MaryEllen Uthlaut
[Note: This is the syndicated L.A. Times puzzle. It does not appear in the actual newspaper, but is available for free at cruciverb.com.]
Theme: "English Lessons We Never Learned" — English class puns!
Theme Entries:
- 23A: Legal dispute over personal property? (POSSESSIVE CASE).
- 39A: Oratorical elements? (PARTS OF SPEECH).
- 52A: Santa's minor children? (DEPENDENT CLAUSES).
- 69A: Settlement negotiated by one's ancestors? (ANTECEDENT AGREEMENT).
- 88A: Part of a broken-up prison term? (SENTENCE FRAGMENT).
- 98A: Rosy answer in a seer's crystal ball? (FUTURE PERFECT).
- 120A: Philatelist or numismatist? (COLLECTIVE NOUN).
Bullets:
- 22A: Combat mission (SORTIE). This is a very un-military-sounding military word. "Shall we plan a sortie for this evening, fellows?"
- 28A: Film feline (ELSA). The lioness in "Born Free." I've never seen it.
- 31A: Rod's associate (REEL). The clue makes it sound like "Rod" is a person, so I was trying to think of a Rod Serling associate.
- 80A: Bourbon with a floral logo (FOUR ROSES). Never heard of this one. I'm not up on my bourbon brands. Here's the story: "The founder of Four Roses Bourbon became smitten by the beauty of a Southern belle. It is said that he sent a proposal to her, and she replied that if her answer were 'Yes,' she would wear a corsage of roses to the upcoming ball. When she arrived in her beautiful gown, she wore a corsage of four red roses. He later named his bourbon 'Four Roses' as a symbol of his devout passion for the lovely belle." Apparently he was too drunk to remember her name. And I bet she was wearing one rose and the guy was seeing double-double.
- 87A: James's creator (IAN). Bond, James Bond. Fleming, Ian Fleming.
- 97A: Reptilian warning (SSS). You know, "Sss..." could be a reptilian warning or a reptilian greeting or a reptilian swear word or a reptilian anything. When you're a snake, you don't have many vocalization options.
- 105A: Detective Wolfe (NERO). If you're a Nero Wolfe fan (and why wouldn't you be?), I hope you've watched the A&E "Nero Wolfe" series produced by and co-starring Timothy Hutton. It's the best book-to-screen adaptation I've ever seen. Satisfactory.
- 125A: Euripides play in which the title heroine never goes to Troy (HELEN). This sounds like a "Jeopardy!" answer. I like it.
- 2D: How the cheese stands? (CHEESE). Wow, this was a complete "what the bloody heck?" clue for me. Looks like it's a line from "The Farmer in the Dell." Do people know this? This song must not have been in my childhood repertoire, because none of the lyrics look familiar.
- 10D: 1977 Steely Dan album (AJA). The only Steely Dan fact you need to know, for crossword purposes. Aja was also the name of the guitarist from Jem and the Holograms, but I haven't seen that in a puzzle yet. Truly outrageous.
- 14D: Palace of the Ottoman sultans (TOPKAPI). Cool entry.
- 25D: Cognac initialism (VSOP). Very Special Old Pale. Did you ever notice that crosswords are full of booze clues?
- 79D: Ones sitting tight? (SOTS). "Tight" means drunk. *HIC*
- 90D: Medvedev's denial (NYET). That's a fun name to say, and it would work great in a palindrome. "No Medvedev demon." (That's lame, but you get the idea.)
- 118D: Subject of an annual Colorado brewing festival (MEAD). More booze. I'd rather have a flagon of mead than a glass of bourbon or the Very Special Old Pale stuff.
Crosswordese 101 Round-up:
5 comments:
I think you nailed this one Doug - super theme idea that just fell a little flat.
I'd hoped that they might revisit "Nero Wolfe" at some point. Sadly, Maury Chaykin died this summer. They were a great team. The DVD's are available at Netflix for those of you who missed it the first time around.
Interstate highway in Hawaii always makes me laugh. I assume it has something to do with procuring federal funds.
TRAG is just awful.
I thought this was a good, but not great puzzle. The solve was slow and steady for me, with no real spurts of victory but no real choke points.
I had NO idea that "the cheese stands alone" was from Farmer in the Dell. The phrase is enough in the language that I didn't hesitate to fill it in, but the source is a point of amazement. Thanks for that bright spot, Doug.
I didn't know that there was a Mead festival in CO, but why not. I've actually tried mead, and it can be very good. You might want to be sitting down though:-)
Very Nice puzzle.
Tough for me, but I eventually plodded through (without Googling) and got it 100% correct.
I always like themes that have a literay bent. While this one isn't exactly that, it's right up my alley. I agree with others who say the theme puns fell a little flat, but I'm still going to give MaryEllen a 4-star plus rating.
As soon as I saw "Bojangles specialty" (TAP), I just knew this would be fun.
Despite the straightforward cluing, my pencil ERASES a lot, and it all ENDED well.
My "duh" moment: tragedy (TRAG) for 68A. I disagree with @imsdave though... it's a perfectly legit abbreviation.
It's 60 degrees here today, so I'm happy to see the snow SEGUE out.
Have a pleasant Sunday y'all !
THE FARMER IN THE DELL IS BOTH A CHILDREN'S SONG AND A CIRCLE GAME/ DANCE. THE FARMER TAKES A WIFE INTO THE CIRCLE WHILE THE OTHERS CIRCLE ROUND, THE WIFE TAKES A DOG FROM THE GROUP, THE DOG TAKES A CAT, THE CAT TAKES A RAT, THE RAT THE CHEESE, THEN THE CHEESE TAKES NO ONE. HE STANDS ALONE, FINALLY EACH CHARACTER RUNS AWAY ONE AT A TIME BACK TO THE CIRCLE WITH THE REFRAIN [THE ____] RUNS AWAY 3X REPEATED EACH TIME. HI HO THE CHERRIO!
PS. IN SAMMY'S VERSION, BOJANGLES DOES THE OLD SOFT SHOE.
I actually liked this one. Clever theme that helped me to get most of the theme answers. Having one of my degrees in English surely helped. Being a retired teacher added a little extra !!!
Thanks for a good write up Doug.
Shanti -
Bob/PurpleGuy
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