“Come to an End” by Harvey Estes – untimed
Hi all. Jeffrey here with this week’s Wall Street Journal crossword by Harvey Estes.
Theme – “Come to an end” – “AN” is added to the end of one (or two) of the words in the theme answers, to create new wacky phrases.
Theme answers:
23A. [Malicious age group?] – MEAN GENERATION. The MEAN GENERATION is the one that spent all of the next generation’s money.
40A. [Started diverging?] – BEGAN TO DIFFER
46A. [Ecstatic Peggy?] – HIGH NOONAN. I don’t know who Peggy Noonan is. [checking…] She is a columnist in the Wall Street Journal. That‘s the paper with the weekly crossword right? Someone should blog about that puzzle.
70A. [Angry pitcher’s choice?] – TO BEAN OR NOT TO BEAN. Double-AN action. The Mean Generation would bean.
90A. [Meeting place for the smart set?] – ACPT lobby. Or MENSAN ROOM.
98A. [Get folks to give stuff up?] – WEAN THE PEOPLE
121A. [Einstein, regarding relativity?] – GERMAN OF AN IDEA. Ok, time out. Two ANs here but only one has been added. Must break some rule in the Crossword Constructors Rule Book and Handy Guide to Fun-ness. Am I right?
If Peggy Noonan and Einstein entered a Mensan room, how long before they began to differ?
Other stuff:
20A. [Hit country album of 1988] – REBA
28A. [Grammy-winning parody of 1984] – EAT IT Don’t want no Cap’n Crunch , Don’t want no Raisin Bran…
34A. [Butterfly, e.g.] – MADAME crossing 35D. [Palindromic address] – MA’AM – Ok, this definitely breaks a rule in the Crossword Constructors Rule Book and Handy Guide to Fun-ness.
45A. [“Unbelievable” band] – EMF
54A. [Lingerie item] – BRA/58A. [Lingerie fabric] – TRICOT. Ok, where are we heading now?
60A. [Medieval musician] – MINSTREL
64A. [Matisse, Rousseau or Toulouse-Lautrec] – HENRI. Also the “Pocket Rocket” Richard.
95A. [Patron of Alice’s Restaurant] – ARLO
129A. [Cause of some shaking] – DEAL
130A. [“Hold everything!”] – STOP. No DEAL!
131A. [Since, on New Year’s Eve] – SYNE
12D. [She played Amy’s mother on “Judging Amy”] – TYNE. I never judge Amy. It’s her site.
48D. [Guest at a synagogue] – GENTILE. Please wear a kippah.
63D. [Wall Street figure] – TRADER. And we’re back on Wall Street.
112D. [Washington, for one] – STATE. I can see Washington state out my window. Can’t see Russia though. Or Wall Street.
peggy noonan may be a columnist now, but she gained fame as a reagan speechwriter. i didn’t notice the MAAM/MADAME thing. i had SLATE for STARE for a long time; i wonder if that was a deliberate trap.
Thank you for not judging me, Jeffrey.
I didn’t notice the problematic bits you did, but then I did the puzzle last night after a beer so it shouldn’t be too surprising.
7:17 finish for me, so on the easier end of the WSJ spectrum.
Well I got stuck with four wrong letters – I felt sure that [Salt] was SEAsOn, which gave me nOsE IN (which doesn’t even match tense o.O) instead of GONE IN. And I had seen EgEsT before somewhere, so I went with it. sErILS made no sense, but I know very little about hockey.
Just now figured out why DEAL is a [Cause of some (hand)shaking]. Got it.
I found this one hard to break into – judge away!
My only wiggy fill was SEAMAN which I had to change to the canine. The rest came painlessly so is this our new ENA clue, I’m not impressed. Reporting in ORIANA and Peggy.
107 down should be “has” entered or “had” entered if answer is gone in.
no, “had entered” is equivalent to “had GONE IN,” which means “entered” is equivalent to GONE IN there. “entered” could also clue WENT IN, without the “had,” but that just means the clue is ambiguous, not wrong.