Wednesday, September 26th 2012 Jeffrey Wechsler

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.

Answer grid.

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.

Tuesday, September 25, 2012 Kurt Mueller

Theme: "Bad girls, bad girls, whatcha gonna do when they come for you."

17A. 31/42-Across in a 1967 Dustin Hoffman film : MRS. ROBINSON

 

 

23A. 31/42-Across in a Ken Kesey novel : NURSE RATCHED

 

 

51A. 31/42-Across in a 1961 Disney animated film : CRUELLA DE VIL

 

 

64A. 31/42-Across in a Shakespeare tragedy : LADY MACBETH

 

 

31A. With 42-Across, a 1975 hit for 41-Across : EVIL and 42A. See 31-Across : WOMAN

 

 

41A. Rock gp. known for its symphonic sound : ELO. (Electric Light Orchestra)


Argyle here. A nice change of pace for the theme today. I'd say more but I have some evil women to round up.

Across:

1. Spell starter : ABRA. (Abracadabra)

5. Scours : SCRUBS

11. "Viva __ Vegas!" : LAS

14. Roller coaster feature : LOOP. Hands up for you daring individuals who have ridden a loop coaster.

15. Muscat natives : OMANIs. Muscat is the capital of Oman.

16. Blow away : AWE

19. Detroit labor org. : UAW. (United Auto Workers)

20. "Volunteers?" : "ANY ONE?"

21. Precious stone : GEM

22. Shrek, e.g. : OGRE

26. Director Craven : WES

29. Shar-__: wrinkly dog : PEI

30. Seashell seller : SHE. She sells seashells by the seashore. The shells she sells are surely seashells. So if she sells shells on the seashore, I'm sure she sells seashore shells.

33. Writes briefly (to) : DROPS A LINE

39. Neighbor of Chad : NIGER. Map.

43. Loving feelings : TENDERNESS

46. Like Granny Smith apples : TART

47. "Golly!" : "GEE!"

48. Looney Tunes dynamo, familiarly : TAZ

50. Injection amts. : CC's

57. Man around the Haus : HERR. German.

58. Actress Lupino : IDA

59. Win the heart of : ENAMOR

63. Batting stat. : AVG.

66. Take to court : SUE. For selling sea shells without a license.

67. Necessarily involve : ENTAIL

68. Suffix with switch : EROO

69. Septiembre, por ejemplo : MES. Spanish "month".

70. Without a musical key : ATONAL

71. On sale, say : LESS. This seems a little odd.

Down:

1. __ mater : ALMA

2. Brought into existence : BORN

3. Like a good outlook : ROSY

4. It may have strings attached : APRON. Cool.

5. Put all kidding aside : SOBERED

6. Roman 901 : CMI

7. Mountain chain : RANGE

8. Indy great Al : UNSER

9. Organic matter used for fuel : BIOMASS

10. Payroll ID : SSN

11. Cackle or chuckle : LAUGH

12. Clued in : AWARE

13. Put in stitches : SEWED

18. "Movin' __": "The Jeffersons" theme : ON UP. Closing theme. Much jazzier than the opening.

22. Spotted wildcat : OCELOT. What would you do if you spotted a wildcat?

24. Police car warning : SIREN

25. Winter warmer of a sort : THAW

26. "They __ thataway!" : WENT. From the old oaters.

27. Singer/songwriter Sands : EVIE. Poor quality but interesting video.(4:08) Wiki entry.

28. Omen : SIGN

32. Bookkeeper's book : LEDGER

34. Corrida cheer : ¡OLÉ!

35. Madame's mail : POSTE. French.

36. 14-year-old Apple : iMAC

37. Drug cop : NARC

38. Sinusitis docs : ENT's. (ear, nose, and throat)

40. Movie roll : REEL. Outdated.

44. Dependent : RELIANT

45. Receptacle for preventing waste : SAVE-ALL. I am unclear on what this is. Anyone with personal experience that would like to weigh in on it, please do.

49. Metal in pennies : ZINC. Thin veneer of copper.

51. Deep fissure : CHASM

52. Song-and-dance program : REVUE. Another outdated.

53. Impulses : URGES

54. Supplement : ADD TO

55. Six-Day War leader Moshe : DAYAN

56. Clothing tag : LABEL

60. Piddling : MERE

61. Midwest Native Americans : OTOs. Without the E this time.

62. P's on sorority sweaters : RHOs

64. Meadow : LEA

65. Jane Eyre portrayer Wasikowska : MIA. Image.

Answer grid.

Argyle