Note: Fireball is a contest this week. We will have a review after the entry period closes.
Trip Payne’s Wall Street Journal crossword, “Mixed Foursomes”—Jim P’s review
Take a phrase that contains a four-letter word (but not that kind of four-letter word) which can be anagrammed to a common initialism. Put that initialism in the grid, clue it wackily, and you have our theme today.
Wall St Journal crossword solution · “Mixed Foursomes” · Trip Payne · Thu., 11.5.20
- 17a. [Comment to a student about algebra, reading, grammar, etc.?] IT’S ALL IN THE PSAT. …past.
- 30a. [Letter carriers who have to hike along their routes?] USPS IN BOOTS. Puss… My favorite of the set.
- 40a. [Hiding an antifur group?] MASKING PETA. …tape.
- 54a. [Paper that proves the weekend is welcome?] TGIF CERTIFICATE. Gift…
Cute. I got hung up on that first one because I thought it was playing off the phrase “It’s all in the wrist,” but the second answer cleared things up quickly. Some people object to anagrams in a crossword, but I don’t mind, especially when they’re on the shorter side and it’s obvious what they were originally, like in this grid.
POLI SCI, “GOT MILK?”, and MAIL CAR top the fill today. STEP-INS [Moccasins, e.g.] was hard for me to parse, especially since I would normally refer to them as “slip-ons.” KAPUT is always fun, as is KNISH, and I liked seeing LOUIS / PRIMA [“Jump, Jive an’ Wail” singer], even though he’s cross-referenced.
Speaking of Mr. PRIMA, I will always know him as the singer of “Señor Santa Claus.” Back when my sister and I were little kids (1973-ish), that was one of the first records we owned, and we sang along to it countless times. Of course, being kids, it got knocked around a lot and ended up with all kinds of scratches. But that didn’t bother us; it added to the charm. We knew every scratch and skip in the song and memorized it that way. Hearing the song now—without the scratches—is super weird for me, but I still love it (despite the fact that yes, it’s admittedly racist).
Clues of note:
- 14a. [Two-ton beast]. HIPPO. Anyone go with RHINO first?
- 49a. [2015 title role for Cate]. CAROL. The film was simply titled CAROL and I’m not at all familiar with it.
- 1d. [Dental : tooth :: mental : ___]. CHIN. Wha-huh? Apparently, the Latin word for CHIN is mentum. Thanks, Caesar.
- 7d. [Zimmer with 11 Oscar nominations]. HANS. He won one Oscar for The Lion King.
- 12d. [Take out of context?]. ERASE. Ooh, I like that one.
- 23d. [Game with a common “Australia strategy”]. RISK. Fun clue. Because the continent of Australia has only one connecting point (via Siam) on the board, it’s relatively easy to hold onto it and start racking up the armies.
Nice grid. 3.8 stars.
Jeremy Newton’s New York Times crossword—Ben’s review
I blame *waves hands in the general direction of everything from the last few days of 2020* for why I didn’t pick up what today’s NYT was putting down more quickly. Let’s explain it in reverse again:
39A: Symbol formed by four crossings in this puzzle — HASHTAG
Four squares in this puzzle can be replaced by the HASHTAG symbol (#) in the grid, interpreted as an = going across, and II going down:
NYT #1104 – 11/04/2020
- 17A: Translation of the Latin phrase “ceteris paribus” — ALL THINGS BEING =
- 13D: Traveling between the poles? — SK(II)NG
- 27A: Doctrine that was found unconstitutional in Brown v. Board of Education — SEPARATE BUT =
- 26D: Kristen formerly of “S.N.L.” — W(II)G
- 46A: Fair for everybody — = OPPORTUNITY
- 43D: Some Nintendo consoles — W(II)S
- 61A: Organized effort for justice under the law — = RIGHTS MOVEMENT
- 49D: Branch of Islam — SH(II)SM
I caught that something was going on with the downs (an SNL Kristen is only going to be WIIG, but with three squares, something had to be doubled up. I couldn’t see how an answer could end in a double-I, so I kept trying to make WI squares work in the grid. Apparently I had Wisconsin on the brain. Even once I figured out that the across squares were equals signs, I somehow couldn’t mentally superimpose the symbols on top of one another to get the hashtag/pound sign.
45A: Bluesy Redding — OTIS
Happy Thursday! The end of the week draws close.
