought the whole process is called DETOX.
27D: Fundamental grounds: RATIONALES. I was thinking of PRINCIPALS (I always confuse principal with principle), which also has 10 letters.
28D: Haste: SPEEDINESS. They are not the same to me. Haste has a negative understone.
30D:Dangerous insulation mtl.: PCB. Learned from doing Xword. I don't know why they are "Dangerous".
34D: Out of control: RAMPAGING. Reminds me of those RAMPAGING looters in Baghdad after the invasion. I wonder how many valuable piceces are missing from their National Museum.
35D: All in all: ON BALANCE
36D: About to swoon: WEAK-KNEED. When? When you see this?
47D: Gannet goose: SOLAN. SOLAN goose, yes, but not "Gannet goose".
50D: Spandex brand: LYCRA. I wonder why DuPont named it LYCRA. It's not a Greek/Roman/Egyptian goddess or anything, right?
54D: Letters for Spock or Riker: CMDR (Commander). Not a familiar abbreviation to me.
55D: Eye defect: suff.: OPIA. As in myopia. New suffix to me also.
C.C.
Total blocks: 31
Total words: 70
Do you know the shortcut to calculate the total words? You add the number of upper-left corners (the numbered squares that form the starts of two entries), and then add that to the grid's highest number. So, in today's grid, the number of those upper-left corners is 7: BRIGADES/BLACKLIST, RIBALD/RESPECTERS, WEBER/WOODSHED, RSO/RATIONALES, SAUK/SOLAN, CGI/CEDER and CMDR/COOGAN. And the grid's highest number is 63 (Across). Therefore, the total word count is 70. Learned this trick from Patrick Berry.
I struggled with this puzzle. Felt like a snowflake falling into Hades. So many abbreviations. I would prefer "Gesture of obeisance" over "Gesture of respect" for CURTSY (19A), as RESPECTERS (9D: Those showing deferential esteem) is an answer in the grid. But is RESPECTER even a word?
I think I've had enough Josiah Breward/Willy A Wiseman (aka Wayne Williams, our editor) puzzles.
Across:
1A: Military units: BRIGADES. So their commanders are called Brigadier Generals, I presume?
17A: Suffered anguish: AGONIZED. And ATE CROW (33A: Suffered humiliation). One painful puzzle.
23A: Beer buys: KEGS. I wrote down ALES, which are not really beer, right? I've never had ale before.
24A: Unit of magnetic flux: WEBER. Named after German physicist Wilhelm Eduard WEBER, a total stranger to me. I was thinking of TESLA, which is surprisingly related to WEBER. It equals to one WEBER per square meter.
25A: Sides of a cube: SIX. OK, a cube does have SIX sides. Why did I think it should have eight sides?
27A: Brit. quartermaster: RSO. Regimental Signals Officer? Not sure of this answer. (Addendum: RSO stands for Regimental Supply Officer).
29A: B.C. fuzz: RCMP (Royal Canadian Mounted Police). I did not know that "fuzz" is slang for cop.
32A: Letters on a GI's letter: APO
37A: Like peekaboo fashions: SLITTED. Like this ?
39A: Source of hyoscyamine: HENBANE. No idea. Maybe hens know. Dictionary says HENBANE is of the nightshade family, having sticky, hairy fetid foliage and greenish-yellow flowers, and possessing narcotic and poisonous properties esp. destructive to domestic fowls." This word 'hyoscyamine" does sound very toxic.
40A: Computer mavens: TECHIES. I was shocked to see Microsoft/Intel laying off such a high percentage of their employees, very spooky.
43A: Hebrew letter: YODH. No idea. It's the 10th letter of the Hebrew alphabet. I only know the first letter Aleph. The first letter of Arabic alphabet is Alif.
44A: Pub. submissions: MSS (Manuscripts)
45A: Karachi's nat.: PAK. Have never seen Pakistan abbreviated this way before. She is my favorite PAK, a young LPGA Hall of Famer. Her name is acturally (Se Ri) PARK, a very common Korean surname meaning "simple". Baseball fans probably know Chan Ho PARK, a new Philly.
46A: PC pic: CGI. Computer-Generated Imagery? I got this from the down fills.
53A: Singer Gibb: ANDY. Here is his "I Just Wanna Be Your Everything". Not a familiar ANDY to me. I like him.
54A: "The Kid" star Jackie: COOGAN. I googled this kid. He looks intelligent.
58A: Canonical hour: COMPLINE. Stumper. It's "the last of the seven canonical hours, or the service for it, originally occurring after the evening meal but now usually following immediately upon vespers."
Down:
1D: Exclude: BLACKLIST. Ostracize has 9-letter as well.
2D: Household novel: ROGUE MALE. Here is the book cover. I've never heard of the book or the author. I thought "Household" is just a "household", and ROMANCE does not fit.
3D: Like noncarbon-based compounds: INORGANIC. I found the best organic whole cashew (raw) in a SuperTarget store a couple of months ago. So sweet and fresh. Much better than the Trader Joe's ones.
7D: Suffix in linguistics: EME. As in morpheme. I misread the clue as "Suffix in language", so my answer was ESE.
8D: Grasslike plant: SEDGE. I can never commit this swamp SEDGE into my memory. I think my brain is full.
13D: The king of France: LE ROI. Louis XIV is called LE ROI Soleil. Why would he want to dress that way?
14D: Start of a rehab program: DETOX. "Start"? I thought the whole process is called DETOX.
27D: Fundamental grounds: RATIONALES. I was thinking of PRINCIPALS (I always confuse principal with principle), which also has 10 letters.
28D: Haste: SPEEDINESS. They are not the same to me. Haste has a negative understone.
30D:Dangerous insulation mtl.: PCB. Learned from doing Xword. I don't know why they are "Dangerous".
34D: Out of control: RAMPAGING. Reminds me of those RAMPAGING looters in Baghdad after the invasion. I wonder how many valuable piceces are missing from their National Museum.
35D: All in all: ON BALANCE
36D: About to swoon: WEAK-KNEED. When? When you see this?
47D: Gannet goose: SOLAN. SOLAN goose, yes, but not "Gannet goose".
50D: Spandex brand: LYCRA. I wonder why DuPont named it LYCRA. It's not a Greek/Roman/Egyptian goddess or anything, right?
54D: Letters for Spock or Riker: CMDR (Commander). Not a familiar abbreviation to me.
55D: Eye defect: suff.: OPIA. As in myopia. New suffix to me also.
C.C.
