The Fireball is on summer vacation.
David W. Tuffs’s Wall Street Journal crossword, “Two of a Kind”—Jim’s review
Theme answers are words or phrases the are actually comprised of two things that are related to each other but not the overall word or phrase. Circles help to separate each pair of items within an entry.
Wall St Journal crossword solution · “Two of a Kind” · David W. Tuffs · Thu., 8.29.24
- 17a. [Bloc (made from two mammals)] COALITION. Coati, lion.
- 25a. [Made a Sunday delivery (made from two colors)] PREACHED. Peach, red.
- 36a. [Bathroom brand (made from two body parts)] CHARMIN. Chin, arm.
- 39a. [Monopoly token choice (made from two electronics companies)] RACE CAR. RCA, Acer.
- 47a. [Pressured (made from two elements)] LEANED ON. Lead, neon.
- 58a. [Banned (made from two presidents)] FORBIDDEN. Ford, Biden.
Neat theme! I love the fact that the component words are related to each other but not the theme entry, making the title perfectly apt. I’m partial to the longer entries that don’t rely on suffixes to get the job done (the first and last entries are great), but it’s all good. I wonder if there was an even longer entry (10 or more letters) that David came up with. These must have taken a long time to find!
“I CALLED IT!” and DRACONIAN are wonderful long fill entries, with POP SCENE, SNOW PEA, WET BAR, and “BE NICE!” adding to the fun. Conversely, I’m never a fan of ONEL and “OH HI!” I have to give the side-eye to GOOFUS which seems less common than “doofus”. If a solver doesn’t know the book ERAGON, then that G might be a problem
Clues of note:
- 4a [Muscular jerk?]. SPASM. Cute clue. See also 12d [Branch of the United Nations?] for OLIVE.
- 23a [Closer’s goal]. SAVE. I went with SALE first but knew that SAVE was a possibility. The crossing OLIVE cleared it up.
Lovely puzzle. Four stars.
Simeon Seigel’s New York Times crossword — Zachary David Levy’s write-up
Difficulty: Easy (9m14s)
Simeon Seigel’s New York Times crossword, 8/29/24, 0829
Today’s theme: FOLLOW DIRECTIONS (What one must do using the circled letters to solve this puzzle)
- MI(NOR TH)IRD
- IK(EA ST)ORE
- SO WHERE DO (WE ST)AND
- HOLD(S OUT H)OPE
I can certainly FOLLOW DIRECTIONS, so much so that I am now barely capable of driving to and from work anymore without resorting to Google Maps. I used to carry a clumsily folded map of rural Pennsylvania in my glove compartment. To quote Moana, “We were voyagers! WE WERE VOYAGERS!!!”
Cracking: SUGAR MOMMA
Slacking: Erstwhile ERSE, save for the clue (Skye writing?), so the honor now goes to Ars longa, vita STOLIS
Sidetracking: ZOOT Suit Riot
Micah Sommersmith’s LA Times crossword – Gareth’s summary
LA Times
240829
Letter addition themes are nearly endless in scope, so it’s more common to find them in a Sunday puzzle. Today, Micah Sommersmith gives us three examples of “add I”. The best parts about today’s iteration are the clever revealing answer: MAY>I<CUTIN and the interesting ways the I’s are inserted:
- [Accumulation on neglected steps?], STA{I}RDUST
- [Institute for invective?], T{I}RADESCHOOL
- [Shop selling more groanworthy gag gifts?], CORN{I}ERSTORE
Leaving you with: [“The Music Man” setting], IOWA
Gareth
Matthew Stock’s USA Today Crossword, “Water Signs” — Emily’s write-up
Though not labelled as such in the app, as they usually are, today’s puzzle is a freestyle (as noted by Sally).
USA Today, August 29, 2024, “Water Signs” by Matthew Stock
Though no theme, there is a trend in water related fill with GRANDCANAL, STAYHYDRATED, RIVERFRONT, WETBAR, SURF, and STORMS.
Favorite fill: RENTALCARS, NEOBOP, RIFF, and CHAI
Stumpers: CATAN (only been playing the dice version lately), TANGER (“toucan” and “parrot” came to mind), and RACEWALK (needed a few crossings)
A tougher puzzle for me today. The cluing was trickier throughout so I found it more difficult to break into the puzzle but slowly I made my way through and overall it was very enjoyable. Fun entries, but some I didn’t know so it took me longer. How did you all do?
