Amino acid vis a vis protein eg / MON 10-22-18 / Big name in elevators / 1982 movie inspired by pong / gas brand whose logo has blue oval

Constructor: Alex Eaton-Salners

Relative difficulty: Medium (3:02) (it felt harder, but ... I guess not?)

THEME: PLANETS (45D: Etymological origins of the answers to the five starred clues) — just what it says:

Theme answers:

• MERCURIAL (17A: *Capricious)
• VENIAL (22A: *Forgivable)
• MARTIAL (36A: *Warlike)
• JOVIAL (55A: *Jolly)
• SATURNINE (61A: *Gloomy)

Word of the Day: MONOMER (39D: Amino acid vis-à-vis a protein, e.g.) —

noun

CHEMISTRY

1. a molecule that can be bonded to other identical molecules to form a polymer. (google)

Etymology trivia. OK, I guess. JOVIAL seems a stretch, since that's from Jove, not Jupiter, but since they're the same god ... I'll allow it? Shrug. Biggish corners lent some interest to this Monday puzzle, but it was all a little by-the-book. Also, USENET? I'm sure it still exists in some form, but to just clue it [Online discussion forum] like we're all on it all the time ... is a little weird.

Also weird: VOLGA. I mean, it's not a weird river. It's clearly a prominent river in the continent that is Europe. But I rarely see it in puzzles and honestly know nothing about it except that it's *in Russia*; so off my radar is that river that, faced with -O-G-, my brain was like "... OK ... don't laugh ... but is it CONGO? I Said Don't Laugh!" Weirder: I blanked on Lin-Manuel MIRANDA's last name. Which is like blanking on J.K. ROWLING's last name, honestly. Just stupid. I also blanked on ZOE KAZAN's name last week despite knowing very well what her damn name is. I swear, sometimes I can retrieve the dumbest bulls**t but not stuff that's right in front of me, all the time.


Back to the theme for a sec. The PLANETS are not the "Etymological origins" of these words. The god names are. It's not the same thing. Here, listen to Samantha:


My main hang-ups today were MONOMER (a word I honestly don't know), MPH (I had MPG, which is ridiculous), and VENIAL, which I always want to be VENAL. Wow, turns out they are both words and I never bothered to learn the distinction. I blurred them together in my head to mean "susceptible to bribery, which is forgivable if you, like, pray to God for forgiveness or something." Yikes. Anyway, hope you PLOUGHed through this. See you tomorrow.

Signed, Rex Parker, King of CrossWorld

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