Joanne Sullivan’s Wall Street Journal crossword, “Name Dropping”—Jim’s review
Theme answers are words and phrases that alternate the letters of a man’s name with other words or initialisms. Drop the name to satisfy the clue. The unified words and phrases are still valid (though unclued) crossword entries. The revealer is ODD MAN OUT (35a, [Method used to eliminate the parenthetical descriptions from the answers]).
Wall St Journal crossword solution · “Name Dropping” · Joanne Sullivan · Thu., 12.19.24
- 14a. 1986 horror novel (writer Tolstoy)] LIE TO. Remove LEO to get IT, the Stephen King book.
- 27a. Bank deposit (poker legend Ungar)] SO TRUE. Remove STU to get ORE.
- 28a. Jaguar, Ram or Charger (QB Manning)] ECLAIR. Remove ELI to get CAR.
- 48a. The hour after midnight (comedian Gaffigan)]. JOIN ME. Remove JIM to get ONE.
- 49a. Latest thing (media pro Fleischer)]. AFRAID. Remove ARI to get FAD.
- 62a. Health-care pro (actor Danson)]. TREND. Remove TED to get R.N.
- 6d. Commercial (director Ritchie)]. GAUDY. Remove GUY to get AD.
- 29d. Afterthought (Texas patriot Houston)]. SPASM. Remove SAM to get P.S.
- 51d. Meditation chant (singer Orbison)]. ROOMY. Remove ROY to get OM.
Great theme! As you’d expect, I was perplexed at first and floundered around in the top half for a while, until I manhandled (haha) LIE TO and broke it apart to get the two answers. Fun aha moment! It wasn’t until after that that I got to the revealer and appreciated the full theme with the names appearing in the odd letters. Nicely done!
I do wish there was at least one or two longer entries to enjoy and I’m not a huge fan of the ones that leave only two letters as the answer to the clue, especially the initialisms R.N. and P.S. But I realize that it must have been a chore to try and find even these entries, and that trying to find anything longer upped the difficulty for the constructor at an exponential rate. So overall, I’m quite satisfied with a beguiling theme even if some of the entries are shortish.
Fill highlights include “PLEASE DO,” DEAD HEAT, DARK DAY, CHIN-UPS, and CLAM DIP. There are a number of women’s name in the fill—ILSA, BEVERLY, ROSALIA, Mia HAMM, Jean AUEL—but I’m glad to see no other men’s names, given the theme. That can’t have been an accident.
Clues of note:
- 4d. [Stopped the bellyaching?]. ATE. Ha! Good clue.
- 12d. [Elbow-benders’ activity at bars]. CHIN-UPS. I thought this clue needed a question mark because it was about drinking, but now I realize it is in fact about exercise.
- 30d. [Resident of Equestria]. PONY. From My Little Pony in case you were wondering.
Good puzzle. 3.75 stars.
Brandon Koppy’s New York Times crossword — Zachary David Levy’s write-up
Difficulty: Average (9m36s)
Brandon Koppy’s New York Times crossword, 12/19/24, 1219
Today’s theme: SCREEN / SHARES (With 45-Down, displays during an online presentation … or a hint to three pairs of answers in this puzzle)
- TUNNEL / VISION
- TAYLORS / VERSION
- TERMINAL / VELOCITY
The diagonal march of the TV rebus squares has a pleasing symmetry to it (and in fact, the puzzle itself features diagonal symmetry, apropos of perpendicular theme pairs of equal length.) This type of symmetry also gives you a free pass vis-a-vis the cheater vignetting — don’t ask me why, but the visual just strikes me as a lot less obtrusive. Speaking of free passes, I also have no problem with GESTATE ESTATE.. something about the pairing goes beyond dupe territory, like breaking the fourth wall of fill, wink wink, here’s the same string twice, what are you going to do about it?
Cracking: SIN CITY, which is so close to being SimCity, and also its own thing. What a country!
Slacking: PRSTUNT, seven letters, one vowel, starting with PRST, really forces you to look twice at those crossings.
Sidetracking: ECHIDNAS
ZDL: What pray tell is “the cheater vignetting”? Is it where you place cheater squares in a puzzle?
I did ask google, and got this “A cheater vignette is a fictional scenario that can be used to study cheating behavior.”
Totally struggled with the SE corner of the NYT. I was trying to find another T—V— phrase like the other three areas, and that just threw me off. Didn’t help that I had SEE ALSO instead of SEE CITE and so I decided that Mount Vernon and Monticello must be not just presidential homes but also types of POTATO.
Also never heard of SCO-way or AND ONE.
I eventually figured it all out.
Never heard of SCO-Way either, and Googling didn’t help. “And One” I did know, but “ohfers” was new to me, although I’ve listened to and watched baseball since the Dodgers moved to Los Angeles.