Where Miners have majors / THU 1-16-20 / Ancient name for Ceylon / Gobbledygook metaphorically / Hawaiian fish with palindromic name / Bestower of Movies for Grownups Awards

Constructor: Erik Agard and Jeff Chen

Relative difficulty: Medium (6:13 on oversized 16-wide grid)

THEME: TAKE A KNEE (37D: What five answers in this puzzle do phonetically, in defiance of their clues?) — add a "knee" sound to the clued answer to get a different answer altogether

Theme answers:

• NIA LONG (21A: Word following sing or play) ("along" + "knee" = "knee-a long")
• BROWNIE (23A: Furrowed feature) ("brow" + "knee" = "brow-knee")
• JOURNEYMAN (27A: Language that's the source of "gesundheit") ("German" + "knee" = "Ger-knee-man")
• HONEYBEE (51A: The mister, affectionately) ("hubby" + "knee" = "hu-knee-bby")
• GENEALOGY (34D: Study of rocks) ("geology" + "knee" = "ge-knee-ology")

Word of the Day: INUKTITUT (38D: Language of the Canadian Arctic) —

Inuktitut (/ɪˈnʊktɪtʊt/; Inuktitut: [inuktiˈtut], syllabics ᐃᓄᒃᑎᑐᑦ; from inuk, "person" + -titut, "like", "in the manner of"), also Eastern Canadian Inuktitut, is one of the principal Inuit languagesof Canada. It is spoken in all areas north of the tree line, including parts of the provinces of Newfoundland and Labrador, Quebec, to some extent in northeastern Manitoba as well as the Northwest Territories and Nunavut. It is one of the aboriginal languages written with Canadian Aboriginal syllabics.

It is recognised as an official language in Nunavut alongside Inuinnaqtun, and both languages are known collectively as Inuktut. Further, it is recognized as one of eight official native tongues in the Northwest Territories. It also has legal recognition in Nunavik—a part of Quebec—thanks in part to the James Bay and Northern Quebec Agreement, and is recognised in the Charter of the French Language as the official language of instruction for Inuit school districts there. It also has some recognition in Nunatsiavut—the Inuit area in Labrador—following the ratification of its agreement with the government of Canada and the province of Newfoundland and Labrador. The Canadian census reports that there are roughly 35,000 Inuktitut speakers in Canada, including roughly 200 who live regularly outside traditionally Inuit lands.

The term Inuktitut is often used more broadly to include Inuvialuktun and thus nearly all the Inuit dialects of Canada. (wikipedia)

What a clever, entertaining puzzle. Wasn't until I was done that I read all of the revealer clue, through to the part about how the answers take a knee "in defiance" of their clues, highlighting the fact that the gesture (taking a knee) is an act of resistance. Nice touch. I also did not notice until Just Now that GENEALOGY was a themer. I was wondering why there wasn't more theme material, why there wasn't a symmetrical pairing for the revealer—"seems like the SW would've been a perfect spot for another ... ohhhhh wait, GENEALOGY *is* a themer ... OK, then." I figured I was just not understanding the clue and that "rocks" were in some way related to ancestors, family trees ... foundations? Something. I've had so much experience having no idea why an answer is right for its clue, I just assumed there was some meaning to "rocks" I was missing. But now I see. This makes much more sense, and makes the puzzle much nicer than I already thought it was.

The toughest part of this puzzle by far, for me, was the SE, where the revealer sat alongside a language I've never heard of or seen before. I got the gimmick—or at least figured out the correct answer to the first themer—early and easily. I just surrounded NIA LONG until all the letters were filled in. I didn't know why NIA LONG was right, but at least I had some sense that correct (clued) answers were buried somewhere in actual (grid) answers. Got BROWNIE the same way and still wasn't sure. Got to the revealer and had TAKEA ... and no idea. If I'd stopped and thought about it, I probably would've figured it out, but instead I tried to get into that SE corner via the [Language of the Canadian Arctic], which, ha, fat chance. I had INU- and wrote in INUIT- for the first five letters. Had to jump down into the SE and try to build my way back up out of there. Luckily ATL was my first guess and 56A: N.L. East city, on scoreboards, and that gave me the "L" for LEEDS (57D: English city where the Who once recorded a top 5 live album), and I figured out the revealer and that whole corner, though that still left me with INUITITUT as my Canadian language, which meant that I had 49A: Gobbledygook, metaphorically (GREEK) ending in -EEI, which was of course impossible. Finally worked out GREEK. No other part of the puzzle took nearly so much work as the SE.


Five things:

• 13D: Firefighter Red (ADAIR) — one of the only bits of true crosswordese in this whole puzzle. EWOK and ONO and ITO and EXECS are common, sure, but they don't have that whiff of mothball and proper name bygone-itude that ADAIR does. Not my favorite fill, but definitely a name you should know if you're gonna be a constant solver. Nice gimme to have in your back pocket. By the way, ADAIR was famous for capping oil well fires in the '60 and '70s.
• 58A: Lithuanian, e.g. (BALT)— was not aware that a BALT was a thing. This is only the second appearance of this word in the Rex Parker era (2006-present). I'd probably have gone with BALL here ... is there another BALL in the grid? ... No. There isn't. Actually, I think I'd've just changed EBOOK (not my fav) to SHOOK and be done with it (STA not great, but ETA not exactly gold, and if you can disappear EBOOK and BALT, I say go for it)
• There are no other "knee" sounds in the grid besides the ones in the themers — I like that
• 63A: 1950s-'70s football star nicknamed "The Golden Arm" (UNITAS)— another proper name that could be the difference between speeding and stalling. He's a Hall-of-Famer, so, like ADAIR, you really should commit his name to memory. Not as common as ADAIR, but he shows up.

• 44A: Ancient name for Ceylon (LANKA) — Interesting. SRI is uber (MEGA-) common in crosswords, but LANKA, not so much (today's just the third time in the Rex Parker era)

Signed, Rex Parker, King of CrossWorld

P.S. just reminding you that Erik Agard is the editor of the USA Today crossword, which is now very good on a regular basis. All the puzzles are M/T-level easy, but they are clever and clean and full of fresh fill / clues. What's more, year-to-date the USA Today constructors have been *80%* women (by comparison the NYT currently sits at 20% and hasn't been *over* 20% for any year in over a decade).

P.P.S. I was going to wait until Sunday to announce this, but since Jeff Chen is the NYTXW co-constructor *today*, I will go ahead and tell you that the latest book in his middle-grade series, Ultraball, just came out this week. It's called Ultraball #2: Deathstrike. Scifi + sports. Read about it here. Also, Jeff is offering a free signed copy of the book to one of my readers, soooooo ... If it sounds like something you, or a middle-schooler in your life, might be interested in, send me an email at rexparker at icloud dot com with ULTRABALL in the subject line by the end of the day. I'll pick one email at random and bam, that person gets a signed copy of Jeff's book! Neato.

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