Quip puzzles are not a favorite puzzle type of mine, but when I finally read the entire quip today, I literally LOLed. As it happened, I got the last part of the quip first, and couldn't imagine for the life of me how OFEM could possibly be right. Funny.
In fill, I very much enjoyed LADIDA (1D: Pretentious) and coming off that, DITSY (17A: Like a dingbat). Another good pairing was LUSH (10A: Sot) and SIN (12D: Sloth, for one). Also good were NOCOMMENT (18A: Stonewaller's response), MANUP (6D: "Stop being such a wuss!"), and KFC (56D: Company with a bucket list?). And I smiled at the word "liquidy" in 48A: Still liquidy (UNSET).
In the unknown/whaa?/something we've learned department is OPS (18A: Saturn's wife). And here's an odd coincidence, after we finished the Wednesday puzzle yesterday, I went back into the archive and started a Thursday puzzle from April 19, 2012, and in it was the clue "He once wrote 'Last but not least, avoid clichés like the plague," and today we have 45D: Wordsmith who wrote "Last but not least, avoid clichés like the plague" (SAFIRE). Since it was a different constructor, we think it might be a favorite quote of Shortz'.
In the end, the quip was excellent, and the fill was above par. A satisfying Thursday.
Favorite clue/answer pair: 44A: Trap (KISSER). So inappropriate.
- Horace
32:14
ReplyDeleteAgree with the LUSH/SIN pairing, and about the puzzle in general. And wasn't a CROSS (7D Pen name) just noticed in Hargrove's shirt? And shouldn't 16A China setting (ASIA) be banned from Thursday-Saturday puzzles? Anyway, I'd never heard of OPS either, or KATESPADE (56A Bag lady?) for that matter.
(From the sorry I can resist department!)
ReplyDeleteHuygens, you of all people should have known about Ops. Your namesake was famous for studying the planet Saturn (and discovered at least one of its moons, as well as observing the ring system). Anyway....
Ops in Roman mythology was Saturn's wife. FYI. ;)
-MAS
Well, touche MAS. I guess I'd better brush up on my mythology!
Delete15:16, retroactively. Finished with Cece and Hope. Cece contributed TACKIER, ASIA, and HAT; Hope contributed KATESPADE (off just the first A alone) as well as IVS and GAYE. The quip was very funny, and worth the puzzle. I agree I don't like quotations or quips because you can't get them until you get them, so they're not really within the genre of crosswording. Here's to JOACHIM Lo(umlaut)w!
ReplyDelete