Constructor: Ellis Hay
Relative difficulty: Tuesday
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THEME: Queen B— Every clue starts with B. Theme answers start with a word that's pronounced the same way you pronounce the letter B.
Theme answers:
Word of the Day: UGLI (36A: "Blemished" fruit) —
That said, I had to go on the Wordplay blog to get the theme. I felt like a big buffoon when I realized absolutely all the clues had been B's. In my defense I did the puzzle on mobile so there wasn't an obvious wall of B-clues staring me right in the face, just one at a time, and I was more focused on cracking the code of whether UGLI was a typo or not. But like I said, it was cool. I like bees. I forget if I've talked about them before on this blog, but I find eusocial insects really neat.
Bullets:
![Image result for miffy]()
Signed, Annabel Thompson, tired college student, and I swear to God I almost just typed "high school" instead of college, eep. I'm going to bed.
OH MY GOD I ALMOST FORGOT: It's my mom's birthday tomorrow! She's going to be--um, 39! Again! In all seriousness, happy birthday to her.
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Relative difficulty: Tuesday
THEME: Queen B— Every clue starts with B. Theme answers start with a word that's pronounced the same way you pronounce the letter B.
Theme answers:
- B-MINOR MASS (20A: Bach masterpiece, informally)
- BEA ARTHUR (32A: Betty White co-star on "The Golden Girls"
- BEE STINGS (40A: Benadryl might treat them)
- BE YOURSELF (52A: Bit of advice to the insecure)
Word of the Day: UGLI (36A: "Blemished" fruit) —
The Jamaican tangelo, also known by proprietary names ugli /ˈʌɡli/ fruit, uglifruit, or uniq fruit, is a Jamaican form of tangelo, a citrus fruit that arose through the natural hybridization of a tangerine or orange with a grapefruit (or pomelo).[1]
This tangelo was a natural hybrid, having arisen spontaneously like the grapefruit,[1] in Jamaica, where it is mainly grown today.[3]'UGLI' is a registered trademark of Cabel Hall Citrus Limited, under which it markets the fruit,[4] the name being a variation of the word "ugly", which refers to the fruit's unsightly appearance, with rough, wrinkled, greenish-yellow rind, wrapped loosely around the orange pulpy citrus inside.[2]
(Wikipedia)
• • •
Annabel Monday!!!!! Okay, this is so not a good omen. I'm fast approaching midterms and I get to a whole puzzle themed around the letter "B"? Can next week's Monday theme be "A+" or "Annabel passes all her midterms without having to stay up all night or even having to put that much work into them because she's just that good"? Anyway, I definitely scored worse than a B on puzzle time, to b honest. I got stuck on the left for ages, ditto with the bottom right quadrant because I couldn't figure out what PONE was, and there were just various unnecessarily hard words scattered throughout the puzzle. Didn't help that I'd misspelled RBG's last name as GINSBERG for a solid twenty minutes. And UGLI is my biggest Natick since actual Natick. But that's probably just because I've never personally eaten it. Difficulty aside, though, I had fun. Few obvious clues, no overused answers. I'd love to see more constructors try things like this! The clues were more interesting because they must have been more of a challenge to write.That said, I had to go on the Wordplay blog to get the theme. I felt like a big buffoon when I realized absolutely all the clues had been B's. In my defense I did the puzzle on mobile so there wasn't an obvious wall of B-clues staring me right in the face, just one at a time, and I was more focused on cracking the code of whether UGLI was a typo or not. But like I said, it was cool. I like bees. I forget if I've talked about them before on this blog, but I find eusocial insects really neat.
Bullets:
- MIFF (10A: Bother)— Makes me think of Miffy. She was a little bunny who had adventures that were actually pretty boring but that probably helped me sleep when I was a baby, so fair enough.
- MATHLETE (10D: Braniac in a certain high school competition)— I'd love to hear from current or former Mathletes about your experiences! Also, did you call yourselves that? Like for real? Also, kudos to you, that's hard stuff. I used to be great at math until I reached calculus, at which point I suddenly discovered that I'd rather analyze literary themes and the social implications of literature for the rest of my academic life, which conveniently doesn't require you to take the integral of a function.
- BEA ARTHUR (32A: Betty White co-star on "The Golden Girls") — Obligatory:
- ALUM (2D: Bill Clinton vis-à-vis Georgetown and 54-Down)— oh god that's going to be me soon oh god. Nah, in all seriousness I'm pretty excited. I'm thinking of becoming a librarian.
Signed, Annabel Thompson, tired college student, and I swear to God I almost just typed "high school" instead of college, eep. I'm going to bed.
OH MY GOD I ALMOST FORGOT: It's my mom's birthday tomorrow! She's going to be--um, 39! Again! In all seriousness, happy birthday to her.
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| Look, they're Rex's BFFs. Also I forget which one is the older twin |
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