Sunday, March 17, 2013

Sunday, March 17, J. R. Leopold

1:30:12

ANY PUN FOR TENNIS?

Everyone loves a good pun, right? 

Even with things like SUBIC (44D: ____ Bay, former U.S. base in the Philippines), NACIO (70D: "Singin' in the Rain" composer ___ Herb Brown), and NANCE (1D: Vice president John ____ Garner), the ERTE (14D: Art Deco master) / LENORE (9A: Classic verse that begins "Ah, broken is the golden bowl!") / POET (28A: Meter reader) block was the last area to fall today. I pride myself a lover of both poetry and Poe, but I wasn't familiar enough with the line to be sure that this was his Lenore and not someone else's LENORa, and finding the "question mark" meaning of "Meter Reader" took forever! (But it was worth it once it did come!) I feel I should have known Erté, but I just didn't. Perhaps I will from now on.

But back to the puns. They were, for the most part, quite enjoyable. LOVEHANDLES (96A: "Nothing" and "aught"?) was Frannie's favorite, and I thought RETURNOFTHEJEDI (116A: Luke Skywalker's volley?) was pretty good, too.

Does MENAGE really mean (123A: Housekeeping) in anything other than French? Can that be used as if were just an ordinary English word? Seemed odd to me.

- Horace

No comments:

Post a Comment