Not as beautiful a grid as yesterday, but the solve took me about three times longer! A nice, challenging Saturday grid.
I have a harder time today forcing a Halloweeny theme, but I suppose EDGARAWARD (Mystery prize) could work... and AMBULATION (Walking) could be what the trick-or-treaters are doing... and maybe the older ones tell their parents DONTWAITUP ("I might be out late. See you in the morning"... and for my brother, who met his wife on Halloween, all subsequent Halloweens might be DATENIGHTS. OK, so it's not a BEEFY case, but that's what I've got.
IVORYTOWER (Acadamia, it's said) is a nice entry, though divisive, HULLABALOO (Commotion) is fun, and SOLECISM (Grammatical mistake) was interesting. Did you know that the word comes from a Greek province (Soloi), where they didn't speak "the Queen's Greek," as it were. To speak like the people of Soloi was to speak incorrectly.
And speaking of language that is not quite perfect, I thought "Snickers piece?" for TEEHEE was a little off. Isn't TEEHEE the entirety of what is sometimes called a "snicker?" And "One whose work is always cropping up?" (FARMER) doesn't really make sense. "It's hair-raising" for GEL, on the other hand, is very good. And "Low-lying areas?" too, is clever. The playful change from "lying low" to "low-lying" worked better than from "growing crops" to "cropping up." Two more nice ones were "You can't leave home with it" (BASEBALLBAT) and "One who likes to dish?" (CATERER). I guess we have to assume that they like doing it, right?
Not perfect, but a decent challenge.
- Horace
p.s. I almost forgot to give a big shout-out to our friend CECE. We hope one day she'll come back for another guest review. :)
One of the things I appreciate about these crosswords, and how they evolve from easy to hard thru the week, is their internal consistency - and this was a great example of that - tough and chewy at about the same level, throughout the grid. All fair, clever in spots and so satisfying to crack. Horace - maybe a full snicker is TEEHEEHEE? Just playin' the devil's advocate here. (I am guilty of doing that a lot..) 7:43 for me and a battle throughout.
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