The only reason I was over 4 minutes was because I was seduced by the theme into trying to figure out the long answers from the clues instead of just working the down clues. But that's a good reason, in my mind. The four examples of Tom Swiftys are really quite good, especially since all four are 11-letter answers. Of course, my favorite is 61A: OFFHANDEDLY. That's laugh out loud stuff.
Meanwhile, the fill is reasonably good, Tom said puzzlingly. Sure, you've got your STS, OLA, YTD, TDS stuff, Tom said shortly, but you also get things like SEISMIC, Tom said querulously, SAMOSAS, Tom said mouthwateringly, and ANNIE, Tom said trivially. You know, that stuff is pretty hard to do well. Nothing along the line of: "Yeah, they had to amputate both at the ankles," Tom said defeatedly.
Enough of that.
I appreciate the middle swath of 5-letter answers, as well as the chunks of fill in the middle W and E. Otherwise I don't have too much else to add.
Tom said sparingly.
(Shout out to Cece for the last Swifty).
- Colum
7:16
ReplyDeleteI'm back; I had a house-full all weekend for my father's 80th birthday celebration, so I decided to skip all of the puzzles since I was quite busy. I hope that they were fun for everyone. I, too, tried to get the theme answers without too many downs today (nice job on the review, Colum, with your own theme submissions!), so it took me a bit longer than normal as well. I didn't star anything on this puzzle, but I did like the word LICIT (46A Lawful), which is not seen too often, and did, of course, love OFFHANDEDLY. Excellent Monday.
5:36
ReplyDeleteLOVED the theme. Tom Swifties are always enjoyable, and these, as you say, are really quite good. Even if the rest of the puzzle were filled with junk I would have been satisfied, but it wasn't, of course. I liked SEISMIC, and the aforementioned LICIT. FAX (63D: Obsolescent means of communication) took me much longer than it should have to get. Wouldn't it have been funny if they had clued its neighbor, HIE, with "obsolescent form of 'to hurry'?"