05.12.07 -- CUL-DE-SAC
Saturday, May 12, 2007
Click here for LARGE PRINT.
Puzzle by Rich Norris, edited by Will Shortz
It's Saturday -- so, a little extra time on your hands?
Obscurity is the friend of the crossword puzzle constructor and the enemy of its solver -- the easy puzzle will have sensible, practical definitions for clues and the entries will be words we use in our everyday lives. When difficulty is desired by the constructor, these simple words are clued behind vague definitions with bizarre and uncommon references steeped in mystery and cloaked in the cryptic vaults of etymology and forgotten lore. If the clue is deemed just too far out, then a question mark is simply added, e.g. -- (4D Saucerful?) ETS.
On Monday, when the gradation through the week begins with clues and entries that are common, this might have been simply clued "Aliens". In that case, one readily knows that an "S" might end the entry, plus with so much science fiction in our world of entertainment ET comes to mind rather quickly. However, with "saucerful", no plural appeared to be required, so one is made to think that an object of dinner ware is involved, whatever type of saucer that may be or contain. The degrees of obscurity, from "unidentified flying object" to "UFO" to "flying saucer" to simply "saucer", coupled with "extraterrestrial" abbreviated to "ET" with a plural, the letter "S", coupled with the possibility of being a plate of say, milk, or "LAC" (it's three spaces). On Monday, that hypothetical answer would be clued perhaps by "Fon du ____".
Working puzzles constantly, one finds there are what solvers in the internet circle call "crosswordese" -- the term denotes words or abbreviations that repeat themselves from puzzle to puzzle constantly and therefore the constructors utilize Machiavellian ways to complicate the clues and their entries.
Incidentally, this is the first time I’ve encountered the word "saucerful" -- I had to turn off my automatic spell-check to get it typed! Ah, Websters 3rd New. Int'l. Dict. has it --looks as though one can add "ful" to anything, even a saucer full of milk! I'm just not "sci-fi-ful" enough!
My favorite Saturday stumpers today were 15A Present -- LATTERDAY; 17A Lingered past -- OUTSTAYED; 24A Graduate of Mount Holyoke -- ALUMNA; 27A Having no gray area -- YESNO; 39A Play things -- OPERAGLASSES; 42A Bit of mockery -- HAR; 48A Brief attachment to a report, maybe -- POSTIT; 61A One studying camels -- ICESKATER; the aforementioned 4D Saucerful? -- ETS; 7D Rustic opus -- IDYLL; 8D Break -- CAESURA (this was used in another puzzle recently, spelled CESURA and clued almost the same); 23D Guard -- ENSURE; 25D Guards -- MINDS; 32D Almost -- NIGHON, 45D Semi -- HAULER; 35A Purple shade -- PETUNIA (I had fuchsia for a while); and 53D Cracks -- MOTS. I'm sure you'll have your own favorites.
Dredging up from the bowels of trivia that only the insane commit to memory are 15A Ecuador's Santa ELENA Peninsula; 50D Lord Byron's "The Lament of TASSO"; 9D "The Spanish Tragedy" dramatist, KYD; 11A I, O or U, but not A or E: Abbr. -- ELEM (Abbr. for Element, not "Elementary, Watson"); 46D "leave business to IDLERS, and wisdom to fools". Congreve; and 35A Make campaign stops -- POLITICK (the additional "K" is usually reserved for plurality of the word, ergo it's argot).
So -- was there anything I liked? Yes, the right half of the puzzle went fairly well and the left side was (for me) an illegible mess of crossovers until I myself was not sure what letter I had entered in any particular square! It led me to think that perhaps one side of my mind is more adept than the other in solving a crossword -- so next time, I'll do the one side, then I'll turn it upside down and do the other -- or will mirrors work, they did for DaVinci!
I haven't answered the question -- what did you like about the puzzle -- well, not GLUESTICK (1A Modern arts-and-crafts tool), nor DELHI (43A Where the Peacock Throne was built), KISSY (62A ____-face); DOGOODERS (63A Naive types, sometimes); GLOOMY (1D Pessimistic); EPISODEI (36D Series opener) (only because it appeared in a puzzle two weeks or so ago); or PATSY (48D One easily pushed over) and IDIOT (57A Fool).
About all I liked of this puzzle was CAESURA (8D Break) (even though it's now becoming standard "crosswordese") and ARTDECO (40D Like Manhattan's Chrysler Building) -- also SONGANDDANCE (31A Evasive tactic) and OPERAGLASSES (39A Play things) -- combined they form a nice intersection in the grid and remind me of an intermission (or rest), hopefully not taken into the far right area of the puzzle where one finds a CUL (56A With 10-Across, stalemate) DESAC (10A See 56-Across)!
Oh, and I liked the duck -- 28A Disney's Princess OONA -- (late referred to as Mrs. Chaplin) -- may her "duckness" reign long with her subjects, OOMPH, OOMPAH, ONO, OPAH, OPRAH, ONA, OLA, OOP and OOOLA!
For today’s cartoon, go to The Crossword Puzzle Illustrated.
Puzzle available on the internet at
THE NEW YORK TIMES -- Crossword Puzzles and Games
If you subscribe to home delivery of The New York Times you are eligible to access the daily crossword via The New York Times - Times Reader, without additional charge, as part of your home delivery subscription.
