ACROSS LITE PUZZLE: [ THEMELESS MONDAY]
PROGRAM: [Across Lite]
PROGRAM: [Java]
PRINTOUT PUZZLE: [ THEMELESS MONDAY]
PROGRAM: [Adobe Acrobat]
Dutiful readers of BEQ.com will recount that I am teaching two classes on crossword construction. It’s been going great, thanks for asking. Who knows? It’s a bit of comedy gold that the guy who was a real bum academically might find out he’s suited to be a teacher. Okay, yeah, I am teaching something I’m more than qualified to teach. It’s not like I’m doing women’s studies, economics, theoretical astrophysics, Mandarin, auto repair, gym, etc. Maybe I just like being on stage or something.
One thing’s for sure, that old saying about how you relearn the subject when you teach someone else about it is completely true. I’ve noticed already that there’s been a subtle change in how I’ve been tackling puzzles. Not a massive difference, but a subtle one, nonetheless. Good stuff.
I bring this up because in both classes I mentioned the evils of crosswordese and how modern-day puzzlers work their asses off to eliminate them. You know the culprits, ESNE and ANOA to name two words whose sole purpose is to hold corners of crosswords together. They can’t possibly come up in regular conversation can they? So anyway, I’m solving this past Saturday’s Times puzzle, and sure enough, frigging ADIT is smack dab at 54-Across. That really bothered me because I made an example of that entry as supreme crapola, specifically telling to my students change that A to an E. I guess my memory is bad because ADIT has appeared 18 times in the Times under Will’s editorship, three times this year alone. Yikes. Who’s got selective memory loss?
Rhetorical question: What would any of the Crossword Jesuses do?
Okay, it’s not so rhetorical. They would Absolutely Never Ever use ADIT. Let that be a lesson to any of my students who are checking out the BEQ.com.
Thanks to all who were able to contribute this past month. This month’s randomly selected winner is … well, you’ll find out sometime this month, subtly placed in one grid.
Share the puzzle. New one on Thursday.
Another stiff breeze to stir the Monday doldrums. The pop culture references all gettable from the crosses…1A and 8A both juicy terms I’d never heard of.
Cluing on 23A? I know it’s a nit, but, as Jimmy Durante would say…
Three-quarters of this was right in my strike zone – video games, pinball, craps, soy beans, LOTR and the only two movies I saw this summer. “Not done” (great clue) took a little head scratching as did ‘”The Great Gatsby” subject’ – er, social climbing? class snobbery? The NW was kind of tough though. I don’t watch Entourage. Managed to finish once I figured out that Mr. James was not some actor who had been in “Cats”. Nice QXKX in the first three lines.
And, yeah, ADIT this Saturday jumped right out at me. XD Over the last two or three weeks, I’ve found the Fri/Sat NYT puzzles to be too easy. Boo.
33A had O——Y
a flash of insight gave me ORDINARY but after that there was no light in that area at all. Finally had to get rid of RDINAR and eventually I saw ONCEADAY. Do constructors plan these things?
FWIW, if you were to give a distance education version of your crossword construction class, I would take it.
A few years ago, I was a passenger on a small boat sailing through Prince William Sound. The captain was pointing out various features of the landscape as we passed them. He told us there was an abandoned mine on a mountain that loomed over the water. “Look,” he said, “Just above the treeline, you can see the adit.”
I’d never heard of edamame. And, while I’m adit, I should mention that I’d never heard of acqhire either. Live and learn. Nice puzzle.
For some reason when I printed the puzzle, the black squares printed white like the rest. I thought it was a new novelty puzzle and I was proud of deciphering where the black squares should go. Alas I had to Google Aragorn to get the Donuts reference (the LID on the box?) and Scott Pilgrim to open up the NE. Thought BEQ might give us something kinkier than just SPANKING.
In regards to adit …
I believe the Violent Femmes popularized adit with their miner safety song “Adit Up” and crossword constructors have used it ever since.
Randomly spewed thoughts:
1-A was a bizarrely cool new find. Not up on my buzzword bingo, but I like it.
Had edamame the other day, it’s addictive. Nice munchy appetizer at some Japanese restaurants, too. The soybean version of bar snacks, sort of?
Any clue that begins with “Fictional ‘Entourage’ film” is going to make my eyeballs explode though. Meta-pop culture-y cluing is some seriously evil stuff.
Christopher Nolan intersection too. And BEQ stays in the ranks of “people who like to mess with our minds”. Nicely done.
I like the word ADIT. I can see using that one in a sentence. And I’m always surprised when the word OGEE is applicable. My least favorite crosswordese is OLEO, or OLIO. I’ve never heard either show up in conversation.
The first time I had edamame, no one explained to me that it’s not really a green bean. You don’t eat the outside, split it open and eat the beans inside; the shell is very bitter.
The Great Gatsby was about adultery? I have no memory of that. But about all I remember is rich people partying, and some guy crashing the party. I wonder if it’s worth re-reading.
The only time I ever heard “oleo” was from my grandmother. I remember asking her why she didn’t say margarine (like everyone else) and she told me that she worked with a very unpleasant woman named Marge and didn’t like to invoke her name in her home.