I guess I was remembering Joan Crawford in one of her worst films and my own expulsion once from a class. I also typed in Queen BEE first and then EXPELLED coming down. Napoleon II, never ruled as Emperor and died of tuberculosis at a young age so I think the nickname EAGLET is not only fair but kind of sweet. I'm with biggest hurdle was putting in CALLE OCHO for the word before ocho, and then when that didn't work putting SETTE (which is Italian for seven, a language I know a lot better than Spanish from having studied Opera.) But gradually I saw the light.ĭe LESSEPS was a gimme (knowing a bit about AIDA's debut for the opening of the Suez Canal.) but I still put in LESSELS first. It took me nearly 40 to do it but eventually I won out, and pat on shoulder, no cheating. I almost wrote EPIC FAIL in the Homer space because I had a helluva time doing this puzzle. I feel about “correct pronunciation” about the same way as I do about grammar, one needs to know it for various settings but understanding is more important than any arbitrary “standard of correctness.” Also, DiPinto - I don’t know that the vowel shift is due to “anglicization.” Spanish is just as varied in its dialects as English and it wouldn’t surprise me if it is just that. So what you see as a fault I see as a feature. So, EMPTY EYES isn’t crunchy for me because it is just straight trivia, while HI Y’ALL has a little crunch because there’s the “oh! That Mobile” DiPinto and - I think rhymes are perfect for xwords exactly because they are iffy. Letters besides the automatic ones they give the winner in Wheel of Fortune and answers that make you rethink the clue. Hand up for not even bothering with the vowels in SAGAL. Plus, when your buddy claims to have ONE-PUTTED while you were distracted everyone’s reaction is that their buddy LIVES A LIE. Let’s pick the way we want to die (tbf - GMOS don’t bother me, but there is a lot of panic out there about them). MOTTLERS? SIR SPEEDY? SLEDGES? EPICISTS? Nope, just not part of my world and unlikely to ever be a part of it.Īnyone else find the SW a little grim? ADDERS, NOOSES, GMOS. At least CLEVER DICK seems like a handy term. I’m with Rex on the whole “never heard of it and never will again” thing. Ha! I got you all beat, my queens were ann, Mab, MUM. KATEY SAGAL and CASSIS got me traction in the SE, and after a MAB-for- MUM mistake ( 34A: Queen _), I was able to muddle my way through MOTTLERS and on to the end of the puzzle. Everything but LESSEPS had inferrable letters, though, which saved me, ultimately. Oh, and ANGLOS for 39D: Whites didn't come easily either. The only real Real resistance I got from this one came in the SW, where ALTE / SIR SPEEDY / LESSEPS / GMOS had me frozen. Anyway, brief moment of chaos there while that answer sorted itself out. well, yeah, it's just a sled, and a sleigh is sled drawn by horses (or reindeer, I guess). First real test came when I plunked down SLEIGHS at 11D: Haulers on runners ( SLEDGES). I was so proud of myself that I got ALERT first thing (though I did have to think about it for a few seconds). There is some other good stuff in here, both answer- and clue-wise, but overall, this one didn't delight as much as I expected it would, other than the fact that it's always at least a little delightful to take a Saturday down in under 8 minutes. Trivia is not what I love about crosswords. So mainly the issue was that I just didn't know a lot of stuff. Then there's ALTE Oper (?), SIR SPEEDY (?), and LESSEPS (?), none of which I have ever seen before. MOTTLERS? Again, a specialty thing outside my ken. British slang that hasn't crossed over in any way? Shrug, not into it. I have never heard it and likely never will again. It is barely a word-this kind of esoterica makes me make faces when I solve. Literally never heard anyone ever refer to him as an EPICIST. I was reading the beginning of the Odyssey just this morning. EPICISTS? GOPER? The NW corner didn't do much to endear me to this one. Usually love Byron puzzles, but this one was a little wobbly, a little too full of stuff that seemed odd, indulgent, and just not interesting to me.
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