Edward VII familiarly / THU 7-20-17 / Shorthand system inventor Pitman / Fictional swordsman / Screenplay directive / Massey of old movies

Constructor: Randolph Ross

Relative difficulty: Medium-Challenging (my exceedingly slow time was probably highly idiosyncratic)

THEME: ugh, I don't know, some puns on interrogative words or something god it was awful—

Theme answers:

• "WATT'S THE PROBLEM?" (17A: James is keeping me from getting a steam engine patent?)
• "HOWE'S BUSINESS?" (35A: Hockey, to Gordie?)
• "HU LET THE DOGS OUT?" (56A: A former leader of China gave his shar-peis some exercise)

Word of the Day: LOBAR (11D: Lung-related) —

adjective: lobar

1. relating to or affecting a lobe, especially a whole lobe of a lung. (google)

Painful. Painful because the theme is so groany and old and thin, painful because the puzzle is 100 years old in all the worst ways, and painful because I spent a hard 3-4 minutes just stuck in the NW wondering if I was ever going to get the last four squares. I blame EXEDOUT, one of the dumbest crossword entries in modern times. No One Would Write That. But look, let's just blame my problems in the NW corner on me and get back to the real problem, which is ugh. There are only three of these theme puns. They aren't funny. There is no rhyme or reason to any of this? Why these people? Why not Where or When or Why puns? Why not why (OK, so no one's named WYE probably ... still). Watt and Howe have clues related to what they did, but Hu? Hoo boy, no. Howe and Hu are exact homophones, but Watt is natt. It's a wacky weak not-funny pun puzzle. You wanna pun, you better bring heat. Fire. Or go home. No more of this soft dad humor b.s. It's depressing.


And I haven't even started in on the multiple answers that are deserving of contempt. I have "F.U." (or a longer version thereof) written All Over my marked-up grid. I've already introduced you to EXEDOUT, which crosses COSA (I did not know this meaning) and CUTTO (dear lord that is terrible fill ... "phrase" more than "directive" ... just ugly in the grid). This was my long dark night of the grid. Here's the squares I *didn't* have, for an awfully long time:

EXE---T just would not compute for me at 15A: Edited, in way. Thought for sure that Spanish thing was ESTA or ESTO or ... something like that that I'd maybe seen before. And C-TT- looked utterly wrong. Totally impossible. It got so bad, I was doubting "REBECCA" at one point (1A: Hitchcock film with Laurence Olivier). Only after I ran the Big Ten in my head did I think *O*SU at 24A: Big Ten powerhouse, for short, and that finally unclogged things. But I actually don't have "F.U." written next to any of that (though I probably should). Instead, it's written next to:

Bullets:

• REWARM (1D: Nuke, maybe)— no. WTF is REWARM. If you "Nuke" something, you REHEAT it, for *$&%'s sake. That's what nuking does. REWARM, ugh, boo. Terrible.
• OLEOOIL (59A: Margarine ingredient)— stop. Just stop. OLEO is a thing. OLEO OIL is just some vowelly nonsense. Fill your grid better. Your fill is about as scrumptious as OLEO OIL (whatever that is!)
• BERTIE (25A: Edward VII, familiarly)— What Year Is It? How on god's green do I know what pals called some bygone king who died before I was born. He died in 1910. "Feel the Bert!" Make it stop!
• ISAAC (31D: Shorthand system inventor Pitman)— Shorthand. Shorthand? Shorthand. Soooo many ISAACs in the world and ... shorthand. Like the puzzle isn't already a parody of the dated NYT old white dude puzzle ... you had to go ahead and add shorthand. Fine.

Also, stacking French words is terrible form (see AMI over ÉCOLE). The end

Signed, Rex Parker, King of CrossWorld

[Follow Rex Parker on Twitter and Facebook]