First, I RONA share with you a few of my favorite C/APs - all non-QMC's that take advantage of semantic overlap for their trixiness:
"Like a screwdriver" (ORANGE)
"Points on a math test" (LOCI)
"Largest digit in a set" (BIGTOE)
"Joins a union" (WEDS)
"It rarely includes chains" (FINEDINING) - clever!
As a reviewer, I feel I COT to admit where I went wrong. For "Dolly-esque, say" I tried 'buxom' but, when that didn't work out, I WOES to the challenge and figured out that the correct answer was OVINE. AYE had a similar experience at 50D with one of the QMC clues, "Unfair?" where I first tried 'ugly' before running a FOUL. Another QMC of note was "World-weary sort?" for ATLAS - ha! Fill-wise I enjoyed DEFINITEMAYBE, GREENLIT, and TIDEPOOL.
AHAB a few small bones to pick including GENT for "He's no scoundrel", ALARM for "Freak out" and EVER for "Permanently." Again, not wrong by any stretch, but something seems off in the clue/answer balance - but that's just my TAKEI on it.
~Frannie.
Great pun-intensive review Frannie!!
ReplyDeleteBeing relatively new to the NYT xword scene, I haven't completely familiarized myself with the various regular setters. But I do know this : Robyn Weintraub is my absolute fave!! Loved this one. Especially FINEDINING, which was pretty much the last clue to yield.
Yeah, that FINEDINING clue will be going into the favorites list.
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