Jerry Edelstein’s LA Times crossword—Ben’s review
LA Times
101105
I don’t quite get how JACKSPRAT works as a revealer. Counting it as just another themer makes more sense to me. Five answers’ second parts are words using the same five letters: STRAP, TARPS, PARTS, TRAPS, SPRAT. Not a lot of great entries with TARPS, it must be said.
Tricky parts:
- [Toaster, often], EMCEE. As in one who toasts, not the appliance.
- [Taj Mahal location], ASIA. We all reflexively answer AGRA at this point.
- [Cause of disgrace], OPPROBRIUM. I struggled mightily to spell this, to my chagrin.
Could really do without: ADROP and APIN in one puzzle.
Gareth
LAT has been super neg-baity this week, with overly specific clues for generic entries. Monday, we had [Fla. summer hrs] = DST instead of EDT; today we have [Taj Mahal location] = ASIA instead of AGRA. Can’t wait to see [Home of the Art Gallery of Western Australia] = EARTH. /s
And the revealer makes absolutely no sense.
NYT: shame that the website (for me) didn’t accept # as an input (used =), but easy enough to visualise. nice range of double-I words!
nor for me, we do love mr happy pencil
NYT: loved 44A: Thank you for waiting = tip :) . Best clue of the day!
I couldn’t get the rebus squares to accept = sign, and it marked #, ii or II as wrong. Only thing I got to work in Acrosslite was the word “equal” . Guess I shouldn’t obsess about getting Happy Pencil, the word equal doesn’t work both ways obviously.
So I’m not the only one who felt the NYT (.puz) not accepting # to be perverse, especially as the revealer explicitly points to it.
I agree. I started off by putting II in those squares, but when I came to the revealer I though, oh, I’m supposed to put a hashtag in them. So I did, to no avail.
Also, can someone explain why “What takes a toll?” is ONEAM?
a toll… one toll on a grandfather clock or Big Ben… one a.m. (or p.m. on most) Maybe it’s a nautical thing like “three bells” or something?
hmm, that seems a little too Stumper-adjacent for a Thursday NYT :)
BEQ – SPOILER
The title points you in the right direction, but going to far was not out in the margins. Instead it was into the black squares. Perfectly. Every black square has exactly one letter that should go in it. I suppose it’s too much to hope for that the letters in the black squares spell something? At least I didn’t see any intelligible way to arrange them. I liked this theme. Especially as I was able to use the fact of exactly one letter per square to help solve the puzzle.
According to the note, “When the puzzle is done, all the gray squares will have been used exactly once, and the letters in them (reading left to right, line by line) will spell a quote by Sun Tzu.”
I didn’t bother today. Can’t use AcrossLite to fill in the “gray (i.e. black)” squares and I turned off my printer for a while. I usually enjoy the BEQ’s, but not getting paid enough for that much work.
Thank you marciem! I always do the PDF version. Usually I read Brendan’s blurb under the puzzle, but I didn’t today. Oops.
Plant all the seeds you can – they will grow in ways you may not expect, and you will be able to reap the harvest.
WSJ: Nice to see another puzzle from Trip. It has been a while. He used to be one of my favorite constructors. It took me forever to see the unscrambled word in 17 Across. The other themers came right away. 1 DOWN still seems strange to me. So many other ways this answer could be clued. Jim P: I still don’t quite understand your explanation for this. Could you try one more time? I guess it is not a surprise that I’ve never heard of this use of PLUS-ONE at 23 Across since I never go to social functions.
From m-w.com:
History and Etymology for mental
ᴀᴅᴊᴇᴄᴛɪᴠᴇ (1)
Middle English, from Late Latin mentalis, from Latin ment-, mens mind — more at MIND
ᴀᴅᴊᴇᴄᴛɪᴠᴇ (2)
Latin mentum chin — more at MOUTH — see MENTAL entry 1
From wikipedia: Mental nerve is a sensory nerve which provides sensation to the front of the chin and lower lip.
and this: https://www.researchgate.net/figure/Anatomy-and-innervation-of-the-mental-nerve-Notes-The-mental-nerve-is-a-branch-of-the_fig1_277080522
From that picture, it looks like what they give a shot into to numb the front teeth during dental (tooth) procedures.
From the latin.
I’ve been doing crosswords for at least 60 years, and the 1A clue/answer is the worst I’ve ever encountered. It really should be a felony, punishable with mandatory jail time (a week should be enough.)
Are you talking of the 1A in the WSJ? I don’t see a problem with it. The 1D can be problematic if you don’t know anatomy terms or latin.
Yes, 1D is what I meant. Doh.