Theme: Pluralised Apostrophe Mayhem
18A. "Gotta hit the hay" : I NEED SOME Z's
23A. Elementary school fundamentals : THE THREE R's
37A. Mom's behavior warning : MIND YOUR P's AND Q's
49A. Marks to brag about : STRAIGHT A's
57A. Canned pasta brand: SPAGHETTI O's
Oh goodness - Steve here and what a wonderful Wednesday to walk into. I've spent way more time than is good for me wondering how to punctuate today's theme entries to the point of downloading the style guides for the New York Times, the Chicago Tribune, the Washington Post and the (UK) Guardian. I'm none the wiser, so I'm going with my own instinct and I'll take the knocks if I'm wrong. Thanks to Jeff for a fun puzzle and a head-scratcher of how to write it up!
Across:
1. Stir-fry additive : MSG. Monosodium Glutamate. Sounds nasty, but it's all natural - distilled soybeans. I use a lot of it. Food!
4. [frog lands in pond] : PLOP [big smile]
8. Remote control battery : AA CELL [small frown]
14. Baba of folklore : ALI. He of the magic phrase and 40 thieves.
15. Bindle carrier : HOBO. So funny - I looked on Wikipedia last night for the definition of a "duffel bag" that I used to carry my stuff to school in back in England, and there was a link to other bags - including the bindle. Awesome.
16. "Zip your lip!" : STOW IT! I think there might have been a derogatory noun after the STOW IT command. We have military readers of this blog who can confirm.
17. Diarist Anaïs : NIN
20. Future snakes, perhaps : EGGS. Hmmm
22. Regards highly : ESTEEM. I loved this. I've not seen the verb form before. Do we ever use it?
25. Cut from the same cloth : AKIN
29. Lemon and lime : TREES. OK, I guess they are. Grade: D-
30. Swift means of attack? : SATIRE. Jonathan Swift. Super, super clue and answer. Grate: A++. Made up for 29A
32. Put into words : SAY
33. Poe's "ungainly fowl" : RAVEN. I wanted CHICKEN or TURKEY. Ravens don't seem so ungainly to me. Maybe Poe had some drunken ones.
36. D.C. athlete : NAT. A Washington National baseball player. C.C., much more expert in these matters than I, might explain why the Nats just shut down their best pitcher going into the post-season when all he'd done was win games.(From C.C.: Wiki has a good explanation. In short: "It's a good conversational piece, it's a good debatable subject. But
most of the people that have weighed in on this know probably 10 percent
of the information that we know, and that we've made our opinion based
upon.")
41. __ of Good Feelings : ERA. Being a Notre Dame fan, I prefer Ara of Good Feelings - a national championship with Parsegian.
42. Gives the heave-ho : OUSTS
43. Rap's __ Wayne : LI'L. Apostrophe-challenge again. With or without?
44. With-the-grain woodworking technique : RIPCUT. Now, this is odd. I learned at rip-cut was across the grain, that's why the wood rips. UK- USA difference again?
46. Theater sections : LOGES
48. Canadian pump sign : ESSO. Funny how Standard Oil of Texas became Canadian (or UK) with ESSO.
54. "Why bother?" : NO POINT
56. Color property : TONE
61. "Characters welcome" network : USA
62. Receive, as a radio signal : TUNE IN
63. South American country at 0 degrees lat. : ECUA. Ouch. Way to wait until the end of the clue for an abbreviation hint and then arbitrarily lop off the last three letters.
64. Looney Tunes collectible : CEL
65. Structural threat for many a house : DRY ROT
66. Gels : SETS
67. Towel lettering : HIS
Down:
1. "The Balcony" painter : MANET. Do you think Monet and Manet used to high-cinq and discuss how confused art collectors would be a hundred years hence?
Manet:
Monet:
2. Insult : SLIGHT
3. Cookies with a bite : GINGER SNAPS
4. Chi preceder : PHI. Hand up for TAI. Took me a while to fix that.
5. Solitary sorts : LONERS
6. Beyond zaftig : OBESE. Zaftig should be enshrined in the Awesome Words Hall of Fame.
7. Baudelaire, par exemple : POETE. Bein sur
8. Evaluates : ASSESSES
9. Quark's locale : ATOM. Not so fast - doesn't a quark also appear a zillion miles away from it's original location pretty well instantanously? Or is that some other particle? I'm confused.
10. Global networking pioneer : COMSAT
11. Girl in a pasture : EWE. Dejeuner sur l'herbe. Got a nice theme working here :)
12. Gossipy Smith : LIZ
13. OCS grads, usually : LT's Another apostrophe challenge! We know Officer Candidate School graduates are Lieutenants, but are they LTs or LT's?
19. "__ Rosenkavalier" : DER
21. Bed or home ending : STEAD
24. "Over here!" : HEY YOU
26. Reader with a sensitive screen : KINDLE TOUCH. Aw. So cute!
27. Modern site of Mesopotamia : IRAQ. "Site" seems a little small for an entire country, and the birthplace of written language, but hey, I'm just Kindle-ly today.
28. Keeps after taxes : NETS. Don't get me started.
31. Like Big Ben : ANALOG. Ahhh - now, the clock is analog, but it's the bell which is actually called Big Ben, so not a really accurate clue/answer. I know, splitting hairs but ...
The clock is acually just "The clock" in St. Stephen's Tower ... you can't actually see Big Ben, it's inside the tower ...
33. Big chunk of Eur. : RUS. Funny, Russia used to be a big chunk of the United Soviet Socialist Republics. Not any more, it's European now.
34. Framed work : ART
35. No. twos : VP's Apostrophe for plural Vice Presidents as Number Twos or no?
37. Nothing more than : MERE. I always felt sorry for the majestic lakes in the UK which are "meres" and insprired wonderfu poetry - Windermere, Grasmere, Buttermere, Thirlmere. I never thought of them as "mere" puddles.
38. Eye part : IRIS
39. Surpassed in extravagance : OUTSPENT
40. Elie Wiesel work : NIGHT
45. Large eel : CONGER. I wanted MORAY and could not let it go, in spite of the fact it was one letter short and I already had the "E".
46. Took it on the lam : LIT OUT
47. Grandchild of Japanese immigrants : SANSEI. My Nisei friend would be mad that I wanted to spell this SENSEI and messed up "Straight E's" for quite some time
50. Little one : TOT
51. Traditional doings : RITES
52. "That has __ ring to it" : A NICE
53. Elite Navy group : SEALS
55. Kent State's home : OHIO. I wanted Kent. And kept wanting Kent. Finally - penny drops. Ohhhhhh - O-High-Oh. I'm a dummy.
57. Norm: Abbr. : STD
58. Water filter brand : PUR
59. Whichever : ANY
60. Airline to Oslo : SAS Scandinavian Air Services. I flew them many years ago between London and Stockholm. Very pleasant.
Well, that's it from me. I have no idea if I've incurred the ire of the apostrophe police, or if I was having a good day. Enjoy yours!
Note from C.C.:
Happy Birthday to Dennis. Hope it's your best one yet.
