We've had a rash of extra-sized puzzles this week. Today's is a 16 x 15, allowing for some fun new long entries in the dual triple stacks. And let's just take a look at those doozies, shall we? In typical fashion, I will rank from favorite to... well, less favorite.
1. THATSWHATSHESAID. I love that it's clued as "Sophomoric". I'm not sure Mr. Steinberg is too much older than a college Sophomore. But mostly because it reminds me of The Office.
2. HELICOPTERPARENT. What a great clue: Someone who cares too much? Very nice.
3. DOYOUWANTTODANCE. Not my favorite Beach Boys song by a long shot, but anything by the Beach Boys is still worth a nod.
4. STANDINGOODSTEAD. I keep on misparsing that answer to "standing oodstead."
5. SONICDEPTHFINDER. I had difficulty here because I put SONar in place and had a hard time realizing it wasn't right.
6. ARUNFORONESMONEY. It's only at the bottom because of "one's," which is so impersonal. "A run for your money" sounds more natural.
Meanwhile, there are several nice extra entires, including EZPASSLANE which I got off of the E, and which really helped open up the bottom half of the puzzle. I also liked MERCILESS and WARBABIES. Oh, and LEVIATHAN is a wonderful answer.
How many of you fell for 27D: Thread holder (SCREW) by putting in Spool? I've even seen this before and I still fell for it. That S made it seem so reasonable as well. It was made harder by the tough clue at 34A: Stops streaming (CLOTS). I so wanted something to do with Netflix.
Any time you stack long answers like this, you have to resort to some junk to make it hold together. The only ones I really didn't like were PSF (surely we use pounds per square inch far more frequently?) and ETDS (I just don't think you can really pluralize that). And in the category of surprisingly good clues for crossword glue, please applaud for 59D: Teens fight, for short (WWI). Man, I didn't see that coming.
- Colum
23:46
ReplyDeleteBoy, I hadn't gone back to notice what that "Teens fight" answer was - what a great one!
The biggest surprise for me was LEVANT. I learned this term only within the last five years or so, and kind of thought it was an archaic term nowadays. Strange.
My entrée, as it were, was with PREEN, TOPE, and ENTR. At that point I was a little worried, but this did come around nicely, PSF notwithstanding. And as Frannie says, it's better to think of the Ramone's version, but we're pretty sure they spelled it DOYOUWANNADANCE.
26:56
ReplyDeleteWhat about the ACNE/ZIT pairing? I thought that ACNE was particularly well-clued for a change. And for once I agree with Colum's ranking! I tried CLOgS at first, as well as SONar... and PSi, but really, there weren't any big slowdowns for me. I agree with the excellent WWI. A high-quality puzzle.