Boy, this played really tough for a Wednesday. "Do a spit take?" for SWAB was just so far from me. I get that you could be said to SWAB a baby's (or your) chin to "take" spit away... and for me, CRAB (Sea creature whose name doesn't rhyme with 1-Across, weirdly) isn't really all that far in pronunciation from SWAB. It all started out so weird.
And then there's the theme. The second word in each theme answer is made to describe letters in the first word. As in, the two Os in the word "mood" are "rings," and the two Cs in "character" are "arcs." Kind of cool, I guess.
It's odd that CORNBELT "Midwestern agricultural swath" and GNU should appear two days in a row, isn't it? And have you ever thought of that "Bit of equipment in a dentist's office" as an XRAYCAMERA? I guess it is, but I have never called it anything but an x-ray machine.
As you can see, something set me off this morning. I hope you had a better experience with it.
- Horace
I think the clue for SWAB refers to using a Q-tip to collect saliva for testing. As for X-RAY CAMERA? New to me, too.
ReplyDeleteOoooohhhh... that definition never occurred to me. Saliva swab... ok.
DeleteAs always, thank you for helping me.
You sure you don't want to take a week?