Constructor: Eric Bornstein
Relative difficulty: Easy (7:28 while typing w one finger)
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THEME: Embassy staffer... or a hint to the long answers? ATTACH E — Common phrases made wacky with the addition of an E
Welcome back to another Malaika MWednesday! I solved this puzzle while snarfing a bag of Flamin' Hot Limón flavored Doritos and I do not have a great spice tolerance and the citric acid / spice / MSG has destroyed my mouth and I am writing this while sucking on ice cubes and coughing up a lung. (Absolutely worth it.) Hope y'all are doing well! Suggested music while reading this post is this cover (starts at 1:17), which I put on as soon as I got to the "Schitt's Creek" clue. I'm emotionally fragile today (I'm about to lose some rights + I just read all of "Conversations with Friends" in one sitting), and I did tear up listening to it.
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Bullets:
Relative difficulty: Easy (7:28 while typing w one finger)
THEME: Embassy staffer... or a hint to the long answers? ATTACH E — Common phrases made wacky with the addition of an E
Theme answers:
Word of the Day: DAME (Maggie Smith, for one) —
- People who acknowledge when they've been verbally bested?-- TOUCH(E) TYPES
- Ruins a shiny fabric, as a pet might?-- GOES ON THE LAM(E)
- Bad advice from grandpa?-- PASS(E) JUDGEMENT
- Managed to stomach a cracker spread?-- GOT DOWN PAT(E)
Word of the Day: DAME (Maggie Smith, for one) —
The Order of the Ermine, founded by John V, Duke of Brittany in 1381, was the first order of chivalry to accept women; however, female knights existed for centuries in many places in the world prior to this. Like their male counterparts, they were distinguished by the flying of coloured banners and generally bore a coat of arms.One woman who participated in tournaments was Joane Agnes Hotot (born 1378), but she was not the only one. Additionally, women adopted certain forms of regalia which became closely associated with the status of knighthood. (Wiki.)
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I liked this puzzle! For me, add-a-letter themes work best when (1) The entries are actually funny, and (2) There's a revealer that ties things together. This had both! The last one about PATE got an audible chuckle out of me (or maybe that was just Doritos powder entering my esophagus and getting choked back out). The revealer works perfectly (nothing "phonetic" or stretchy about it). It's also a nice touch that the Es are all added in the same way (to the end of a one-syllable word), and and pronounced the same way (turning the word into two syllables).
(My one slow-down-- and this is embarrassing because whenever I say that I am unfamiliar with a word one of y'all in the comments calls me unintelligent-- is that I thought an ATTACHE was a briefcase?? Like, what? Did I invent this completely?? At one point I literally thought the entry was ATTACHE based on letter patterns and I was like "But no, it can't be. That's a suitcase.")
The iffier pieces of fill were all stuff that I've learned by now (like ANAT and OCTAD), and we got those super fun "colonnades" of side-by-side nine-letter answers in the corners-- LET'S PARTY is a great entry, and cluing it as [Bacchanalian cry] is so deeply, Times-ly pretentious that I actually tip my imaginary hat to Will Shortz. Sometimes you just gotta lean into the stereotype.
I have a question about Crossword Clue Grammar. For something like [Castle material] cluing SAND, when do you need a qualifier? I expected this to be [Castle material, sometimes] because not all castles are made out of SAND. Even in this puzzle, we get [Numb, as a foot] for ASLEEP (rather than just [Numb]). Is there a rule? Or is the idea just that one is harder than another, and on a Saturday we get more of the vague clues and on a Monday we get fewer of them?
Bullets:
- JETTA (Volkswagen compact) — I don't think I will ever be excited to see the name of a car model in a puzzle. Also, I don't think I will ever know the answer of a clue that describes a car model.
- GAL (Eight pts.) — I thought for sure this was an abbreviation for "points" rather than "pints" although I see now that PTS is in the grid (clued as "points") which should have been a giveaway
- ANA ("S.N.L." alum Gasteyer) — Are y'all watching "American Auto"? It's not quite as good as "Abbott Elementary" or "Superstore" (they will sometimes fall into the "Oh This Was A Joke On Twitter Let's Make It A Joke On Our Network Comedy" trap) but still very good! Ty White, my DMs are open. Me and my friend have a theorem that Workplace Sitcoms are always funnier than Friend Group Sitcoms because the characters can be more crazy / mean / dramatic and you don't have to justify why they all stay friends.
- ALAN (Computer scientist Turing)— Always nice to see him in a crossword! Legend.