Saturday, May 12, 2007
Click here for LARGE PRINT.
Puzzle by Rich Norris, edited by Will Shortz
It's Saturday -- so, a little extra time on your hands?
Obscurity is the friend of the crossword puzzle constructor and the enemy of its solver -- the easy puzzle will have sensible, practical definitions for clues and the entries will be words we use in our everyday lives. When difficulty is desired by the constructor, these simple words are clued behind vague definitions with bizarre and uncommon references steeped in mystery and cloaked in the cryptic vaults of etymology and forgotten lore. If the clue is deemed just too far out, then a question mark is simply added, e.g. -- (4D Saucerful?) ETS.
On Monday, when the gradation through the week begins with clues and entries that are common, this might have been simply clued "Aliens". In that case, one readily knows that an "S" might end the entry, plus with so much science fiction in our world of entertainment ET comes to mind rather quickly. However, with "saucerful", no plural appeared to be required, so one is made to think that an object of dinner ware is involved, whatever type of saucer that may be or contain. The degrees of obscurity, from "unidentified flying object" to "UFO" to "flying saucer" to simply "saucer", coupled with "extraterrestrial" abbreviated to "ET" with a plural, the letter "S", coupled with the possibility of being a plate of say, milk, or "LAC" (it's three spaces). On Monday, that hypothetical answer would be clued perhaps by "Fon du ____".
Working puzzles constantly, one finds there are what solvers in the internet circle call "crosswordese" -- the term denotes words or abbreviations that repeat themselves from puzzle to puzzle constantly and therefore the constructors utilize Machiavellian ways to complicate the clues and their entries.
Incidentally, this is the first time I’ve encountered the word "saucerful" -- I had to turn off my automatic spell-check to get it typed! Ah, Websters 3rd New. Int'l. Dict. has it --looks as though one can add "ful" to anything, even a saucer full of milk! I'm just not "sci-fi-ful" enough!
My favorite Saturday stumpers today were 15A Present -- LATTERDAY; 17A Lingered past -- OUTSTAYED; 24A Graduate of Mount Holyoke -- ALUMNA; 27A Having no gray area -- YESNO; 39A Play things -- OPERAGLASSES; 42A Bit of mockery -- HAR; 48A Brief attachment to a report, maybe -- POSTIT; 61A One studying camels -- ICESKATER; the aforementioned 4D Saucerful? -- ETS; 7D Rustic opus -- IDYLL; 8D Break -- CAESURA (this was used in another puzzle recently, spelled CESURA and clued almost the same); 23D Guard -- ENSURE; 25D Guards -- MINDS; 32D Almost -- NIGHON, 45D Semi -- HAULER; 35A Purple shade -- PETUNIA (I had fuchsia for a while); and 53D Cracks -- MOTS. I'm sure you'll have your own favorites.
Dredging up from the bowels of trivia that only the insane commit to memory are 15A Ecuador's Santa ELENA Peninsula; 50D Lord Byron's "The Lament of TASSO"; 9D "The Spanish Tragedy" dramatist, KYD; 11A I, O or U, but not A or E: Abbr. -- ELEM (Abbr. for Element, not "Elementary, Watson"); 46D "leave business to IDLERS, and wisdom to fools". Congreve; and 35A Make campaign stops -- POLITICK (the additional "K" is usually reserved for plurality of the word, ergo it's argot).
So -- was there anything I liked? Yes, the right half of the puzzle went fairly well and the left side was (for me) an illegible mess of crossovers until I myself was not sure what letter I had entered in any particular square! It led me to think that perhaps one side of my mind is more adept than the other in solving a crossword -- so next time, I'll do the one side, then I'll turn it upside down and do the other -- or will mirrors work, they did for DaVinci!
I haven't answered the question -- what did you like about the puzzle -- well, not GLUESTICK (1A Modern arts-and-crafts tool), nor DELHI (43A Where the Peacock Throne was built), KISSY (62A ____-face); DOGOODERS (63A Naive types, sometimes); GLOOMY (1D Pessimistic); EPISODEI (36D Series opener) (only because it appeared in a puzzle two weeks or so ago); or PATSY (48D One easily pushed over) and IDIOT (57A Fool).
About all I liked of this puzzle was CAESURA (8D Break) (even though it's now becoming standard "crosswordese") and ARTDECO (40D Like Manhattan's Chrysler Building) -- also SONGANDDANCE (31A Evasive tactic) and OPERAGLASSES (39A Play things) -- combined they form a nice intersection in the grid and remind me of an intermission (or rest), hopefully not taken into the far right area of the puzzle where one finds a CUL (56A With 10-Across, stalemate) DESAC (10A See 56-Across)!
Oh, and I liked the duck -- 28A Disney's Princess OONA -- (late referred to as Mrs. Chaplin) -- may her "duckness" reign long with her subjects, OOMPH, OOMPAH, ONO, OPAH, OPRAH, ONA, OLA, OOP and OOOLA!
For today’s cartoon, go to The Crossword Puzzle Illustrated.
Puzzle available on the internet at
THE NEW YORK TIMES -- Crossword Puzzles and Games
Well. That was a extralinear wordful disputation. I liked the smeared picture of the Chrysler building!!
ReplyDeleteApt, eh?
ReplyDelete