Constructor: Christopher Adams
Relative difficulty: Challenging (for a Tuesday)
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THEME: Plush — familiar phrases have an -IS word turned into an -ISH word, resulting in wacky phrases, which are clued wackily:
Theme answers:
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This is a very decent theme, and a good example of how you can get a lot out of slight changes. At its core, this is really just an add-a-letter theme, one of the oldest theme types in the book. Been around for AGES. People are going to experience primarily as a sound-change theme, though, where the -ISes at the ends of the first words turn to ISHes. The changed words give you a kind of two-layered wackiness—the wackiness provided by the "?" clue (where the -ISH word is taken literally), and the added wackiness of a phrase that sounds like someone slurring their speech, like a drunk person in an old movie. I guess if you take the idea of speech-slurring too seriously, the theme could seem slightly cruel, as if it were mocking someone who has a speech impediment or a drinking problem. But let's assume there's no such unfortunate context for the slurring. The word- and soundplay are amusing here, and I just happened to solve in a way where the "aha" ended up having a really big impact, so much so that nearly all the themers fell at the same time for me. Or, rather, when I got one, I was able to immediately see what was going on with all the ones I had already blown past but not completed. I solved down the west coast, never really able to follow the front end of a themer eastward across the grid. I just got the first word of the first themer (IRISH), had no idea what followed, and then kept going down, down, past ELVISH (still no idea), until I practically hit bottom. Then I started following TENNIS- across the bottom of the grid, and after some hacking at crosses, it finally sunk in: TENNISH, ANYONE? ... which was a play on "Tennis, anyone?" ... and boom, five seconds later the grid looked like this:
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Relative difficulty: Challenging (for a Tuesday)
Theme answers:
- IRISH SCANNERS (20A: Checkout devices at Dublin supermarkets?) (from "iris scanners")
- PARISH METRO (34A: Urban area around a church district?) (from "Paris Metro")
- ELVISH LIVES (40A: Claim that a language in "The Lord of the Rings" is not extinct?) (from "Elvis lives!")
- TENNIS, ANYONE? (52A: Suggestion to friends on when to meet for lunch?) (from "Tennis, anyone?)
Zoysia /ˈzɔɪziə/ is a genus of creeping grasses widespread across much of Asia and Australia, as well as various islands in the Pacific. These species, commonly called zoysia or zoysiagrass, are found in coastal areas or grasslands. It is a popular choice for fairways and teeing areas at golf courses. The genus is named after the Slovenian botanist Karl von Zois (1756–1799).
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The "aha" from TENNIS, ANYONE? reverberated across the grid, essentially felling three themers at once. Timber! Speaking of foliage: ZOYSIA! What on god's apparently very green earth is this doing in my puzzle on a Tuesday. I'm almost certain I've seen it before, but probably only once or twice, and not in such a way that it ever stuck, that's for sure. Really really doesn't seem like Tuesday fill. I needed every single cross, and even then had to double-check them all because it just looks like six random letters. No cognates. Nothing to compare it to. Sounds like something you'd name your kid if you were trying to give them an "original" name. This answer contributed a ton to the puzzle's (relative) difficulty level. The theme type was another factor—I really had to hack at my first theme answer to get it to open up. But then there were little things like SAKI (the clue was no help) (1D: "The Open Window" story writer) and OVER (familiarish, but cricket terms ... not exactly front-burner stuff in this country) (2D: Set of six bowls, in cricket); these slowed me down in a way that I'm not usually slowed on Tuesday (I probably would've swapped out SAKI for YETI, but that's just me).
Couldn't believe a T-BEAM was a real thing, so balked at that (I-BEAM and H-BEAM I've seen; I've also seen a T-BAR, lots of times ... this really feels like my first T-BEAM. I would put T-BEAM on the B-TEAM of letter beams, that's for sure. Don't think I've seen IV BAG before, either. I balked at BAG as it seemed ... too informal? Dunno. I just thought "Oh, what do they call those bags...?" And the answer was "bags." Then, because I couldn't remember if it was NIECI or NIECY, well, that teeny tiny NE corner ended up being way more trouble than most teeny tiny corners ever are. And honestly I struggled to remember who NIECY / NASH was in the first place (16A: With 22-Down, star of TV's "Claws"). First of all, never heard of "Claws." Second of all, when I got NASH, I could instantly picture the actress (she was in "Reno 911!," a show I enjoyed occasionally many years ago). But her first name just didn't come quickly. So this was somewhat more of a struggle than most Tuesdays are, but the theme was delightful enough, and the fill clean enough, that the extra struggle didn't dampen my enjoyment much. DITHERED is a great word. Hard to be mad at a grid that's sporting DITHERED. Have a nice day.