Relative difficulty: Easy
Theme answers:
- "... AND ANOTHER THING" (27A: Argument extender [ref. 18-Across]) (18A = THING)
- "THIS ISN'T MY / FIRST RODEO" (48A: With 87-Across, "I've been around the block a few times" [ref. 23-Across]) (23A = RODEO)
- "IT'S DEJA VU ALL OVER AGAIN" (70A: Classic Yogi Berra quote [ref. 33-Across]) (33A = DEJA VU)
- "BABY ONE MORE TIME" (111A: Debut album by Britney Spears [ref. 82-Across]) (82A = BABY)
The beauty of Twitter is that every message is constrained to 280 characters and under, but sometimes you simply can’t get all your thoughts across in just a single tweet. Or perhaps you’re following a live news story and you need to follow the thread to read the news as it develops so there’s context for what happened earlier.
Whatever the reason, sometimes Twitter threads can get long, which can make them difficult to follow. Thankfully, there’s a bot that can help piece those tweets together into one piece of text without all the extra replies from anyone other than the person who originally started the thread. This is called “unrolling” a thread, and it’s created by a tool called @threadreaderapp, which lets you combine tweetstorms into one single post simply by using the keyword “unroll.” (theverge.com)
I think we’re of a similar age/era (I was b. in ‘68) and so I have a hard time believing that men of our era do not have the ‘…but words will never hurt me’ ethos burned into your (our) lizard brainstem. Yes, I get the idea that certain names and phrases have the power to turn on the horror movie projector inside one’s mind. But…as Gene gets at, it is just a crossword puzzle, reflecting the world as it is. Such clues / words do. not. imply. approval. They just don’t. So why do you let them ‘take up residence’ in your mind even for a moment? Has this always been your ‘human response’ or is it possible that over time your internal algorithm has noticed that the fussier you comment the more emails / comments you get?
I don’t think being included as part of a crossword puzzle’s fill is inherently much of a pedestal. If it were, we’d probably have far more statues of ERNEs and WRENs. Filling a crossword puzzle is not easy. I doubt that someone writing a puzzle is thinking, you know what this thing really needs? Phlegm. That’s just not how those words come to be part of the puzzle. And it would be a shame to reject someone’s beautifully constructed puzzle because it required them to incorporate a word that some people find mildly distasteful.
There are absolutely certain words that should not appear in a crossword (racial slurs, for example), but I think the criteria for being, let’s call it, de-worded, should be very high.
I also posit that Elon Musk, self-proclaimed champion of free speech, would be elated to know that a bunch of pearl-clutching liberals are trying to remove his name from the New York Times crossword puzzle. Plays right into his hand.
I think there’s value in thinking about why some people have a strong reaction to certain words, and some people have no reaction. Please excuse me, but I’m going to use Trump as an example, because that is a name that I personally have a reaction to.
When I say “reaction”, I mean hearing his name evokes a feeling in me. When I hear the word “Trump”, I think of that moment during his campaign when he bragged about repeatedly sexually assaulting women. I am a woman.
There are multiple layers to my feelings. First are the feelings that I would have if any person on earth bragged of hurting women simply because they are women. Of hurting me just because they can. I feel helpless, despairing, sad, and pessimistic [...]
I don’t want to see the word Trump in the crossword because I don’t want to feel all of those feelings his name evokes. Presumably you have similar reasons or feelings as to why you don’t want to see his name in the crossword as well.
I’m sure there are people out there who feel happiness at the thought of women having fewer rights or being assaulted, and presumably those people want to see Trump’s name more often in the crossword. But what of these people who feel neutral about his name? Those who say that Trump is simply “one of 46 presidents of the United States”. This is a fact, they say, and facts are neutral.
What a blessing to see his name and not feel sad or anxious. What a blessing it is to not worry about your future equality. What a blessing it is to not think about being intentionally hurt because of an intrinsic part of your existence.
I have a broad tolerance for the words, people, organizations and events that land in my crossword puzzle. I may grimace or shake my head at certain clues or certain answers, but it’s a reaction of the moment which colors no more than 15 seconds of my day. These things exist (or existed) in the world in which I live, and I don’t expect the crossword to be walled off from them. It’s a learning experience when something I know little or nothing about provokes a strong negative reaction from you or the people who comment on this site. I look it up with as much interest as I would something positive or neutral. That said, hate-speech has no place in this or any forum. I want pleasure from my crossword puzzle just as much as the next person. But I don’t find that references to the unpleasant detract from my enjoyment in any significant way. Moreover, I find no reason to gripe when someone else takes offense at something I don’t. We all have our sensibilities and I’m disinclined to call anyone a prude or a pearl-clutcher.
In my mind, this question of crossword suitability based on propriety dovetails with the question of suitability based on currency. In both cases, the issue is what individuals and which aspects of the human endeavor are to be considered crossword-appropriate. It seems the dudgeon can climb just as high for older references as for mucus, McConnell and Musk. I think that history offers a rich trove of material for puzzles, and I don’t just mean our friends Tut and Homer. A few months ago, one of the stars of the silent-movie era, Theda Bara, appeared in a puzzle. When commenters complained about her being decades out of date, I didn’t know whether to laugh or groan (and did both). Out of date! Of course, she’s out of date! She’s part of the very beginning of the history of Hollywood, a history which has taken us from the Kinetograph to digital cinema, and from the antics of the Keystone Kops to sophisticated explorations of the human heart and mind. For Theda Bara’s particular legacy, I refer you to Rita Hayworth (Gilda), Kathleen Turner (Body Heat) and Rosamund Pike (Gone Girl). I understand that solvers don’t want their puzzles laden with historical fact at the expense of current references. I, too, want a balance. But it’s too prescriptive to require each puzzle to strike parity with the age of its references. And I regret the growing tendency to see history, within the solving community and without, as random occurrences with no contemporary relevance, rather than as “a chronological record of significant events” (Merriam-Webster) which informs every aspect of our lived reality.
Signed, Rex Parker, King of CrossWorld
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