I don't want to come off as supercilious, but Mr. Amory is going to show up later and handle any necessary explanations and comments on the theme. His mad crossword CRED makes him the right man for the JOB.
I enjoyed the international flavor of today's grid. I counted seven French responses, three Spanish words (and one phrase, if you count the clue at 1D), two Italian answers, a (PIEROGI), two Native American tribes, and some SCOTS, not to mention some world-wide locations (ONTARIO, MINORCA, ERIN).
Some of your NEATER clues today were:
13D. Go over one's wardrobe (IRON)
93A. What may follow a school period? (EDU)
8D. Coarse, as language (SALTY)
57D. Authority on diamonds (UMP)
In reviewing the puzzle, I noticed that 63D (French vineyard (CRU)) was followed closely by its anagram at 67D (Apt rhyme for "grr" (CUR)). Ha!
There was some straight up nice fill including VEER, GIMLET, QUIRK, FUTILE, PROBITY, and JUT along with some CHAR like RRR, EPI, YRS, and AFLERS, but it must be quite a trick to make every word a winner, especially while working with NONET. :|
~Frannie.
It's jokes like that that keep people coming back to our blog in droves! Colum here. My task today is to comment on the theme. So, you take a standard phrase that just happens to have a standard proper name hidden inside of it, which when you remove all but the first letter, makes a new wacky answer. Meanwhile, the name hangs from the bottom of the answer in its own down answer. Note that this has to be set up so that there is always a black square above that point in the across answer. I'm sure that set up some crazy constraints.
I'm amazed that Ms. Long came up with six such examples! I figured out what was going on with 108A: Make a really long-distance call? (PHONEMARS), which when you add ANNE back in, you get "phone manners". Well... that didn't float my boat so much. Other examples were much better. My favorite is probably PRIMCOLORS ("primary colors"), but I was definitely amused by EARLYAMEN ("early American").
But maybe the best part of the puzzle is the fact that 68A: Supercilious sort ... or the title for this puzzle (NAMEDROPPER) explains why the puzzle is named "See 68-Across" - because the name has been dropped! I only just figured that out, and it makes me like the overall effort that much more.
- Colum
35:37
ReplyDeleteThis was a great Sunday puzzle despite the few groaners necessary for its accomplishment, including, IMO, all of the foreign words, of which I'm not generally a fan. I am not familiar with the phrase LOTUSEATERS for 72D Lackadaisical sorts, but I must say I like it, although I doubt that I'll remember to use it at appropriate times. I do enjoy a PIEROGI, and I'm a fan of the idea of SLUMBERPAY. GREASIER: gross.