Saturday, August 12, 2023

Saturday, August 12, 2023, Rachel Fabi and Christina Iverson

OUROBOROS (Serpentine symbol of rebirth, from the Greek for "tail-devouring") is one of those bits of knowledge - like all the two-letter words, or all the words that start with a Q without a U for Scrabble players - that I should commit to memory if I ever want to move up out of the middle of the pack in crossword tournaments. But happily, I'm ok needing a few crosses for it. I'd rather save that brain slot for perfectly CROMULENT words. 

TBIRD

One such that will probably stick in my mind now that I've heard it is COPYPASTA (Block of text duplicated and reposted online, in internet slang). Ha! It's awfully close to PASTESIN (Affixes to a scrapbook, say), but the two are separated plenty by humor. 

I liked the pair of ITALIANO and AMORE, and the side-by-side PONYRIDES (Fair hits?) and "Equestrian princess in the 1976 Olympics" (ANNE). 

My ATTENTIONSPAN (Focal length?) was elongated by the cross with BALLETSLIPPER, as it made me realize that this puzzle has a diagonal symmetry along the NW/SE axis. It makes the black squares look a little like some kind of a bug crawling up that way. Strange, but cool.

It's been a fun week, but now IMSODONE. Colum takes over tomorrow for another fun-filled week of xwords. Enjoy!

- Horace


1 comment:

  1. A delightful and very quick Saturday puzzle. I was done in 5:44 with one error, because I thought that LABbEH was a thing, and I didn't check the crossing. Cece has an OUROBOROS tattoo, so that went right in, as did CROMULENT. I listened to DRDEATH, a horrifying podcast, especially for those of us in medicine. Nice clue for BALLETSLIPPER.

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