Constructor: Claire Muscat and David Steinberg
Relative difficulty: Medium
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THEME: NUTs — theme answers contain different nuts (in circled squares); the nut names are interrupted by a single letter in each case—those letters: N, U, T (respectively)
Theme answers:
But the acorn *is* the nut. The almond *is* the nut. The pecan *is* the nut. Why do they contain the letters N, U, T, respectively. What is being ... imagined / pictured / represented? A nut in its shell? Because ... that's simply not what's on the page. Without any title, without any wordplay, any clever revealer, this theme just dies. You have to work even to figure it out (or at least I did), and then the discovery feels like it's not quite right. I was like "Oh ... N, U, T ... alright then ... what else? What am I missing?" Cracked nuts? Split nuts? I figured there must be more. But I don't think there is.
This puzzle was probably easier than usual, but yeeeeeeet again I maimed myself with wrong answers. Stupid, innocuous stuff that I didn't see was wrong because it was so stupid and innocuous (actually, it wasn't "stupid" at all, I'm just mad). Got GOLF PRO and off the "P" put in ... RPM (24A: Dashletters (MPH)). Lethal. This meant I could not see 11D: Way some movies are seen (ON DEMAND) at all, even with a bunch of letters in place, because it looked like this ON-ER--D. Only way I ended up sorting that out was by eventually getting HBO NOW, which also took some work, since the only HBO-related app I know is HBOGO (that still exists, right?). I also had BRAIDS for PLAITS (37A: Twisted locks), which, as you can see, is a totally understandable error on a number of levels. Same number of letters, three letters in the same position, both answers fit the clue. Ugh. I "finished" the puzzle with BRAIDS in there, but the crosses just didn't check out. BBS is not a TV station, RAPLACE is not a French astronomer, and ARD is not any thing that I know of. Don't like [Bust, maybe] for ART. If it's a bust, it's art. If "maybe" here is supposed to mean "this is a word that can mean multiple things," then that is bogus because words mean multiple things all the time, and we know that, so what's with the "maybe" nonsense? [Bust, e.g.] = yes. [Bust, maybe] = no. [Intuit] feels not-at-all right for plain old SEE, either.
Kinda winced at SEXPOT (42D: Vamp) and definitely winced at PIZZA FACE (56A: One with serious acne, pejoratively). The one is at least vaguely sexist and objectifying, while the other is explicitly cruel and stupid. You gonna do TUB OF LARD next? I'll pass on the bullying bullshit. Oh, and a cutesy "?" clue on a terrorist organization? Hard pass (31A: An end to terrorism? => QAEDA). I did, however, like BAR FIGHT, GIANT SQUIDS, and DO SHOTS, to name a few (I also liked TO NAME A FEW). The grid mostly holds up just fine. I just wish the theme had amounted to something.
P.S. A.D.A. today refers to the Americans with Disabilities Act (I had to look it up—ADA is a dental org. to me) (28D: Law with bldg. requirements)
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Relative difficulty: Medium
Theme answers:
- LEAN CORNED BEEF (20A: Light deli offering)
- BURIAL MOUND (35A: Traditional grave)
- LIFE EXPECTANCY (50A: It's longer for women than it is for men)
Pierre-Simon, marquis de Laplace (/ləˈplɑːs/; French: [pjɛʁ simɔ̃ laplas]; 23 March 1749 – 5 March 1827) was a French scholar whose work was important to the development of mathematics, statistics, physics and astronomy. He summarised and extended the work of his predecessors in his five-volume Mécanique Céleste (Celestial Mechanics) (1799–1825). This work translated the geometric study of classical mechanics to one based on calculus, opening up a broader range of problems. In statistics, the Bayesian interpretation of probability was developed mainly by Laplace.
• • •
But the acorn *is* the nut. The almond *is* the nut. The pecan *is* the nut. Why do they contain the letters N, U, T, respectively. What is being ... imagined / pictured / represented? A nut in its shell? Because ... that's simply not what's on the page. Without any title, without any wordplay, any clever revealer, this theme just dies. You have to work even to figure it out (or at least I did), and then the discovery feels like it's not quite right. I was like "Oh ... N, U, T ... alright then ... what else? What am I missing?" Cracked nuts? Split nuts? I figured there must be more. But I don't think there is.
This puzzle was probably easier than usual, but yeeeeeeet again I maimed myself with wrong answers. Stupid, innocuous stuff that I didn't see was wrong because it was so stupid and innocuous (actually, it wasn't "stupid" at all, I'm just mad). Got GOLF PRO and off the "P" put in ... RPM (24A: Dashletters (MPH)). Lethal. This meant I could not see 11D: Way some movies are seen (ON DEMAND) at all, even with a bunch of letters in place, because it looked like this ON-ER--D. Only way I ended up sorting that out was by eventually getting HBO NOW, which also took some work, since the only HBO-related app I know is HBOGO (that still exists, right?). I also had BRAIDS for PLAITS (37A: Twisted locks), which, as you can see, is a totally understandable error on a number of levels. Same number of letters, three letters in the same position, both answers fit the clue. Ugh. I "finished" the puzzle with BRAIDS in there, but the crosses just didn't check out. BBS is not a TV station, RAPLACE is not a French astronomer, and ARD is not any thing that I know of. Don't like [Bust, maybe] for ART. If it's a bust, it's art. If "maybe" here is supposed to mean "this is a word that can mean multiple things," then that is bogus because words mean multiple things all the time, and we know that, so what's with the "maybe" nonsense? [Bust, e.g.] = yes. [Bust, maybe] = no. [Intuit] feels not-at-all right for plain old SEE, either.
Kinda winced at SEXPOT (42D: Vamp) and definitely winced at PIZZA FACE (56A: One with serious acne, pejoratively). The one is at least vaguely sexist and objectifying, while the other is explicitly cruel and stupid. You gonna do TUB OF LARD next? I'll pass on the bullying bullshit. Oh, and a cutesy "?" clue on a terrorist organization? Hard pass (31A: An end to terrorism? => QAEDA). I did, however, like BAR FIGHT, GIANT SQUIDS, and DO SHOTS, to name a few (I also liked TO NAME A FEW). The grid mostly holds up just fine. I just wish the theme had amounted to something.
P.S. A.D.A. today refers to the Americans with Disabilities Act (I had to look it up—ADA is a dental org. to me) (28D: Law with bldg. requirements)
[Follow Rex Parker on Twitter and Facebook]