I learned a new phrase today - CAMELCASE (28A: Style of "iPhone" or "eBay," typographically). A word written in CAMELCASE can start with either a capital or a lower-case letter, but every new word starts with a capital letter and no space. So "MySpace" would also be an example of it. Interesting. How have I not heard of that before?
Anyhoo, CAMELCASE is just one of four theme answers, the first word of which can be put after JOE to make two advertising names, Joe Boxer and Joe Camel, and two common(ish) epithets, Joe Cool and Joe Blow.
As I was filling in answers today it felt like there were too many stale entires like APER, ETUI, ALAR, URAL, INCA, ERAS, OPART, ABUT, OREO, TARA, LARA, ADDER, CANER, ENDER...
1A: "That's hilarious!" (HAHA) is a C. I did enjoy DUENORTH (38D: 0 degrees, on a compass), and I chuckled being reminded of GASOHOL (44D: Low-ethanol fuel blend). Does anybody still say that? They're now called "E-something" right? "E-10?" "E-25?" I think we saw that more when we were buying gas in Europe.
I'm happy about learning a new term, but overall I didn't love it.
- Horace
3:04
ReplyDeleteSo close. And that's about all I have to say about this puzzle.
Yeah. I wondered what you'd post when I hemmed and hawed about camelcase and still came in under four.
DeleteNice!
Wow, more BADLUCK!
ReplyDeleteFavorite answer? Probably ALLWORK (not overused, more satisfying worded than it were just a full in the blank). Surprised we are still seeing ALAR. Sure, it was all over the news at one time, but for anyone younger than that, or who wasn't paying attention, surely this has passed into the realm of “only seen in crosswords”. Most surprising answer? CAMELCASE. I thought that was pretty specialized nerd jargon, but apparently it has creeped out into pretty specialized crossword jargon.