Today's theme revealer is "Kind of beer ... or a multi-word hint to 18-, 22-, 37-, 51-, and 57-Across" (STOUT). To get the hint you have to split STOUT into ST and OUT and interpret it literally, meaning that you have to take "ST" out of five common two-word phrases to get the correct answer. The clue for each is, of course, designed to elicit the amusingly modified answer. The longest theme answer straddles the center of the grid and is very good: "The main characters of 'Brokeback Mountain,' e.g.?" RANGEBEDFELLOWS (initial ST removed). I like to think this is the one that gave the constructor the idea for the theme. Another, ALEMATE, goes nicely with STOUT, but the funniest is EELTRAP ("Way to catch a conger?") Ha!
I got COOPT up for a time in the northeast because I tried 'fraud' instead of ARSON. Two types of crime investigated by an insurance company with the same number of letters is enough to HANOI anyone, don't you think? CORES it is.
"Line crosser, of a sort" (SCAB) and "Bus. driver?" (CEO) were both clever, but my favorite C/AP on the day has to be "Tend to the sauce, say" (STIR). I relished MASSES, OBSESS, and BESOT, and, for other reasons, PROVOLONE.
I also enjoyed a sort of busman's holiday inputting such answers as DATA, ENTER, ESC, TENS, and especially NERD. :)
~Frannie.
Cheers to Saint Out! At least that's how I thought of the two word parsing of the revealer, particularly before I saw how the wordplay works.
ReplyDeleteFavorite answer? Can't decide between MARMOT and YEASTY. Those are just both things I'm quite familiar with but don't often see in crosswords.
Loved RANGEBEDFELLOWS. Ha!
ReplyDeleteI must strongly disagree with Mr. Kingdon regarding YEASTY, which I am generally AVERSETO, and Frannie on EELTRAP. Definitely RANGEBEDFELLOWS was the most amusing, though the others are all good. I loved ICKYNOTES and UMPSPEECH, too. I hope to see some of the latter during the WooSox games in the 2021 season. HARLEY (2D Road hog?) was excellent, and had it occurred later in the week, it would have been clued sans QM, I'd imagine. All-in-all, a nice Wednesday, even though it ran a little easy for me (8:04).
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