Constructor: Wren Schultz
Relative difficulty: Medium (i.e. normal Monday) (2:57)
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THEME: YES (67A: What the circled letters all mean) — just like the clue says:
Theme answers:
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Surprised this was accepted, for a host of reasons. I like the theme answers fine on their own, they look nice in the grid, but the theme is startlingly thin and purposeless. Why these languages? Why are they all European languages? HAI- (for instance) could start infinite potential answers. So can all of these yeses (except OUI). It's just not tough or impressive or even interesting to have a long answer that starts SI-. A gajillion answers do that. Same with JA-, same with DA-. Further, why are all the yeses up front? What's the logic? They may as well appear in the middle of the grid as anywhere, since there's no governing principle, no revealer to make their initial positioning make any kind of sense. Which leads us to the biggest question: why is this revealer such a dud? Why is there a revealer at all? Anyone can look at the circled squares and see they all mean "yes" in other languages. YES is such an incredibly redundant let-down of a revealer. Now if puzzles had titles, maybe you could've called this one, I don't know, "Up-Front Agreement" or something, I don't know. Maybe taken the circles out and put the language in parentheses at the end of each theme clue? Something like that? Anyway, something. Just putting YES at the end, that is not it. That is not anything.
Relative difficulty: Medium (i.e. normal Monday) (2:57)
Theme answers:
- JAZZERCISE (16A: Alternative to Zumba)
- DAIRY QUEEN (29A: Where to order a Blizzard)
- OUIJA BOARD (44A: Supposed means of communication with the dead)
- SIOUX FALLS (60A: Biggest city in South Dakota)
A liquid-crystal display (LCD) is a flat-panel display or other electronically modulated optical device that uses the light-modulating properties of liquid crystals combined with polarizers. Liquid crystals do not emit light directly, instead using a backlight or reflector to produce images in color or monochrome. LCDs are available to display arbitrary images (as in a general-purpose computer display) or fixed images with low information content, which can be displayed or hidden. For instance: preset words, digits, and seven-segment displays, as in a digital clock, are all good examples of devices with these displays. They use the same basic technology, except that arbitrary images are made from a matrix of small pixels, while other displays have larger elements. LCDs can either be normally on (positive) or off (negative), depending on the polarizer arrangement. For example, a character positive LCD with a backlight will have black lettering on a background that is the color of the backlight, and a character negative LCD will have a black background with the letters being of the same color as the backlight. Optical filters are added to white on blue LCDs to give them their characteristic appearance.LCDs are used in a wide range of applications, including LCD televisions, computer monitors, instrument panels, aircraft cockpit displays, and indoor and outdoor signage. Small LCD screens are common in LCD projectors and portable consumer devices such as digital cameras, watches, digital clocks, calculators, and mobile telephones, including smartphones. LCD screens are also used on consumer electronics products such as DVD players, video game devices and clocks. LCD screens have replaced heavy, bulky cathode ray tube (CRT) displays in nearly all applications. LCD screens are available in a wider range of screen sizes than CRT and plasma displays, with LCD screens available in sizes ranging from tiny digital watches to very large television receivers. (wikipedia)
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The grid seems fine on the whole. A little heavy on the 3-4-5s, but it could've been much worse. Only HOC and TAI and AT SIX and maybe the plural (?) EGADS are at all irksome. Hard to make a grid smoothish when it's loaded with short stuff, but this one does the job OK. And with lotsa J's and Z's and Q's and X's to boot. Not a fan of Scrabbly for Scrabbly's sake, but here, the grid doesn't suffer at all (perhaps because most of the Scrabbly stuff is in the themers themselves—not part of some ill-advised attempt to lade high-value tiles into the grid unnecessarily). I had TRIES before TURNS (21A: Opportunities to play in games), and struggled to get LCD, because honestly I still don't know exactly what that means, despite seeing it all the time in crosswords (I made it Word of the Day today in hopes that the meaning would stick). Can't see anything besides maybe Anne GEDDES giving anyone any trouble. I don't think of her as a "portrait photographer," but more of a "babies in weird costumes and / or weird positions" photographer. But she's famous enough, that's for sure. That's all. Have a lovely Monday.