I used to be a hater when it came to quad stack puzzles, but I've come to regard them with some fondness. I wouldn't go so far as to call them SEXY, mind you, but they have a certain charm.
This exemplar has a shocking 9 grid-spanning entries. As per usual, yours truly will now go on to rank them from favorite to least favorite. The first set have the most interest and feel organic.
1. STRINGORCHESTRA. You get the music, you get the silly clue, it's a winnah.
2. THERESNOIINTEAM. This probably would have gotten first place if this answer hadn't been used recently. I do like the clue ("Saw around the locker room?"). Hah!
3. REASONTOBELIEVE. I like the clue, and it stands on its own well.
The next set fit into the class of verb phrases.
4. ORDEREDALACARTE. I had no idea where this clue ("Picked individually") was going, so this was a nice aha moment.
5. TELLSITLIKEITIS. To be blunt, this answer fell in the middle of the pack.
6. GOESOVERITAGAIN. To be redundant, this answer fell just below the middle of the pack.
7. SUITEDONESNEEDS. Definitely the lowest in this group, due to that awful "one's".
And the last group, the just sort of uninteresting answer that has gotten into a grid because it's 15 letters long.
8. OLDERGENERATION. Yeah, I just don't see myself saying that much.
9. PEERASSESSMENTS. Yuck. It's a great answer for the bottom of the grid with all of those Es and Ss, but beyond that...
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I'm pretty impressed by the lack of guck in the top part of the grid. IRES and ENCAGE are pretty bad, but I love GSEVEN, HIATUS, and STOGY. Meanwhile, in the bottom of the grid, the only entries I looked askance at were SORA and ELAM. Not too many STINKERS if you ask me!
So over all, a thumbs up today.
- Colum
26:12
ReplyDeleteI'd like to propose that FALSER be added to the list of guck. YEP, that's what I think.
I liked "De TROP," but not so much LUI. And ROCKETTES was fun.
Oh, and one more thing - what the heck is NEROLI?!
ReplyDeleteNeroli oil. It's been known to be used in our house.
Delete31:29
ReplyDeleteVery, very little black in this grid. I love quad stacks, don't mind the "one's" inclusion, and, hey, if KTEL is in the grid, it has to be great. But I'm squarely with Horace on FALSER. Terrible. Also, I've always spelled STOGY with an "__ie," so that took a couple of crosses up there. Lots of vices: STOGY, LSD, CIGS, GLADE. And funny that BOD is right over SEXY.