It is kind of amazing that we haven’t seen NUCOR before. Looked up NUCOR (short for “Nuclear Corporation” apparently) to discover its roots are with old crossword friend RE Olds. Hand up for wondering why US Steel didn’t fit. I count 19 squares where I wrote over my original letter. His cartoons are responsible for popularizing the donkey and elephant as symbols of our two major political parties. NAST is Thomas NAST, an enormously important political cartoonist who used to appear in the crossword more often ( 52D: Early illustrator of Uncle Sam). "Christmas at Dollywood" will still be there for you when the puzzle's over. I think the main lesson today is, don't Hallmark and solve, kids.
This miniature train wreck in the far SW was probably the most significant slow-down for me (outside of NUCOR). I've never been in an electric car, so I don't know what MPG is being. Then I had trouble with MPG, which I thought might be MPH. This error led to trouble with 61A: Tricks ( GETS), which I had as GEWS, which led me to seriously consider that this was some slangy term (like GEWGAWS?) that had somehow managed to elude me lo these 50 years. "Stop it!" I actually had "CAN YOU, NOW?" written in the grid for a bit, which continues my weird habit this week of writing in answer that contain clue words, i.e. Or, rather, the clue seems like it might be uttered in any number of contexts, in any number of tones, while the answer has a very narrow range of meaning, i.e. Biggest comprehension problem came at 33D: "Really, now? Really!?" (" CAN YOU NOT!?"), largely because those don't seem equivalent at all, to me. Had SENATE RUN instead of SENATE BID (47A: Congressional campaign).
#USA TODAY CROSSWORDS XWDS PROBLEMS DISPLAYS FULL#
( 18A: Actress whose full name can be made from the letters of DO RE MI)īeyond my struggles with the proper nouns I didn't know, there weren't that many real holdups. The DEMI MOORE clue would've been great if DEMI MOORE had annnnything to do with singing. interesting that the names are more concentrated in the middle and western parts of the grid (which were also the parts where I was slower). I won't list them all, but I'm guessing that at least some of these gave a bunch of solvers trouble: NUCOR, FURMAN, LOGAN, LAMAR, NAST, NANTZ, SONYA. Not like any of the clues they're using are so great. Stunned that they didn't do that cutesy linked-clue thing with AUSTIN (home of University of Texas) and LONGHORNS (the Texas mascot/team name). I'm guessing they don't just shoot lasers at your face and then peel your face off to reveal a different (better?) face underneath. I got LASER PEEL pretty easily, though I have next to no idea what it entails ( 27A: Treatment that reduces wrinkles). There weren't that many real highlights, and it was a bit trivia/name-heavy, but most of this was lively and solid.
Things were a little smoother for me in the eastern half of the grid, with " ABOUT THAT." being the highlight for me. But that's OK, sometimes you don't know stuff. Also new to me, FURMAN, a name I know only from the OJ trial. But if it's the largest, then it's worthy. It's never been in the NYTXW before today, which seems bizarre if it's so major. Hilarious (to me) that this can be true when it's the. The real wall, though, was NUCOR, which I am literally seeing for the first time today. Thought SHAHs were exclusively Persian and so had no idea about this Jahan guy at 20A. Lots of trouble right away, not knowing SONYA, and thinking the was RED (it's RYE). So I never really picked up any momentum with this one. This time I was curled up on the couch w/ my clipboard and a cup of tea, just letting the Hallmark Christmas universe bathe me in its tepid festive glow. Usually when I solve, I can't have any distractions. This one played way off my wavelength-though distracted solving may have had something to do with that. Glad to see her name on a themeless puzzle (Fri/Sat puzzles tend to be dominated by men even more than the themed stuff). She is prolific and has gotten demonstrably better over the past decade or however long she's been constructing. David Steinberg) earlier this week that I thought was a near-perfect early-week gem: vertical themers inside of each of which was hidden the name of a variety of apple, running upward (i.e. She had an APPLETURNOVER puzzle in the Universal Crossword (ed. (Zhouqin on her NYTXW bylines) is one of my favorite constructors.
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