FWOE
Another tricky puzzle! We took forever in the NW today, finally settling on DIPS (1A: Nincompoops) and DOJO (1D: Good place to kick back) (Neither of us was terribly familiar with this word, and I thought it was actually a martial arts teacher), so when we got the error message, we thought a little more about what else the D could possibly before looking further into the grid. As it turned out, we had the very center square wrong, having guessed "ole" instead of OYE (38A: "____ Como Va"). It was only after Frannie put in the Y that BYE (34D: What a seed often has) made sense. I even thought of the sports context, but could not come up with "BYE." Oh well.
The eme-thay, we iked-lay just ine-fay. KNUCKLEDRAGGER (41A: *Outlay) is such a wonderfully descriptive term, and I've always like the expression "As I LIVEANDBREATHE" (32A: *eBay).
MIRAGE (64A: Rival of Caesars) was a tricky one, STODGY (8A: Opposite of hip) is a good word, and it's always nice to be reminded of the Stooges (SHEMP (6D: One of the original Stooges). On the down side, there were a couple proper names we didn't know - SEATON (67A: George who directed "Miracle on 34th Street") (How timely!), and MARA (56D: Rooney ____, star of "The Girl With the Dragon Tattoo"), the MHO (15A: Former name of the physics unit siemens) wasn't on the tip of our tongues, we've never heard of GSN (63D: TV channel with the slogan "Get Smarter Now") (too bad, I guess…), and I prefer the old-fashioned "two-S in the middle" spelling of YESES (13D: Acceptances)… but not knowing things doesn't make for a bad puzzle, of course, it just makes for a tricky puzzle.
Overall, I guess I liked it. DOLLOP (33D: Spoonful, say) was fun, and REDUCEDFAT (30D: Attribute of the 1%) was brilliant. How could I pan a puzzle with pig Latin and that clue? Well, I can't.
- Horace
57:56
ReplyDeleteIt took me forever to get PIGLATIN for the revealer, but once that happened, all was a go. Of course, nothing made sense until then. There were a few that I, also, didn't know: 16A Stannite or cassiterite (TINORE) as well as the aforementioned MARA and SEATON, but all were gettable through crosses. I thought that, in addition to the Horace mentions, ONYX (59D Inky) and 19A Ones who are never billed? (EXTRAS) were brilliant. When will I learn that a 50D Diadem is a TIARA? That would've saved some time, too.