Sunday, September 6, 2020

Sunday, September 6, 2020, David Kwong

COULD YOU REPEAT THAT NUMBER?

A cute little Sunday theme today that lives in the clues more than the answers. Every Across clue with a "double" number, like 11, 22, 33, etc. has a clue where the word "double" must be understood. For example, 11-Across "Dutch requirements" should be read as "Double Dutch requirements" for the answer ROPES to make sense. Likewise, "Result, maybe, in brief" for 22-Across, assumes that the answer RBI is the possible result of a double. Baseball is referenced again in "Play combo of old" (TINKERTOEVERSTOCHANCE). 

MAMIE Eisenhower

I like that the theme is so widespread, and I'm not quite sure how Mr. Kwong managed to keep the theme answers symmetrical while still basing them on the clue numbers. IMNO constructor, so I have no idea how hard that was, but I'm guessing it was at least hard. And to top it all off, the clue for 111-Across, since it is a triple number, requires the word "Triple" to be added. That's an elegant touch. 

With all that going on, I'd expect to find a lot of pins holding this tapestry together. I don't especially love RINSO (Laundry soap since 1908), but that's mostly because I've never witnessed it in the wild. PASEOS (Some 1990s Toyotas) isn't great, but there AINT a whole lot else to gripe about. I kind of like all the answers with single letters: ICRIED (Weepy 1954 Patti Page hit), ATRIFLE (Not much at all), PERATIO (Equity valuation stat) (price:earnings), OCOME ("____, all ye faithful), KARENO (Lead singer of rock's Yeah Yeah Yeahs (who uses just the initial letter of her last name), and VSIGN (Churchill's trademark gesture).

Overall, I give this one high PRAISE. TOI?

- Horace

3 comments:

  1. 33:55
    Apt that my time is two double numbers today. I was surprised to get the happy pencil congratulating me on a successful completion, too. I never heard of TINKERTOEVERSTOCHANCE, and a few of the crosses were either non-English or strange, like TOI, SERT, BENE and CHU, so guessing correctly for all of those was lucky. A nice trick for a Sunday puzzle, and the time it took for me to solve it is right where I like it to be, so we'll put this in the "like" column.

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  2. FWOE

    I *loved* TINKER TO EVERS TO CHANCE! But you know...I completely missed the 111 Across trick. I guess I either got the word RTE from the crossers or just assumed that "A suggestion" was a kind of wacky clue for RTE, but shrugged it off. Also, I had no idea that "Double Dutch" was what they call the jump rope game I used to play for hours! I had the R O _ E S and for the life of me, couldn't figure out what _ E R A T I O was. So, figuring maybe "Double-Dutch" somehow referred to a strange new romantic version of "Dutch Treat" (my mind often works in tortuous ways) I plopped in... ROSES!

    Other than that, I really zipped through this puzzle. :-) A good one, I think. Oh, and my Mom always used RINSO.

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  3. So much better now that you pointed out the fact that the clues where the double or triple are implied are numbered with double numbers. I did not pick that up at all when I solved.

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