Theme: Get the UGH out of here! The letters UGH are removed from the first word of a common phrase to reveal a different and rib-tickling, knee-slapping, new amusing phrase. As usual, constructor Don G's note is attached at the end of this write-up.
17A. Where to sleep off a bender?: SOT SHELTER. SOughT shelter. SOT being a very common crosswordese for a drunkard.
24A. Anxious campus society?: FRAT WITH TENSION. FRAughT with...FRAT being the accepted abbreviation of fraternity, lots of tension with those sorority girls around.
38A. Hair styling prodigy?: DO BOY. DOughBOY. Okay, I get it, a Hairdo creating young man; better than the poor fool who runs around for a girl, doing what she wants, while she dates his best friend.
38A. Hair styling prodigy?: DO BOY. DOughBOY. Okay, I get it, a Hairdo creating young man; better than the poor fool who runs around for a girl, doing what she wants, while she dates his best friend.
46A. Talented jazzman?: CAT WITH THE GOODS. CAughT with...CAT being a cool jazz name forever. How about HERBIE HANCOCK . I did not think you were supposed to use a four word fill?
57A. "Airport music so early?": ENO ALREADY. ENOugh already. Brian Peter George St. John le Baptiste de la Salle Eno is a pioneer in AMBIENT MUSIC . Airport, the same as elevator?
Lemonade here.
A very nice tight theme, two grid spanning theme answers, with no unifier, and a good Friday mix of unknowns, little knowns, with lots of long fill like BOILS DOWN TO, TREADS WATER and CAR FERRY. Let's dig into this G masterpiece.
Across:
1. Plain type?: JANE. Poor Jane, she gets to be both plain, and anonymous as JANE DOE. At least she did not end up as a nickname for a toilet.
5. Company whose name is quacked in ads: AFLAC. Along with the GEICO Gekko, the superstars of advertising; and you question our education system.
10. Finishing nail: BRAD. The little guys with the big heads: hey watch the comments.
14. Work: OPUS, classic Latin, or part of a mini-theme of funny ANIMALS .
15. Sporty Mazda: MIATA. I am afraid they are no longer considered anything.
16. Slick: OILY. We survived the BP oil spill, that was slick in so many ways.
19. Atl. republic since 1944: ICEL. We all love Don G., and this was easy, as ICELAND is one of the few republics in the Atlantic Ocean, and he told us it was an abbr., but I cannot find ICEL used this way anywhere.
20. Aurora's counterpart: EOS. Thanks Al for telling everybody an answer in this puzzle.
21. Smart guy?: ALEC. The expression comes from actual, though dubious PERSON.
22. Pivoting points: FULCRA. "Give me a lever and place to stand, and I can move the world." Archimedes' famous quote on the use of a fulcrum. Personally, it is the place to stand part I find a little silly.
27. La __ Tar Pits: BREA. We have lots of this one, which makes me wonder what you think of Uncle Remus and the Tar Baby ?
28. Yankee nickname: A ROD. The Steinbrenners are upset.
29. Worked with horses, in a way: SHOED. Yes they can be SHOD or SHOED, just do not let them run barehooved in the fields.
31. 2008 Libertarian presidential candidate: BARR. I liked the Newsweek tagline, "Time to Belly up to the Barr," for this CANDIDATE .
33. Like some rugs: OVAL, as are some offices, but rugs are also wool, or blue or...well, it slowed me down.
37. Pool shade: AQUA. Appropriate for a pool to be water colored.
39. Off the mark: WIDE.
40. Abbr. followed by a year: ESTD. The words put in the cornerstone of building for example.
41. Part of the dog days of Dijon: AOUT. Time for the Lemonade lesson on French, Août means simply August (my birth month) and as Kazie discussed, is one of the words where the accent becomes an "s" in Anglais. Dijon being a town as well as a mustard, not to be confused with Col. Mustard in the library with Miss Scarlett.
42. Fund: ENDOW. Lots of rich people endow their Colleges and Universities, and as someone who attended UConn for graduate and undergraduate school, I am not sure if I am embarrassed by the booster who wants his money back because the school hired a loser coach to replace the guy who brought the team to a BCS bowl. Thoughts?
43. Friend of Dalí: SERT. I was not familiar with this ARTIST . I wonder if any of his work hangs at 45. Atterbury Street gallery: TATE?
53. Dag Hammarskjöld's successor: U THANT. As a young person, I was impressed by this man, and recall his saying, "Every human being, of whatever origin, of whatever station, deserves respect. We must each respect others even as we respect ourselves." very timely in the early 60s and still true.
54. Cramming method: ROTE. Drat, I used up all my Kyle Rote material last time.
55. Disturb, as the balance: TIP. I would link O.Neill, but why get political.
56. Frost, say: POET, another easy one I tried to talk myself out of with RIME and HOAR. As a New Englander, I am ashamed. CA, you have one for us?
60. Regarding: IN RE, finally, a tiny law phrase.
61. Dino's love: AMORE, ah, a generic Dino, not the Flintstones' pet.
62. Lhasa __: APSO. Woof woof.
63. Headlights starer: DEER, there are those among us who have notches painted on the side of his or her vehicle marking the unfortunate end of wild life on the highway, but I will not name names.
