Lash with bullwhip / SUN 4-8-18 / Novice parasailer's fear / Ball hit for fielding practice / 1987 action film originally given X rating for violence / Podcast that won 2014 Peabody award / Long-armed climber for short / Instrument whose name means three strings / Bygone channel that aired Veronica Mars

Constructor: Patrick Berry

Relative difficulty: Easy-Medium (very easy except for the actual spoonerisms)

THEME:"Triple Spoonerisms"— Three-word phrases (not including incidental words like "of" and "the") are spoonerized in this weird way where the initial consonant sound of each word is pushed down the line one notch, so ...

Theme answers:

• "Streak of bad luck" becomes BEAK OF LAD STRUCK (24A: What caused the nosebleed on the playground?)
• "The buck stops here" becomes THE STUCK HOPS BEER (30A: Tagline in an ad for Elmer's Glue-Ale?)
• "Hail Mary pass" becomes PALE HAIRY MASS (60A: Description of a yeti?) (if you've got white FUR, you're not "pale," exactly ...)
• "Bearer of glad tidings" becomes TERROR OF BAD GLIDINGS (67A: Novice parasailer's fear?)
• "Stock car races" becomes ROCK STAR CASES (76A: Containers for electric guitars?)
• "The Santa Fe Trail" becomes THE FANTA TRAY SALE (106A: Best place to buy a platter of fruit-flavored sodas?)
• "Feel right at home" becomes HEAL FIGHT AT ROME (114A: Mend fences after Caesar's civil war?)

Word of the Day: Lash LARUE (57A: Lash with a bullwhip) —

Alfred "Lash" LaRue (June 15, 1917–May 21, 1996) was a popular western motion picture star of the 1940s and 1950s. He had exceptional skill with the bullwhip and taught Harrison Ford how to use a bullwhip for the Indiana Jones movies. LaRue was one of the first recipients of the Golden Boot Awards in 1983. (wikipedia)

I learned something about spoonerisms today. Now, I love Spoonerisms. I keep an ongoing list of baseball's All-Spoonerism team (ask me about starting pitcher Hill Fuse—he's a firecracker on the mound!). Spoonerisms are fun. Half my day is doing spoonerisms in my head (the other half is anagrams). So I didn't think I had anything to learn about them, but I did, and here it is: they don't work in triplicate. A spoonerism is something you grok immediately, it's pitch perfect, and it is completely dependent on the one-for-one swap. Sound-for-sound. Passing sounds down the chain ... not nearly as satisfying. Also, if my solving and post-solving experience today are any indication, not at all easy to understand. It was like homework trying to figure out what half of these damn themers were supposed to be spoonerisms *of*. It's not that they're not (mostly) clever, it's that I have to *work* to figure them out, which pretty voids the spoonerism of its spoonerismness. The raucous guffaw of instant recognition is replaced by the pale aha of scribble games. Spoonerisms rule, triple spoonerisms ... rule somewhat less.


And a couple of slightly irksome things about the theme execution on this one. These are definitely peas under the mattress, but ... I can't help being sensitive. First, I got really irked that, in order to find the pre-spoonerized phrase, you *sometimes* had to start with the initial consonant sound on the third word (as with BEAK OF LAD STRUCK), and *sometimes* had to start with the initial consonant sound on the SECOND WORD (as with TERROR OF BAD GLIDINGS). This is nails on chalkboard stuff to me, not just because there's a lack of uniformity, but also because that non-uniformity has no pattern. No symmetry. If first, middle, and last had started on the third word but the rest had started on the second, I could've lived with it. But as it is—it's chaos, man. Then there's THE FANTA TRAY SALE, which is actually one of three winners in today's themer group. But that clue: 106A: Best place to buy a platter of fruit-flavored sodas? ... a SALE is not a "place"!!! It's an event! "Where are you going?""To the sale.""Uh ... the sale WHERE!?" End scene. I had so much trouble with this answer, for this reason, and also because I had SNORT for 84D: Mock sound of disinterest (SNORE). This left me with THE FANTA TRAY SALT, which I really, really couldn't get despoonerized. I had somehow convinced myself that a SALT was a place ... where you SALT things away? Maybe I'm thinking of "saltcellar," which, it turns out (spoiler alert), is not an actual cellar. At any rate, a SALE is an event, not a place, I have spoken.

The rest of this grid is just fine. Smooth, nice good. I have nothing to say about it because it is all awfully straightforward, and there's nothing particularly scintillating about the fill, though the clue on PENAL CODE is an unquestionmarked doozy (83D: Rules for forming sentences). I had DEPOSE beforeDEPORT (51D: Kick out), and TRASH HEAP before TRASH PILE (2D: It's a bunch of garbage). HEAP's better. I have no idea why the simple word RESET has this absolutely contorted B.S. "D.C.-speak" clue (5D: Complete policy overhaul, in D.C.-speak). I left the spaces after RE- empty until I got them all from crosses because I couldn't accept that an answer with a clue that dumbly specific could have an answer so basic.

Signed, Rex Parker, King of CrossWorld

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