Is it just me, or do OTROS also find "superlatives" like "17A: Longest common word in the English language ... that has its letters in reverse alphabetical order," (SPOONFEED) a little less than scintillating? And with "62A: ... that is spelled entirely from the last dozen letters of the alphabet (TORTUROUS)" the category itself is a bit tortured. But, boy, now I can't wait to find out what the longest common word in the English language is that only uses the last 13 letters! ...
What about 1A: Up (AHEAD). What do we think of that? Well... it had me stumped for a good long while, so that puts it one up (see what I did there?) on the competition, but it's still missing a certain ECLAT. B-.
RABBITFOOD (31D: Carrots and lettuce, humorously) got a bit of a chuckle, and PERMEATE (40D: Spread through), GLASNOST (9D: 1980s social policy) (did everyone think first of "Reaganomics?"), and TINSEL (20A: Fir coat?) were all satisfying. But there's a bit too much USLTA, MLLE, AHOST, ASST, USMA, ZBAR, EXO, and DYERS. It had some nice spots, but overall I want more from a Thursday.
- Horace
10:53
ReplyDeleteAre we supposed to just take this all on faith? Where's the proof of this? And since the answers have no real clue, you had to get enough crosses to figure the rest out by pattern recognition. Not interesting to me either, although I knew DESSERTS/stressed from any number of GAMES magazine puzzles. I will also say I misunderstood the clue for 39A (UNCOPYRIGHTABLE) - it's not that there are no double letters, but that each letter is represented once and only once. It would be much more interesting if the word were in any way elegant.
Best was QUEUING in that it was the only one I cared about.
33:08
ReplyDeleteWow, tough crowd. Of course, Reaganomics is an economics theory, not a social policy. I immediately thought GLASNOST, but you'd never know I got that quickly from my overall time. I thought that TINSEL was nice for 20A Fir coat?, but all in all, the puzzle was not great for a Thursday. I agree with Horace that I want (and expect) more out of Thursday. I also agree with Colum that QUEUING was the best of the theme answers. IMHOT could have been clued more interestingly, but I suppose no one says that, even when it's true.
Wasn't it QUEUEING that was in the puzzle? I'm with Colum; I couldn't help thinking that there is no proof of any of these claims. DESSERTS/STRESSED is really as long as it gets? Also, did it bother anyone else that letters are repeated in SPOONFEED? My favorite part of this puzzle was writing in OiLED and then eventually realizing it was OGLED.
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