64. Mearth's mother, in a '70s-'80s sitcom: MINDY. The baby, played by Jonathan Winters, I like the name so much, I called my mother Mearth for years. She perhaps did not enjoy it as much as I.
65. Flunky: PEON. Maybe we can introduce him to our do boy.
Okay, it is all down hill from here.
Down:
1. Pianist Hofmann: JOSEF. I loves me a good CHOPIN both music and vodka, but did not know this fella.
2. "I'm just __ wayfaring stranger": song lyric: A POOR. More JOHNNY CASH ?
3. More than just into: NUTS ABOUT. Now in trying to teach anyone English, imagine explaining the many uses of the word NUTS, which can be so good, so mean, so yummy and so confusing. And the accompanying, 42D. More than ready: EAGER.
4. Indirect route: ESS. Our old friend the ess curve, wound its way back.
5. Earhart of the air: AMELIA. Well, we blessed bloggers of CC's domain, seem to always have at least one clue that fits the writer, and if you examine my latest avatar, you will see my brand new grand niece, AMELIA, born on Tuesday. How does Rich do that? I thought Amy Adams was a cute one, btw.
6. Sole order: FILET. Yes, please, no bones about it.
7. Door fastener: LATCH. I will always think of the controversy about the KIDS . We never locked the house, so it was not meaningful for us.
8. Scarfed up: ATE. makes it sound so yummy.
9. Frequent Martha's Vineyard arrival: CAR FERRY. If only Teddy had taken the ferry. There are bad jokes about the other ferries on cape cod, but they are only meant to amuse.
10. Is, when simplified: BOILS DOWN TO. Does the word convoluted come to mind? I really like this clue, but it took some serious unwinding to figure where he was headed.
11. "Sleepy Hollow" actress: RICCI. Little Wednesday from the Addams Family all GROWED UP .
12. Olds that replaced the Achieva: ALERO, if they sold as many as we see in puzzles, they might still be in business.
13. Singer/songwriter born Robert Zimmerman: DYLAN. A shout out from Hibbings, Minnesota to all our frozen friends.
18. Spoke uncertainly: HAWED. In case you forgot so quickly, it's back.
23. Card game with a pre-victory warning: UNO. I am sorry, but my family played SKIP-BO more.
25. Stays afloat, in a way: TREADS WATER. I really like this one.
26. Fateful card: TAROT. My youngest started reading them when he was 10, influenced by another boys mother, but that is another story.
29. MS. enclosure: SAE, I guess they ran out of stamps.
30. Operations ctrs.: HQS, headquarters, very military.
31. Diner option: BOOTH, would you like a table or a clean spoon?
32. __ Dhabi: ABU. The capital of the UAE, and one of the richest cities in the world, but the name means father of gazelles. If you have that much oil money, don't you think you could pick a better name?
34. Incriminating record, maybe: VIDEO TAPE. CSI has taught us to look out for all those cameras watching s everywhere.
35. Foofaraw: ADO. Wow, never heard of this really sweet word, I wish it were the fill, not the clue.
36. Kareem, at UCLA: LEW, Abdul-Jabbar back when he was an Alcindor.
38. Competitive missile hurlers: DART TEAM. In the Nero Wolfe series, the notoriously sedentary and fat, main character took up throwing darts as part of his exercise routine to prepare for world war two. That was the first time I heard darts called missiles; some funny scenes with Archie. And our near clecho, 46D. Missile-shooting god: CUPID.
44. German article: EIN. One.
45. Big name in tea: TETLEY. Were you LIPTON or TETLEY as a kid?
47. Make restitution: ATONE. A good clue for a nice Jewish boy like me.
48. "Ta-da!": THERE. I wish he had saved this for last and I could use to set up my exit line.
49. Town on the Firth of Clyde: TROON. Well, for GAH and the many golf addicts, this was a gimme, because this town is site of Royal Troon, one of the courses used to host the Open Championship, and where Arnold Palmer won his second Open title in 1962. revitalizing european golf, just as he had american golf.
50. Emulate Scrooge: HOARD. Why do I think of Scrooge McDuck, not the Dickens character?
51. Playground retort: DID SO. DID NOT!
52. Watch from the trees, say: SPY ON, a favorite of stalkers of all ages.
58. Feature of a two-ltr. monogram: NMI, no middle initial; just lazy parents.
59. "The Gold-Bug" monogram: EAP. Baltimore's own Edgar Allen Poe; I guess the flowers will be no more, like Marilyn, the vigil is over.
Well that was fun; sadly after getting half finished I sneezed and erased all of my work, so it was an Emily Litella time for me. Thanks Don and have a fine week end all.
Lemonade
Note from Don G:
"No Ugh
I could have called this DONUT HOLE, because at some point in history someone got lazy and left out the UGH in DOUGHNUT, thus the hole. That thought started me on this theme, although DONUT HOLE as a theme answer got lost in the process. I remember having difficulty at one point in the construction process and mistakenly used the word TOUGH or ROUGH going down. That is a nono, because strictly speaking it breaks the rule of the theme. After all, we don’t want to confuse the solver. Lastly, since there is no UGH, I suppose the puzzle doesn’t stink! I knew someone of you would have thought of that angle."
