I had a moment of wondering about the spelling of FORGONE when I got to 40-Across, "Relinquished ... or a hint to ...," but my Random House says "forego" means "to go before" and "forgo" means "to abstain or refrain from; do without; give up, renounce, or resign." They list the same Old English forebear (also: forbear) in both definitions, but I guess the two spellings drifted apart over the years.
But really, only one can work here. The other would ruin the joke of leaving "for" out from the four theme answers, so let's just leave the spelling issue aside and move on, shall we?
While I was solving this, I sensed that something was off, but I was in such a rush that I didn't allow myself time to consider what was going on. Even when I got to the central (second day in a row) revealer, the spelling question entered my head, but I pushed it aside and moved on without thinking of anything else. Also, in keeping with the "haste makes waste" theme, I forgot that "year" in Latin is masculine, and so I ended up entering the accusative rather than the nominative, which left me with the MImSES department. And while that is somewhat amusing, the lesson is, I've got to slow down!
Also, I like the clue "Department store department" for MISSES. It reminds me of the humorous "Department of Redundancy Department."
Now, even when I am at my leisure, I still CANTSAYSURE what my favorite themer is. The clues are all so absurd! Maybe FISHCOMPLIMENTS ("Your fins are nice" and "You're a graceful swimmer"?).
The cross of OLIO and OLEO was amusing in the NW, and in other areas I could feel the week getting harder as I filled in CAHN, COHAN, PAPAW, the gross SWOLE (Bulging with muscles, in modern lingo), and, eventually, LAALAA.
Tomorrow, I will commit myself to slowing down and enjoying it, just like I've been doing with this whole "work from home" thing. I got to a point about a week or so ago where I decided that I love it. I've been doing more house projects, I've been reading a little (rare for me), and I've been fretting about work less. We'll see how long that lasts.
- Horace
5:47 (FWOE) - I put in COHeN for COHAN. Should have known better. A lot of chutzpah in this grid with both CAHN and COHAN (really the same name, different people) and OLEO crossing OLIO. My fave theme answer was OHCRYINGOUTLOUD. Ha!
ReplyDelete12:03
ReplyDeleteI vote for FISHCOMPLIMENT, also, and for slowing down. People will note that my time is just a little over one minute under the combined time of Horace and Colum, but my solve has zero errors instead of their combined two. I don't know this JOST person, but I paid careful attention to the crosses. We always need to wait for crosses with clues like 56A San ___, Calif., for example (I needed two in that case: ASCOT and BONER). Nothing else VEXed me too much. The OLIO/OLEO cross was shocking and bold, and we can do without LAALAA, but I can't RAILAT any other entries, which were all, for the most part, FINE and not too LAME. I suppose there were a few less-than-stellar USUALS, like ERR, AGE, OLA, EONS, URL and TAJ, but I was able to TROT through this Wednesday offering in good shape.
Well I did eventually make it through that southwest corner despite way too many proper names for my tastes. But finished with one error because I didn't think there could possibly be a person whose name is CAHN rather than CoHN, and so I changed CAHN to CoHN, figured well LOTSo luck seems like an odd way to say LOTSA luck, but whatever, and went on my way.
ReplyDeleteThe theme did rescue me though, not knowing the neighborhood of ENCINO nor the person crossing it.
This comment has been removed by a blog administrator.
ReplyDelete