Subject of notable 2016 referendum / THU 2-9-17 / Caesarean rebuke / Surfer's tether / Trounce informally

Constructor:Ross Trudeau

Relative difficulty:Easy

THEME:Across the pond— ATLANTIC OCEAN sits in middle of grid, and themers are paired answers representing the different names Yanks and Brits have for various things:

Theme answers:

• 2D: 56-Down, across the 15-Down (HIRES) / v.v. (RENTS)
• 4D: 41-Down, across the 15-Down (QUEUEING) / v.v. (LINING UP)
• 35D: 10-Down, across the 15-Down (KNACKERED) / v.v. (EXHAUSTED)
• 52D: 8-Down, across the 15-Down (CHIPS) / v.v. (FRIES) 

Word of the Day:ALITERATE(22A: Able but unwilling to read)—

adjective

adjective: aliterate

1. unwilling to read, although able to do so. 

noun

noun: aliterate; plural noun: aliterates

1. an aliterate person.

Easy. Feels like I've seen an Atlantic-divided puzzle like this one before, but the word-pair thing is cute and enjoyable. Having themers cross-referenced made the puzzle Very easy to solve, though. Well before ATLANTIC OCEAN came into view, I could tell what was going on. In fact, before I knew it was a theme answer, it was clear to me just by the phrasing of its clue that 2D: HIRES was part of a US/UK pair. At that point, I thought HIRES was the root beer (seriously), so I'm lucky I didn't decide to jump to the other side of the grid and write in, I don't know, AANDW (though we have that here....). Once I hit QUEUEING, I *did* jump the pond and write in LINING UP, and then the pace picked up very, very quickly. When your central themer is so easy as to be an afterthought, the puzzle doesn't stand much chance. KNACKERED is one of my favorite Briticisms, though I'm not sure I'd say it—I just like hearing it. My wife's a Kiwi, so sometimes we forget in this household what's British and what isn't. I don't know if she says any of the British stuff any more, if she ever did. She's lived here so long even she gets confused about what's "original" and what's picked-up.


So, cute theme, but the fill on this thing, holy moly it's a mess. Soooo much tired, overfamiliar crosswordesey gunk. Innocuous stuff like ELOPE STYE ULNA ABASE ABET and then crosswordesey names like RITT RUDI and foreignisms like SOU UNO QUA ICI LAC AÑO and then generally ugh-ish PSAT ETTU ETRAIN RAH OMANI VIOLS ICARE ESE especially INOT ULA NANU ATUG and the cherry on top, AFLERS (!?). Hard enough to get me to buy NLERS and ALERS, no need to shove *bygone* sports -ERS down my throat.

Also didn't care for BOBO, mostly because I had BOZO, which is more "common" than BOBO as a clown name, in that I can identify at least one BOZO. Ugh. Now there are some fine longer answers that distract from the junkyard fill. Never heard of ALITERATE, but I like it. Not that familiar with LEGROPE, but I'm enjoying reparsing it as LE GROPE (I imagine him as a miserable French count who cannot keep his hands to himself). GO VIRAL and BREXIT are nice modern touches. If you haven't seen Aziz ANSARI in "Master of None" (Netflix), do yourself a favor. Enjoyed seeing him in here. Yes, the fill is truly terrible, but people are going to like the puzzle, generally, because the theme was cute and it was very, very easy. A puzzle that is both easy and charming, with a handful of decent longer answers, can make people forget (or forgive) some otherwise pretty shoddy craftsmanship.

Signed, Rex Parker, King of CrossWorld

P.S. Finn is right about the themers (geographically speaking) ...

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