Constructor: Damon Gulczynski
Relative difficulty: Easy-Medium
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THEME: none
Word of the Day: PHALANGE (38D: Bone of the hand or foot) —
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This is a fine puzzle. Lots of zingy longer fill, very modern, very colloquial. Entertaining. The only parts that were truly irksome were those that were anomalously old and dumb like MOT (14A: Zinger). No one says MOT for "zinger." Maybe ironically, but not actually. I'd rather see this clued as a partial (e.g. [Bon ___], [Le ___ juste]) or even just as Fr. word meaning ... well, "word." Only the hyper-pretentious are going to call a "zinger" a MOT. Also no one says I DARE NOT (except maybe the guy who says MOT). That answer took me a while because it's impossible to imagine a non-fictional human saying it. I also got a little confused on the GENDER BINARY clue (20A: Male-or-female). Is it GENDER hyphen BINARY, i.e. is this a compound adjective??? The clue looks adjectival ... so ... yeah, the clue and answer don't swap out that well, to my ear. "GENDER-BINARY thinking" = "Male-or-female thinking"? ... I guess. Maybe. Anyway, that threw me. (My friend Angela literally just emailed me, unsolicited, complaining about this very answer, and calling the clue "hyphen abuse")
My biggest struggles (which were few) all cam in and around the long Downs in the east. I just couldn't get any of the short Acrosses to go at first, and so couldn't see the Downs very well. I actually wanted both PSY and USA, but the first seemed dumb (though I guess as an abbr. it's not inaccurate) (no one calls it that, but those are the three letters one would see in a course catalogue, say), and then the second (USA) I just wasn't sure of. And then there was MIC, with its ridiculous [insert tab A into slot B and fold into a swan to get the answer!]-type clue, which my brain always just rejects (62A: Item that names a person holding it when its middle letter is removed). I take one look and go Nope and move to crosses. See also the clue on TRES, ugh (39A: French 101 word or, with a different meaning, Spanish 101 word). Almost everything *not* on the east coast of this puzzle was super-easy. And, as I said up front, pretty fun.
Signed, Rex Parker, King of CrossWorld
[Follow Rex Parker on Twitter and Facebook]
Relative difficulty: Easy-Medium
Word of the Day: PHALANGE (38D: Bone of the hand or foot) —
Anatomyanother term for phalanx (sense 2). // i.e.Anatomya bone of the finger or toe. (google)
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My biggest struggles (which were few) all cam in and around the long Downs in the east. I just couldn't get any of the short Acrosses to go at first, and so couldn't see the Downs very well. I actually wanted both PSY and USA, but the first seemed dumb (though I guess as an abbr. it's not inaccurate) (no one calls it that, but those are the three letters one would see in a course catalogue, say), and then the second (USA) I just wasn't sure of. And then there was MIC, with its ridiculous [insert tab A into slot B and fold into a swan to get the answer!]-type clue, which my brain always just rejects (62A: Item that names a person holding it when its middle letter is removed). I take one look and go Nope and move to crosses. See also the clue on TRES, ugh (39A: French 101 word or, with a different meaning, Spanish 101 word). Almost everything *not* on the east coast of this puzzle was super-easy. And, as I said up front, pretty fun.
Signed, Rex Parker, King of CrossWorld
[Follow Rex Parker on Twitter and Facebook]