I finished with two errors today, both in the extreme SE corner. My first error came with 98D: Mother of Artemis (LETO), where I put LETa. I was definitely thinking of Leda, mother of Castor and Pollux, as well as Helen and Clytemnestra (all at the same time?!), who was impregnated by Zeus in the shape of a swan. (That's some definite dangerops prangent sex there...). Anyway, wrong person, for sure.
My other error came with 92A: Number of French kings names Charles (DIX). So, yeah. There's no clear indicator that we're supposed to be choosing a French number here, so I went with sIX. Seemed reasonable. Only sUDED made no sense.
Other than those little issues, the rest went smoothly enough, but definitely took longer than typical for a Sunday. The theme is clever enough: I guessed what it would be from the title. Phrases have an "uh" sound replaced with an "oh" sound. Wackiness ensues. I think my favorite was STONEDSILENCE, which seems completely appropriate for watching a Cheech and Chong movie. My least favorite is 75A: Two sights in a yacht's galley? (BREADANDBOATER). Major stretch here. It violates the humor clause of the rules that govern this type of theme.
1A: Bloblike "Star Wars" character (JABBA) gets a B+ for the great adjective in the clue. I get another point off for trying to make the plural of "dorsum" DORSi. I corrected it to DORSA before the end of the puzzle, so no final error there.
I'm amused by two answers in the grid: AWHECK, which my mind wants to see as "a wheck", a term that seems like it would have fit in Jabberwocky well. The other is APTESTS, which I want to see as more than one person who is the most appropriate for a given circumstance, as in: "He's the aptest person for the job, but so is she!"
I'm not a fan of ARTILY, meaning pretentiously artistic. I think it should be artsily. Isn't being arty just being interested in art? Perhaps not.
I give the puzzle a point off for having DWAYNE and DWADE in the puzzle. I know that Mr. Wade's first name is Dwyane, but that feels like a duplication to me regardless.
I liked 56D: Circular things that arrive in square boxes (PIZZAS), because who doesn't like pizza? And I also enjoyed TOTHEMAX and 40D: Changing room? (COCOON).
- Colum
48:54
ReplyDeleteI never heard of DWADE, and don't love PIZZAS too much. This puzzle was an amusing one, and I agree with Colum that it took longer than a typical Sunday. Actually, I finished most of the thing in under 20 minutes, but was held up in the middle east and the southwest for much longer than I should have been. I figured out the theme by getting the most of the crosses to NOTECRACKERSUITE and then reading the theme up at the top, which I should probably do at the outset from now on. Nice pairing of NIKON and XEROX against two different Canon products. I wanted NiNoS or NiNaS at 87D, not NENES, for which I needed the crosses, and I tried AXers where AXMEN belongs. Grossest theme answer: HOTDOGBONE.