Today's theme CHANGESTHEWORLD. Four "worlds," within our little solar system: Earth, Venus, Mercury, and Saturn can be found anagrammized between the following two-word phrases:
IGNO[RETHA]T - 17A: "Oh, it's nothing to concern yourself with"
LEA[VESUN]SAID - 23A: Omits mention of
AR[MYRECRU]ITS - 47A: Ones with private ambitions? (Nice clue.)
BO[NUSTRA]CK - 57A: Extra song on an album
Four perfectly common phrases, and again, a surprising theme. Who does this? Who sees this kind of pattern? Crossword constructors, that's who.
So the theme is fun, new, and well done. And there's even a little bonus material, maybe, with MOONS (Jupiter's Ganymede and Europa). No? AWMAN!
Nobody's favorite variant TEHEE makes another prominent appearance today, and ABLER is slightly UGG-worthy, but that's just two small things. On the other hand there's MALAISE (Lethargy) (I think of it more as an illness than just plain lethargy, but still I like the word), FANTASY (Genre for the Harry Potter books), and FUTURE (Its time has not yet come), which gets a nice clue.
I had at least three missteps today - WENTsolo for WENTSTAG, Run for RBI, and Atwork for ACTIVE (Not idle). It was the last one that never got fully corrected before the puzzle was filled in. Sure, AtTIVE and tEDE were noticed immediately, and might have been caught before I handed in my paper at a tournament, but in this digital realm, I have to still count it as a "Finished With One Error." :(
My personal misfortune notwithstanding, this was another solid puzzle.
- Horace
I was trying for CHANGESTHEeaRth because I only had the first themer then and was thinking they'd all anagram earth. Which maybe would have been a better theme. This one requires not just finding which planet, but also the anagram. And especially at Tuesday speed (8:32, no errors), well I had the puzzle solved before any of that happened.
ReplyDeleteI am already on record concerning my opinion about TEHEE thusly spelled although the dictionary LEAVESUNSAID any such doubt, so perhaps I will soften that stance.
Totally agreed on MALAISE and my fancy was also tickled by ICEIN. Just because it is such a staple of crosswordese, quite out of its prominence in real life (compared with "snows in" which has far too few vowels and far too many Ws. Can you have too many Ws? Probably yes, if you want to find good crosses, or any crosses at all).
5:57
ReplyDeleteThis one was right up my alley. I tried WENTSolo at first, too, but quickly changed it when BONUSTRACK came in. Lots of proper names, which isn't ideal, but I'll accept it for the sake of the theme.