A fun theme that calls upon the solver to interpret and incorporate the special punctuation of the clued word as part of the clue, resulting in an answer that is a synonym that combines the two, so "Q.U.E.U.E.S" is DOTTEDLINES and "E+X+T+R+A+S" is ADDEDBONUSES. My favorite was "W/H/E/E/L/S" for SLASHEDTIRES. Ha! I dashed this one off in pretty quickly, but I blame some PESKY butterfingered typing in the southeast ARIA for blowing my chance to break the five minute mark on this one (5:09). Next time.
I thought the puzzle was off to a good start with "Officially accepted works" for CANON, which seemed like a nice level of challenge. Clues like "Prove helpful" (AVAIL), "Once named" for NEE, "Costume for St. Nick" (SANTASUIT), "Spy's gathering" (INTEL) maintained the level, with only periodic clues like "Direction of the morning light" - which is a little like saying, "please type the word EAST."
I might have hit a full stop in the middle section, but thankfully, I was able to rely on the Down answers rather than my geographical knowledge for "Himalayan country that's home to the world's highest unclimbed mountain." I didn't know BHUTAN, and I also didn't know there were still unclimbed mountains in the world. Interesting!
Other answers to exclaim over include BLEAT, BENTOBOX, ALLABOARD, (for its exciting reminder of travel), and CUSSWORD, which seems pleasantly old timey. Conversely, in up to the minute topics, has Will Smith now dropped to the DLIST?
~Frannie.
I actually took a beat on "Direction of the morning light" as one could argue that as the source is in the east, the direction of the light is WEST. From a photonic perspective... I didn't bother trying to understand the theme clues until the end, but yes, cute and clever - nice one for a Monday! 2:33
ReplyDeleteThis puzzle utterly charmed me! Everything about it, from the theme to the fill to the clues is super!
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