Constructor: Katie Hale
Relative difficulty: Easy
![]()
THEME:"Sports Nuts"— sports terms clued wackily, i.e. as if they were not sports terms ... I think that's it?
Theme answers:
![]()
The theme is a huge dud, but the fill is frequently top-notch, so I had more fun than I usually have on Sundays, to be quite honest. As for the theme ... if there's a complexity here, I'm missing it. This is a theme type I've mentioned before, a very easy-to-do theme type where you just have a bunch of *terms* from ... well, any field. And then you wackify them with your wacky "?" clues. The end. Not much to it. The clues are supposed to be funny, so if you find them funny, great, but even great clues don't elevate a theme like this enough for me. This version of the theme type is much weaker than most—usually, the "field" in question is much more narrowly defined. You know, like, *one* sport. All baseball terms or all football terms or whatever. I'm almost certain we've seen *exactly* that type of theme before. Golf terms, maybe? I dunno. But the non-narrowness here makes an already semi-tired theme type feel even more loose and lazy. I think the wacky clues are maybe better than most wacky clues. I'm thinking especially of the clues on the reimaginings of SEVEN TEN SPLIT (96A: Plan to leave at a very specific evening time?) and OFFENSIVE REBOUND (22A: Your ex's new date whom you just can't stand?). But overall, the theme just feels drab and olden. The fill, on the other hand, really has a lot of zing to it. PUT A LID ON IT and RAISE HELL make a great tandem in the NE, and DIG SITE and UNION REP look great side by side like that. "ARE WE OK?" and HORN IN also give the puzzle a little quirky personality? I cringed very little and I nodded appreciatively relatively often, and since filling in the fill is the bulk of the solving experience, after all, I can't say I'm entirely displeased with this thing, my feelings about the theme notwithstanding.
Relative difficulty: Easy
Theme answers:
- OFFENSIVE REBOUND (22A: Your ex's new date whom you just can't stand?)
- FLOOR EXERCISE (34A: Kegels, e.g.?)
- STARTING BLOCK (51A: First square of a crossword?)
- SERVICE LINE (68A: "I'll be your waiter tonight," e.g.?)
- UNPLAYABLE LIE (82A: Conspiracy theory so wild that it can't be aired?)
- SEVEN-TEN SPLIT (96A: Plan to leave at a very specific evening time?)
- DESIGNATED HITTER (114A: Blackjack dealer?)
Tobias Simpson Menzies (born 7 March 1974)[citation needed] [LOL] is an English stage, television and film actor. He is best known for playing Frank and Jonathan "Black Jack" Randall in STARZ's Outlander, for which he received a Golden Globe Award nomination, in addition to his roles as Brutus in HBO's Rome and Edmure Tully in HBO's Game of Thrones. Menzies also portrayed Prince Philip, Duke of Edinburgh in the third and fourth seasons of Netflix's series The Crown, a role which earned him a Golden Globe Award nomination and won him the Primetime Emmy Award for Outstanding Supporting Actor in a Drama Series. (wikipedia)
• • •
Apparently I've been mispronouncing VIOL (in my head, which is the only way I've ever said "VIOL") all these years (79D: Instrument that's a homophone of 69-Down). I thought it was pronounced like the first part of VIOLA, you know ... "VEE-ole" ... something like that. Now I learn it (allegedly) rhymes with VIAL!? (69D: Vaccine holder). News to me. News I ... can't use, actually, since, as we've stipulated, the word "VIOL" literally never comes up in conversation. Still, fun (-ish) fact! I had forgotten about this third spelling of PALLET (95D: Bed of straw); I always have to stop to think about the PALATE / PALETTE distinction, so now I have a third option to confuse my brain; thanks, puzzle! Once again I forgot what vowel is supposed to go in CAR_MBA, but this time the cross was indisputable (it's an "A"). Do packages still come C.O.D.? (13D: One way for packages to arrive, in brief). That feels like an option from '80s infomercials that no one in my family ever used and I never saw used by anyone I knew ever. Literally, ever. It stands for "cash on delivery," kids. I think I'd've preferred a fish clue here. More timeless. I wrote in TCBY'S for 123A: Chain whose name derives from its founders, the Raffel brothers (ARBY'S). I don't know that reading the clue fully would've helped, and even so, it didn't matter much, as the crosses helped me fix my mistake lickety-split. I was stunned by HEKATE, as I know her as HECATE ... exklusively (41D: Greek goddess associated with witchcraft). I guess the "Greek" part of the clue was supposed to signal "K" to me. It did not. But again, thank god for crosses. Not much more to say here. I had a reasonable amount of fun. I hope you did too. See you later.