4.0 stars
~Emily
NYT: A very perfectly Thursday Thursday today, with a cute theme (that wasn’t very challenging to grok) and lots of fine and tricky clues, making for a longer-than-average solve for me. (The longer I’m trying to solve it as fast as I can, the more fun it is.)
I don’t think there are many who agree with this, but: I wish the NYT crosswords would expand our vocabularies — not merely our knowledge of pop trivia — by occasionally including interesting words that are on or just beyond the fringes of most people’s vocabularies.
Doing NYT puzzles one might erroneously conclude that EDUCE is the only possible word in this category.
I agree. The NYT used to be the standard. Now it is just another mainstream xword that wants to attract youth. Good for them, bad for people who miss a true brain workout. I was actually surprised “educe” was used & expected many to whine about it. Read a book.
The NYT was always dense with pop culture trivia. Pull up a puzzle from the 80s and it’ll be lousy with UTA Hagen and ENOS Slaughter and every proper name will be clued with a character actor from the 50s.
NYT: Just a wonderful Thursday puzzle with an aha moment that put a smile on my face. I got the revealer quickly, but it took me a while to figure out the circles. Since I solve the old fashioned way (pencil and printed out puzzle), I had to really work to “squish” the spelled out N, E, S and W into the circles 😎
Even with Across Lite it was not easy to see the “squished” entries. Once again, the mechanics of filling the puzzle distracted from the fun. KISS!
WSJ: Such a cool and fresh theme today. Loved it and can’t imagine the work it took to identify the themers. I agree with Jim’s comment about GOOFUS, which certainly was not in my lexicon, but the crossing prevented me from locking in the more common DOOFUS. Overall really nice work here, David!
I was never a huge fan of Highlights magazine, but I remember the Goofus and Gallant morality tales depicted there, so I was ready to accept that answer.
Me, too. I was thinking of that rather than a possible alternative to “doofus” in the language.
+1, amazing theme
Unlike ZDL, I found the NYT really hard. Not so much discovering the theme, which I loved, although it took thought. But a lot of the fill just isn’t in my ballpark, like CRUSHED ON, ESPORT, ZOE SALDANA, HEMIS, SUGAR MAMMA, or the punning clue for AFB. Maybe another one of the times when I’m getting old.
NYT: Loved this puzzle! Loved that the “directions” were correctly placed relative to each other, which wasn’t necessary for the theme, and I’m sure made constructing this puzzle much more complex. Loved ZOE SALDANA and ZOROASTER as neighbors in the southeast! Rolled my eyes just a little bit at TOGAE. Overall an excellent Thursday.
Outage tonight.
Pacific Gas and Electric is having a power-line tree trimming festival tonight, through tomorrow morning. They need to cut power for thousands of people to accomplish this.
I really can’t predict what’s going to happen. Hopefully they won’t burn the city down. But there will likely be an outage for the WSJ, UC, WaPo and Jonesin’ puzzles for some time tonight.
Thanks for the heads-up, Martin.
Ok so I didn’t like NYT today. Okra is already plural. Drowse is not really intermittent sleep but more a lazy bobbing of the head. Togae is a real stretch. And if you are going to be turning a corner in a single answer based on a direction, it sure oughta be in the direction of that direction. To helter-skelter for my taste. Tes I unsterstand the north was to the north of the puzzle etc., but nor by much and that was just irritating.
Okras is an accepted word. I’d use it according to the “trout rule” (2 rainbows are trout but one rainbow and one brook are trouts). So I’d probably say “fried okra,” but “many varieties of okras.”
In Greece, I learned okra is “bamies.” I also learned that it’s spelled μπάμιες. The digraph mu-pi is how you indicate the sound of “B” in modern Greek. Sheesh. Talk about embarrassing yourself.
Beta isn’t “beta.” It’s “veta.” No hint of B. That’s what μπ is for. Travel and learn.
Fascinating, and thanks to Martin and Susan both. If it helps, neither of my usual standards as dictionaries, MW11C or RUD, gives a specific plural, which they always do when it’s not just “add an S” (or ES). They both, say, have “fish or fishes,” one with an explicit call-out to Martin’s distinction between number and kinds. So I’ll accept the entry, regardless of my ear. And yes, TOGAE is not so appealing.
I agree on TOGAE – I suppose it’s legit, but it sure is ugly.
Not clear about your comment on the turns the rebus entries take. I thought they were all directionally correct.
Is Susan Sterling your stage name? It’s wonderful.
Do you ever review the BEQ puzzles? I love them.
WSJ – what was the point? just so you could prove you could make one word from two words of the same type?